By Deepika Sarma
Two days ago, investment banker-turned-author Lavanya Sankaran wrote an opinion piece for the Sunday Review in the New York Times, trying to tell the world that not all Indian men are rapists. (Good for you. I think so too.)
Then she decided to go a few steps further: invent two brand new classifications of Indian men, muddle everyday oppression with rape, wax eloquent and fuel everybody’s weekend social media rage.
Meet Sankaran’s Common Indian Male.
He’s a man who is
[C]ommitted, concerned, cautious; intellectually curious, linguistically witty; socially gregarious, endearingly awkward; quick to laugh, slow to anger. Frequently spotted in domestic circles, traveling in a family herd. He has been sighted in sari shops and handbag stores, engaged in debating his spouse’s selection with the sons and daughters who trail behind. There is, apparently, no domestic decision that is not worthy of his involvement.
Now, ain’t that cute? Sometimes you meet a guy and you think, where have you met him before? Then it struck me. Sankaran’s man is a lot like Hrundi V. Bakshi.
Could be his brother. His unfunny brother.
Now, meet Sankaran’s other variety of Indian male. This dude Sankaran doesn’t baptize. He is the kind Hrundi wouldn’t deign to say ‘Howdy Patiner’ to:
[F]eral men, untethered from their distant villages, divorced from family and social structure, fighting poverty, exhausted, denied access to regular female companionship, adrift on powerful tides of alcohol and violent pornography, newly exposed to the smart young women of the cities, with their glistening jobs and clothes and casual independence — and not able to respond to any of it in a safe, civilized manner.
Faced with her twin desires to say that not all Indian men rape and to account for the number of rapes, Sankaran decided to explain away rape as a viral flu that takes over the minds of working class male immigrants. Rape is what happens when you leave home. Like plaque is what happens when you don’t floss. It’s hard to say which is more harmful: the class prejudice behind her characterization of the animalistic migrant villain, or her portrayal of the innocuous, well-meaning Common Indian Male, the supportive man on which “female success” relies.
Sankaran’s writing is easy to dismiss, because I finished doing that in 2005 when I bought a copy of The Red Carpet and Other Stories, her first book which hit headlines for the six-figure dollar deal it attracted.
When I read that the Common Indian Male has to be “among the kindest in the world” while his working class migrant brother belongs to “the medieval world of the walking undead, the rise of the zombies”, the literary experience that was The Red Carpet came back to me in an unfortunate flash. Sankaran is a writer who delights in wonderful contrasts (Bangalore, for instance is “a potpourri of beggars and billionaires”, India is “terribly modern, terribly ancient”).
The Red Carpet wasn’t the worst thing I read in 2005, but Sankaran sounds most tinny and flat when she attempts to channel people from other classes. Mary, the domestic help in ‘Two Four Six Eight’, is seen by the story’s female narrator as thieving, lying, manipulative and vengeful. Tharikere Ranganatha Gavirangappa, the driver from ‘The Red Carpet’, a conservative family man, loves his kind employer Mrs Choudhary, his “May-dum”. This, even though he cannot approve of her clothes or visits to nightclubs, she will only call him Raju (because that is the name of all drivers), and the gap between their social strata is insurmountable.
In The Red Carpet, I also see the origins of the Common Indian Male. His name is Ramu. In ‘Bombay This’, he’s a typical Bangalorean (i.e. cool, yo. He doesn’t need to try): “Different, one-tharah types. Not so hard-and-fast. A chill crowd, like. Doing ultra-cool things chumma, simply, for no reason other than to do it.” And now, at thirty, he’s looking for love; he feels the urge to settle down, “the true Call of the Patriarchy began to make itself felt: the urge to father, to provide, to pay bills for More Than One.” Peekaboo, I see you, baby. Shaking your nurturing behind.
As much as Sankaran has betrayed the tenets of Class Consciousness 101 she has also betrayed her own literary ambitions. How do I know this? I am that person who read her interviews and (I’m going to deny this shortly) watched her interviews on YouTube.
In an interview with Tehelka, Sankaran said she tries to move away from the “Indian trope of sentimentality” in her writing, but in her ode to the Common Indian Male, it’s evident that she made no effort to do so at all:
There is a telling phrase that best captures the Indian man in a relationship — whether as lover, parent or friend: not ‘I love you’ but ‘Main hoon na.’ It translates to ‘I’m here for you’ but is better explained as a hug of commitment — ‘Never fear, I’m here.’ These are men for whom commitment is a joy, a duty and a deep moral anchor. At its excessive worst, this sensibility can produce annoyances: a sentimentalized addiction to Mummy; concern that becomes judgmental and stifling; and a proud or oversensitive emotional landscape.
At its excessive worst, this sensibility can produce more than just annoyances. It produces patriarchy.
And since I watched it so you didn’t have to, I need to add this. Sankaran’s compassionate view of oppressive structures also extends to the caste system, a subject she has written on – again – for the New York Times. In an interview, she once described India’s excellence in the IT industry as the result of a cultural affinity for mathematics and science.
“India’s the only place where you had the Brahmins on top – who were the academics and the priests. So you had the students on top, then you had the kings[…]India’s the only place in the world where knowledge is ranked higher than the military.”
After all those years of study, she said, India had its “moment of destiny” with the IT boom, a “validation” of all the years of “worship” of maths and science. There are two more videos in the same vein, with the author holding forth on the challenges facing modern Indian society.
Sankaran’s Common Indian Male is about as innocuous as Peter Sellers in blackface. But – to misquote Mr. Bakshi himself – ‘that is not what his name is called‘. His name is patriarchy and he doesn’t need to rape anyone to make his life peachy.
October 21, 2013 at 5:34 pm
Thanks for this rejoinder. It about sums up everything I felt reading Lavanya Sankaran’s silly little piece, and with perfectly wry humor, too. Fantastic!
October 21, 2013 at 8:54 pm
This is a very silly article. Ms Sankaran wants to highlight that large number of indian male’s are decent. It is simply a fact. Otherwise to all women out there. Was your father or sbrother or your male friend a rapist too? Have some common sense.
October 21, 2013 at 9:36 pm
Hmm….frankly, this piece is as inconsequential to my “stereotype” of Indian male as is the original other piece by Lavanya Sankaran, which I may never have come across if not for your own piece.
October 22, 2013 at 10:07 am
A very good article throwing light over the biases and prejudices that a considerable section of Indian elite lives with resulting in the absolute xenophobic reactions towards working class people across India.As for dear Sccott…… if your average Indian male is so morally grounded and ethically sound then why do we have reports from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to NCRB data to Justice Varma Committee report shouting from the hilltop that in most cases of rape and child molestation the accused is mostly someone whom the victim knows esp many a times someone from the family itself.
October 22, 2013 at 2:08 pm
Looks like whole article is a desperate attempt of personal attack. Fancy English does nor reflect common sense, author must be aware of that. Anyways, no doubt author needs to open the eyes and look at the issue in a logical manner. In the end, i share the anger and agony which author is feeling but that does not force me to make wrong generalized conclusions.
October 22, 2013 at 5:55 pm
Rortyian simple my dear rortyian…. it is as studies suggest an affinity for an incestuous molester to repeat this act with other members of his family…. hence the numbers you see in these so called ‘studies’ are merely repetitive …. with the actual number of molesters merely a fourth of what the reported cases are… sry sry… kidding …. well rory, the basic fact of the matter is that there are equal proportions of idiots in all facets of society, class, culture and country (and let me extend this graceful infer-ration to rapists, sodomites, politicians, and gta-haters…) and while it is true that the country in question does fall far far behind on so many issues (female infanticide, education, corruption, being some that come to mind…) keep in mind that your argument ( the accused is mostly someone whom the victim knows esp many a times someone from the family itself ) is valid for any case of child molestation, and not solely for an indian scenario… but for any case internationally. it is so true that this country has so much to catch up on when it comes to so many issues…. specially equality, and it is so hard not to reach steropical conclusions or be biased when hearing certain people speak…. (when they say things like… women arent meant to work…. or she got raped because she dressed like that ….. ) … social conditioning is a huge deal…. that being said…. come on!! sankaran s article is just plain bad writing, to base her argument on the phrase ‘main hoon na?’ to blame rape or tendancy to rape on being an immigrant? like… come on…. i havent seen an author more alienated from her subject in a long time… just plain bad arguments and plain bad writing… and that sir is my opinion…..
November 4, 2013 at 9:01 am
This article reads like a personal attack on Lavanya and seems to give away a bit of jealousy that the author feels at Ms. Sankaran having been published in NYT and this author not !!!! Not that I agree with Lavanya’s stereotyping