Pankaj Mishra’s non-conference

March 18, 2007

I was really looking forward to the talk by Mr. Mishra. I saw it “advertised” on Big Ell’s blog. Here was the write-up:

The Taipei Salon

Poor but Democratic: Democracy in India in the Age of Globalization

Many rulers like to claim democracy only comes after wealth. What about India then?

Indian democracy is one of the world’s greatest political experiments and it has worked.
At the same time it seems to have entered a complex phase. Electoral politics have sharpened ethnic and religious divisions, leading to a rise in violence against minorities. Globalization and the rise of economic inequality have also confronted India with fresh challenges and pressure.
Can the contradictory experience of democracy in India give a revelation to those democratic experiments elsewhere in Asia?
Come to listen to one of the brightest minds coming from the ancient and modern land of India.
Speaker : Pankaj MISHRA
Novelist / Contributor to the New York Times
Moderator: Hsien-hao Sebastian Liao
Professor of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures of National Taiwan University

I even persuaded Kevin to come, thinking he might meet some interesting people for his book. We didn’t get off to a good start: I was a bit rushed from having woken up later than usual, and I wasn’t comfortable that I had no idea where i was going in Taipei. More precisely, I was uncomfortable admitting to Kevin I had no idea. I called the number provided in the advert, to no avail. I tried Googling the address while my wife warmed up the car, and failed. Driving to rendezvous with Kevin, I even got Michael T. on the phone to try to help. No go there either.
We met Kevin outside his building. The plan was to follow him to the station so he could have his motorcycle upon our return. Kevin’s bike broke down on the way to the bus station so he had to squeeze into my car with my wife and kids. But we finally got on the bus, with time to spare. We made good time to Taipei arriving at 1:15, 45 minutes before the speaker was scheduled to start.
A short 110 NT cab ride later, we arrived at our destination. We walked into the building which was very quiet. Not a good sign. We found a piece of paper taped on one of the doors that said Mr. Mishra’s talk was cancelled due to an injury he sustained on the plane from London to Hong Kong.
Plan B.
A charming woman named Yvonne, innocent bystander that she was, somehow got sucked into our little drama trying to figure what was going on. She accompanied us to the head office of the Lung Yingtai Cultural Foundation to confirm the cancellation and agreed to have lunch with us. We managed to convince her to be our tour guide for the day. We all agreed that we should make haste to go to the Chiang Kai shek memorial before the name change. I mean, they could have been melting the bronze as we spoke. Echoes of Ronald Reagan rang in my head: “Mr. A-bien, tear down that memorial!”
Yvonne turned out to be quite an interesting person. A single 30 year old who did an undergrad in Philosophy at Dong Hai, a Masters in a business related field in England, and currently working at a futures brokerage firm. SHe was also learning French, which is why she was in the building where we met her. Her plan was to move to France and do another degree in Art History. Or something like that. Kevin has a much better memory for details like this. We spoke about many things. She mentioned enjoying the company of foreigners and being able to be frank with them as they were with her and with each other. SHe also said she enjoyed the company of Taiwanese, but admitted having to curb her penchant for being straight forward in their company. There was no discomfort in having to do this, even though she prefered the former way of relating to human beings. She said she didn’t want to be judged too harshly by her peers. She is very preoccupied by what other people think of her.
I also suffer from this affliction. The difference is that Yvonne didn’t see it as a form of suffering.

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