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What does one expect from a dalit autobiographical narration? Is it the misery and suffering that make our writings enjoyable? These questions have been coming up when I consider the responses to my posts in fish pond.
When I started writing “jukebox diaries” the intention has been to share my experiences and views as a dalit-musician. The first post was a hit in the sense that a lot of people read it and commented. Most of the comments said it was ‘touching’. I was not really pleased because it did not trigger a discussion about music and caste as I had expected. Anyway it was encouraging enough for me to write the second piece. But the response was quite different. There wasn’t much response and one commentator said that I have moved very quickly into shameless self promotion (while praising the first segment’s ‘touching reflection’)
Why it is that “jukebox diaries-1” is regarded as touching and the second one not? I feel the reason might be that in the first one there was enough `suffering’ to whet the so called ‘sensitive’ reader’s appetite. Even though it spoke about the politics of music the personal pain must have been more pleasurable, I realize now. My second post was more about a success story or I would say I was more confident there. But it seems the readers of domains such as fishpond like pathetic stories of dalit sufferings in which we have to be timid, diffident and unsuccessful. The image of a dalit doing something worthy might be disgusting to them.
The response (or shall I say non-response) to my third post about the arrival of keyboard has been really shocking. It was as if there are others to handle ‘serious’ subjects like this. Is caste suffering the only topic reserved for a dalit? I would share Ellie M Hisama’s view that “to be rejected because of your race and to be desired for just the same reason, are both forms of racism. But the later is a tricky position to negotiate”.
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August 20th, 2009 at 3:14 PM
If I may give the honest opinion of a shamelessly guilt-free brahmin male – the first post was neither touching nor was it a reflection. It certainly did not contain any unusual degree of pathos either. It was a good journal entry. A reminiscence that anyone could identify with. Everyone has memories that resonate with yours regardless of caste identity. Mine had to do with regional identity and they were no less painful and confusing and character forming than yours. The fact that it was a dalit reminiscense gave it some additional traction.
Well, I mean, it allowed all of us to say, “oh damn the brahmin teacher” and in saying so, feel that we are all part of a new progressive community. Dalit suffering had little to do with it one way or the other. It was about self affirmation.
The second piece – lost me a little bit. I do know a little bit about music and recording. My wife who has always wanted to record, finally got around to it when an expatriate pakistani writer and an expatriate bangladeshi musician and IT professional who owned his own recording equipment decided to get her on board. A dark skinned north indian female, who is considered subhuman by punjabis and taken to be a dalit by south indians- she found her pathway through the most unlikely of connections that happened under the most improbable circumstances.
So i read that second post with interest, but the caste and music connection if any was being made was completely lost on me.
The third piece lost me altogether. Sure, the synthesizer and the keyboard have been around for some time, they have made music possible in new ways. if you wanted to say that what these new instruments did was to open doors to musicians who have hitherto been barred entry into the performance and production of music, it would have greatly helped if you actually said it and shown us what new pathways are opening up. As it stands – it speaks to even fewer readers than the previous post – one would have to know the details of the local music scene to be able to get much out of that post.
P.S.# 1 I really like the title – jukebox diaries.
PS # 2 I wonder if the situation would have been different if you had reversed the order the posts – start with the third one, and reveal your own caste identity only in the third post.
PS # 3 I must admit that I like the idea of this fourth post though. I heard myself muttering in the most irreverant parody of Frantz Fanon’s signature line -: Yummy! Look at the Dalit. I am delighted. (Mummy! Look at the Negro, I am frightened)
With apologies both to Fanon and to you.
August 21st, 2009 at 8:59 AM
yes, that yummy yummy attitude can be seen while approaching “Dalit” by so called self-proclaimed “mainstream” Intellectuals/academicians/classic readers etc etc. Anand has tried to deal with it in ‘touchable tales’..
just look at two autobiographies -by Pokkudan and C K Janu. i had an opportunity to see the scribblings of pokkudan before a differnt version of it got published written by another author. After reading it, I felt that Pokkudan’s politics was missing from his autobiography.. and if i m not wrong there s hardly any mention of his conflict with the party.
Publishers/editors play major role in shaping different kindsof writings.. what kind of wrtings are promoted and what are rejected wil again define what is “literature”..
representation is the key term one should carefully understand and practice whtethr it s picture, visual, or sound.. same is the case with blogosphere, if i m not wrong..
by the by, what is that bottle in the pict? could u pls tell us more abt this representation.. just a curiosity
August 21st, 2009 at 2:56 PM
Just to clarify, that “Yummy look at the dalit: I am delighted” was meant to be irreverent towards the idea of the wretched dalit being a delectable commodity. I wrote this comment mainly because I did not like where the post was going. It has taken an easy route – people are not engaging with the writer because well because the writer is not telling them sob stories. Well, howabout this? People are not engaging with the writer because the writer is simply not engaging enough? Because the writer did not do his job well enough ? Why is this kind of self reflection deemed unnecessary ?
The underlying assumption of that post is that readers are primarily consumers. I dont know enough about the current trends in publishing and music markets in India to make a judgement. But I know enough about markets – if the wretched dalit has indeed become the delicacy – and gotten established as a genre, it must have taken a lot of work to establish it as an item on the menu – like the work that went into establishing the rebellious, transformative asian underground or jazz or reggae as genres for consumption. I am mostly averse to sobstories. So these trends in Indian markets may have gone unnoticed by me, but can someone point me to how the wretched dalit has become a relished commodity among Indian readers ? (I in fact suggested an alternative possibility that actually what has happened is that the monstrous wily brahmin has actually become a commodity that the ‘progressive community’ relishes and gobbles up. Can anyone show me how this possibility can be ruled out ?)
I dont want to get too embroiled in the issue of politics of representation or about the great opportunities that still wait to be taken by opening up the music industry for a careful unraveling. But very quickly let me raise a new scenario. We can easily talk about how a good non brahmin musician is appreciated or not appreciated by the brahmin orthodoxy. But can we as easily discuss a bad musician who also happens to be a non brahmin in the same framework ? At the very least, we would need to specify a non brahmin aesthetic to be able to do that wouldnt we? Without that, we will be stuck in the impossible situation where all non brahmins have to be good musicians by definition, because it is only the brahmin orthodoxy which makes them look like bad musicians.
I was in fact tempted to respond to the question in the first sentence of the post: what does one expect from a dalit autobiographical narration? Why? Of course I would expect a good autobiographical narration which allows me to relate to it and make sense of my own life. Nothing less. But if what is on offer is a menu list of successes stories, sob stories etc., I wouldnt even bother to take a second look at it. I think Jukebox diaries started out promising a good autobiographical narration – at least I thought so until this dropdown menu of success story or sob story came up in this post.
August 22nd, 2009 at 9:37 AM
thanks fishpond for the info.. and providing link to an “intersting” stuff..
the selection of the pict seems to be ‘ideological’ indeed !
this is the power of representation which some deliberately prefer to ignore but prctice knowngly or unkngly..
‘media’ is full of such lively samples..
same with the mother/father website 4m which it has been borrowed..
best