[Reader-list] Identity and Urban

[zainab at xtdnet.nl]

BACK TO BANGALORE

One day 


It’s amazing how many Muslim women I notice in Bangalore, clad in the
black veil called the burkha. I notice them frequently, walking on the
roads and in the BMTC buses.

I wonder what it feels to be Muslim in Bangalore 


The other day in the BMTC bus 

It was bus number 27. I sat on a seat meant for two persons. At some
point, a lady who I assume was Tamilian came over and sat next to me. She
appeared pleasant and social. She was praying the rosary. I deducted she
was Christian
(overt symbols, semiotic markings, making sense of masses in the urban)
and most likely not Brahmin.

At the fourth block bus station, the bus started to get crowded. A tall,
well-built woman came and stood by our seat. I assumed that she was
Tamilian because she was wearing the white ash spread over three lines on
her forehead. She was Hindu (perhaps Brahmin) and had a staunch and stern
look on her face. The Tamilian Christian woman started to say something in
Tamil. She then gestured to the well-built Tamilian Hindu lady to sit next
to her. She began to squeeze in a bit, moved, solpa, solpa, and
eventually, we were three women sitting on a seat meant for two. Our
Tamilian Christian lady, the one who made space, was evidently the most
uncomfortable, but she was happy that she had made space for the other
lady to sit. She began to chat with me in Tamil.
I don’t comprehend Tamil, but I do comprehend emotions and gestures and
hence, was making some sense of what she was saying to me. She spoke to me
of the Church, the priest in the church and maybe the importance of
completing the rosary daily. After a while, she asked me where I was
headed for. Shivajinagar, I said. Immediately she asked, ‘Muslim?’ I was a
trifle shocked that she had ‘caught’ me as a Muslim. I shook my head,
saying no.
That evening, I wondered whether my looks were a give-away or just stating
that I was headed for Shivajinagar was the give-away. I assume the latter
to be true. Shivajinagar is a large market area, filled with meat shops
and wood furniture trade. It is a Muslim area. I find that most of the
women on bus numbers 27 and 27E who are headed for Shivajinagar are Muslim
women. But an equal number are not Muslim and are still headed for
Shivajinagar. Then what makes me marked as Muslim? What is it to be
Muslim?


Then the other day 

It was raining heavily. The door downstairs was locked. I had no way to
reach to the house. I stood downstairs, looking like a cat drenched in the
rains. The shopkeeper on the other side gestured to me to get inside the
store room to protect myself. Then he gestured to switch on the lights. I
could not find the exact switch. One of the boys came in and tried to find
the switch. On discovering that there was no light in there after all, he
went away and joined the bunch of boys. In a few minutes, some of the boys
in the bunch asked me to get inside the opposite door neighbour’s house. I
ran across the street.

(The house opposite is interesting. It has been designed and created by
its inhabitants. It consists of a row of one room tenements on one side
and some store space on the other side and perhaps a toilet too. In
between is a passageway which runs across the tenements. All of this is
covered by a tin roof which is partitioned such that it covers the
tenements’ portion on one side, is open in between through the passageway,
and then covers the other side. The rain keeps pouring in the house
through the open section of the roof.)

I knocked on the door. The neighbour’s daughter opened the door. The boys
shouted out to her saying that they must let me in till the rain stops or
someone comes and opens the door downstairs, whichever is first. The
daughter let me in. She can converse in English, unlike her mother who
largely speaks Tamil and some amount of broken Hindi.
I call the mother Amma and the daughter Sunee.
Sunee asked me where I am from. We chatted a bit about my background. I
asked her about some of hers. Eventually Sunee asked me, which god do you
pray to? I smiled. Muslim, I said. Oh, Sunee replied back, if you stay
here, you will be able to manage because there are lots of Muslims here. I
smiled again. Sunee communicated to Amma that I was Muslim. Amma smiled
and spoke rapidly. Sunee then translated back, Amma thought you were
Christian. I smiled. Sunee mentioned that her family is Christian. I told
her that I’d like to come to the church some day with them.

Amma thought you were Christian.
if you stay here, you will be able to manage because there are lots of
Muslims here.

Sunee’s words appeared schizophrenic to me because I live in a
schizophrenia of identity and to some extent, a paranoia too. Sunee says I
will be able to manage because there are lots of Muslims in this
neighbourhood. Then Sunee says that Amma thought I was Christian. And here
is precisely where my schizophrenia strikes. I dress differently as
against conventional Muslims. I barely behave like a Muslim. Among
Muslims, I am an outsider.

An outsider!

Schizophrenia!

Paranoia!

I stand on borders I don’t know of.

Precarity, on the edge.

Identity, affiliation.

Outsider I feel and perhaps remain. It reminds me of my times when I walk
through the lanes of Imambada where I see myself clearly as an outsider,
by custom, manners, demeanor. And maybe others see me as an outsider too.


Mumbai-Bangalore
Tilaknagar is in Bangalore. Imambada and Dongri in Mumbai. Both places are
different. Being Muslim in Mumbai is a tactile experience, perhaps
emerging magnifies owing to the density and crowdedness in this city. But
as I walk through the now familiar lanes of Tilaknagar, I also conclude
that the experience of being Muslim in Dongri and Imambada and the texture
and tactility which comes along with it is embedded in memory. For me,
these are vivid memories of the 1992-1993 communal riots in (the then)
Bombay. While I was not living in those areas at the time of the riots, my
childhood affiliation with the place and the marked identity of being
Muslim add to the sense of tactility and that texture (which I guess is
lined with inherent paranoia) which I experience as I navigate through
Dongri and Imambada.

I don’t know Tilaknagar yet. But I do know that it has a history and like
Dongri and Imambada, it continues to be a marked space – space for rumour,
riot and mischief, linked with everyday life, practices, the print media
and people’s memory/ies.

I don’t know what it is to be Muslim in Bangalore.

THE END.



Zainab Bawa
Bombay
www.xanga.com/CityBytes
http://crimsonfeet.recut.org/rubrique53.html