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Smoke and Mirrors: An Experience of China
It is no small wonder then that Pallavi’s forays into journalism, travelling and keen observing have translated into a well-crafted Smoke and Mirrors: An Experience of China which does not address any mundane images we all cling so dearly to. Here there are no set postulations being perpetuated. Right from pure indignation (poor human rights record to give one example) to the downright bizarre (eating frogs innards!), the stories are there but the approach is fresh. Instead she presents a China in an Indian context, a leaping dragon that India must look to, to give and to take from. That there will be comparisons to India is but obvious. That the Chinese economy is growing faster than ours cannot be challenged. Reforms—social and cultural, religious and economic—are clearly evident although their degrees can be argued. This then leaves us with our biggest triumph, democracy. But as Pallavi points out, no-one in China is really clamouring for it! At the crux of Smoke and Mirrors then, lies one of ‘three’ frequent questions that this author is often asked. Where is China heading, what could India learn from China and which is better, India or China? It is this that the book attempts to answer in an easy, lucid and enjoyable style. Reading as an engaging travelogue, this ‘only Chinese-speaking Indian foreign correspondent in China’ for the Indian Express and later The Hindu and an adviser to the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on China-related issues, Pallavi provides a delightful base to springboard into China, complexities in tow! Therefore, the author, while attempting to remove the smoke screens so cleverly put up, does so with her humour intact and with unprejudiced, accepting rationalism. She is a good journalist that is clear to see. She is empathetic, listens with a keen ear and tries to get the other side. Not always easy for her sources and her. But she is a nippy learner. She realises early on that as the ‘little black...foreign expert...with big eyes’ teaching English to students at the Beijing Broadcasting Institute (BBI) she is in "heady liberating times" because "people no longer needed permission from their work units to travel and marry". Thus early observations personal and poignant turn incisive and astute as her learning widens. Especially after she learns that "anapple" is simply a name one of her students gave to herself, translating it into English from Mandarin! As the reader travels with her through her quirky experiences—shopping in pyjamas, cat tucked under her arm or gathering at the Ju’er toilet for a drink as locals did, Pallavi turns her delicious scraps of information to give wider perspectives on larger issues. In her journeys across the country, including the historic first-ride on the Beijing-Lhasa rail link, she discovers religion and multi-faceted reasons for its revival, attitudes to business and economics through Indian and Chinese businessmen, billions of buttons being produced by cosy villages, meteoric economic growth, infrastructure projects, and even China’s mixed attempts at political reform. What is endearing is, all this is told through the inviting solemnity of those she speaks with. There is the earnest Yu Bao Ping, the toilet cleaner at a public loo in Beijing who is working to save enough to go home one day. Here Pallavi brings in concerns like class and consciousness while comparing the same situation to India’s manual scavengers. All this compel us to wonder why our democracy cannot perform if China’s authoritarian one-party system can try, even if simply to perpetuate their continuing control. Indeed, when the author says that even the poorest poor in China are not poor like in India, completely and totally wretched, it really makes the reader sit up. But alas too little! When Pallavi finally sinks her teeth into answering the pivotal questions towards the end, it actually raises many more questions. The point is this: when Pallavi tells us that "even the most alien of places can become beloved", we totally believe her. Her accounts of her life leave us hankering for more, simply because they are so well-written. When she says as a person moderately well-off, she would "probably plump for India over China" to live in but if impoverished she would choose China because she "wouldn’t die as wretched" there, we stop to think. But at this stage what you really want is more of what she begins to lay out at the end. Her scrutiny of what she has come to learn. Maybe this one is meant to whet our appetites. Her writings point to an "argumentative" Indian with a wry sense of humour. Quite a lethal combination for the next big one!
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AS
Pallavi Aiyar sat in her mother’s home in Nizamuddin catching up with
a Danish friend from Oxford, the conversation turned to cultures or
people they believed to be most ‘other’ to them. Pallavi’s answer
was, ‘The Chinese’.