Reality: July 6th, 2008
I went for a walk with my Iranian housemate to a pond that’s on my way home from Warwick. My housemate bought pita bread to feed the ducks but when we reached the pond, I was dismayed to see no ducks anywhere.
“Just wait one second, ok? Watch, I’ll drop this piece in the water and… “ One duck paddles towards us out of nowhere. My housemate throws a few more pieces. I’m standing a little further back so part of the pond is concealed by tall reeds. He motions me forward and as I peak over the reeds, I literally see sixty different ducks, geese, and Canadian geese rapidly paddling towards us. At first it’s cute, and I’m thoroughly excited about feeding the baby ducks, but soon the entire shoreline is covered in birds hissing, biting and flapping each other. A few more pieces of pita in the water and they drop all inhibitions and start jumping out of the water.
I have a few truly bizarre fears, which oddly, are all water-related. Bull sharks, lone barracudas, Canadian geese… and a few more. The hissing geese are getting far too close for comfort and it’s making terribly anxious so I tug on my housemate’s sleeve to get moving. We turnaround to continue our walk but there is a line of Canadian geese marching straight towards us on the towpath. My housemate does not quite understand my fear of Canadian geese and won’t let me walk off of the side path in case I muddy my shoes. I was so worried about walking through the oncoming geese herd that I forgot to drop the bread in my hand and the geese’s necks swatted me as their gaping mouths lunged towards my hand. Probably the worst 30 seconds of my Coventry experience.
The conversation between my housemate and I somewhat rectified the bird attack. He was talking about his experience after coming here. In Iran, he was a professor, who had published two books, and started a new college with some colleagues. The change in government forced him to shut down the college and also made it unsafe for him to be in Iran. He left for England, but unfortunately, upon arrival, his specialty in nuclear physics and electrical engineering meant he was not allowed to continue working in any related professions.
He had to get a new masters, and he chose something computer related. He now works in the Warwick IT department answering students and staff questions about their computer problems and making survival wages. “This country just does not want to use my talent,” he said.
I would hear this line many more times throughout the course of the day.
I arrived home, made lunch, and began typing up my interview with Professor de Genova as I waited for my next interview. One hour later, my interviewee arrives and I’m surprised to see a first generation Delhite wearing what seemed to be a blues band outfit.
As we talked, it became clear to me that this would be a successful immigrant interview in Coventry. While I had had many expert interviews, the immigrant interviews totaled three at this point and to me, they were pretty empty of content. This man talked so much, and was able to inform me of a South Asian world I was completely unaware of (to my betterment I suppose).
He too made a similar complaint about talent unused. “Why should I pay 30,000 quid in taxes? What did this government ever do to help me? It just put up barriers and bureaucracy to make sure that I have as difficult as time to be successful”.
My interviewee is a first generation immigrant, but acts like a third generation immigrant. He wants to break all the rules, get what he believes he automatically deserves, but not do the time necessary to achieve that. He wants to be a famous automotive designer, bigger than Ferrari, and win a Grammy for playing the blues ( he’s in a band, and was once a heavy metal guitarist in Goa). He’s thirty years old, has no savings, no wife, no real worries except what will he spend his money on the next week, is full of utterly fanciful goals- more so since he dropped out of college- and truly no solid agenda for achieving his dreams.
Despite this, he had a keen eye for the nuances of British culture, South Asian integration and Indian power. I was really pleased with the interview. Or maybe, I was pleased with someone finally opening up. Coventry may just end up rivaling my Paris and Gravesend interviews.
As we talked, I mentally began to compare him to my neighbor, a tenant of Junita and now good friend, who’s also straight from Delhi and doing his college education in England. His parents are UN diplomats in Burma and he gets to travel around the world. He loves to body build and drive fast cars. When I asked him about his social sphere, he had hardly any Indian friends. He said, ‘Everyone here is so old-school. I have nothing to talk about with them. I would rather be friends with a Spaniard than an Indian here’. Which is like what my current interviewee was saying. “Indians here don’t understand India there. They recreate an India that doesn’t exist and then are shocked when they bring back a wife from India who ends up being more of a hellion then they are.’ But other more relevant things to my research are that they can’t integrate with others because they are obsessing with creating a world they vaguely remember or as Salman Rushdie adequately said, pine over an ‘imaginary homeland’. This outdated concept of preserving an India abroad, that is more Indian that India, is also a barrier.
To drive the point further, both the Delhites are Punjabi’s and neither speaks the language.
But returning to the moment, at my interviewee’s request, I listened to some of the music he recorded with his past bands which were not bad at all. He even had an original rock demo sung in Hindi. At his prodding, I agreed to go out friends to a pub later that night with a few of his friends. ‘It couldn’t hurt’, I thought, ‘I haven’t been out for a while’.
Little did I know this outing would establish an endless series of immigrant interviews and drama for the rest of my trip.
Before he left, I listened to some of the music he recorded and at his prodding, agreed to go out friends to a pub later that night with a few of his friends. ‘It couldn’t hurt’, I thought, ‘I haven’t been out for a while’.
Little did I know this outing would establish an endless series of immigrant interviews and drama for the rest of my trip.
