Marriage, Loving Style

Originally published 5/27/08 on Desicritics
I found out yesterday that a good friend of mine, with whom I sing in the Unitarian Universalist Choir, had a mixed marriage. “My wife is Jewish” he said. I frowned, not having put two and two together. Later when I spoke to her she told me that among Jews, to marry a gentile was generally prohibited and that for women particularly, it was important to marry within the Jewish community.

Interracial marriages are looked down upon by many world-wide communities yet today; they are looked down upon or ‘prohibited’ because of religious beliefs, because of caste, economic reasons or social pressure. Even in the good ole’ USA such prejudices still exist. The United States Supreme Court’s 1967 decision struck down anti-miscegenation laws: the law changed previous prohibitions. Even so, it took Alabama’s Supreme Court until the year 2000 to finally change its anti-miscegenation laws. Imagine this, until eight years ago; it was a felony to marry a person of a different race! We are talking here about race, not caste, not difference in religious beliefs. But these are often intertwined, as in the case with my friend, who has a ‘Jewish’ wife, which implies both religion and ethnicity. Is there some parallel to the caste system?

We celebrated the anniversary of the 1967 Loving Day two weeks ago by having lunch with our friends. We raised our glasses and toasted Mildred Loving. Who in the world is she? Mildred Loving was the black woman who got this all started here in America. She was a black woman who lived in Virginia and fell in love with a white man and married him. One night, according to a New York Times News Service Report, quoted by The San Diego Union-Tribune, May 11, 2008,

“Mrs. Loving and her husband, Richard, were in bed in their modest house in Central Point the morning of July11, 1958, five weeks after their wedding, when the county sheriff and two deputies, acting on an anonymous tip, burst into their bed-room and shined flashlights in their eyes. A threatening voice demanded, ‘Who is this woman you’re sleeping with?’ Mrs. Loving answered, ‘I’m his wife.’”

The marriage certificate was produced but the sheriff responded that a certificate from Washington D.C. was not valid under Virginia law between people of different races; an inter-racial marriage performed outside of Virginia was not valid. The couple later pleaded guilty to having violated a Virginia law called the “Racial Integrity Act.” Their one-year prison sentence would be suspended, they were told, if they left the state and did not come back to Virginia, together, for 25 years!

Marriage, Loving style, had been hit hard. The man who sentenced them, a certain Judge Leon Bazile, said something like, if God had meant for blacks, coloreds and whites to mix it up, he would not have placed them on different continents in the first place. He told them that as long as they lived they would be known as felons. Good gracious!

In 1963 Mrs. Loving decided to act; she could no longer stand being ostracized. The civil-rights movement was in full swing and according to some reports she wrote to Attorney General Robert R. Kennedy for help. She was referred to the ACLU, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the rest is history. Eventually their having pleaded guilty to the Virginia anti-miscegenation law was set aside, struck down. The Supreme Court’s 1967 decision struck down anti-miscegenation laws, but Southern states were slow to change their constitutions. It took Alabama until the year 2000 to change. Now all children born to cross-race marriages have inheritance rights and their heirs can receive death benefits. Men and women equally. Imagine that.
All of the above hits very close to home. As a teenage lad living in Ludhiana, in the Punjab of India, I played tennis with one of the medical students in the Women’s Medical College. Between serves and doubles matches, my sister being my partner, I met and talked to a young Christian Indian woman who was in her first year of medical school. Let us call her Lavina. We spoke in Urdu of many things, piar, mohabbat, ishq; perhaps sweet things like laddus and gulab jamuns. She laughed at my jokes in English. We continued to play tennis, eventually playing singles. (See my novel, Lalla and Lavina, Stories of Indian Women, Authorhouse Press) It was very evident that my father was upset with me when representatives of her family came to discuss marriage arrangements. Upset is a mild word. He was furious, asking, “What have you done?” No marriage was arranged. I did speak in Urdu to her father and apologized for having played tennis and for talking with her alone. I was forbidden to play tennis. I never saw her again. Writing that still causes me pain.

My father had frequently talked to me about what he called ‘The American Creed.’ But thinking about my father’s strong negative attitude toward the possibility of his son being involved, and heaven forbid, marrying an Indian woman, still hurts deeply. The famous author, Gunnar Myrdal (1944) who wrote, “An American Dilemma” presents a scholarly treatise on this very subject.

At the center of Myrdal's work in An American Dilemma was his postulate that political and social interaction in the United States is shaped by an "American Creed.” This creed emphasizes the ideals of liberty, equality, justice, and fair treatment of all people. Myrdal claims that it is the "American Creed" that keeps the diverse melting pot of the United States together. It is the common belief in this creed that enable all people — white, black, rich, poor, male, female, and foreign immigrants alike — with a common cause and are thus able to co-exist as one nation. Wikipedia. Co-exist yes, but marry?

I am very aware of the thousands of marriages between Indian women and British men during the period of the British Raj. I am aware of the history of Anglo-Indians in India. I had many good friends and teachers who were Anglo-Indians and have broken bread with them in their homes. And yes, I am very aware of the meaning of raising children who are of mixed blood in a culture that labels this miscegenation and isolates them. How else can I say it? If you visit my web site you will see a picture of me with my loving wife of 33 years, Dr. Lily Chu, an ethnic Chinese, and our wonderful, ‘mixed blood’ son.

We are about to embark on a historic period in American history as we prepare to select candidates for both the Republican and Democratic Parties. Barack Obama, if he is elected, would become a world leader, a key figure in current global history, and imagine, he is a man of ‘mixed blood’, his mother a white, and his father a black from Africa. We have come a long way since 1967! The road has not been easy. Marriage, Loving style, will seldom occur elsewhere, globally. Social value systems, caste, cultural styles, legal systems will prohibit it. But I am very glad that Mrs. Mildred Loving wrote to Robert F. Kennedy and started a whole new cultural era, one that is exciting to live and love in. A toast to Mildred Loving!

Patang Fever - For the Love Of Kites

Originally published 5/15/08 on Desicritics
Two annas! I clutched the strangely shaped squared cupro-nickel coin in my hand as I stared at the display. Noab Din our cook held my other hand and pointed first at one, then another marvel, each a different color of paper, each slightly different depending on the whims of the kite makers.
I glanced up when I heard the rattling snarl of paper being buffeted by the breeze. Above my head, four kites flew; their strings invisible to me. It seemed that each had a life of its own swooping and descending with dizzying speed only to magically turn and climb into the sky again. Then one kite, a large green one, no longer flew but fell with swooping, sickening arches and caught by the wind was carried away. Under it a horde of children ran, shouting and pushing each other, eager to be the one to catch the falling treasure. I watched as the kite neared the earth, only to be snared by electric lines. Now it hung sadly out of the reach of the children beneath it. Instead of trying to retrieve it they picked up stones and pebbles and threw them at the paper, shouting each time a stone tore the green gauze.

"I will take the red and white one." I pointed at a medium-sized beauty. "I will need a spool and lots of line covered with ground glass." I looked confident."Watch out. Wait until you learn to fly well before you try the glass covered line. You can easily cut your fingers, and then I will be in trouble with mem-sahib."

Childhood memories make us what we are.

What greater joy is there than to stand on the roof of your house and hold a line tied to a soaring kite above you? Basant! What joy. The breeze was good on this January day and it took my kite joyfully aloft. I let out the string too quickly and the kite twirled and sagged, then plummeted toward the earth. As soon as I stopped the reel from spinning the kite again reared upward. It was an early lesson; one can't rush joy and love. Now I let out the string more slowly, hoping to get my kite higher than all my neighbors.

Patrus, my friend stood next to me giving instructions. "Not so high. Others will not like it and cut you down."

Hardly had he spoken when a white, small kite moved toward mine and crossed my string and in a flash my kite was floundering in the sky.

"Bo kata! Patang kat gayi!" The children screamed and began their chase after my descending shame.

I stood dejectedly holding limp string and a spool almost empty. I began to wind up the string, feeling violated, cheated of my glory. "I will buy another and get glass on my string. I will come back and cut that white one down!" There were tears in my eyes.

Basant! Spring in the Punjab. Kite glory in Lahore and kite madness in Taxila.

Maryam Arif's comments in Pakistan Paindabad, (March 26, 2007) "Kat Gayi, Kat Gayi, Patang Kat Gayi" were wonderful to read. I can see her standing on a Lahore rooftop in the evening, holding a kite string and reveling in the joy of being shoulder to shoulder with the male members of her household experiencing the fun of the Basant festival. She asks, "Who owns this festival?" Good question. Perhaps before Partition such a question would never be asked, because Lahore, the city of delights was in and of India. But what about now?

Where did all this high flying madness begin? Who has the ownership rights? Is this a purely Punjabi exercise? Did India fly kites before 1947? Why are conservative Islamists in Pakistan opposed to the fun of kite flying to celebrate the coming of spring?

It was not madness that began it. There was a General Han Hsin in the Han Dynasty in China who, according to written records, flew a kite in 200 B.C. They had lots of bamboo, string and of course, fine silk cloth that was light and strong. Written records show that this Chinese cultural phenomenon was adopted by others over a period of time and kite flying, particularly in the spring was a custom that migrated to Japan, Korea, Burma and eventually to India.

India really picked up on it and incorporated kite flying during Basant into their Hindu religious festivals. Basant was a time to honor deities, wear yellow clothing, eat yellow colored candies and fly kites that would soar high, lift spirits, give even the common poor man a chance to celebrate and have sky fun for a few paisa. Any kind of tamasha was a mechanism to forget for a brief time the drudgery, boredom and pain of living in poverty. Fun! How else could it be put?
"Fun is wrong!" Can you hear the mullahs shouting in Lahore about banning Basant, banning the flying of kites which leads one away from the important and serious considerations of service to Allah, leading Muslims away to the new-found secular freedoms of pagan and Hindu origin, leading young women to hold a string on a kite in Lahore and laugh and shout for joy?

There is a lovely expression we used to use in Michigan. "Oh, go fly a kite!" When a person became too heavy, too dogmatic and would not listen to reason, we would say it. Very interesting! The very act of flying a kite moves one into a new realm, away from the seriousness of one's own arguments and philosophy to feel the tug on the string, hear the rattle of paper as the wind buffets the surface of the kite. There is another use of the expression of kite flying. "Come fly a kite with me!" This was written on a greeting card that lovers could send to each other. The image is beautiful, uplifting and wonderfully sensual, two kites flying side by side, each responding to the winds of love, uncontrollable invisible currents that move their colorful displays.

Sixteen Flies on a Rope

Priginally published 5/14/08 on Desicritics



The white canvas tent was stained the color of mud and clay on its bottom. Touches of greasy hands had left their marks on the fabric which in turn had become magnets for dust. A capricious Nepali child, with charcoal in hand, had drawn two pictures at the back of the tent, perhaps of the owners of it, as the men depicted were too tall and all had strange hats on their heads. But the tent, when pitched under a tall Deodar Cedar looked inviting and spoke of restfulness, an escape from weary muscles, aching joints, a place into which one crawled for quietness, sleep, a place that smelled of often used sleeping bags and socks, almost stiff from use, stuffed into the bottoms that waited for the next hot springs to be washed and pounded a grey-clean.



The tent’s ropes were anchored to stakes pounded into the soil, three on each side, one in the front and one in the back. During the day, the front rope was untied and hung loose, making entry to the tent easier, or if perchance a small tree grew nearby, it could be tied up high enough so that the occupants did not need to bend down to enter. This rope was a light brown color, not from dye but from the stains of a hundred hand-holds, hands that had just finished eating the leg of a Monal Pheasant, hands that minutes earlier had held the blood stained skinning blades now lying on the small folding table with bird specimens in various stages of being skinned and stuffed, hands that had held ink pens that leaked onto fingers that wrote the day’s diary, ‘Jumuson-Nepal, September, 1949.’



These ropes, still wet from the light rain during the night, now sagged from the weight of their wetness, but when the sun shone bright and brilliantly, would once again shrink and resume their tightness.



It was on this rope, tied to a small tree, that visitors arrived daily. When the men had left for a daily hike or hunting expedition to the lake near Pokhara, sparrows landed on the rope, a mother sparrow and a fledgling baby bird nearly the size of its mother, which sat and begged with a wide open yellow mouth to be fed; then waited for her return. Sitting fat bellied on the rope it defecated a white sticky dung ball which stuck to the cord. A small green caterpillar hanging from a gossamer thread swayed back and forth in the breeze until its perigee from some distant branch, brought it to the rope where it rested momentarily, then arched its green slender body and began the long, inching journey the length of the rope all the way to the tent, where it hesitated, then dropped again on a silken thread to be carried away by the breeze to another juicier landing place. The lizard, not more than two inches long, crawled out onto the tent rope and did two little push ups, then sat motionless waiting for flies.



In spite of the open front flaps of the tent the temperature inside the tent became hot and humid and all the odors and aromas on bags, clothing and old boots filled the tent with fetid air. I looked up from my sleeping bag, now half out of the tent, resting on the ground in the shade, and studied the rope above my head. Sixteen flies were now the owners of the fiber highway, and from where I lay in the partial shade they looked like dark knots until one or another flew off, or until without foreplay or warning two mated for a frenzied moment and then remained in a coital bind that held them together until the female flew off, carrying her conjugal partner on her back to land on the tent flap some six feet away. Sixteen! I counted them again and now noted that all sat horizontally on the rope, all facing away from the tent. Some compulsion moved them to wash their ‘hands’ and then stroke their eyes and heads with their front feet as if ridding them of some unseen taint. All were common house flies except for one which was larger, a brilliant shiny blue-green. When this green bot rose in flight, its wings hummed and sang a tune known well to all who use the great out-of-doors as their toilet; all who remember with amazement that these ‘shit flies’, invisible, until fecal deposits graced the floor of the jungle, arrived in aggressive numbers, intent on some ghoulish quest. Fifteen; and one preening green blue-bot fly.



A shadow of a flying vulture passed across the rope and in an instant the flies were gone, leaving the rope alone and lonely, but not for long. The breeze caught the opening of the tent and the sides billowed, pulling the rope taught each time air blew into the tent. The roof canvas now flapped and snapped and dust swirled near the entrance, filling my eyes and blowing sand into my sleeping bag so that I was forced to turn away with eyes tightly closed. Then as abruptly as the wind arrived, it left and there was a still, an almost breathless waiting until the next current found its way to my campsite. A bright red dragonfly, the largest I had ever seen, landed on the tent rope, less than three feet from my eyes. I watched it sitting motionlessly, noticed that its head was in constant motion, its compound eyes staring, first one way, then another, watching for flies. The sun reflected from its wings, yet shone through the diaphanous lace throwing a glow onto the rope beneath it as if igniting the fibers in pink splendor. I blinked and the creature was gone, for an instant, to return with a green fly in its mouth, held with two tiny legs as it consumed its prey. A vulture circled high and the pink dragon was gone with a flip of its wings.



The tent-rope now looked black against the white snows of Annapurna behind it. The black line sliced the massif in two, as if a willful child had drawn a dark crayon across the picture in a travel book. Annapurna! From where I lay it stretched for some thirty miles and soared into the azure sky with its six major peaks, its summit reaching 26,538 feet, the tenth highest mountain in the world. ( Annapurna, in Sanskrit, Goddess of the Harvests; in Hinduism a symbol of fertility and a manifestation, an avatar of Durga.) The late afternoon sun shone against the snow-covered surface, now a slight orange- saffron tint. High, near its summit, strong winds blew a snow plume, like the plumed crest of a snowy egret which wavered and swirled in the late sunset.



I could hear their voices now. “Kaseru. How has the Barkat Zaman* sahib done today? Did you feed him?” Dr. Carl Taylor, the expedition’s physician, strolled into the clearing and headed toward the tent. “Harold. How’s it going, old man?” He reached down to feel my forehead and withdrew his hand, his face slightly frowning. “Did you take the medications I set out for you?”



“Yes,” I replied. “There were sixteen of them on the rope. The blue one got eaten. The baby shit on the line.” The words came tumbling out all at once.



Later I could hear the other members of the Nepal Ornithological Expedition talking as they ate their meal that Kaseru had prepared.



“No. It is really a mystery. Fever’s still at 104 degrees. Dangerously high. Until we get down to the plains, to Butwal or later in Ludhiana and have blood work done, I can only guess. Hemorrhagic fever, perhaps carried by the rats in the place we stayed in Jumosum, or typhus, or some strange parasitic disease.” Doctor Carl sipped the hot coffee in his mug. “Poor chap, hallucinating again. Rectal bleeding. All he could say this evening was, ‘Today about sixteen of them on a rope and the green one was eaten.’ Poor chap.”



“Well,” said Dr. Robert Fleming, the expedition leader, “we may just have to have him carried out on a litter; Pokhara to Tansing, then on to Butwal. That is going to be some feat, carrying him over the Himalayas in a litter.”

Lip Service: The Smile Train

Originally published 5/2/08 in Desicritics
I have only watched the reconstruction surgery for a cleft palate and cleft lip twice, and it remains in my memory as if these occurred just yesterday. During my first time to watch I stood quietly, in awe, with some trepidation, observing my father do reconstructive surgery in the hospital in Taxila, India. I was 7 years old. The year was 1939. My father, Dr. Stuart Bergsma, a surgeon, performed the operation on a lad, about my own age, whose teeth appeared between incomplete upper lips. The surgeon's knife, as it parted the flesh was almost more than I could bear to watch. In an hour or less, the boy's lips were pulled together with sutures and his swollen flesh looked to me like a grotesque Halloween mask. I tried not to look away. He came to see my father two months later and brought some marigold flowers and said thank you. His lips were united, his smile, a mile wide, one of toothsome happiness!

It was a clear day in the Himalayas. White clouds scudded across the sky. The Kali Gandak Valley of Nepal was a marvel to behold, the river water, from where I stood, looked like a silver band of mercury pouring down between black rocks. I stood next to a rock wall as another surgeon prepared to operate. This was the second time I saw this same operation. I was older, and this time I assisted with the operation in a limited way, having scrubbed, by handing the instruments to the doctor as required. The surgeon was Dr. Carl Taylor, a medical missionary of the Presbyterian Church. The operating table; a rough rock wall, suited the purpose well because of its height. A mat had been placed on it and the patient was lying on his back looking up. Villagers crowded nearby to see this amazing event. There was much talking and singing, but when the doctor picked up the scalpel to make the first incision the crown became silent. The town was called Tatopani, a small Himalayan village between Tansing and the border of Nepal near Tibet.

In order to receive the services of Dr. Taylor, the youth, about my own age of eighteen, had hiked with us for six days, as Dr. Taylor and other members of the National Geographic Ornithological Expedition hunted for rare birds. On Sunday, our day of rest, Dr. Taylor performed surgery and held a day-clinic for others who had hiked along behind us.
It is hard to imagine what such an operation does to the life of those who were handicapped with such a noticeable birth defect, what it did for their future employment, education and even prospects of marriage. Many birth defects are fairly well hidden, particularly those which are the result of our genes, height, a tendency to get diabetes, obesity, heart problems and tone deafness. With such problems we face the world, literally. Our face sees other faces and immediate responses are made on the basis of what we observe. Blonde hair, dark skin, long nose, high cheek bones, big ears, baldness, all telegraph messages. A cleft lip, on the other hand, telegraphs messages from the viewer, of abhorrence, sorrow, distaste, even among some viewers, that of the hand of providence, to others of the process of re-birth; the afflicted person bears the stamp of the pain or shame of another life lived less gloriously before.

This is where The Smile Train, India, comes in. In their latest 2008 bulletin on the web this is what they wrote.

"Every year, 35,000 children in India are born with clefts - a gap in the upper lip and/or palate. Though completely treatable, less than half get the treatment they desperately need - only because they are too poor.Without corrective surgery, these children are condemned to a lifetime of isolation and suffering. Taunted and tormented for their disfigurement, they cannot attend school, hold a regular job or get married. Many are even abandoned or killed at birth.
The irony is that a cleft can be completely corrected with a simple surgical procedure that could take as little as 45 minutes and cost as little as Rs. 8,000.That's where The Smile Train comes in. We are the world's largest cleft lip and palate charity. Our overriding goal is make safe and quality treatment of cleft lip and palate accessible to the millions who cannot afford it.
Since 2000, The Smile Train has sponsored over 110,000 safe, quality surgeries across India, totally free of cost."

Think about that, over one hundred thousand children have undergone surgery for cleft lips and palate, free. Compared to the billion people who live in India this may sound like a small number, but in reality it is a huge service to humanity, to the lives of youngsters who would be doomed to a life of torment. Children with such birth defects come from very rich families, very famous families, very, very poor families, all kinds of families. Nature is no respecter of persons. But the Smile Train does not do lip service to this problem; it reaches out with its service in a way that is inspiring. I am sure all of us have dropped a few coins into the hands of some beggars, trying not to see their misery and bent bodies, looking away in pity, or is it abhorrence, as the coin drops. But few of us have done what these Indian surgeons have done to bring life's blessings to so many.

The Smile Train Partner of the Month is a man who for 42 years has helped children who had no place else to turn. A man who could be described as selfless and his name is Doctor Hirji Adenwalla from Kerala, India. For 42 years this surgeon has salvaged lives and has performed 7000 surgeries to help children with cleft lip and cleft palate. He performed these surgeries, this lip service, himself, free of charge. His record of service is truly remarkable. At a recent press conference for Smile Train he said, "The lessons that we learn from human misery are to love...To never forget and to never, never, look away."

Line up all the smiles that are the result of this man's surgery and truly, there is a Smile Train a mile long.