Croydon Anglo-Indians and an Evening with Andrea Levy

Tuesday, April 28, 2009
London

I awoke at 7. 30 this morning--YYYEESS!!! It is the latest I have woken up since I came to live in London. I felt enormously rested and very much wanted to stay in bed for a lazy lie-in...but I had too much to do before I left for my long journey to Croydon to interview more Anglo-Indians. I had spent a good part of the morning trying to figure out the best way to get there by using Journey Planner.

Shower and breakfast done, I took Bus 341 from Gray's Inn Road to Waterloo Bridge from where I connected to the 176 to Penge. I got off at Penge High Street and the Pawlyne Arms (a pub) and connected to the 75 that took me to the Norwood Junction Clock Tower from where Dulcie Jacob of the South Norwood Anglo-Indian Association picked me up in her car and took me over to her place. The whole jouney took me about an hour and a half during which I graded one lot of student papers--no doubt, it would have taken me an hour had I used the interline train. The day was bright and warm and filled me with a tremendous sense of optimism.

In about ten minutes, I was seated in Dulcie's living-room having met the other three respondents--her husband Ashley, and their friends: Florence Daly and John Stringer. It was the first time I was interviewing four people at the same time and I was extremely nervous and doubtful about my ability to do that effectively enough. Still, I tried as best I could and after introductions were made, and Dulcie served a welcome round of coffee, I began with my questions.

Needless to say, I found all four of them very interesting indeed. It is amazing how divergently people think despite that the fact that their core experiences in the UK have remained similar--they are all first-generation mixed race immigrants from India who 'came out' in the 50s and 60s. As always, it is their graciousness that most charms me--where have these old-world manners and customs gone? It is in my close association with these people that I realize what a fine job our Indian educators did in raising a generation of people who might not have a string of degrees behind their names but are informed, articulate, polished, socially graceful and open-minded. Maybe I have been extraordinarily fortunate in having made contact only with people who possess such admirable qualities, but I have rarely felt disappointment after an interview. Despite the fact that the interview went on for hours--I was, after all, speaking to four people at the same time and juggling four interviews simultaneously--they were respectful of my work, remarkably patient and often humorous in their responses--yes, they do also have a huge sense of humor--it is probably this that saw them through their roughest years in this country.

We took a break at lunch time when Dulcie brought out a few typically Anglo-Indian items of food--marvelous 'patties' (something I have only seen in India--ground meat parcelled in rectangles of crispy puff pastry) and fruit cake studded, rather unsually but deliciously, I thought, with candied stem ginger. Another round of coffee followed. Despite the fact that I am on a low-carb diet, I managed to find sustenance in the patties though I declined the cake. I was amused to notice that a bottle of hot sauce made the rounds and accompanied the patties--some habits die hard, I suppose, including a fondness for the fiery cuisine of India. It explains why the one thing to which the Anglo-Indians have stuck resolutely in this country is their need for daily rice and curry!

I resumed the interview after these snacks and things went along swimmingly with a lot of laughter and cheeky comments occasionally thrown in. These folks are old friends who are fully comfortable with each other and have found the kind of camaraderie that fills their retired days with the happiest of moments. It felt great to be in their company, to absorb some of their massive love of life and to be conscious of their achievements. I believe that while there is an upside to interviewing four people at the same time--it saved me time and the trouble of going out to Croydon more than once--though it did take away, I think, from the quality of the interviews I ended with as I do think that I did not get the kind of in-depth responses I have received from people whom I have met as individuals or in pairs. Still, I also got some startling new information from these folks of which I was unaware and for that I was very grateful.

Dulcie dropped me to the Bus terminus which allowed me to make my bus connections back to town--but going to the terminus lost me valuable time--over 45 mintues--and I was not able to get home as I had expected to change before my evening's appointment into something more presentable than jeans and sneakers. However, when I realized that I no longer had the time for a change of clothes, I switched plans and got off at Tottenham Court Road from where I walked directly to the Congress House on Great Russel Street to attend an NYU organized event--an evening with novelist Andrea Levy, author of Small Island.

Andrea Levy is one of the most notable names among Black British writers today. She is the author of several books but it was Small Island that won her huge fame and kudos. A second-generation immigrant from Jamaica, her parents arrived in England on The Windrush, the famous ship that carried the first lot of Caribbean immigrants to England in 1948. Her novels have been systematic attempts to understand the motivations that drew these folks to England, to articulate their early experiences with racism and difference, to document their struggles and their triumphs and to comment on the changes that have occured within their community in over half a century--her work, in fact, is--you guessed in--very similar to my current research project, except that I am dealing with mixed-race Indian immigrants and am an outsider; (i.e. not an immigrant in the UK but from the USA; and not a member of the Anglo-Indian community at all) while Levy has emerged from amidst this community and can, therefore, write about it based not just on observations and interviews but shared experience. Still, in trying to write about Collective Memory, our objectives are identical and I was eager to find out what she had to say.

So, it was with rising excitement that I listened to Levy read from her novel. She chose the voices of four of her characters and dramatized them beautifully as she changed her accent and intonation to suit each voice. Not only were we entertained by the comedic aspects of her 'performance', but we were given an additional insight into how these folks might have sounded when they first arrived in Great Britain. Despite the attempts of the fairer-skinned ones to 'pass' as English, it was these accents that gave them away--similar to the Anglo-Indians I've been meeting who told me that though some of them were pale enough to be mistaken for native Britons, the moment they opened their mouths to speak, they gave themselves away.

I was pleased to be able to chat with Levy for a few minutes after the reading and to take a picture with her. I found her a remarkable speaker who answered questions very competently and very thoroughly and brought her characterisitic sense of humor into her responses. The evening's questions were moderated by Ulrich Baer who arrived from New York where he is in-charge of multi-cutlural programs at NYU. As a specialist in Comparative Literature himself, he was really the best person to moderate the evening and he did a splendid job.

Then, we all adjourned to our Bedford Square campus for the reception. I was heartened to see how well attended the talk had been and how many students had turned up to hear Levy despite the fact that this is the last week before classes end and they are up to their eyes in homework commitments. The table was laden with the most appetizing finger food--grilled prawns, salmon goujons, chicken satay, smoked salmon bruschetta, among other things while on the other side were drinks. I was disapppointed not to find a diet Coke and had to make do with a glass of white wine but there was enough choice of food for me to have a mini-dinner before the evening was through. I did have the chance finally to speak to Prof. Javed Majeed who is my counterpart here in London in that he teaches Post-Colonial Literature to our students here--similar to the courses I teach in New York. We have made plans to meet later in June. Over all, it was a wonderful evening but a rather tiring day and when I left campus at about 9 pm, I arrived home quite wrung out.

I managed to draft my April newsletter before I looked at plans for the rest of the week and switched off my bedside lamp at 11. 30 pm. Tomorrow, I am off to Richmond again to see a play Sign of the Times at Richmond Theater, but the long drives are now providing me with time to grade papers, so they are rather productive on the whole.