Not too long back, I discovered that a favourite aunt of mine is just-below Nathuram Godse-level communal. (She has no history of violence.) I won't go into details, but this person I am very fond of, and from whom I owed much of my early boyhood worldview - not to mention, introduction to James Hadley Chase - is stark, raving, anti-Muslim. But all in a very throwaway, matter-of-fact manner.
Once the initial shock had settled - and after a furious round of kicking under the table that left both my wife's and my shins almost bleeding - I was puzzled. For starters, she was too young to be moulded by the horrors of Partition, and, by extension, carnival funny mirror reflections of Hindu-Muslimness - although living in the narrowness of old North Kolkata with its eternal 'We once had it all before they took it all over' must have played a part. For another, this was the first time I realised she's a bigot. She had given no signs prior to that day. Or, more likely, I had never picked up any signs before.
Thoughts of my MMGA - Make Maniktala Great Again - aunt crept up this week when I heard Carrie Prejean Boller, a former Miss California USA and member of the 2020 Donald Trump Campaign Advisory Board, say, 'MAGA is dead. It is deader than dead, and Americans are furious. We don't recognise President Donald J Trump anymore.'
To be fair (sic), Prejean Boller was ousted from the White House Religious Liberty Commission after being accused of trying to 'hijack' a hearing on antisemitism last month. So, Trump may no longer be in her good books for reasons other than putting 'Israel First' and starting someone else's war.
But the larger question remains: what do you do when you discover that someone you like or admire does, or believes in, something you dislike or despise? Brigitte Bardot, a racist. An ex-colleague, a sexual predator. A sporting hero, a misogynist. A favourite comic actor, a Zionist. An aunt, a communalist.
Now, I'm uncomfortable with today's cancel culture. It's too pat, too convenient, too lazy, too much about showing the world you're Dharma-putra Yudhisthir. I adore Morrisey as a singer-songwriter. I may find his militant vegetarianism a bit too heavy for my palate, but I bear our differences on that front - even though he would outright reject my solipsism if he knew of my existence. I also let Morrissey's slightly less overt views on immigration - he yearns for an England that's not so wokely 'multiculti' - slide.
Instead, I immerse myself into his gloriously morose songs, not in denial of some of the problematic things he tends to say almost to filter out his admirers, but by overriding them as rants of a man in love with disappointments. Disappointments that appear so gorgeously in so many of his songs.
And every day brings us such tests of 'loyalty'. You learn one day that Einstein was an abusive husband. Roald Dahl was a full-blown antisemitic. Mohandas Gandhi was 'Father of a Nation' at the cost of being father to a son. Chomsky was an Epstein dost. Yes, you are bound to feel betrayed.
And then I reach for my favourite story about handling 'flawed' people that one is fond of. It comes from Polish-German literary critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki, a survivor of the Warsaw ghetto in Nazi-occupied Poland. In his 1999 autobiography, he writes about when a reporter wanted to know how he came to terms with a Jew-hater like Richard Wagner, Reich-Ranicki, besotted with Wagner's music, replies, 'There were, and there are, many fine people on Earth, but none of them has written Tristan or Meistersinger.' He adds, 'Does that mean that he should be forgiven for his essay 'On Jewry in Music'? Certainly not.'
What would I do if I came to learn that Satyajit Ray admired Stalin? If my father is a colonial apologist? Disappointed, yes. But not 'enough'. And if my best friend loves the Eagles' 'Hotel California'? Now, there are red lines....
Once the initial shock had settled - and after a furious round of kicking under the table that left both my wife's and my shins almost bleeding - I was puzzled. For starters, she was too young to be moulded by the horrors of Partition, and, by extension, carnival funny mirror reflections of Hindu-Muslimness - although living in the narrowness of old North Kolkata with its eternal 'We once had it all before they took it all over' must have played a part. For another, this was the first time I realised she's a bigot. She had given no signs prior to that day. Or, more likely, I had never picked up any signs before.
Thoughts of my MMGA - Make Maniktala Great Again - aunt crept up this week when I heard Carrie Prejean Boller, a former Miss California USA and member of the 2020 Donald Trump Campaign Advisory Board, say, 'MAGA is dead. It is deader than dead, and Americans are furious. We don't recognise President Donald J Trump anymore.'
To be fair (sic), Prejean Boller was ousted from the White House Religious Liberty Commission after being accused of trying to 'hijack' a hearing on antisemitism last month. So, Trump may no longer be in her good books for reasons other than putting 'Israel First' and starting someone else's war.
But the larger question remains: what do you do when you discover that someone you like or admire does, or believes in, something you dislike or despise? Brigitte Bardot, a racist. An ex-colleague, a sexual predator. A sporting hero, a misogynist. A favourite comic actor, a Zionist. An aunt, a communalist.
Now, I'm uncomfortable with today's cancel culture. It's too pat, too convenient, too lazy, too much about showing the world you're Dharma-putra Yudhisthir. I adore Morrisey as a singer-songwriter. I may find his militant vegetarianism a bit too heavy for my palate, but I bear our differences on that front - even though he would outright reject my solipsism if he knew of my existence. I also let Morrissey's slightly less overt views on immigration - he yearns for an England that's not so wokely 'multiculti' - slide.
Instead, I immerse myself into his gloriously morose songs, not in denial of some of the problematic things he tends to say almost to filter out his admirers, but by overriding them as rants of a man in love with disappointments. Disappointments that appear so gorgeously in so many of his songs.
And every day brings us such tests of 'loyalty'. You learn one day that Einstein was an abusive husband. Roald Dahl was a full-blown antisemitic. Mohandas Gandhi was 'Father of a Nation' at the cost of being father to a son. Chomsky was an Epstein dost. Yes, you are bound to feel betrayed.
And then I reach for my favourite story about handling 'flawed' people that one is fond of. It comes from Polish-German literary critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki, a survivor of the Warsaw ghetto in Nazi-occupied Poland. In his 1999 autobiography, he writes about when a reporter wanted to know how he came to terms with a Jew-hater like Richard Wagner, Reich-Ranicki, besotted with Wagner's music, replies, 'There were, and there are, many fine people on Earth, but none of them has written Tristan or Meistersinger.' He adds, 'Does that mean that he should be forgiven for his essay 'On Jewry in Music'? Certainly not.'
What would I do if I came to learn that Satyajit Ray admired Stalin? If my father is a colonial apologist? Disappointed, yes. But not 'enough'. And if my best friend loves the Eagles' 'Hotel California'? Now, there are red lines....
Indrajit Hazra
Editor, Views