By Ananya S Guha
Recently Women’s College Shillong hosted the Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar National Endowment Trust lecture. The speaker was Professor Rowena Robinson of IIT Bombay and the subject was: ” Emerging Culture of Small Town India”. The topic seemed immediately exciting to me and very pertinent, a lot of things are now being discussed about how the small town syndrome is being overtaken in the face of globalization. The speaker rightly spoke about ‘cosmetic’ cultures that is cultures largely affected by malls, consumerism and gliterrati: emerging in small towns, and at the same time maintaining a traditional conservatism by way of marriages, performing traditional religious rites. These are portrayed again and again in television serials she asserted. At the same time the effects of television advertisements affect the small town viewers such as beauty parlours, dressing well, gearing to have smart appearances et al, was her opinion. The small town culture then is an apparent contradiction between appearance and reality, the KFC markets open floodgates of choice in food, and it is considered trendy to be a crowd puller she said. So does the mall culture affect the youth. She uses the matrix of the youth as a sustaining point in her lecture.
Now the point is that even if the global pulls the local into a vortex of consumerism, there exists a tension between the two. Today in the midst of globalization, there is also a predilection towards indigenous cultures, ethnic dresses, food, performance, arts and music. So though the world is ‘ globalized ‘ there is also a cry for ethnicity and local traditions, including handicrafts and the crafts of artisans. This is happening because there is an apprehension, that the pulling forces of a global culture may eradicate and swamp local cultures. At the same time the global effects of the television and the internet are used as mechanisms to promote local music, arts and crafts. So the local and the global co exist and there are ‘ tensions ‘ between them as well. To describe the world as a global village, may sound a bit too insensitive, to call it a global community is more appropriate.
Small town culture and its changing scenario is evinced toady in sports as well. The emergence of M.S. Dhoni as the most successful cricket captain of the country is a case in point. He hails from Ranchi, similar is the case of Mary Kom from Manipur. These examples can actually be multiplied.
An important and significant area is that of creative writing. A number of writers writing today in the country, both in English and the vernacular languages are redolent of the small town culture. Janice Pariat who was recently awarded a Sahitya Academy award is from Shillong, so are writers like Siddartha Deb, Mamang Dai, Esther Syiem, Temsula Ao all who have a Shillong ‘ connection’. An entire group of poets who have made a mark in the ‘ Indian Writing in English ‘ scene are from Shillong. They started writing three to two decades back, but it is the globalizing effects which have further shot them into the limelight. The Barak valley of Assam and Tripura have a good number of poets and writers who write in Bengali, but who desire to be considered a part of North East writing in ethos, and not necessarily to be identified with the ‘ mainstream ‘ Calcutta.
In music too singers from Shillong have made an imprint in the rest of the country even before the emergence of the technological boom. But technology has further exacerbated their prominence. One can only think of a Lou Majaw, a Rudy Wallang or Tipriti Kharbangar. There are many more as well.
Creative and the performing arts are thus an important aspect of this changing ethos and emerging ‘ culture ‘ of small towns. It is not only the ‘cosmetic’ or utilitarian aspects of culture but genuine creativity, intellectualism and sports which are the results of an increasing globalized culture, thanks to social networking sites, television and the internet in general.
Such emerging small town cultures are being radicalized and getting expressed not only through utilitarian effects, but through creative expressions of the mind and the body. Consumerism is only one aspect or feature of ‘ globalization ‘. The other is that the local and the global will continue to stay, and often there is interplay between the two. The emerging culture of small town India is a kind of making the world a ‘smaller’ place due to accessibility of information and knowledge. And such accessibility is provided by reality shows, the www and internet networks. Social networking sites add to this list. But so do internet and online journals and magazines, both scholarly and creative. Anyone who is having access to the internet can send articles, papers, creative writing and be ‘published’. Not that the print media will wither, but the internet is subsuming all forms even the print. Many journals and magazines have both online and print issues. The emerging changes in small town India give a rising awareness of what is happening in the world around us, as well the impetus to be a part of the globalizing effect. It is a culture which is not only consumerist in intent, but is also aesthetic, academic and intellectual.
The talk that day, focused on consumerism and its zeal, but it could have brought out the social, creative and academic sides to this change of culture and its emerging trends. Even conferences are held online and e discussions take place. Skype meetings can involve anyone or any place in the world, so much so that the ‘ small ‘ and the ‘ big’ are absorbed in an unified multi – verse.