Tag: writing

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Lollywood: stories of Pakistan’s unlikely film industry

Scenes from never-made Pakistani films [Number 1]

Film: Tabahi (Annihilation)

Released: June & July 1947

Starring: al Nasir, Vinod & Roop Kishore Shorey

A man stands by the side of the road staring into the smouldering skeleton of a large double storied building. He covers his nose with a blue silk handkerchief to keep the noxious, semi-sweet smell of burning nitrate at bay.  The lenses of his round rimmed glasses reflect the flames that leap from room to room.

The camera pans back for a super wide shot and reveals behind him the apocalypse that everyone had been praying would never come playing out.  The citizens of Lahore are moving hurriedly and fearfully towards the railway station. For once no one argues with the tonga walas who are demanding Rs100 to make the short journey. Bloated groups of people–women and children in the middle; wild-eyed men armed with swords, pistols, axes and lathis on the perimeters–move deliberately towards neighbourhoods where their co-religionists might give them safety. Hindus to Nisbet and Chamberlain Roads. Muslims to Mozang and Icchra. Sikhs want to make Amritsar or Delhi.

To the north, old Lahore is an inferno. The once rich markets and havelis of Shahalmi, one of Lahore’s mighty 13 gates is no more. Gangsters and politicians had banded together two days previous to raze the historic mohalla to the ground, killing hundreds of mostly Hindus.  War chants echo in waves as lorries race by loaded with enraged men. “Khoon se lenge Pakistan!”  “Har Har Mahadev.”   For weeks the citizens of Punjab’s greatest city have heard that goondas from Amritsar have snuck into town to mock and shame their Muslim brothers to cleanse the city of all kafir.  In response the Sikh leaders have mobilised their small armies of jathas in an all out war of revenge.  Everyone knows that even the Lahore Relief Committee set up by some prominent Hindus is just a front for RSS militants more concerned with smuggling weapons to their frightened people than offering relief any sort of relief.

The days are unbearable. The early summer heat has maded the tar on the roads gooey. With the fires and explosions all across the city the temperature has never risen so high. Perhaps when the rains come all this madness with come to an end?

The staring man goes by the name of Roop Kishore Shorey. He turns away and falls into the backseat of an American sedan that has been idling for him. Inside an anxious driver guns the car down the road and yells out “Where to sahib? Lahore is no longer safe.”

Shorey doesn’t answer. Next to him fidgeting anxiously sits his friend, the music director Vinod, who just a few months earlier had completed his first score for the movie Khamosh Nigahein at the now destroyed Shorey Studio.  Vinod shouts for the driver to turn the car, which was headed north toward the city and railway station, to the south.  ‘Go to Walton Air field.’

At the airport the pair find Al Nasir, the debonair hero and recently licensed pilot, readying his tiny single prop plane for takeoff.  “You know, I only have room for one of you,” Al Nasir says merrily, seemingly oblivious to the carnage in the city.

“Take him.” Vinod pushes a nearly catatonic Shorey forward. “I’ve got a family to worry about.”

 “Thirty-four and still a bachelor! Who can believe it,” laughs Al Nasir. Sex and women were essential parts of the actor’s life. He’d just divorced the beautiful Meena and was now hot in pursuit of a number of other starlets in Lahore and Bombay.

Shorey embraces Vinod seemingly unwilling to let him go, but the music director untangles himself. “I’ll follow you soon. I’ll find you, don’t worry. My family must think I’m dead, I have to go.”

Vinod runs back to the car which speeds off toward the city.

Al Nasir gets in beside Shorey and notices that the producer’s normally pristine white shirt is grey with dust and ash. Sweat and tears have muddied the lenses of his expensive German spectacles.  He smiles grimly at his friend and without waiting for approval from the tower taxis down the runway.  Lifting off, the plane circles and climbs steadily through the heavy, smoky air.  Shorey stares out of the window. The city of his birth, the city he loved, the city he was so determined would one day be as famous for its movies as Bombay, is now a medieval battleground. Fires, pillars of black smoke and crumbled buildings everywhere.  Around the railway station a mini city has grown up. He can hear gun shots, There are army trucks at every chowk.

‘We’ll be back,’ Al Nasir, calls out. He’s still smiling. “Nehru and Jinnah and Gandhi will sort it out. This is Lahore after all. Let them call it Pakistan. It’s still India. In a few weeks everyone will get tired of blood and bombs and the public will want to see our movies and have fun again.” 

The plane climbs higher and disappears into a dark grey cloud.

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World Muzak [not]

There is an ultra-thin niche in the Ameri-Euro music business that is best described as ‘world fusion’. Colourful, mostly upbeat music, played by globalised musical combos or artists that draw on all manner of culture and creeds for their musical inspiration and membership.  Indian wedding bands alongside southern funk outfits. Spanish flamenco coloured by qawwali. Politically-charged West African hard rock. Reggae played by Mexicans. Indian ragas recreated in a bluegrass style.

I actually don’t know, but as a rusted-on fan of this sort of music, I would suspect this sub-sub-no-genre is not huge. Certainly not in Australia and the States, the two Western countries I think I know the best.  Even in the home countries of many of the performers of this music, their following is tiny compared to hip-hop, J or K pop or the dozens of local musical styles.   It is a hybrid music which can seem to the casual listener to be contrived. Forced rather than natural.  A sort of international muzak for weirdos.  Exactly the sort of thing missionaries, mercenaries and misfits would love. Among my own circle of friends, few, I reckon, would echo my pro-‘world fusion’ sentiments.  

I’ve not spent time reflecting on who the ‘ideal market’ segment for this music might be, but fans seem to be generally well-read musically and well-travelled in life. Immigrants, refugees, aid workers, guestworkers, academics, third culture kids, diplomats and children of missionaries, such as myself.   World fusion lovers usually have some significant personal or emotional connection with WF’s endless, restless creativity.

I find this musical omnium gatherum–corny as a lot of it sounds to the vast majority of music listeners–as essential to my comfort zone as shag carpet was to our homes in 1972.  I may not listen to it every day but I could never not enjoy listening to it.

I was born and lived most of my pre-University years in India. I’ve had the unbelievable privilege of working as an ‘aid-worker’ in every continent bar Antarctica and South America. Though I didn’t seriously listen to and pay attention to the ‘world music’ that I had been exposed to, be it an all-night Ravi Shankar concert in Delhi or the soukous bubbling out of every taxi in Nairobi until I began blogging in 2010, I have always enjoyed keeping my ears open to the music of wherever I happened to be at any given moment.

I’m not interested in defending or attacking the marketing category known as ‘world music’, one of the more pointless ways to spend time.  I’m not in any position to write a ‘history’ of world music if even such a history could be written.  What I am interested in exploring is why I so love ‘world fusion’.

World music is arguably the loosest, broadest and most inclusive genre out there.  I mean, it’s music. From the world.  The usual line in the sand that it must be from non-English speaking countries/artists, has always been misleading.  Taj Mahal, to cite just one quick example, is as much a world music artist (starting with his very nom du chanteur) as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.  If you doubt me, check out Mkutano or Music Fuh Ya’ (Musica Para Tu) only two of his several ‘world fusion’ discs.

The much-loved Reddit debates about breaking music into sub and sub-sub categories is the second most pointless debate.  Spotify the evident source of all important musical data has come up with a list of over 1300 genres from #1 A Cappella to #1383 Zydeco.  It’s hilarious but kind of useful.  There are those, like my nephew, who eschew noting any genres in their music collections.  I empathise with that policy but find some sort of labelling is essential for me to keep track of a sprawling digital music hoard.  I generally cram everything into one of two dozen genres and forget about it.  But I’m wandering here.

On Spotify’s master genre list, just barely holding on by its fingernails at #1370, is a genre they call ‘world fusion’. And that’s what I’m on about here.

I have no idea how ‘world fusion’ is actually defined by the Scandihooligans as I don’t have a sub to Spotify, but I would guess it would include everything from spa music to Buddha Bar and not much else.  

Here’s my definition.

World fusion music is a style, performed primarily by groups rather than individuals, that consciously mixes musical traditions, instruments, languages, singing styles from one or more cultural/musical traditions. The purpose is exploratory, adventure-seeking and overlaid with what these days would count as a ‘woke’ ethos; i.e. there is often a deliberate message of the unity of all humans and equal value to all of our cultures; a conviction that playing music with our politically identified enemies is actually a really good way to create some safe spaces in this world.  And as such, WF is a threat to the ever more popular “my country is the best” version of nationalism that is spreading across our weary planet. And to that extent, please call me ‘woke’.

Corny? Self deluded?  Perhaps, but it’s the music I’m interested in not the political commentary.

In this category are bands like The Kronos Quartet, Tabla Beat Science, Hindugrass, Abrasaz, Bansal Trio, Ifriqiyya Électrique, Bustan Abraham and hundreds more.  Bands that freely experiment with blending bluegrass with ragas, rock ‘n’ roll with North African gnawa, Western classical with jazzy Hindustani violin, oud and sitar, jazz and Carnatic horn blowing.

I love this music. It not only reminds me of places, experiences and people I’ve met, worked and lived with over the past 35 years but it keeps me connected to the world. In diminished circumstances, it allows me to travel the world. It is hopeful music in that if global cooperation, respect and decency are not politically palatable at least WF musicians are keeping these things alive notionally. Which is critical in our destructive times. World fusion simultaneously connects my personal story with a once and future state of mind. It is an almost invisible way to Resist.

On a more mundane plain ‘WF’ inspires me to dig into a particular instrument (kamancheh; duduk) which often leads to learning about musical movements in which some of the artists or bands participated. It helps me appreciate what a particular music scene was like in a particular country at a particular moment (pre-Revolutionary Iran; 1980s Somalia). All of which feeds back into my understanding and appreciation of the many places I’ve lived and visited.  The music adds tonal depth, colour and additional realities to places like Angola and Afghanistan which during my sojourns there were understood almost entirely in political or humanitarian terms.

While some of the musical blends WF comes up with (bluegrass with Hindustani classical?) can seem contrived or dead-upon arrival, many times it works far better than you can imagine.  As I listen more and more to this music I marvel at how natural and organic it sounds. It turns out the tabla is one of the most versatile and expressive drums ever invented; it sounds good almost anywhere.  The oud of Araby has a strong resemblance to the lute of Europe and both pair well with sitar. The Afghan rubab is fucking exhilarating when used as a lead guitar. Bansuri, the Indian bamboo flute, is another instrument that seems universally suited to almost any other strain of music. 

World fusion can slip into dinner background music. It’s generally very melodic and interesting rhythmically. Maybe too much like smooth jazz for some ears.  I for one don’t mind pleasant music playing in the background when I’m cooking or paying the bills or chatting over chocolate pudding.  Much as I love soft rock, chill-out, lo-fi or Top 40. In the right context anything can do the trick.

But when I pay attention, the better bands or groups amaze me with their inventiveness. Such as the group Abrasaz, a Germany-based collective with members from Austria, Turkey, Singapore and Japan.  A true ‘world fusion’ outfit who came together to release a single album, Biraminket, in 2008.

There is a strong South Asian atmosphere here with Ravi Srinivasan’s tabla featuring prominently throughout, especially on the opening track in which a racing pattern of drums and steady, plucked bass line (Akira Ando) set the stage for an intense musical hymn to Maya Wati, the mother of illusion and magic. Paul Schwingenschlögl’s trumpet/flügelhorn keeps the feel edgy and like Srinivasan’s drumming is the other magical part of this record.

On Samraat, Srinivasan, in addition to keeping the beat going, joins Mustafa el Dino in vocalising lines of one of South Asia’s great qawwalis, Shams-ud-duhaa Badr-ud-dujaa Teri Bari Tauqir Hai, which switches over to jazz scatting while Schwingenschlögl solos on flügelhorn.

Lhasa opens with a lovely piano alaap played by Schwingenschlögl which then he turns into an equally beautiful semi-ballad. Pentagram introduces the Kashmiri dulcimer (santoor) played by Srinivasan, whose slivery-steely tones immediately move us to a dream-like plain. The flügelhorn alternates between drone and improv.

Though Indian/Pakistani themes and titles abound, none of the performers is actually from those countries.  Yet they have been able to build on that platform to explore the limits of their instruments and voices in interesting directions. Purists of all types would find much to be offended here and sometimes it does seem that things are being thrown against the wall to see if the spaghetti sticks.  For me that is what makes this album so endlessly entertaining.  Because they owe no professional loyalty to qawwali or khayal they are able to approach each as a discrete musical element that can be tested to see if it fits. Thus, scatting against the Indian musical scale or picking out a line or two of a traditional much more famous piece, means they can connect to both European and Indian ears.  The sound is familiar enough to both but neither pure jazz nor Indian. Or anything else.  Oiwake, based on a much-loved Japanese folk song, allows Ando to foreground his bass before singing inspired by khayal soars above the driving rhythm, ultimately creating a twirling dervish chant.  The transition is as seamless and satisfying as George Harrison’s ‘hallelujah’ to ‘Hare Krisna’ chorus on My Sweet Lord.

If there is one thing that I wish I could change it would be highlighting more of the saz, the only stringed instrument featured here. The saz, like its cousin the bouzouki, is suited to both rhythm and solo and always adds excitement to the proceedings. Unfortunately, it is heard far too little here but has a nice turn on Kalbimiz Bir and Abraxis II.

An album that will be your friend forever.

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My Missionary Family Pt 3 : Ocean Liners and St. Thomas

My folks and two older brothers landed in Bombay on 2 February 1952. A second application for a visa had been successful and 28 days after leaving New York they squinted at the skyline of India’s largest city ‘with its many high-rises [that] looked pale yellow in the hazy afternoon sun, more modern looking that we had expected. 

The country where they would live and work for nearly 40 years was still young then.  Four and half years earlier the British had left in a rush leaving behind two new countries. Pakistan and India, to sort out the affairs of state amidst deep political divisions over the Partition of the subcontinent, heightened communal identify and sensitivity, a bankrupt treasury and a level of poverty that had been severely exacerbated by several massive famines in Bengal, Punjab and Sindh. 

Politically, Pakistan was in turmoil. Their first Prime Minister, Liaqat Ali Khan had been assassinated in October 1951, which saw the first direct intervention of the military in the country’s governance, a legacy the people of Pakistan continue to fight against.  The UN had declared a ceasefire in January 1951 and sent peacekeepers to Kashmir to manage the fallout of the first of four wars fought over that territory.   

India had the good fortune of being led by a charismatic visionary Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who enjoyed stature across the globe.  When the SS Stratheden, a British ocean liner that carried troops (during the war) and mail (after) between the UK and Australia, and which George Orwell had sailed to Morocco on in 1938, dropped anchor at Ballard Pier in Bombay, India’s first parliamentary elections since gaining independence were almost complete.  Nehru’s Congress party would win easily and remain in power for the next 25 years.  

In Madras, the original Indian colonial city, 1300 kms southeast of Bombay, a cricket match between England and India got underway on the 6th of February.  King George VI died that same day, placing young Elizabeth on the throne where she would remain for many years after mom and dad both passed away.  India went on to gain its first Cricket Test victory in that match which marks the rise of the mighty Indian team of our times.  

Our family, and few missionaries that we knew,1 cared little for cricket.  It was a quaint British game played over 5 (!) days by princes and engineers.  Like polo, it was an elite sport. Nothing like the massively wealthy and dominant public phenomenon it is today. Field hockey was the more popular and accomplished sport1 in those years. 

We weren’t Brits so the change of monarchs in the UK would have been little more than headline news. There was, however, one anniversary or milestone that Dad would have liked (and probably knew). That his own missionary career was beginning exactly 1900 years after one of Christ’s own apostles had first arrived in India.  The tradition (which is generally accepted) tells of St. Thomas, one of the original Twelve, landing along the south east coast of India in the vicinity of the modern city of Chennai (Madras)in 52 CE. He preached to the locals and had some success but other locals, usually identified as stuffy Brahmins, murdered him around 72 CE.  But he left behind India’s first indigenous Christian community and church, the Mar Thoma, which can, with strong historical evidence, claim to be one of the oldest, if not the oldest Christian community outside of Palestine.  

Syro-Malabar icon of Throne of St. Thomas the Apostle

If I’m to understand my parents’ life as missionaries in India I have to spend some time exploring a much broader history, that of Christian India, which pre-dates any formal European missionary by nearly 2 millennia.  In the next few instalments, I’m going to highlight some of the highpoints in that fascinating but underreported history. 

  1. India holds the record for most consecutive Olympic Golds (6) and most total Olympic Golds (8) in the sport. ↩︎

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My Missionary Family Pt. 2

By mid-1951 Dad and Mom’s preparations to leave for India were in high gear. The few worldly possessions they had accumulated were packed away, ready to be shipped to their new home, or stored in the garages and basements of relatives in Minneapolis.   They had been recruited by a mission board known as the Oriental Missionary Society (OMS), a minnow in a lake dominated by the mainline Methodist and Presbyterian churches.  

They were excited but anxious, not knowing what to expect or how to prepare for what was going to be their first 5yr tour of duty.  They received two bits of advice from senior missionaries. Dad writes about the first one: 

Orville French (an OMS missionary in India) accompanied us for a walk. He encouraged us to keep focused on India–’a desperately dark and needy land’, he said. Later while studying in Houghton [College, New York] we corresponded with the Frenches who had arrived in Gadag by then. In one of his letters Orville asked us about our conjugal relationship. Hmm. He said that couples planning to serve in India, especially, needed to be sure that they were well adjusted sexually, and ‘at peace’ with their sex lives. For India, he warned, was a place where sex was overtly ‘worshipped’ (Shiva phallus symbol, erotic temple carvings etc.) and this might prove to be troublesome! His concern was doubtless given in the context of what happened to two missionary families who were forced to return home because of the husbands’ improprieties. Orville’s questions we found a bit intriguing, and actually the ‘only word of counsel’ we had from OMS on how to get ready for India. 

Now. If there ever was a paragraph that deserved unpacking, this is it.  But Dad’s final statement is not entirely accurate.  Mom wrote of another piece of advice they received, this time from Orville’s wife, Aileen. 

Aileen, in response to my queries as to what to bring with us, replied that India (and Gadag in particular) was rather drab and dreary, so ‘Bring whatever you can to make your home cheery and cozy.’ One surprising suggestion was to bring toilet paper—India’s being hard to obtain and or poor quality, if and when available. We packed a [55 gallon] drum full of it when we sailed for our first term. 

Thus alerted to the pitfalls they could expect to find, they were ready to set sail from New York in September, 1951.  With tickets booked and much of their luggage enroute to New York, they were informed that their visa had been refused by the Indian government.  This was, in Dad’s words, ‘a slap in the face’ and suddenly it looked as if the erotic temples, jewel encrusted turbans and lost souls would remain figments of their imaginations forever. 

The Indian government’s hardening stance against new missionaries was a theme of many family conversations throughout my childhood.  Though individuals who could be classified as Christian missionaries had been in India since the early years after the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth and though southern India was home to one of the oldest orthodox churches in the world, predating any European missionary presence by centuries, the ‘modern’ missionary movement in India really began in the early 18th century. 

It is a story filled with ups and downs and long periods of marginalization followed by shorter bouts by lionization before an inevitable return to ostracism. I’ll write more about that at some other point, but for now, the refusal of a visa for Mom and Dad, though disappointing for them, was not surprising given the political context of a newly independent country. 

Indian elites had waged an ever more acrimonious and violent war of resistance against Imperial Britian, aka The Raj, for decades. Indeed, you could make the case that the ‘natives had been restless’ for more than a century and that the first mass armed uprising against the British had taken place in 1857, when a loose coalition of soldiers, disempowered regional rulers and peasants, nearly succeeded in wiping all Europeans off the north Indian map. 

The country’s new rulers, though committed to building a non-sectarian, secular state, viewed missionaries as a subversive, antiquated, anachronistic and altogether unwanted cohort of foreigners living in their midst.  Missionary evangelizing, as unsuccessful as it was in convincing more than a handful of Indians to renounce the faith of their birth, was especially hated.  

Prominent leaders including the Governor General Mr. Rajagopalachari and Prime Minister Nehru expressed their views that missionaries were cultural aggressors and foreign fifth columnists. An official investigation in the early 50s by the government of Madhya Pradesh concluded:  

Evangelisation in India appears to be part of a uniform world policy to revive Christendom, to re-establish Western supremacy and is not prompted by spiritual motives. The objective is to disrupt the solidarity of the non-Christian societies, with danger to the security of the State. Enormous sums of foreign money flow into the country, and it is out of such funds that the Lutherans and other proselytising agencies were able to secure nearly four thousand converts. Missions are in some places used to serve extra-religious ends. As conversion muddles the convert’s sense of solidarity with his society there is a danger of his loyalty to his country being undermined. 

A vile propaganda against the religion of the majority is being systematically and deliberately carried out so as to create an apprehension of breach of public peace. There has been an appreciable increase in the American personnel of missionary organisations in India. 

Which must be halted immediately, the report declared.  

Things didn’t look good for wannabe missionaries like Rudy and Eleanore Rabe and their two young sons Michael (4) and Gregg (2). 

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My Missionary Family: Part 1

There is no generic missionary.  There is no single description that all missionaries would agree on.  Missionaries were/are as diverse as any other group of humans. They had a variety of motivations for being in India, vastly differing theologies and lifestyles.  Many didn’t like each other, even when they worked for the same ‘mission board’. Some were world class historians and biologists and linguists. Some developed new nutritious products for the emerging middle class. Some led the world in the treatment of blindness and leprosy. Some ‘went native’. Others went mad and had to be shipped back to Ohio. Some believed every word of the Bible was historically accurate and spiritually true. Others could not find their way to 2 Chronicles. One even became a leading White Supremacist. 

What follows is what my missionary world looked like.  

My parents came to India in 1952.  Dad was 27. Mom 30.  Dad had been appointed by ‘the Mission’ to teach in a small Bible college in a not-very-significant district town in what was then Bombay Province but which, in 1956, was included within the freshly minted Mysore State that was renamed again in 1973 as Karnataka State. 

Home for both Mom and Dad was the upper Midwest: Minnesota and the Dakotas.  Both families were of German extract and both were equally poor.  And both families belonged to the ultra-small, ultra-conservative Holiness Methodist denomination. 

Mom was older than Dad by three years. She had grown up a farmer’s daughter and harbored the suspicion that she was an ‘afterthought’.  She always claimed to have enjoyed a loving childhood but one that was lonely and isolated. Her siblings were 10-15 years older and the farms she grew up on, first outside the northern Minnesota town of Detroit Lakes and later near Paynesville, in Stearns Country–heavy German immigrant territory– were several miles from civilisation.  She loved (and dreamed of) sharp clothes, baking and reading.  

Going on to High School was a major aspiration for most of her social network. Though her father lost his farm in Detroit Lakes during the early days of the Depression, forcing him to become a sharecropping dirt farmer, mom did graduate high school and went on to Business College in Minneapolis just as WWII began.  She admitted to having a few boys from the community make eyes at her, even a few handsome lads, but she never made eyes back. Mainly because it was clear to her that they had no desire to go to High School.   Or they smoked. Had no real prospects. One boy, however, did stand out–Melvin Finger. She liked the look of him and noted with approval that he was ‘serious-minded and read TIME magazine’. 

She grew up loved, she said. She also said, she felt as if her mother, a devout and extremely soft-spoken woman, had hoped she would be a boy because she confessed to hoping that her final child would be a ‘preacher or missionary’.  To mom, these were clear signals that she had disappointed her mother by being a woman. I think she carried that feeling of being ‘second best’ with her throughout life. 

Her dad, a tall and toothless man with a hearty laugh and a 19th century outlook, was not particularly religious. He’d go to church occasionally but did nothing to encourage Christian faith in his children. That was their mother’s role. He was too busy scraping enough sustenance together from the tiny Minnesota plots he farmed.  

Her upbringing was stifling. Though she accepted the conservative Christian values and faith of her family and neighbors she knew early on that she needed to escape rural Minnesota.  In later years she would cackle over the thought of her being a Minnesota farmer’s wife, something that bemused and terrified her.  When a recruiter from Minneapolis Business College laid out brochures of a nine-month secretarial course in the Big Smoke, she didn’t hesitate.  Minneapolis was a ‘magical city’ for her. Shops full of wonderful dresses and shoes and a place where she could be surrounded by people but still keep to herself.  

In their memoir Mom wrote:  

Though I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do or be, I was SURE I did not want to spend my life on a farm! Dad and mom had worked their fingers to the bone for years, and what did they have to show for it?  I wanted to have a nice home and some stylish clothes—admittedly I was ‘materially’ minded. Attending business college offered me a way out of Paynesville and an escape from the farm.  What could be better? I was excited! 

** 

Dad’s family were more recent German immigrants. Grandpa had arrived with his mother and siblings from what is now western Poland in 1903.  They settled in Guelph, North Dakota, a speck on the prairie not too far from the South Dakota border. The Great Northern Railway that linked St. Paul with Seattle in far west Washington State ran through Guelph and provided jobs for grandpa and his brother Julius. But the hard physical labor didn’t do it for Grandpa, Rudolph Senior, who was still a couple years shy of fifteen. Around that time he was dragged to a ‘revival meeting’, had a spiritual conversion and dedicated himself to ‘full time Christian ministry’. He committed himself to a Holiness theology, serving as a preacher (who often had to move from parish to parish filling in for small rural communities) and eventually General Secretary of the denomination.  Here’s how Dad summed him up in the memoir he wrote with Mom in 2011. 

The Holiness Methodists were a small, struggling denomination with never more than 30-35 churches and preaching points. But they established a small Bible school (Holiness Methodist School of Theology) in Minneapolis. A year or so after his conversion. Rudolph felt God was calling him to the ministry, so went to Minneapolis and enrolled at HMST. After just a year’s study, the church assigned him as a pioneering evangelist to a remote area way out in northern Montana. 

For a year and a half—April 1915 to October 1916—he lived in a small mountain cabin in close proximity to the Pinkham Creek and Fortine lumber camps located a few miles from the town of Eureka. Life in those Rocky Mountain woods was primitive, ultra simple, far from being as romantic as one might think. 

He married a feisty woman named Leona and together produced a large family of 9 children of which Dad was number four.  Grandpa struggled with depression throughout his life (Dad brushed it aside as nothing more than ‘the winter blues’) which is probably one of the reasons he returned to Minneapolis and HMST.  The family could barely put food on the table, especially as Rudolph Senior’s body began to break down with the stress of scraping a living together in the Depression. 

Dad spent most of his youth moving between small towns in South Dakota and Minnesota before completing his high school in Duluth. Like his soon-to-be girlfriend, Eleanore Naugle, that older, lonesome, beautiful farm girl he met at the annual Watson Camp Meeting, Dad knew from a young age that he had to escape this small, loving but culturally isolated world of poor Midwestern farmers and laborers for something more hopeful and spacious. 

Both Mom and Dad spoke fondly of the annual Holiness camp meetings they attended in the tiny Christian enclave of Watson (pop. 290) in south central Chippewa County. A regular feature of rural American Christianity, the camp meeting tradition had its roots in the so-called Second Great Awakening of the late 18th century. The meetings were ten days of hallelujahs, hymns, fire and brimstone preaching and sanctification under a tent in the woods. They were an opportunity for socially isolated people to meet their co-religionists and for preachers and hucksters to reach tens of thousands of people in one place.  And as ever, camp meetings were places for young people to meet up, fall in love and probably do all sorts of unsanctified and sinful things like smooching. 

[Listen to Brother Claude Ely singing at a camp meeting ca. late 1940s] 

Dad’s favorite part of the meetings were the sermons of visiting missionaries who told stories of the exotic, colorful and spiritually benighted Hindoos and Mohammadans of India.  

In 1946, now married to Mom, they once more attended the Watson camp meetings.  

There, the camp’s missionary speaker was…China missionary Roland [Rollie] Rice…. I had been thinking quite a bit about India during our last months in Fort Robinson, remarking more than once that I had wished the army had sent me there instead of one of my Camp Dodge buddies.  This friend, Carl, and I corresponded during our Fort time. In one letter he was complaining about some of India’s negatives and wrote ‘You’d be crazy Rabe, to ever want to come to this place!’ 

My interest in India had been kindled years earlier and only kept growing. The stories of India that Rev. F.B. Whistler told [in previous years at Watson camp] had ignited that early-on ‘India interest’. That interest was reinforced (admittedly in a fanciful way) through reading about the country—particularly in the adventure books of Richard Halliburton who wrote about snake charmers, tiger hunting, maharajas with jewel encrusted turbans and other exotic minutia. In one of those ‘I plan to be’ talks in a Denfield high school class, I informed my classmates I planned to join the US Foreign Service. Around that time I also made up a fictitious address in Bombay, gave it to my mother saying, ‘Some day you will be writing to me in Bombay where I’ll be serving as US Ambassador or as some officer for the US Government.’ She smiled and said, ‘Yes, Rudy, I think I’ll be writing to you in India one day, but you’ll be there as an Ambassador for Jesus Christ, not the US government.’  I always thought it interesting that 10 years later when we got to India, our first mailing address included the name Bombay: Gadag, Dharwar District, Bombay Presidency. 

And so it became family history. Dad was the one who had been inspired to be a missionary as a young boy. Eleanore fell in love with him and ‘accepted as part of the deal’ that her commitment to him meant a life far from her family in what must have seemed to her a hostile and harsh environment on the other side of the world. 

But re-reading their joint memoir, I have a much stronger sense of Mom’s agency in this.  She knew exactly who she was marrying.  Rudy had many of the qualities she admitted to liking in men. He was a Christian. He was good looking. He didn’t smoke or drink. He was ‘serious minded and read TIME magazine’ like one of her early crushes Melvin Finger did.  And like him she shared a desire to get away from the stifling atmosphere of rural Minnesota and have a bit of adventure.  And similar to Dad, her mother had already committed her last child to God to be one of His missionaries.  

On the last night of 1946 camp, Dad and Mom both publicly declared their desire to move to India to ‘serve the Lord’.  

The reality, in fact, seems to be, contrary to family oral history, that a career in India was something they both consciously chose. Maybe Dad’s interest in the country was deeper and more longstanding than Mom’s, who probably had zero curiosity about the place, but both of them were excited about the prospect of leaving America in search of adventure and souls to save. 

Years later after attending her high school class’s 50th reunion she commented with obvious, if well-controlled glee: “Although I had been such a shy and unassuming little girl, I probably traveled farther and had a more exciting life than most anyone else. It’s safe to say that Rudy, the man I married, was the secret of my out-of-the-ordinary’ life.”  

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Exit and Entry

33 years 2 months and 2 days ago Mikhail Gorbachev announced his resignation as leader of the Soviet Union. The next day, 26 January 1991, the world learned that the Soviet Union itself, had ceased to exist as a political entity.

I watched Gorbachev on American TV. The enormity of his resignation and the dissolution of USSR silenced the room. The consequences of it were unclear but generally I think everyone felt lighter; things were bound to get better.

Today, I watched President Trump and VP Vance go on TV and announce their desire to join a new USSR, led by their buddy Vlad Putin. The enormity of this decision was lost in a squabble of hectoring and scolding more akin to a WWE extravangza than a diplomatic photo opp.

Just as Gorbachev’s announcement stunned the world, so too the Dynamic Duo’s performance on live TV today, has left the world immobile with shock. Only instead of hope we watch in horror, knowing for sure that only worse lies ahead.

A few months earlier I had watched Boris Yeltsin jump onto a tank in the middle of Moscow and rally his fellow Russians to resist the coup that had been launched by hardline Communists against Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroika. I remember thinking, ‘Wow, that’s ballsy!’ And the people rallied, the coup was put down and Big Boris led them into a new era.

I don’t watch TV or read much news anymore. But I find it interesting that Yeltsin’s demonstration of leadership and purpose is apparently so uninspiring to the politicians of the Greatest Country in the History of Humanity. Our leaders, our so-called Yeltsins’, our hardcore anti-Putin hawks, now flap their wings and coo quietly in harmony with the two assholes at the top.

DJT is leading us into a new era too.

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Historical Fiction and the Saviour of the World

All religions are rife with factions. And in that way, they are a manifestation of the most primitive and base of human instincts.  Group think. Tribalism. Belief regardless of a lack of evidence. Even evidence to the contrary.     

I was born and nurtured within the ‘Bible is the inerrant Word of God’ tribe.  The people who insist that every word, every story, every miracle found within the Christian/Jewish Bible is cent per cent pure and untainted by any contradiction or human failing.  The Universe was created in six 24-hour days. Elijah ascended to ‘heaven’ in a burning chariot. The Supreme Lord of Everything addressed Abraham through a burning bush. Wine to water. 2 pieces of bread and 5 sardines fed 5000 people.   You get the picture. 

I should clarify. My father, our clan leader, actually felt most comfortable in a sub-faction of this larger tribe.  I would call it ‘the Bible is the actual reflection of God’s mind but not 100% historically or scientifically accurate’.   He argued that science and learning were needed to understand the mysteries of such a revered set of writings as the old and new testaments. He would acknowledge (later in life) that humans did not have the capacity to understand ‘God’  and so, ultimately, whether or not Jesus did turn a cistern of water into Merlot at the wedding party, it was not worth starting a war over. He liked to believe it, but he and others in the sub-faction allowed space for individual interpretation. 

I have no personal faith or belief in Jesus, Yahweh, God or any other such divine creature. But I had a good childhood and my 25 years of practicing Christianity has made an indelible imprint on my mind.  I cannot and do not want to excise that part of me.  I find great comfort in many passages of the Bible (OT and NT).  I still love and sing along to the hymns and choruses I learned from countless Bible Clubs, camps and revival services.  And throughout my adult years I have enjoyed reading academic and true-believer debates about all manner of Biblical studies and archaeology.    

I recently read a book titled Jesus Interrupted. I didn’t finish it because it was a bit too elementary for me. The author, is an ex-believer like myself, but a scholar of the Bible. His audience seems to be those of the ‘Bible is the inerrant Word of God’ tribe who are looking for encouragement to use their minds rather than practice blind faith.  I can hear him whispering to them ‘It’s ok. Jump. You won’t be crushed by what you find.’  

He spends a lot of time talking about ‘contradictions’ and ‘inconsistencies’ within the 4 Gospels and other books of the New Testament.  Of which there are many. And which should be sufficient for any unbiased reader to understand that what they are reading is not History.  For those who have come to believe that the God of the Bible is a distinct and discrete being, separate from the Universe, and who’s wont is to stick his hand into the petri dish called Earth and mess things up or direct action in a particular way, the notion that the story of the 3 wise men or the resurrection is not the accurate tale of an actual event, is a hard concept to embrace. 

I have published two novels, the first of which is what bookstores label, ‘historical fiction’.  It is set in mid-20th century Iraq and as such the narrative refers to and is framed by actual events. And people who are historical figures, the most prominent of which is Saddam Hussain.  But there are many others who pop up, mostly in very minor and insignificant roles.  The main characters are entirely fictional and most of the happenings that the book describes are real only to the characters. They have no basis in history.  

If you used my book to prepare for a trip to Iraq you might get a EXTREMELY HIGH LEVEL  glimpse of the turbulent political history of modern Iraq up to about 1985. But I hope no one would ascribe the words I put in the mouth of real historical figures as ‘accurate’ or historical.  The point of my book, what got me going, was to explore and try to understand the idea of politically-motivated violence against people who think differently.  Torture.  What goes on in the mind of the man who willingly and knowingly inflicts physical pain upon those who have been captured and have no way to fight back? 

I was not writing and didn’t set out to write a description of the Ba’ath party or Iraqi politics.  It was my way of unpacking an issue I was confronted with on a daily basis when I worked with the UN refugee agency. 

As I read Jesus, Interrupted it dawned on me that the best way to describe the Gospels and other Biblical stories is as “historical fiction”.   They are historic in the sense that they describe a society and historical figures that really did exist. But they are like tent poles or stakes that hold the story up but which are really supportive rather than central to the action.  Yes, there was a tough guy named Pontius Pilate. And there were a group of Jews known as Pharisees. Nazareth and Bethlehem can be found on a map. But anything beyond this sort of thing is historically iffy. Even the historic reality of the central hero, Jesus. 

The gospels, written decades after Jesus was allegedly crucified, by unknown writers, were composed to tell a specific story to a specific audience. The story was one of spiritual and moral guidance not a biography of the Nazarene. 

None of this is fresh insight. It’s as old as the hills.  But it does help me understand these essential texts of my life.  They are not history. But they are not fiction, either. They are historical fiction. 

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Were the Dark Ages really that bad? W(h)ither Aidland?

I’ve been scanning a few articles and posts on LinkedIn about the crash&burn approach to USAID of the new Trusk administration.  There are two broad schools of thought being advocated. 

The Insider School: this is the worst possible and most unfair action taken against an agency that strives to do only good. The hardship faced by many tens of thousands employee, contractors and implementing partners down the food chain is the main objection, with many expressing solidarity with this newly and unexpectedly large cohort of jobless humanitarians.  Suddenly everyone has the green halo around their profile picture; I’m Open to Work.  

Indeed, this is a shitful way to begin a new year.  I am not directly impacted by Trusk’s actions but suddenly my already slim chances of finding employment within the sector I’ve worked in my entire career are as close to nil as they can possibly be.   

Imagine a series of ponds connected by a stream.  The one at the top is full with just a few fish in it. The middle pond has lots of water but also a huge number of fish.  The stream has been silting up for time and some fish have been struggling to breathe for years. Yet, for the most part the pond has just enough water and oxygen to maintain the status quo.  In the third pond, the water levels are really low but the fish are smaller and seem to be able to do ok though they are constantly aware that the stream from the middle pond is getting dammed and blocked.  

Overnight the top pond is drained of all its water. In a panic, the fish there move into the middle pond. But this is not a solution because the largest feeder stream is dry and the pond’s water supply has dropped by nearly 50%. But there are a huge number of new fish to accommodate. 

In the third pond, fish are dying fast.  Not to mention the many animals surrounding the ponds that depend on the water to survive.  

It’s easy to understand the solution demanded by this group school of thought. Reinstate USAID and all its funding immediately. Turn the tap back on and let the water flow once more.  

The Opportunity School of Thought: This is advocated mainly by (many) fish in the middle and lower ponds. And fisheries experts who work at think tanks and write blogs. The basic argument is: the structure of the ponds and streams was inherently unfair and broken.  The top fish have always determined the quantity and quality of the water flowing to the lower ponds and for the fish in the lower ponds and the animals who depend on the water in the pond, the emptying of the top pond is probably an opportunity to rebuild the system so that it is more equitable. 

No one has yet articulated what a new system might look. The prescriptions are finely articulated statements of principle that have been echoing around Aid-Land forever. They all appear to ignore the cruel reality that we fish, and the animals we support, need water. And if we are going to support a lot of animals and really attack the problems that the animals face, we need lots of water for a long, long time.   

Ok, enough already of this silly analogy. 

The point is that large scale development and humanitarian responses require large volumes of money. And on a steady basis. Governments are generally the only source of such largesse.  Sure, there are billionaires and rich corporations but their interests are extremely narrow and self-serving.  The private sector will never be a reliable source of base funding for humanitarian or development work. 

So, I’m sceptical of the Opportunity school. Of course, if USAID is gone for good NGOs will adjust. Many will cease to exist altogether (not bad in itself); almost all will downsize, shrink their ambition and keep their heads down even lower.  But I’m not holding my breath for a new government led aid infrastructure and financing system to emerge that will be better than the one we love to hate currently. 

And there is a lot to hate. Bureaucracy. Hypocrisy. Conditionality. Compliance over assistance. Risk transfer. Salaries. Bad CEOs with no accountability. Lack of diversity at the top. Recycled thinking. Opaque transparency. Salaries. Sexual harassment and abuse. Baked-in white middle-class privilege.  Over-weening earnestness. Commerical firms who market themselves as humanitarian but are profit making machines for shareholders. 

But the one thing, above all other things, that sucks about the aid business is the donor-implementing partner (be they big hairy international behemoths or a local disabled persons NGO in the south Pacific) relationship. Governments are not just the only viable source of sustainable financing for aid but they call the shots. Their Congresses and Parliaments put so many ridiculous conditions on the receipt of and spending of their funds that many NGOs spend as much time, if not more, filling out reports for donors to ensure they are not violating an ever-growing number of conditions, as they do actually helping actual people.  

For all our claims to be innovative and independent, we have always been beholden to what the State Department or Foreign Office wants.  

This doesn’t put me in the Insider’s camp. I sympathize with those who lost their jobs. Doing away overnight with such a major pillar of the Aidland superstructure will be nothing but disastrous.  And given how most countries take signals from the White House the impact on Aidland is going to be widespread and indefinite.  

I don’t have a solution but frankly I cannot think of any group that can replace government funded aid agencies. 100 Soros’ can’t compete.  I don’t see new scalable financing models emerging. Innovation will happen but at the local level only.  Like democracy, government funded aid is the best of many flawed systems.

The Golden Age of International NGOs and AID is well and truly over. Maybe the Dark Ages weren’t really so bad. 

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Running Home (Pt.3)

My bodyguards followed their orders and allowed no one to talk to me. Including themselves.  From Hardwar to Lucknow, a journey of 15 hours, they kept their prisoners on a tight leash, taking turns at dozing, sometimes whispering, occasionally sharing bidis.  Up on the top tier, I was left alone.  Neither uttered a word to me.

When the train pulled into Lucknow, our party clanged and shuffled its way across a platform or two until one of the cops pointed at a train. “That one will take you to Pratapgarh,” he said.  

With their duty done, they turned their detainees around once more and left me to my own devices. 

An empty train in India is a rare thing. The one I boarded was oven hot and completely quiet.  I had the feeling of entering a long steel church. There was a similar air of hope and faith that the train would soon start moving.  A handful of passengers lay stretched out here and there, prostrate before the Sun god.  I found a window seat on the shady side of the compartment and waited.  

Eventually, the train did pull away from the station and onto the dry, scrabbly plain of central UP.  I squinted into the wavy horizon.  Though it must have been close to 45 degrees, I relished the way the heat burned the monsoon chill out of my bones.  

The slow swaying and jolting of the carriages comforted me. I lost myself in the clacking of the rails.  I was excited now.  Just a couple more hours to go and I’d be home.   

I must have nodded off for I was woken by someone tapping my shoulder. In front of me stood a Sikh ticket inspector in a navy blue blazer with worn cuffs. He had his hand outstretched and asked me to show him my ticket.  

“I don’t have one.” 

Perhaps because a representative of the Indian government itself had deposited me, Special Delivery, on this train my fear was gone.   

‘Why?” 

“My money was stolen and the Railway Police told me to take this train. My mother is sick in Allahabad and I’m going there.”  The further I travelled the longer my opening line became. 

The Ticket Inspector eyed me quietly for a minute.  As he did, my courage wilted. The same panic I had felt after the Russians had laughed me out of the compound, rushed through me. I was sure the moment of my arrest had arrived. 

“You do one thing,” he said after a while. “Just before we enter Pratapgarh Station, the train will stop.  You alight there and walk to the city. There will be no issue of ticket-shicket.” 

I nodded my assent somewhat incredulously. How was it that a man charged with enforcing the rules was advising me on the best way to break them?  

Several minutes later the train did roll to a stop about 200 metres from the station. I, along with what seemed like every other passenger on the train, hopped onto the hot earth and scampered out of the railway premises through a hole in a symbolic fence standing bent and rusty 5 metres from the highway. 

I’ll never forget that sardarji. 

** 

Pratapgarh is a small district town famous for not much. Its main role is as a rail junction and transport hub.  I entered a chowk bustling with activity. People were streaming up and down the road toward the station. Buses and Tempos, India’s awkward three wheeler taxis that ferried people to remote villages off the main highway, stood three deep on both sides of the road. 

Touts shouted out destinations of nearby towns and villages. Hawkers shouted the prices of their fruit and peanuts.  Horns blasted incessantly. Loudspeakers attached to trees blasted Lata Mangeshkar and Rafi songs. 

“Illaahabad, Illaahabad. Illahabaaad! Hey kid, why not go with us?” 

A man with sweat dripping from his nose and ears and with a soiled handkerchief around his neck motioned me in his direction. 

He was standing by a taxi. I couldn’t afford a taxi. I was looking for a bus. I couldn’t afford a bus either but somehow catching a free ride on the latter seemed more feasible than in a taxi. 

‘Where you going?” 

“Allahabad.” 

“Come on. I have one seat left, Rs. 12 is all. Come on, quickly, right over here.” 

He pulled me towards the Ambassador.  

“I don’t have 12 rupees.” 
 

“No problem, how much do you have?” 

“None. But if you stop on Stanley Rd, across from Beli Hospital I can get you some.” 

“Done,” he said. “Sit down, here.” 

He pulled open a creaky door and shoved me into the back seat. I joined five other adults. Across their laps they carried a charpai, a country rope-bed that had been partially disassembled to fit into the auto.  None of them could move from the weight of the wooden legs and the tangle of rope.  I squeezed in as best I could, holding the door shut with my arm. 

In the front seat sat another four adults. Not one of them was the driver. With his taxi now full the driver began to insinuate himself little by little behind the wheel. After some wiggling and numerous requests for reconfigurations in the passenger’s sitting arrangements, he was able to reach both feet to the pedals. His back was mostly resting against the front door which caused him to maneuver the wheel with distinct awkwardness. As if he was puppet with broken arms. 

Somehow, by stretching and nudging the gear shift with the very tips of his fingers, the driver got us rolling down the highway.  Inconceivably, in every little bazaar we passed through he shouted out loudly, “Illahabad. Kacheri chowk savari. Jaldi aa!” as if he were the only one in the car.  Luckily, no one took up his offer and an hour and a half later just as the hottest sun of the day was turning into cool evening, we stopped in front of Allahabad Bible Seminary.  

Before I managed to tell the driver to wait while I got Rs 12 from my parents, the car lurched and sputtered down the Grand Trunk Road. 

48 hours after leaving Mussoorie I walked into the shady compound of home.  

** 

My parents were expecting me.  Mr. Kapadia had called to inform them that while the school didn’t know my exact whereabouts, “I suspect he’s on his way to you.” 

I spent a week at home.  When my folks grilled me about what had caused me to take such a drastic step I didn’t know what to say. For the entire journey I had operated on the principle of forward motion.  I didn’t doubt my feeling that I needed to be home and had spent no time analyzing why I had bolted. 

I had no words to express the oppression I felt inside. The monsoon, the mist, the mountains, the Bible Club, the school, the cold had all worked to make me feel agitated and disconnected. Out of sorts.  

My sister Beckie had graduated that summer and gone to the States for college. I was the last of my siblings, so perhaps I felt alone and vulnerable.  Without an older brother or sister as a reference point boarding school seemed more scary and hostile.   All I knew for sure was that I had an overwhelming but inarticulate need for home.   

After a week my dad put me back on the train. “We told Mr Kapadia that he has our agreement to punish you in whatever manner the school decides.” 

It was matter-of-fact statement.  I didn’t care. My inner battery was recharged. 

When I got back to Mussoorie I felt strong and connected.  And heroic. People that I had admired or been intimidated by looked at me in awe. “Rabe, you actually ran away! Far out!” 

I don’t know if anyone followed my example but for a brief moment I considered myself a trailblazer. 

Mr Kapadia informed me that I would be gated for 10 days. No extra curricular activity and straight home after school.  I was to serve my sentence in the home of the Harpers, whose son Phil, was a classmate.  Mrs Harper, a vivacious, larger-than-life, extremely liberal minded woman welcomed me with love, a no-nonsense attitude and French Toast for breakfast.   

“If you ever want to run away again,” Mr Kapadia told me when it was all said and done, “just come to me. We’ll have a talk. If you want a cigarette I’ll let you smoke in my house.  Just don’t frighten everyone by disappearing!”