Being invited to events sometimes as reporter and sometimes as author and critic makes me wonder about which identity I truly want to own
In the series Broad City, artist Abbi (extreme right) is seen trying to hide from her manager so he doesn't realise she's moonlighting as a guest at the museum party she's supposed to be waitressing at
I hadn't heard from my male best friend in longer than a month. So naturally, when I received a text from him the night before I had to leave for Hyderabad to attend a conference, I was elated. We scheduled a call at 8am the next morning, when I knew I'd be in the cab heading to the airport and would have the luxury of indulging in uninterrupted conversation for at least 40 minutes. We had to bring each other up to speed on all things significant and mundane that had transpired in each of our lives since we'd last touched base. Because he was offering me his usual undivided attention, I felt encouraged to articulate some deeply personal insights I'd recently arrived upon.
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I told him how I'd found myself uniquely troubled by a fresh discovery about my angst. I had found, lately, that I am somewhat resentful about being invited to events solely as a member of the press. It is a form of typecasting, and it works on the assumption that the only contribution I can possibly make to any literary or art-related event is through reportage. In fact, I secretly had begun to wonder why it is that I am never invited to things on the merit of my proven identity as an author, reviewer, and art critic. It's disconcerting because while I have great respect for the press, it is sometimes odd to be put in situations where I am meant to appeal to the egos of they who I in fact consider to be my peers.
It's a strange conundrum. It's like when, a few years ago, because I was broke and couldn't take on more freelance work than was already on my plate, I'd decided to part-time waitress for a friend who owns an excellent catering company. She paid better than her competitors, and since I have aspirations of one day spearheading my own culinary enterprise, I thought it would be worth spending time absorbing what it entails to be "in service". Except, after the one night I waitressed at a gig whose guest list comprised of South Delhi A-listers, I had to turn down the other gigs they were catering because they were events to which I had been invited as a guest. I was unable to fathom what it would mean to go around with a tray of hors d'oeuvres to people who know me as an art reviewer and author.
Watching an episode of the new season of Broad City rejigged this memory. Abbi, one of the show's two New York-based frontrunners, an artist who had taken up part-time waitressing work, scores an invitation to an event at either MoMA or the Met. She calls up her manager to say she can't waitress that night's event. She then power-dresses and lands up at the museum, only to find her manager there. The waitressing gig, she learns, was for the same event to which she'd been invited as a guest. She struggles to maintain the denouement as both guest and waitress, juggling between the two identities without trying to let anything on to either her manager or her friend who invited her to the party. She cannot afford to lose the waitressing job. But being in a space where she can network also represents a career milestone. She's trapped in between.
And yet, I told Partho, when I am in fact invited to an event and offered a platform, I inadvertently begin to question the legitimacy of my position, a symptom of that dreaded imposter syndrome. As I was approaching the airport, I kept wondering why I had consented to attend a conference where the other participants were academics. I reported to him an observation that Mona had made about me when we were in a cab on our way to the French Ambassador's residence to attend a felicitation ceremony because she'd been selected as one of the "Young Leaders" for 2019. Mona was referring to the "museum memoir" I'd written for an academic publication that I'd worked on for almost a year. She told me that I had to stop thinking of myself as only a writer. "You're also an intellectual," she'd said, prompting me to seriously reconsider the category of the female intellectual.
Considering so much of Western philosophy has been premised on the exclusion of women (and slaves) from the domain of the intellect, and in the light of a list that was published in December consisting of "emerging intellectuals" nominated by existing intellectuals--all mostly upper-caste men--do I even dare to occupy or claim such an identity, considering I do not come from a privileged background, and am keenly aware of the limitations of my knowledge? How do I even seek validation for such a claim? That I'm wrestling so much with the implications of such a pronouncement says much about the link between privilege and access.
Deliberating on the life and times of Everywoman, Rosalyn D'Mello is a reputable art critic and the author of A Handbook For My Lover. She tweets @RosaParx Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
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