I Woke Up Like This
This is a story in two parts. And this picture 
has nothing to do with it, but it’s a cool photograph. Because even though I grew up in a place where a leather jacket would be truly odd to own and even odder to don, I think it’s kind of cool.
has nothing to do with it, but it’s a cool photograph. Because even though I grew up in a place where a leather jacket would be truly odd to own and even odder to don, I think it’s kind of cool. 1.
Four years ago, I met a man at the ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival. His name is Sumeet Shetty. We had good conversation and wrote briefly to each other after I left. Two days ago I got an email from Sumeet, and we re-connected to talk about books, about the possibility of my being a part of his book initiatives in Bangalore, and a mutual friend, Rick Simonson, whom he had seen again at JLF this year. Summit also sent along a link to a fairly recent video about his work.
2.
Sometimes our family’s idea of light easy Sunday brunch conversation is to run through unpronounceable words, declaiming the importance of knowing them, which leads to the importance of reading and, at least one mention of the New Yorker, (yes, I’m an Eagles fan), and also scrutinizing each others foibles. Mine, I’m told, is that I just can’t stop analyzing America. American media, in particular. Today it was about what passes for journalism when Otto Warmbier’s father is made part of the American delegation to the Olympics, and who is on national TV asking “what kind of country tortures people,” and Lester Holt does not have the cojones to say, “ours.”
It is true. I have a predilection to tell it straight. It is not because I hate America or Americans, but that circumstances have aligned my life and the lives of many people I love here and abroad (and that includes a lot of people who don’t vote the way I would), with what is done in this country. I consider it unconscionable (for me) to simply acquiesce to the status quo in this country, and to remain silent in the face of things, even if I frequently feel that it is hopeless to attempt to change anything. I chip away at what I can change, and the rest of the time I refuse to let my guard down, I refuse to shut up or, rather, stuff my mouth with enough white bread to cover up the fact that it is still a shit sandwich thereby setting up an alibi for my silence.
Off I went, mulling and reeling a little bit (yes, indeed, contrary to all appearances certain things do make me reel though they will never make me not rally and fight another day). I went and read email, that reliable antidote to ones own preoccupations. That’s when I came across this video that Sumeet sent me. I am not from Bangalore, but I am South Asian in every way. I am also, perhaps, Middle Eastern in my heart and mind. I could be mediterranean in my constitution. But I am a product of my culture and upbringing, which is South Asian, Sri Lankan in particular. That is what keeps my mind agile, and my heart compassionate and hopeful and looking for the fun of things.
In an article I wrote for Electric Literature, ‘Pineapple & Roasted Nuts,’ which later appeared in the UK Guardian, I spoke about the way I grew up, revering words and books, and that neither was considered the special prerogative of a select class or people, that some of the biggest champions of books in Sri Lanka were people associated with corporate life. Summit’s video took me right back to that essay. There’s a reason why we people raised in other places, who come to build America – because America is nothing if it isn’t what is being created of its constituent parts which includes the outcome of its atrocities, a point made beautifully by Elaine Castillo in an essay for LitHub – there’s a reason why we can’t claim to be able to kick butt while simultaneously shutting up and sitting down. We say things out loud because we were taught how. We talk because we learned to read, not because what was in a book was appearing on a test but because we understood the importance of inhabiting other realities, other lives, to value them as being as precious as our own.
Take the two minutes it will take to watch this video. I think you might understand where I’m coming from.
Come to think of it, that picture has everything to do with this post. I wasn’t raised in a place where I would want to own or even wear such a jacket, but if I find myself in a place where it made sense to borrow one and put it on, I’m going to rock the look. #immigrants #wegetthejobdone #wokeuplikethis