Beads, pants, and scuba diving

At first I though of giving this text the following title: “One Month After….” It is a rather telling way of putting it, isn’t it? As the attending of the 2009 International Summer School at various paces fades into my mnemonic folders, the four weeks that went into its making seem to have already gained historical proportions. At least in my life they did.

group photo, for instance, has neatly found its way to the top of my tallest bookshelf, the transparent wrapping preventing it from getting covered by layers of dust, beaming with all the glory of our colourful smiles and gaudy attires onto anyone who would venture into my room. Beads I acquired in Bali decorate the other shelf, when I give them rest from beautifying my bust, that is. And the already legendary and highly fashionable “Balinese pants” still await to be worn by me in the entirety of the acquired number—a dozen or so, I (somewhat shamefully) admit…

…But Bali with Ruchika, Fatma, and Veena came after the Summer School, now that I think of it! And so did the massive purchase of all those pants and beads! And yet, the anachronism occurred far too spontaneously to be disregarded as a mere slippage. How the “post-Summer School” holidays got intertwined with the weeks that had preceded them, both in my narration and memory, I wonder. Is it because “holidays in Bali” took both cognitive and material shape in the duration of the School? The idea emerging somewhere between dinner and bed time on one fine day; or during an early morning cup of coffee-cum-cigarette chat on the blue sofa; or did it spring out of a casual remark I made to Veena at certain point …? Be that as it may, it did take a decisive shape once I asked Mbak Ayu to purchase tickets for me, as she most kindly did.

Numerous itineraries were mentioned in pre-holidays’ times as careful considerations altered with equally scrutinized revisions throughout evenings and nights that some spent browsing the internet and making necessary bookings. In retrospect, I find that few, if any, of the original plans came about. Admittedly, the fluidity of the agenda caused initial frustrations in some of us. But as the evolving schedule included unplanned, though highly welcomed indulgence in local foods, purchase of beads that amounted to several kilograms, dozen(s) of trousers “made in Bali” to be worn/brought back by tourists as “typical Balinese” casual attire, costly dips into fish-nibbling pond, unlicensed motorcycle rides, hours’ long sessions in massage parlours, but foremost dives into deep seas, all discomforts rapidly gave way to joy…

…When I think of all those massage parlours in Bali, I think of the sharp disproportion between meagre wages that the staff makes and the profit that pours into the owner’s pockets. And yet, each time I go to Bali I would not miss out on visiting my favourite massage-spa place. I do understand that selling a pair of soft, beautifully coloured and skilfully designed cotton trousers at the price of Rp. 30. 000 (little more than € 2) cannot make a market-vendor rich, truly rich, or just reach enough not to have to spend away her days in a stuffy, dim, hot, cavern-like space. Somebody must be getting, rich, though, given that both the quantity and the quality of offer have increased/improved significantly over the years. The profit-making process remains mysteriously unknowable to me, even though I have by now comfortably got used to living with my perennial wondering about how such low-priced item can make a gain despite the costs that go into its making/distribution, the labour of all those hands that keep stitching them together probably being the least among the expenses. Thus blissfully unconcerned with the ethics of the pants’ making/selling, I made it a habit to buy at least a dozen of those each time I find my way to Ubud. I even fervently haggle for the price that – defying all global economic laws – has not changed in three years.

This time, I went even one step further and developed early signs of an unabashed snobbishness (to put it softly). There is a photo of the four of us against the illuminated ocean waves in a restaurant/bar called “Kudeta” adoring my Facebook album cover, the one entitled “Bali ‘09.” I recall that when I saw the soft-drink price list, I immediately got reminded my country’s place among the world’s developing countries; it seems to me that it ranks just below the passport-looking price list of the “State of Kudeta.” All the while, though, and despite all the “awareness” and “concern for social justice,” I did enjoy myself tremendously, digesting the remnants of remorse along with each tasty, exorbitantly costly, mouthful of some sushi-like appetizer we were having.

But wait a minute! Wasn’t the Summer School experience to transform me in the opposite direction? Where are the radical transformations of my self as the desired outcome of attending the School? Speaking of desire(s), why hadn’t my reading of Gayatri Spivak redirected the way the consumerist desire had worked in me throughout the holidays? Why didn’t I repudiate the idea of having such holidays in the first place, jumping readily into the privileged flip-flops of “a Northern of the South” instead? What, then, of the concepts discussed, of all the questioning, all the knowledge gained, and new insights acquired? Where did all that go? Obviously I didn’t take all that with me to Bali! – I have been finding myself thinking, with a mixture of anger, fear, and frustration…

…And no, I have not as yet come up with an answer that would placate my outraged, self-reprimanding consciousness. This possibility to enjoy the unrighteous, to indulge in the injustice, to joyfully reproduce the inequality despite all the years of cultivating the need to act/think/feel differently seems to be non-eradicable, I can but sulkily conclude.
But isn’t that precisely what was being repeatedly said throughout the duration of the School? That living with a doubt, particularly in relation to one’s self-image of morality and righteousness, was not an easy thing to accept. To realize one’s own limits in transforming and acting in this world was an accomplishment in itself. To make an attempt to recognize the force of the self desiring to have the control over, instead of control with(in), is sometimes the most one can do…

Be that as it may, I have hitherto said nothing about the non-articulable, yet palpable, experiences and interactions among the four of us that transpired in those few days of holidays. How to word out togetherness, though? We had a most inspiring conflict at certain point of the time, for instance. It was such a gentle, caring event, now that I think of the way we resolved it. “Sides” were taken and abandoned, spontaneously; badly articulated feelings were successfully replaced by empathic silences; scorning yielded to critical introspection. As “the dispute” was taking place, I felt we were growing closer, our bond being sewed out from more or less heated verbalized interchanges and silent emotional transgressions. Not to say that the friendship was brought about by a dispute. What I mean is that “the dispute” made all the tensions and disproportions (or the “stitches,” to use one of the catchphrases of the School) visible. Just as it materialized the despite that held these disproportions together in the School. In other words, there was a history we could intuitively relate to. One could also call it a shared imagery of a “common background” now that I’ve come to think of it. Whereas Ruchika’s, Veena’s, and Fatma’s “shared Indian-ness” is “secured” by the same dark blue colour of their passport covers, where do I fit in…? “It’s an allegiance between us, the Third World Women,” Ruchika used to say. “It’s just your annoying self, Ivana, fitting in everywhere,” Fatma would tease me. “She’s like an odd cousin… Don’t you think girls?” Veena once asked the other two, who confirmed her remark with smiles. “An odd cousin…? What do you mean?” I was still puzzled. “You see, in our numerous families back home, we usually have a figure who does not quite fit in, for one reason or another. But she/he is still a cousin, a part of the whole family. An odd cousin, though…” Veena lyrically explained. Well, for as long as such kinship did not involve blood-and-soil sort of imagery, I was very pleased with my “odd cousin” title.

Germinated throughout the duration of the School, the bond between some of us seems to have developed well, even blossomed, when transplanted into the Balinese pot. And I believe that the bond has kept sprouting ever since... Bead-less and pant-less as it appears, the bond feels like a scuba-diving walk in the deep seas—shapes and colours of an undercover world electrifying the inner motion of the almost motionless diver.

Talking about reversing desires—after Veena’s fabulous description of the scuba-dives she and Ruchika took, my interest in scuba diving has jumped from “complete indifference” to “overenthusiastic eagerness.” So some internal shifts did occur, after all….

Ivana Prazic, Serbia
Participant International Summer School on Pluralism and Development, Yogyakarta, 2009.