Face Value #1

Immigration at Heathrow airport, UK. Officer asks me where I’m from, what I do, who I do it with, why and where I am in the UK and so on. I explain patiently, giving him along the way, a mini summary of my life, education, dodgy livelihood. He listens impassive, eyes like slits, mouth slightly open. Slowly the ice thaws and something akin to a smile (more a sneer) breaks over his face as he nods his head and stamps my passport.

“Your english is very good, by the way”, he offers. I gather my things and meet his eye saying, “Thank you! So is yours.”

Now, most of us assume that all English people speak the polished English that we colonized folk take for granted in exactly the same way that a lot of people in the world believe that in India, one speaks ‘Indian’ or that people in Scotland speak ‘Scotch’ or that the French can’t think beyond their cheese and wine and that Fosters is the password for entry into Australian culture. That potters are craftsmen - not artistes, that nursing is a ‘noble’ profession for women, that senior citizens are a community of passive consumers, that writers write, actors act, thinkers think and dancers dance … to the exception of all else.

When you think of who you are and what the things are that make you amazed, angered, astounded, saddened, perplexed and reassured, it is likely that you stumble upon areas that are as far away from your chosen profession as chalk is from cheese. Yet, your ability to identify yourself with the largest number of ‘sets’(groups, issues, people) is what makes you rich, what gives you identity, what gives substance to your output. Though your knowledge will never be complete, your intelligence works at the intersection or interference of several other areas of knowledge.