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the-south-asian.com May/June 2003 |
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May/June 2003 The
Flourishing Fake Art Pico
Iyer - a global Sarla
Thakral - India's 1st Technology Pakistan's
IT Markets
'Tehri
Lakeer' by Ismat 'Romance
of Mango' by
'Ittar'
- the oldest shop Real Issues The
Real Hindutva vs
Lehngas - a limited collection Books
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PICO IYER - Chronicler of Modern Times by Sanjay Austa
Pico Iyer is one of the most perceptive chroniclers of modern times having authored books like The Global Soul and Tropical Classical, and more recently Abandon. His writings move easily from travel-reportage to social criticism to fiction. Intrinsically most of his works remain a study of the emerging global culture. The protagonist of his latest book Abandon (Penguin/Viking) criss-crosses around the globe---to Syria, Spain, India and Iran - in search of a long-lost Sufi manuscript. Pico Iyer describes himself as a global village on two legs. Born in England to Indian parents, raised up in California, now living intermittently in rural Japan and partly in America (when not touring the rest of the world) Iyer straddles continents on those two legs. He is a global soul and an apt symbol of multiculturalism for whom taking planes is as natural as "picking up a phone." It is just as well that the protagonist of his latest book Abandon (Penguin/Viking) criss-crosses around the globe---to Syria, Spain, India and Iran. John Macmillan is an English student of religious studies (Sufism) at Santa Babara, California who is doing research on the life of the 13th century poet Rumi. But for him the appeal of the Sufi poet is more personal. There are rumours of a long-lost manuscript of the poet that was supposedly smuggled out of Iran during the Revolution. The search for this elusive manuscript is one of the milder mysteries in the book. More intriguing and baffling is Camilla, an insecure, secretive woman he meets. Though she appears distracted, it turns out she not only knows a lot more about Rumi, but it is she who ultimately supplies John the manuscript. She keeps her cards close to her chest, disclosing nothing, disappearing for weeks on end and then appearing waif-like from nowhere. The ambiguity in John and Camilla’s relationship is almost reminiscent of Catherine and Heathcliff in Wuthering Height. Abandon has been written in the classic Persian tradition---perhaps that is why Iyer subtitles the book as ‘Romance’. The story of the English scholar smitten by a 13th century Sufi poet and a neurotic woman is also a story of the clash between Islamic and secular Western values. Iyer says the book was handed over to the publishers a short time before September 11 and is not influenced by the cataclysmic event in New York that fateful day. " It’s not just about September 11. I’ve been noticing this conflict ever since I began travelling in the early eighties. I think conflict is a harsh word. It’s a conversation between an ancient culture and the new world," says Iyer who is a guest columnist for the Time magazine, Harper’s and the New York Times. Abandon remains a timely study of the two cultures. At one level it explores the Western worlds misconceptions of the Islamic faith. According to him there is often an "illusion of understanding’’, between two cultures where people jump to conclusions about other cultures. " Indians who see Baywatch will often have a fixed notion about Americans but they will be shocked to arrive in Los Angles to find normal people all around," he says. Iyer, however, does not mind the overriding presence of American culture that has become synonymous with global culture. " The notion of America is so large that often when we ask people about American culture they say Michael Jackson and Madonna. But American culture at this point has also incorporated phenomenon's like Bollywood and Ravi Shanker. This is a great development. America is taking these things around the world and India indirectly gets an exposure," he says. Pico Iyer is in fact one of the most perceptive chroniclers of this global multiculturalism having penned such acclaimed books as , Video Nights In Kathmandu, The Global Soul, Tropical Classical and Cuba and the Night. His assorted writings spanning over two decades move easily from travel-reportage to social criticism to fiction. Intrinsically most of his works remain a study of the emerging global culture. Iyer calls himself the fitting product of this multiculturalism for whom borders simply do not exist. In this borderless globe there don’t exist affiliations with any nation, culture, cast or creed. " I have been going to the Olympics and I often find myself rooting for different teams. I was rooting for Cubans once –whereas I have no ties with that country. Sometimes I root for little countries like Fiji’’, he says. Unlike expatriate Indians, Iyer is one lucky writer who is not bogged down by the visceral and often painful urge to find ones roots. His parents and most of his relatives live in India but his writings do not reflect any of the nostalgia and exoticism replete in most Indian writers living abroad. Iyer however does not dismiss what he does not have. " I admire those who have a strong sense of roots. Its just that I don’t have that feeling in me," he says. Does this lack of belonging not engender a feeling of abandonment. Not when the word itself has a positive connotation as is evident in Iyer’s book that takes the word as its title. The physical sense of abandonment is almost superseded by the mystical one. In one of his philosophical ruminations in Abandon, the main protagonist John Macmillan asks. "What if the abandonment that God is guilty of is not that of desertion but rather that of an artist who lets the work take over?" Pico Iyer sounds almost autobiographical as he confesses to have submitted his entire being to the muse. *****
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