Nidhi Patel Final Project, Culture Shock Thinking about the life Ive lived so far makes me wonder

about the complexity, yet easiness Ive dealt with being an Indian-born American, if that makes any sense. Being born in a city called Surat, India and growing up there for about 9 years, I wonder many times about how different a relationship with life would have been if I was still living in India, instead of here in North Jersey. I have always experienced differentiations of household, culture, work-life, and domestic tasks based on gender not only in my own house, but also in contemporary society overall. Although the specifics of these differences vary based on location (India or here), the broader content of female and male dominated situations remains the same. America has, in my opinion, become modernized in the sense that it allows women to grow and advance in different aspects of life: women having children and being workaholics, women holding higher positions of authority in companies. Many of the cries about feminism such as gender equality are being heard. On the other side, it is not a common thing to hear of women empowerment programs or organizations in India even though women artists have tried to challenge the social norms of the country in their work. By understanding the women activism that is taking place in India in contemporary times, I try to explore how this activism has or is paving the way for practical change and entrepreneurial opportunities for women. While half of Indian women artists depict the new reality of an Indian woman in contemporary society in their work, the other half of Indian women artists, in their art, expose different ways of making a social impact through their entrepreneurial efforts. There are important similarities, yet striking differences between what my life is right now and what it would have been if I were still living in Surat in terms of lifestyle, work environment, mentality, tradition, freedom, and domestic life expectations. Through this exploration, I may be able to better understand my own place of belonging and my sense of identity; because I have roots in both India and America, I feel that I am a construct of different cultures, different geographic locations of residency, environments, and experiences. India, with over 1.21 billion people, has a variety of languages, religions, dance styles, music, food, and traditional customs that vary from place to place. The culture, especially, is a mixture of diverse sub-cultures and traditions that vary all over the Indian subcontinent.

Adding to the diversity in sub-cultures and traditions within the country, India is also rising as a global player in the world economy with jobs from the United States being outsourced to India, increase in foreign trade, and increase in foreign investments. Heck, this tread is so popular that American entertainment included a TV series called Outsourced where an American novelty companys manager is portrayed as living in India and operating a call center employing Indian workers in Mumbai, India. This type of globalization is both challenging and changing the social and cultural norms of both men and women, making them more modern. Globalization has had social implications for Indian families: an increased access to televisions and Internet, achieving dreams, going to college and living away from home at a younger age than before, increased opportunities for salaried work and employment.
1

Specifically, Indian women living in

India feel more empowered with education and financial security through job participation.2 Their style of dressing has also changed from more traditional clothes like the saree and salwar kameez to more indo-western and western clothes, as they are being accepted in society and the new work environment. In addition, Indian women have been able to exercise their right of choosing a partner in marriage as opposed to the older way of being arranged to a partner by the womens families, especially parents. This has also had an effect of mixed, interracial marriages beyond the caste system for Indian women living in countries like the United States. Divorce is not a common idea for Indian women; only about 1 out of every 100 marriages ends up in divorce in India3. Over last 30 years, there has been an increased emergence of self-conscious female artists who are challenging these social norms as evidenced by a contemporary art exhibition that took place in 2007 called Tiger by the Tail! Women Artists of India Transforming Culture.4 Jacob S. Potofsky, professor of Sociology and director of the Women Studies Research Center that made this exhibition possible, noted an important difference between what feminism in United States means versus what it means in India. Feminism in the United States means finding equality in rights, opportunity, and pay while feminism in India is about the social good.

1 2 3 4

Social, Cultural, and Economic Impact of Globalization in India Impact of Globalization for Indian Women Divorce rate in India Tiger by the Tail

The artists who I have chosen to explore further here have made contributions to the Indian art world; they explore the social and cultural norms explained above in their work while also paving the way for feminism or the social good for the people in their societies and communities. One extremely interesting artist is Navtoj Altaf who is currently living and working in Mumbai, India. She created a series of interactive projects for the people living in Indian villages of central India like Bastar. They revolve around the design and creation of water pump sites through The Hand Pumps Project and childrens temples called Pilla Gudis that help improve living conditions for the people in the village. Her goal is to make art more meaningful. She worked with craftspeople and tribal, Adivasi artists to bring about a collaborative change.

Navtoj Altaf, The Hands Pump Project, Bastar

In the village of Bastar, the handpump is a site of frequent visits, about 10-15 times a day, for women, children, village elders, and stray dogs. The Hand Pumps Project is Altafs creative way to design and transform the water pump sites in villages not only to create drainage and improve hygienic conditions for the people but also to help avoid back problems for the women who constantly visit the site for water supply. The women in the villages do not have running water in their houses for domestic use, and therefore, they carry vessels to the water pump site and fill them up. They place the vessel on a bent leg to fill it up and then lift it to their head to carry it back home. Over time, this bent leg posture harms their back. Throughout this project, shelves were created so the women can place their vessels on them while filling up water. Overall, the project beautifies the village and its surroundings where men, women, and children come to get water so they can fulfill everyday functions of life like cooking, using the bathroom, taking a shower. 5 More so, the Pilla Gudis Project also tries to improve the social conditions of the children in the village. The children had no space where they could go to play or engage in interactive activities after school hours. Altaf realized that this space could take the form of a temple; she believed that children could be encouraged to relate with community members and learn about oral and artistic traditions of their village. This is especially important at a time where India is transforming culturally and the attitudes of the growing middle and upper class is dominating the culture of the country. Mainstream education is one mode that

Navtoj Altaf

neutralizes cultural differences in India, but another way, according to Altaf, is through interaction with each other where they learn to think about ways in which they can appreciate differences and similarities. This interaction can open their minds to appreciating the transformation of the nation.

Navtoj Altaf, Pilla Gudis Project

Seven tribal women worked with Altaf to install art encircling the water handpump for added aesthetic for the village inhabitants and to organize workshops at the Pilla Gudis site. This collaboration also signifies that there is no rural and urban split when it comes to pursuing practical change for the community; artists from within and outside Bastar, both old and young, helped with these projects. Alftas goal was to use these public sites as ways of inviting social and cultural volunteers, college teachers, students, workers, peasants, and others to participate and share their experiences of belonging to different cultural and economic backgrounds. She desired to use the sites to also make the people of the village and its surroundings as interventionists in their own environment. 6 Another artist who considers feminine activism in her works to make way for practical change for women is Nalini Malani. She was born in Karachi, Pakistan and she sought refuge in a newly independent India after the Partition of India. On August 14 and 15, 1947, India

Navtoj Altaf

was no longer under the British control and was divided into three parts based on religious demographics. Political unrest was created as millions of people were displaced and an atmosphere of mutual hostility and suspicious was created between Indian and Pakistan. Through this experience, she tried to understand her identity and who she really was. This experience also allowed her to understand more deeply a womans positions in Indian society after this political turbulence and be able to accurately depict this in her work. 7 In the form of a visual narrative through ephemeral wall drawing, installation, shadow play, multi projection works and theatre, she likes to invite her viewer into the space and initiate a dialogue.8 For example, the subject of her video installation titled Memory: Record/Erase is derived from a story written by Bertolt Brecht where the men and women are created and then washed out of existence. This is represented by paint dripping down the screen or being erased. The painter is seen in the video painting these drawings on the screen slowly and the viewer has the feeling that he or she is watching over the painters shoulders. The story conveyed through this installation is that of a widowed woman who is disguised as a man in order to get a job in a factory that her dead husband was promised. She eventually loses her job to a man after her reality is discovered. Clearly, women in India today are able to get jobs not just in factories but also in upper management of companies but because of this exhibition, the viewer is able to reconsider the traditions and identity of India as a whole and to look at the entire dimension of changing reality for women.

7 8

Brown University - Tradition, Trauma, Transformation Nalini Malani Biography

Nalini Malani, Memory: Record/Erase, Animation Video, 10 minutes, looped, sound, 1996

In an interview, Malani noted that she seduces her viewer into her video work with the use of illuminating light on the image and once her viewer in engaged and fascinated, she starts to make political quips and statements in her structures. The statement that she uses to summarize the intent behind her work is that We have been through a time of intellectual and political debilitation in the past 15 years in India. Civil society is getting somewhat unhinged. We have to find strategies and subterfuges to address issues. Another work by Malani that she uses to engage in socio-political issues of women of India is titled Mother India: Transactions in the Construction of Pain. She commented that the lowly status of women is the one of the biggest problems of India after the caste system. Women in India take on so many different forms and metaphors: a goddess, symbol of Motherland, or the dirt beneath the male foot. As mentioned earlier, globalization has led the Indian society to become increasingly capitalistic and consumer-oriented, yet the females are misused in times of political strife or war as this five-projector installation portrays. During the 1947 violence, women from both Pakistan and India were abducted and raped.9 Therefore, in this work, Malani depicts womens bodies as metaphors of the nation; their bodies bore the signs of their possession by the enemy. An essay titled Language and Body: Transactions in the Construction of Pain written by sociologist Venna Das also influenced this work. Das said, The Partition led to states of mind where women wove a membrane of silence. Women did not articulate a speech to express the experiences and trauma they suffered during the Partition; they could not form a dialogue about this abject object.10 The physical and mental scarring on the bodies of the women is transformed into visual language in Malanis work.

Interview with Malani Language and Body: Transactions in the Construction of Pain

10

Nalini Malani, Mother India:Transactions in the Construction of Pain Video Installation , 5 Projections, 5 1/2 mins, 2005

Through research, I came across North African born artist Mona Kamal who is extraordinary and very personal in her artwork. Her work is about large multi-media installations, which she uses to understand her migratory history as she has roots in India, Pakistan, and Canada. She is a part of The South Asian Womens Creative Collective (SAWCC), which is the first feminist South Asian arts-based organization that was started in New York City. SAWCC is a non-profit outreach program, organization, and space of support and community for over 500 South Asian women artists and writers to connect with each other and their societies in creative ways.11 Mona Kamals work recognizes ones struggle or journey in trying to find an identity within the current locale of everyday life. Mona uses old family photographs, letters, landscapes or places to figure out her story of migration and connect to the culture that she has been a part of in different countries with her familys personal history and roots. One of her absolutely phenomenal work is a series of three panels titled Self Portrait, which was completed in 2011. With this panel, she tried to validate herself and her being by engraving her name repeatedly in a language that she cannot either read or write (Urdu).

11

History of SAWCC

This is powerful because it is not like the traditional self-portrait of the artist and her face or body to validate their position in society or in her family. [http://monakamal.com/artwork/2091938_Self_Portrait.html] One of my favorites from her recent collection is called Donning because it speaks directly of the transition that I experienced in cultures and lifestyles in the Western world. This video installation asks an important question: how do you identify yourself when you are a blend of a myriad of backgrounds and traditions? Her changing of clothes throughout the video exemplifies the changing of lifestyles and traditions that she has been through thus far in life. It paints a very subtle picture of her adapting to different ways of life but emotes a distinct acceptance of the very same cultures. [http://monakamal.com/artwork/2093389_Donning.html] I feel that an immigrant feels a deep and important sense of need to find a space of belonging because like Mona believes, migration leads to a loss of the foundation of which one identifies themselves. Without this sense of belonging, we feel lost with ourselves and out of touch with our past history. Adapting to a new society with a new cultural environment and a new set of expectations is hard without this basic foundation. As the saying goes, Never forget where you came from. All of these Indian artists have created a career for themselves by acting independently and professionally. This, in itself, is a powerful position to hold in Indian society because although the culture of India is consenting to newer roles of women due to reasons like globalization, traditional family structures and expectations are still powerful. If I was still living in India, I might not have the luxury to work while pursing a full-time college career or own my car to be able to be independent. As discussed in our class lectures, it is not true that there is more equality for women in the United States just because they do not have to do what other women in other countries like Indian have to do or vise versa. Equality in America is like equality in India as females are able to define their own place in the conventions of contemporary society. The major difference that I would make between the two countries is that this equality and benefits of globalization discussed above are only

available to a small percentage of middle-class, educated women in India. There are still extreme cases of poverty for women and many have to adhere to strict submissive roles of housewives to their husbands. There is also a strict hierarchical structure in India that is based on class, wealth, and power that makes it hard for society to completely accept a womans new role in the workforce.12 A womans decision to be employed outside the home is looked upon as slightly inappropriate and slightly dangerous to her chastity and womanly virtue. Making investment is the job of the husband or the male authoritative figure in the house. Of course, women have gained more access to money and the leisure of spending their income on things they need and want, but the permission of the husband is necessary in most of the cases.13 The ironic part is that the lifestyles portrayed and induced by the media make women believe that times are changing. Their attitudes bring change, having fun, travel, enjoyment, eat out, shop all this has a part in changing the culture of India in the sense that the woman has a say in who she can marry and how she wishes to enjoy her free time or what career she wants to pursue. Its the family responsibilities and societal expectations that confuse women; their lives became a construct of different expectations just as my life has become a construct of different expectations and cultures. Allowed to have an interracial marriage, invest my own income, make my own decisions, independent of those I love and respect, are all things that I have been given access to here in the USA. However I dont believe I would be allowed the same freedom if I were still living in the part of India where my family is from. On one side is the paradigm for women where they are subjected to the traditional conformities of society, but on the other hand, there is a contemporary culture that is ushering in the new Indian women, who overcome those very conformities and are creating a new identity for themselves. The women artists discussed above all draw on their heritage and the contradictions that come with it, but as they move along, they are marking their own places in a rapidly changing society.

12 13

Women Employment in India Interview with grandparents

10

REFERENCES
Scholte, Jan Aart (2000), Globalization: A Critical Introduction (New York: St. Martin's)
1 Singh,

Prem. "Social, Cultural and Economic Impact of Globalization in India." Outlook Money. N.p., 30/07/2008. Web. 1 Dec 2011. <http://premsingh.hubpages.com/hub/ImpactofglobalizationonIndianculture>. Singh, Preeti. " IMPACT OF GLOBALIZATION ON INDIAN WOMEN ." Womens' Studies Centre , n. d. Web. 6 Dec. 2011. <http://www.wscpedia.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=73:impact-of-globalization-on-indian-women&Itemid=4>.
2 3

Divorce Rate In India. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Dec 2011. <http://www.divorcerate.org/divorce-rate-in-india.html>.

Tiger by the Tail! Women Artists of India Transforming Culture." Contemporary Indian art addresses issues of feminism, gender and sexuality. Kniznick Gallery, Womens Studies Research Center and Mildred Lee Gallery, Rose Art Museum, 01/08/2007. Web. 6 Dec 2011. <http://www.divorcerate.org/divorce-rate-in-india.html>.
4 5

"Navtoj Altaf." . N.p., 10/02/2010. Web. 6 Dec 2011. <http://www.copperwiki.org/index.php/Navtoj_Altaf>.

7Baum,

Deobrah. "Tradition, Trauma, Transformation: Representations of Women." At the Bell Gallery . n. page. Print. <http://news.brown.edu/pressreleases/2011/03/india>.
8

"Nalini Malani Biography ." . N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Dec 2011. <http://www.nalinimalani.com/bio.htm>. Malani, Nalini.Interview. 1998.

10 Language

and Body: Transactions in the Construction of Pain by the sociologist Veena Das appears in Social Suffering edited by Arthur Kleinman, Veena Das, MargaretLlock. Published by Oxford University Press India 1998
11 "History 12"Women

." South Asian Women's Creative Collective. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Dec 2011. <http://www.sawcc.org/about/history/>.

Employment in India ." Azad India Foundation. (2010): n. page. Print. <http://azadindia.org/social-issues/WomenEmployment.html>.
13Patel,

. Personal Interview. 25/11/2011.

11