Sunday, June 22, 2008

All Lands are Homelands: a Headscarf Debate


I once knew a woman who longed to return to her country of birth, Canada, even after receiving this scarf as a present. It was intended as a joke, but, overwhelmed as she was by sentiment; she found it whimsical, much to her family’s chagrin. A friend of a friend of a friend of hers had once retrieved it from musty heaps of second-hand items, and so began its long trajectory through the closets and drawers of acquaintances and strangers, until it eventually found its way into her most secluded stash of usable items which lay safe and untouched.

To my knowledge, she never did wear the scarf, being far too fashion-conscious to do so. I on the other hand was willing to tie it around my brow and neck, in pursuit of an elegant Moslem headscarf style avant la lettre, and pose as an eager listener while she recited the poem that had become her favorite rallying cry for return to one's homeland: this excerpt from Scotland’s Sir Walter Scott’s The Lay of the Last Minstrel:

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd,
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd,
From wandering on a foreign strand!

I had learned at an early age to try and make her laugh, but not even my absurd posturing in an irreverent headdress could mask the grim shift in tone of this recitation, challenging to any listener within the first sixteen lines:

If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonor'd, and unsung.

I understood that profound ties were being put to the test with these words, uttered in the original version not by the last Mohican but by ‘the last Minstrel.’ Sure enough, a celebratory tone enters this early ode to patria:

Not scorn'd like me! to Branksome Hall
The Minstrels came at festive call;
Trooping they came, from near and far
The jovial priests of mirth and war;
Alike for feast and fight prepar'd,
Battle and banquet both they shar'd.
Of late, before each martial clan,
They blew their death-note in the van,
But now, for every merry mate,
Rose the portcullis' iron grate;
They sound the pipe, they strike the string,
They dance, they revel, and they sing,
Till the rude turrets shake and ring.

More colourful details are supplied on the intimate mingling of the revelers, and, while she would have read those in private and blushed in public, anyone fishing for the core idea of home could skip over the rest. She thought she longed for Canada, when in fact her poignancy led her back to the people who had raised her on the nectar of homesickness, the people who harked back to their own native land, Scotland.

The woman began reciting these verses like a sermon. On gentler days, the verses were chanted like a prayer. Everyone knew that she expected you to eventually agree with the idea. No one could foresee that she would pick up and go home, and, having arrived, perhaps more upset by the first verse than anyone ever knew, would take her own life. Everyone carried on; we all learned the poem and longed for the homelands of all mothers; we swapped stories about the woman's other peeves: bullying in politics and society; the drab and claustrophobic landscapes in local villages, all built with money by the new post-war bully who bothered her the most. This could explain why she was not amused by the scarf.

I don't anticipate being able to uncover details on the origins of the scarf – the tags with shredded corners lost almost all faded print long ago. If you take a closer look at the scarf, you will see (deliberate) Anglo-misspellings of the French word ‘oui,’ dating this probable souvenir item to a time in Canada’s history when the French language was still struggling for recognition.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Let me count the ways



When I first caught sight of it, the sign was tacked to a wall in a shady corridor of the Municipal Judicial Authorities building in Kandy, கண்டி, a Sri Lankan mountain town. The three alphabets were graceful together; the colors enhanced by age. The message seemed either absolutely effective (the setting couldn’t have been quieter) or perfectly located, like a stage direction conveying a desired atmosphere which had been attained long ago.

A third possibility was to read it as a confirmation or announcement: This is silence, or as close to it as you’ll get for the time being. We walked into the building before office hours began, just passing by the Judge’s office for reasons which had remained unexplained, slowing down after a pre-dawn rush to the Buddhist Temple in Kandy where the faithful protect a tooth relic from the Buddha himself.

The Judge, the kindest person you could ever hope to meet, had picked me up at the guesthouse and run alongside of me in his loose sandals to the temple. He did this as a favor to his sister, a close family friend of a friend of mine in Colombo, but still, I had anticipated an element of formality in the temple expedition: a dignified stroll at the end of the night, slipping into the temple by a narrow entryway where religious supervisors would screen visitors with practiced looks.

Instead, the Judge rushed up to the guesthouse and bumped into the edge of the wooden porch several times as he greeted me, his crisp, white shirt contrasting with dark curly hair which even careful grooming with coconut oil, evident in the gleaming parallel locks, could not prevent from tumbling onto his forehead and cheek. In the dim light he looked like a schoolboy, ready for anything.

We said Must run! simultaneously and bounded across the garden lawn, arriving nevertheless too late at the temple, where the staff presumably recognized the Judge and allowed us to rush along the corridor as quietly as possible, only to reach the inner chamber housing the tooth relic just as the golden casket was again being sealed, leaving us to share this moment of disappointment with the smiling priests still bent over the treasure.

Which brings me to the fourth possible interpretation of the sign – which I fell in love with at first sight – hanging on the wall when we entered the Municipal building. Option #4 was conveyed by the figure of the apologetic man, a respected figure in this town who probably seldom failed in the execution of his duties. He shrugged just once and showed me inside without saying a word, the look of boyish anticipation gone from his face. As early as it was, we were warm from our exertions, ready for the cool interior, but the fine air seemed to cover the scene with a tinge of sadness rather than relief. The Judge padded around his office, with less urgency now, opening and shutting drawers and cupboards. I understood that this was a time for no conversation. I didn’t know how his relationship with his sister, his stature as a Judge, his religious convictions and relationship with the caretakers of this most sacred of sites were intertwined and how they all weighed in the balance.

I busied myself with a long, close stare at the sign. (This must have been when without a sound he slipped a small object into his pocket, producing it much later in the morning when he finally smiled widely again and opened his hand and peeled back tissue paper, which no longer crackled in the considerable heat, to reveal a small carved elephant, the beast central to the magnificent annual Perahera procession which appears to go on in spite of all extenuating circumstances) The Judge emerged, closed his office door and noted my focus on the wall, whereupon he offered to give me the sign without the slightest hesitation. They wouldn’t miss it in this quiet place, he assured me.

Fortunately I usually carried then as I do now a protective folder for flat, loose sheets of paper or objects, and I was able to slip the flaky cardboard rectangle into a cool, dry case for transport in my cotton shoulder bag. This was not the first time that I was able to make off with a sign.