Our recent visit, and of course, a little bit on India-Mexico relations.
This trip had been in the making for quite some time, we had
planned to go some years ago and had to abort after COVID restrictions forced
us to cancel it. But we made it last month and it was no doubt, a fascinating
week in a teeming, colorful city, steeped in history. So much different from
the seaside resort of Los Cabos that we had been to, some years ago!
Off we went next to see the home of Leon Trotsky, the Russian
revolutionary, who was ousted by Stalin and fled from Russia, to settle down in
Mexico City, only to be assassinated by an NKVD agent, in 1940. That reminded
me of the Indian connection to the Mexican working class - MN Roy’s sojourn in
Mexico, if you recall Roy is considered the person who introduced communism to
Mexico, after jumping bail in San Francisco and fleeing across the border to
Mexico, with his wife Evelyn, to help found the Mexican Communist Party in
1917. In M.N. Roy’s Memoirs, he wrote, “Mexico was the land of my rebirth”. His
former home has been converted into the exclusive MN Roy nightclub serving
music and liquor (but not food), and is considered an architectural jewel. I
did not know about it and missed a chance to see it!
Now let me digress a bit and link Indian Mexican relations, which not many are aware of, even though these days many Indians travel to or via Mexico.
It is said that Roy met an aging Mexican socialist Adolfo
Santibanez at a Chinese restaurant and came up with the idea of creating a
party, the first outside of Russia. This was after an aborted attempt in
Germany and Japan, to bolster support for Indian independence, a subject I will
cover in more detail separately. Sreenivasa Rao who has covered it in a detailed
5-part blog states - It was Mexico and Evelyn that intellectually
liberated Roy; broadened his attitude and outlook towards life; and,
transformed him into a truly cosmopolitan person with a new cultural
sensitivity. He developed a more open approach and a new outlook to life. Much
credit must be given to Evelyn in transforming Roy’s sensibility while in
Mexico. That formative period in Mexico was a very important phase in his life.
It molded him as a person and as an intellectual with a perceptive
understanding of life.
In the case of Mexico, the very first slave mentioned is a Malabar
cook employed by a Spanish pastor, in the early part of the 16th
century. He was the forerunner to the so-called Indeos Chinos batch of Indian
slaves. Juan Nunez from Calicut was the slave/cook of the first Bishop of
Mexico (1533-1548), Juan de Zumárraga, he was later manumitted in June 1548
when the padre expired. Some culinary experts state that the famous Mole curry
could in theory be attributed to this cook from India!
Once the Portuguese established control over Malacca and
Manila, the latter location became the holding point for large numbers of young
Indian slaves, both men and women. They were held in captivity in Manila
together with many Filipinos and sold off to the highest Iberian bidder taking
them to new Spanish colonies in the Americas, i.e., primarily to Mexico. Galleons
(termed the Manilla Galleons) of increasing tonnage carrying these hapless
Indians and Filipinos sailed the rough seas between the Philippines and
Acapulco in New Spain during the 17th century. These slaves were, on the social
ladder, placed on par with the lowest category, the indigenous – Indians of
South America. Thus, the term stuck, Indeos Chinos. They traveled for months on
the Spanish ships and were carted off to small industries existing then, such
as textile units. Interestingly, indigenous peoples had greater freedom and
some of these Indeos Chinos tried to pass off as local Indians to claim
manumission, while others spent considerable effort to maintain their original
identities. In any case, over time, this resulted in the intermixing of the two
communities, i.e., the Indians from India and the local South American Indians.
Out in the Philippines, for this reason, the slave traders resorted to the
horrible practice of branding these Indian slaves on their faces to ensure that
their origin was clear. I will write more about them soon.
This was all forgotten, and not many Indians came to this
part of the world until the 20th century. However, the communities
met in California! Punjabis working mainly in Canada and California, in the
agricultural and lumber sector, were not allowed to bring their families. Interracial
marriage bans in California prevented them from marrying Black or White women
but were allowed to marry Mexican women. There was something in common between
them, in those days, Mexicans and Indians shared a lower-class status in
American society. Many Punjabi men ended up marrying Mexican women and formed a
Punjabi Mexican community, settling in Yuba city, Sacramento in North
California, Imperial Valley in South California, and a few other border states,
including Texas and Nevada.
As Patrick
Collins explains - The wives became adept at cooking delightful fusion
dishes like curried tamales, and the men learned to speak Spanish, which helped
them communicate with the farm workers who were often hired to help cultivate
their land. The children inherited the religion of their mothers and grew up
Catholic. One common story puts an interesting twist on the tradition of
following mass with a family meal. The men would wait in the church parking
lot, speaking Punjabi with one another, and when their families were done worshipping,
everyone would pile into their pickup trucks and go out to eat together. The
tradition held until Punjabi religious institutions started to form along the
lines of the three major religions of Punjab: Sikhism, Hinduism, and Islam. Similarity
in food helped – the Mexican tortilla and the Indian chapati are virtually
interchangeable, and the chili pepper looms equally large in both cuisines.
Jordan Villegas adds that – The Punjabi-Mexican generation became known
locally as “half and halves” and many members recall facing prejudice from both
Anglo and Mexican schoolmates.
After India became Independent, Mexico became the first
Latin American nation to recognize the independence of India, and in 1961,
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru became the first Indian head-of-state to pay a
visit to Mexico. Since then, intercourse between the nations has been sporadic and
only in occasional world forums, but the next was during the so-called Indian Green
Revolution of the 60’s.
It is a vast topic, and I have touched upon it in the grain
for books and a few other articles, but suffice to mention that Mexican wheat
found its way to India. The story involves the visit of MS Swaminathan to the Netherlands,
the meeting with Norman Borlaug, and some years later, Swaminathan now back with
the IARI in India, deciding to try out the semidwarf wheat developed by
Borlaug, to combat food shortages in India. With funding from the Rockefeller Foundation,
Borlaug visited India in March 1963 and organized the dispatch of Mexican red dwarf
& semi-dwarf seeds to India and Pakistan. These together with local
varieties, some 18000 tons of it from Mexico, (though later in 1965-66) created
the golden-colored wheat (DS Athwal pioneered the modification of the red
variety to the amber yield, to create the Kalyan Sona in 1967) now grown and exported
from India.
Strangely, Mexico is still a corn-eating country, just like
India is a rice-eating country and I still recall the ration shops where wheat
was doled out and food classes were held, demonstrating what to do with wheat,
in South India, where housewives were aghast seeing this new grain. Eventually,
we got used to chappatis and puris, though they are still held second to rice.
Nevertheless, we continue to blame Mexico for sending us the Parthenium weed (naughtily
called the congress grass), its pollen a reason for the many asthma complaints
in India.
We did not miss the place that everybody visits, a house that
will leave a fond memory in your heart – the home and resting place of the lovely
Frida Khalo. Her story is inspiring, that of a painter who produced painting
marvels even though afflicted with polio and living through wracking pain and
other health issues which she had to endure all her life, following a horrific bus
accident. Married to another famous painter Diego Rivera, and wearing corsets
to help stabilize her back, she produced marvelous Mexican folk themes and self-portraits.
I am not too familiar with art, but I understand that these years, her life and
work have triggered a ‘Fridamania’, and her works have been declared to be
Mexican cultural heritage works. Her blue house, the La Caza Azul is one of the
most visited museums in Mexico City, and her unibrow and dress sense are much
talked about.
The lovely Nayantara Sehgal and her sister Rita Dar visited
her in the 40s and got her to wear a Sari, pictured here.
Nayantara replied to Manu Bhagavan when he questioned her about the picture. “I
had just graduated from Wellesley College in the summer of 1947,” Sahgal writes
when she went to Mexico for a visit. “We visited Frida whom our host in Mexico
knew.” The Pandit sisters visited Kahlo at her home. “We put her in one of our
saris and she loved it,” Sahgal recalled. “Frida gave me two beautiful photos
of herself, inscribed by her.”
So much more, to see and experience in Mexico, but
it was time to get back, but I will remember those pleasant days, the great ambiance,
the simple people, the colonial architecture, the museums, and the food and
drinks…well worth a visit…
