Sam Miller’s A Strange Kind of Paradise reaffirms my belief that history is not a chronicle of facts, but a collection of manipulated perspectives towards larger geo-political and economic power plays. Miller?s anecdotal book romances India?s complex and mystical nuances with great intensity. Sore and disappointed at the lack of understanding by fantasising foreigners, he unearths the many layers to get to the truth. But then, there will always remain many truths out there. And many histories.
This unique analysis of India?s weave, history and mystery is not for all. The following kind of people may please refrain from reading it:
1. The non-questioners: Miller microscopically looks for reasons behind the various customs and traditions, forcing the reader to reflect on their relevance. Humans need to assign a reason for everything, which translates into an unshakeable faith as an assurance of our eternity and purpose of existence. Aptly put by Miller, ?The past is rarely dead in India?.
2. The radicalists: Miller unapologetically scrutinises every faith and religious community without judgment. From Ashoka?s ?conquest by dharma? to Antoni de Montserrat?s details of Akbar recognising Christianity, Jesus playing the role of a slave trader, Miller?s conversation with Uma Bharti asserting Hindu rights and the tales of many conquerors like Babur?s dislike of India, the arrow indicates an effort to spread the enforcement of power or a dissuading of other groups to keep them at bay.
3. The blind believers: The worship of Khamb Baba is an epic that will send your ribs in tangles of laughter if you are up for it, or in knots of fury if you are not. To believe Luis Vaz de Camoes? Vasco da Gama or Edward Terry?s description of a cowardly and belligerent India at face value would be like the Indian rope trick that many in the West continue to believe in. In history, in people and in ourselves, we see only what we want to see.
4. The ridiculer: To gaff at the seemingly strange Indian customs would be ignorant folly. Miller leaves some uncoded, but refrains from mockery. Indians revere the virtuous, the valuable and uncontrollable forces. It could explain the many gods and avatars that highlight each virtue, the worship of the cow (to stop its killing) and paganic practices to retain humility. India?s very diverse populace demanded a storytelling approach to unify action and thought.
5. The humourless: Miller?s narration has endless trivia for quizzers. That is, if his challenging facts do not upset your stiff culture and religious bone. Death by Chariot is preposterously funny. I have seen this happen in south and east India. The idea is not to get crushed under the chariot. They roll in front of it for a long distance or even around the temples. It is a test in humility, endurance and reverence.
6. The ethnic puritans: Miller cleverly traces the claim of purity (or impurity) of bloodlines to place before us the futility of our over-possessiveness of lineage. Marriages and alliances for peace and expansion adequately dot Indian history, steering races into a confusing web of ancestry. Ashoka the Great being partly Greek, and a spate of caste and race infusions will not be easy to digest for those ethnically superior beings who continue to believe they have the UC+ (Upper Class+) blood group running in their veins.
7. The pious prudes: If Kamasutra and sexual expressions are taboo for you, this is sacrilege. Miller?s vivid analysis of imperial pornography smashes the piousness myth of races. I wonder if Kamasutra, retrieved from anonymity, was written by a woman in a desperate bid to make the world understand their equal and passionate desires at a time when they were merely seen as satiators and not to be satiated.
Any oft-repeated myth becomes a historic reality with communities working towards upholding its truth to justify their faith. And so, history will remain a potent literary weapon deployed for sophisticated political and economic ambitions.
Charulata RK
Charulata RK is innovations adviser and director, Coffee Kettle