My mother, Helen Myers, is a musicologist who has worked with Indian music in Trinidad.
I have been interested in India since I was very young. Ian Woolford, 35, Researching on Phanishwarnath Renu in Bihar I hope with all Indians that the country which is now my home will take that forward step. Many whom I know fear that it could also step backwards into communalism, divisiveness, even violence. The people desperately hope that it will move forward and prosper. Today, India is poised on the brink of an uncertain future. Now I’m no longer a curiosity, unless I speak in Tamil, or Hindi or Urdu, which usually makes people light up with pleased surprise. I once stood out because of my foreignness. We enjoy music, arts, food from every region of this country, which is a world in itself. It is a wonder to be able to swim in a sea of different languages. Other teachers are friends and the people with whom I must communicate in their languages, not in English. When I was learning how to live here, I had many teachers primarily my husband, who is ready to discuss and analyse anything, and who has supported me in so many ways.
Cable TV is omnipresent, and has influenced the country in ways which cannot yet be fully comprehended. It has swallowed up villages, and added enough foreigners to support an international school. Now, Chennai is an industrial city, an IT city. When ‘foreign’ vegetables first started coming into the markets, I saw a zucchini one day, and my eyes filled with tears of happiness. No internet, many import restrictions, a largely traditional society.
At that time there was only one TV channel, and few foreigners. I came to India in the mid-1980s as a diplomat, married a Gujarati from Calcutta, and settled in Chennai. Nancy Gandhi, 65, Writer/Blogger in Chennai
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