India Inc
The Arrival
The airport hasn’t been built yet. There’s a spindled sleepiness to its shape, the plane parked haphazard between half-filled bags of concrete, grey insides welded together. Shovels spill like spears from leviathan masses - as if Captain Abe said oh sod it boys, give it your best shot and let’s get back onshore - looming in the bright orange light. I like it. Like the fact it is not built, I’m used to that, grew up amongst cement bags and plaster dust, it gives the place a homey feel, an unreal feel, as if I am slipping back into my past, as if we are the first to tread on some far off planet with unfriendly air. Breathe out, breathe in, feel the water touch my tongue. Noses are no good here. All the while we swim through the steam. It falls; drip drip dripping through my clothes, slithers between shoulder blades, trails in a squirming trickle to mid thigh, wraps round an ankle with snakish shudder. We clamber over piles of brick and bags of tumbled citrine stones, stumble across uneven ground, follow the cardboard arrows to the arrivals lounge, blink ourselves sober in the fluorescent light.
Uneven concrete floor with coir mats designates where we’re meant to stand, cathedral height white walls, steel beams supporting the whole. A tiny white clock some twenty foot above us points to dreamtime. On the other side of a narrow black tape I can see bags being pulled off the conveyor by white clad porters who fling them into a jumbled heap. No black suitcase with a splash of purple paint on the side yet though…
…we’ve been in the queue at customs for nearly an hour now. It’s not a long queue. Only our plane to see to but there’s only one desk open and a lot of forms to check. Luckily the door to the ladies is nearby; I’ve drunk nearly a litre of water between getting off the plane and now. God I’d sell my soul for a cigarette. F seems quite happy chewing the nicotine gum I’d packed for the flight but that stuff’s not for me, I tried it 50 minutes out of Gatwick, it tasted like I’d poured boiling water on a packet of Marlboro and then sucked the juice out of the stubs. Since then, whenever it’s got too bad I’ve slugged back some whiskey and held it in my mouth till it burnt the want away but now I crave real smoke.
On either side of us, people are complaining loudly about how long it takes “them” to process a passport. I wish they’d shut their gobs. “Them are probably as tired as we are, it’s late at night or early in the morning, either way we should all be asleep. I’d like to see “us” do the same sodding job in an unfamiliar tongue.
The place is swarming with soldiers. Two were waiting at the foot of the stairs when we got off the plane, two at the door to the arrival lounge, two by the baggage pick-up, more grouped around the exit sign at the faraway end of the hall. They’ve all got guns. Big guns. Really big guns. The ones at the exit are carrying what look like machine guns. It’s making me feel guilty and I haven’t even done anything yet. Although strictly speaking, my passport isn’t really in my name. Well it is, but it’s my birth certificate name and the rest of my ID (bank cards) is in my everyday name. What if they ask me for more ID to process the embarkation card? F wouldn’t be much help. In order to prove that I really am who I say I am and not a terrorist then he’d have to provide ID and not only does he hold a French passport (which doesn’t count) but his passport’s in a different name from his real name too. Maybe we should just become terrorists – I’ve heard that getting the false passport is the trickiest bit and as a career choice it would definitely be taken more seriously than admitting that I’m a graphic designer.
Buggerit mum was right. She told me to sort this out and I didn’t. I was going to when passport ran out next August, but truth to tell, I like my birth certificate name more than I like my real name. It flows better with my forenames and even though I don’t sign it often my signature is better when I use it. Of course I can’t change everything back to my birth certificate name because then I’ll have a different name to mum, dad and herebe and I wouldn’t want that; but vanity aside, I like having this link to my past – like having the same name as Grandpa T, it’s an acknowledgement of his existence. Anglicising it makes him less then he was. Names, proper names, are important. They have power. They strip us down. Bare us to the bone (and the scorn) make us who we are, who we’ve been, what we will become. But right now, with a distinctly un-English name on my passport, in an airport on a Foreign Office high alert – I’m scared. Midnight Express is running through my brain, in shades of blue and grey. “Call the British Consul” on the tip of my tongue (though fat lot of good they do, I’ve read their site. One visit a month and that’s about it). I can see the phrase fly over my shoulder towards F’s disbelieving face as I’m carted off between these beige clad officials with their shiny brass buttons and scarily big guns, anticipate the terror, feel the white gloves on my skin.
We’re almost at the front of the queue. They stop you, at a yellow line and gesture you forward one at a time to stand in the narrow passage formed by two white concrete desks. You can’t see the people behind them, the counters are so high. There are soldiers here too. Two at each side. Watching closely as the passports are stamped, gun barrels peering out over their shoulders.
Though no-one else has done so, even those I knew were travelling together, when the time comes, I’m walking up with F. I grab his hand and squeeze it tight. I’m tired that’s all. We’ve been travelling now for 24 hours straight. The fact that dad was thrown into a cell at gunpoint when he worked in Bombay has nothing whatsoever to do with it. They told him that life here was worth 400 rupees. I wish we’d cashed those travellers’ cheques.
They checked F’s passport first, barely glanced at it before they hand it back. I guess they like the French more than the English and from the way the rest of the queue has behaved I can’t say I blame them. I’ll be searching for a new nationality when I get back.
Then it was my turn. There are 2 men sitting below the counter. I say below because they sit so low that you can only see the top of their heads. One of them was quite young, the other an old man in vivid white. They peered at me and then at my picture, keyed in some details in the machine, read slowly through the embarkation card, looked at me again, flicked slowly through the pages of my passport- and then they stamped.
I couldn’t help it, as soon as the stamp went down; I laugh out loud “I’ve had my passport stamped!” In viridian ink. Bright green ink with swirls and whirls and dates and the scrolls of a strange alphabet. I don’t want a new passport now. Ten years come August I’ve had this one and this is my first stamp. Bugger the EU and their open borders that take all the fun out of travel.
My smile has hit each ear and threatens to meet round the back of my head. “Thank you” I say as they hand the passport back. They both look up, surprised. “You’re welcome” said the old man with a smile.
Another hour spent waiting at baggage reclaim. This is not a busy airport but I suspect, from the wait between one load of luggage and the next, that there is only one trolley to carry the bags from the plane. Whatever the reason, there aren’t many of us left standing here. The cabin crew long since wandered off with a sardonic “good luck”, the bastards. Finally there it is. The very last bag to come through that tattered curtain. Our old black case, with the purple paint splash from when we used it as a ladder to paint the bedroom for mum’s visit all those years ago.
“Cigarette” says F and drags me off towards the exit…
I know. This is the second post about India and we aren’t out of the airport yet. It won’t all be in quite so much detail. But the first few days were so strange, so much of a culture shock that I did write quite a bit about it. Think yourselves lucky - you’re getting the abridged version.
February 6th, 2007 at 4:38 am
i’d actually like to read the unabridged version. There are worlds in minutiae.
Are you saying graphic designers get to change their name? Is it like a nom de photoshop or something?
I find it interesting that you look to a person’s name as defining their inescapable personal or familial history. I feel like names are a random juxtaposition of syllables that are interpreted according to the varying personal phonetic aesthetics of the person hearing them. And i hate the idea of being in any way defined by a name. Which might explain why i’ve changed my pseudonym almost as often as my CSS. Maybe i just have identity issues
I’m looking forward to Taxi Ride (part 1)
February 6th, 2007 at 9:05 am
Anyone who reads your prose would consider themslevels lucky, or they’d be illiterate buffoons.
My passport has the wrong name, too. Nothing so interesting as familial history or identity significance; the idiots at the American passport office can’t spell and there’s a typo in my surname. Bastards wouldn’t give me a new one, either, even though it was blatantly their fault. It’s been causing me no end of headaches for 8 years.
February 7th, 2007 at 4:35 am
shades of me applying for a copy of small person’s birth cert - having since divorced and gone back to my birth name (which wasn’t even the maiden name on the original birth cert). it was all complicated when i got married too as my own birth cert had a different name to my passport…
and i am LOVING the tales of India. more please.
February 7th, 2007 at 5:20 am
I can’t change everything back to my birth certificate name because then I’ll have a different name to mum, dad and herebe and I wouldn’t want that…
Changed it to the name I’ve been using for the last 3 decades. You might think that its a really important link to the past and that it’s an acknowledgment of Grandpa T’s existence but its not really. It’s a bloody identity dividing experience. I felt like a load of mythologising shite had been lifted off my shoulders when I was finally HerebeJ instead of Herebeski - I was the person I’d been for three decades rather than a split identity. We know that G T existed and a little of what he went through and that’s enough. If you want to acknowledge him call your first born Teofilijis. If I get there first, I’m going to. Teofilijis James Herebe. The first.
Great prose sis. Get your finger out and write a sodding book. You were always a better writer than me. I’m just a stubborn cuss.
February 7th, 2007 at 5:51 am
Bering…If I put up the unabridged version then I’d be typing from now till next Christmas - there are pages and pages of the stuff. But I’ll not worry so much about what bits I consider “safe” to type in future, either in terms of length or content.
Nom de photoshop - I love it plus it means that I get to make my name look ten years younger too!
The name thing. This is where typing up stream of consciousness stuff makes you think…because I’d never really considered what my feelings about my name were before you raised the point, just that I had feelings about it.
Having thought about it. Yes I do feel that my name defines my personal and familial history. I don’t see that as being inescapable though, at least not if you’re defining inescapable as being something which constrains your potential to be yourself. I haven’t always felt that way, I spent years absolutely hating my first name. It wasn’t hip or trendy, it couldn’t be shortened to something which was, and very few people ever pronounce it right (it’s pronounced hel-ain-a and not helen-a although you’d be surprised at the number of people who seem to think it’s a really weird spelling of Linda) but as I’ve got older I’ve grown into it and love it.
Maybe it’s because my name is not original to me - Helena is the name of my Latvian Great-grandmother (Grandpa T’s mum), my middle name I recently discovered is the same as a great-great uncle’s (which my mum didn’t know when she chose it, where she got it from I have absolutely no idea). So if you like I’m a melange of people. Of course we all are when it comes down to genetics and DNA but I feel my name is being part of my strength, my backbone if you like. Strength of knowing where I come from, who I come from. Despite spending my teenage years hating my first name, I’ve always felt like the generations of my family are behind me (going right back to the one in the cave waving a spear)and it gives me something that I can draw from whenever I need to, it makes me feel that I have a crowd of people on my side and cheering me on. They survived, they achieved, they created and therefore so can I. I don’t feel that my name defines “me” but I do feel that I am defined by my name.
CB. Thank you so much! Mind you, you haven’t read the red wine blogs (they’re in a separate folder on my hard drive never to be posted!). The whole passport thing is a worry and causes no end of problems. F’s different passport name is cos of the same sort of reason as your’s - the number of planes we’ve missed because we’ve sat in the departures lounge and not recognised the names they’ve been blaring out over the tannoy…. (well only 4 - but that’s still quite a lot!)
SG. Hi, and thank you! Being a long time lurker on your site, I’m really glad you commented! Your name thing sounds really complicated…I can cope with having a different birth certificate name to my everyday name but only just, I certainly don’t envy you when it comes to filling in forms.
Herebe. I can’t change my name to the one you’ve been using for the past three decades. Helena Grooviestmosthandsomeguyontheplanet sounds stupid and I know for a fact that mum was hoping that you’d have grown out of using it by now.
Seriously though, the funny thing is that we’re at the opposite end of the spectrum on this because the anglicised version of the name is the one that’s always given me a split identity. Leaving aside the Grandpa T thing (which is a part of it but not the whole part), it just doesn’t feel right to me and it never has (even when I was a child). The problem is that in order to fit in with my family, I have to take on a name that my pen blocks on whenever I sign it.
PS, You’re going to have rethink your name scheme for the children. I’ve already copyrighted Django Marcel Teofilijis James, with mum if it’s a boy and Lilith May Isabel Antoinette if it’s a girl. Sorry.
February 7th, 2007 at 8:18 am
the anglicised version of the name is the one…
you’ve used and the world has known you by for three decades. The Latvian one isn’t. Much though I’m proud of where I’ve come from, I don’t need a name to remind me of it. I know I’ve got Latvian blood. It means no more or less to me than the Scottish, German, English and Irish blood that I have. Put blood under the microscope and it all looks the same. It doesn’t have ethnic differences. It’s just blood. The ‘name’ on our birth certificates is just a stupid gesture enacted by our father to put his thumbprint on us because he was insecure about our mother’s family. That’s the truth. It doesn’t come from some noble, keeping the tradition alive place in anyone’s soul but yours. Fuck, do you think that Grandpa T was happy being in German concentration camps oppressed by anti semitic jew haters with a name that translated as ’son of Jacob’? I was born and raised with the anglicised version, not the latvian one. Maintaining the latter without living with it day to day is tokenism.
First one to have the kids gets to name them.
February 7th, 2007 at 8:34 am
On your mark… get set… GO!
(I take it you’re not planning on a large family if you’re happy to use up all the good names on the first child?)
February 7th, 2007 at 8:56 am
I just want a family.
Great prose sis. Get your finger out and write a sodding book. You were always a better writer than me. I’m just a stubborn cuss.
February 7th, 2007 at 9:07 am
Herebe. First off - even if it’s not about some “noble, keeping the tradition alive” place in anyones soul but mine, that still doesn’t make my feelings, opinions or what I hold in my soul wrong. You may not agree with them but last I heard, when it comes to opinions and feelings it isn’t a case of majority rules and your soul belongs to no-one but yourself.
Truth is subjective. Because you say it to be so, doesn’t make it so. I have never said that I thought my feelings about the matter should be the universally accepted truth and that everyone should feel this way and are wrong if they don’t. I’ve said that this is what I think, this is what I feel, this is what makes me happy. If you think differently - that’s fine with me. Live and let live.
In any case it’s not all about reminding me of my grandparent’s, if that were the case then I’d have to append my surname with mums maiden name, my grandmothers, maiden names, my great-grandmothers maiden names and on and on and on back to the beginning of time. Neither am I tied up with some desire to maintain an ethnic difference. I don’t have one. There’s no genetic axe to grind here. Rather, as I’ve already said, the Latvian version is the surname I feel more comfortable with. Apart from anything else aesthetically it goes better, it sounds more balanced, more right. It goes better with my first and middle names. I have to think before signing the English version of my surname and always have, even though it is the version I use more often. I get the split identity you spoke of from the English name. That doesn’t make me wrong or tied to the past to the detriment of my future, it’s just how I feel. It’s as valid as the way you feel about it.
I’ve actually just checked my birth certificate; both mum and dad are listed as their married name being the Latvian surname and it’s mums signature (using the Latvian surname) on my birth certificate which suggests that the name change didn’t occur until after I was born and my names were registered. So in my case at least I don’t think it was a “stupid gesture enacted by our father to put his thumbprint on us”.
You know if I decided to change all my names to something completely different, you’d all be a bit disappointed but you’d agree that at the end of the day it would be my choice. If F and I ever get married and I took his name, no-one wouldn’t have a problem with it. I don’t understand why everyone has a problem with me keeping the name that’s on my birth certificate and having it on my passport while using the anglicised version for everything else. I don’t make a song and dance about the fact, this is the first time I’ve mentioned it. Who exactly is it hurting?
PS. If first one to have the children gets to name them, then you’d better pray that medical science comes up with a way for men to have children then. Plus, you might find that the mother of your children has strong views on what their names should be as well.
February 7th, 2007 at 9:24 am
Bloody hell - while I was writing that last screed you all commented again so everything’s out of synch.
Herebe - Can we let this go please? We’ve been leaping down each others’ arguments at drop of a sentence since Christmas and I’m getting sick of it. I know what you’re saying and you know what I’m attempting to say and somewhere we’re on the same wavelength if surfing it from different ends. Ta for the compliment by the way…
CB. - Oh God no, F and I have sat and worked them all out up to four kids, although F still won’t budge on Wolfgang (he says it sounds too Van Halen whereas I think being called Wolf would be really cool) I’m going to have sneak it onto the second son I guess. In any case I need a bit of time to write the great novel, paint the great picture and get the perfect figure (in time for children to ruin it) so it might well be that herebe gets there first. I suppose we can share the Teofilijis James seeing as they’re family names and I can’t see him calling his firstborn son Django. Just so long as he doesn’t nick the girls names. I’d be really really upset if he did that.
February 8th, 2007 at 6:37 am
“stupid gesture enacted by our father to put his thumbprint on us”.
Not what mum says. And I’m not rowing. I’m expressing my view in the same way that you’ve argued you should be allowed to express yours.
If first one to have the children gets to name them, then you’d better pray that medical science comes up with a way for men to have children then. Plus, you might find that the mother of your children has strong views on what their names should be as well.
She’s already agreed to them.
February 8th, 2007 at 7:15 am
I’ve got her signature right here on my birth certificate, so she must have a. either used that surname at the time or b. been fine about falsifying legal papers.
I never used the word row. I said that I was getting sick of the way we’ve been leaping down each others throats since Christmas (which we have) and I’ve asked if we can both let this go. I’m not going to agree with you if we argue the point until the end of time. Likewise, you aren’t going to agree with me. The sensible thing to do would be to the drop the subject.
She’s already agreed to the names - cool. Now all you have to do is agree to live the same town for the length of time it takes to bring children up.
February 8th, 2007 at 7:33 am
why is that? children are portable.
February 8th, 2007 at 7:33 am
(sorry; this isn’t my discussion. i’ll un-stick my nose now.)
February 8th, 2007 at 7:52 am
Sorry CB, my bad grammer. Children are portable. I meant that all they have to do is to agree to live in the same town as each other.
BTW… please keep your nose well stuck in, I’m starting to get nervous about logging into my own comments in case I’m hit by low flying arguments.
February 8th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
That’s why I always put on my bike helmet before logging in.
February 9th, 2007 at 9:46 am
I’ve got her signature right here on my birth certificate, so she must have a. either used that surname at the time or b. been fine about falsifying legal papers.
Like any of our family has ever had a problem with the latter…
February 9th, 2007 at 9:53 am
I meant that all they have to do is to agree to live in the same town as each other…
You and F live in the same town as each other…
QED…
I’m going to be an UNCLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Does mum know? You know, the one who falsifies legal documents for a living…
February 11th, 2007 at 7:25 am
Irene Kaye/Kantrowitz is a US poet in Yiddish whose father anglcised her family name. When she decided to change back to the orginal name she didn’t want to negate her father so she kept the two and used the / to indicate is was a sort of binary one half of another rather than adding another name to herself. Not easy and causes endless complications. Its the way I’m toying doing it though slightly complicated that neither of the two names have much over lap at all.
February 11th, 2007 at 7:42 am
M. It might actually be easier to do if the names haven’t much overlap, then they’d not sound so stuck together for the sake of it. If I had Kaye Kantrowitz I’d be inclined not to use the / because the two sound well together, whereas my anglicised and original surnames used like that sounds a bit stupid.
The whole subject is (I think) fraught with difficulties for everyone who has to deal with it. Whichever one you use it feels as if you’re slicing off a part of yourself. The daft thing is that our parents or grandparents did it in order to make their lives (and ours) easier. Maybe we do attach too much importance to names - an importance that they never felt, but whether they felt it or not - we do.
I have to admit as well that having a passport in the other name is incredibly freeing. Like you can leave your everyday persona behind as soon as you take a plane and I do love that aspect of it.
February 11th, 2007 at 8:45 am
H let me know why your reply says 7.42am!!!! just off to scotmid. Pray that there are chelsea buns left I have a craving…
what do you think of MJ Shilensky/Gordon then?
BTW in scotland you can just say ‘henceforth I’m Ermtrude Buttercup’ and its perfectly legal in Engladn you have to do all the dammened paper work
February 11th, 2007 at 9:25 am
er..dunno…time is relative?
I like it, although I see you more as an Ermtrude Buttercup…
February 11th, 2007 at 9:30 am
yes must take up my next career as member of Brookfield herd in Los Archeros…