Extract from Tiger Dreams by Almeda Glenn Miller
Email Almeda Glenn Miller: agmiller@telus.net
Web Page: www.almedaglennmiller.com
"I’m Canadian," David said. Charlotte twisted her lips and squinted at him. He rolled his eyes and said, "My father was Cree."
"Is that what they call you people in Canada? Cree, is it?" Charlotte put on her glasses and began to flip through some papers inside the wooden box.
"First Nations is more accurate," David said.
Charlotte stared at David above her glasses, "First Nations? A bit pretentious, don’t you think?" Shaking her head from side to side, she held up a bundle of homemade paper wrapped together with a thin string and as she tugged one of the pieces of paper from the bundle, she glanced toward Claire and tilted her head back to get a better look. Claire’s long slender arms and thin wrists were as if someone had cut and pasted parts of Alice onto her. Of course, there were other parts of Claire that did not resemble Alice. Claire was broader across her shoulders; she was taller and more solid. She was well fed– not fat, not fat at all, just more robust than Alice ever was. We have all been cleaved, thought Charlotte, parts of us Indian, parts of us British, and inside ourselves still remains this constant conflict, two breeds battling for position. "You look like Alice, you know," she said aloud. "You have her contradictions."
Claire cocked her head to the side and smiled.
"Your great grandmother was Malayali, from a tribe in the south. Alice was the darkest of all of us."
"Are you an Anglo-Indian as well?" Claire asked.
"Yes, dear. Most of us Anglo-Indians left the country after independence – ended up in Australia, Britain, and some, like your father, came to your country, Canada. I tried Britain but it wasn’t my country. After your father’s older sister and brother passed away I moved back to Pune. Better for my arthritis."
She passed the bundle of papers over to Claire. Yellow light flickered across Charlotte’s cheeks as her ringed fingers jiggled and danced in the air. "These were letters your grandfather wrote to your grandmother when they first met. I found them in your grandfather’s desk after he died. He never stopped loving her, you know. Even after he took another wife."
Claire’s hands were oily and she wiped them on her skirt before taking the bundle from Charlotte. A cat circled around her bare ankles, straightening its tail, pushing into her, insisting. Claire casually lifted the cat with her foot beneath its belly and flung it aside. It returned, flopping its back hips against her calf muscle; its low rumbling purr was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
Tiger Dreams Film Opening Sequence
Music. Drums
Extreme long shot. People – a dozen or so – dressed in mourning, walk placidly across open grasslands. Pull focus as they approach a fresh mound of rich, dark soil. No headstone. Close Up. They place offerings. Pan to people walking back across open grasslands. Extreme long shot. People, barely recognizable, continue to walk. Black specs on the horizon. Fade.
Mise en Scene. Charlotte takes another sip of tea and points at the letters. She speaks to me. I am out of the field of focus.
Charlotte: "Your grandparents grew up in Nainital, a hillstation in the foothills of the Himalaya. Alice’s father worked for the Railways – an unusually prominent position for an Anglo at that time. He worked out of Lucknow, I think."
Me: "I thought they lived in Bangalore."
Charlotte: "That, I believe, was in their retirement."
Me: "Seems everybody worked the railways back then."
Charlotte: "The Anglos – most definitely." Charlotte wipes her hands across her skirt. Jump Cut. Music under. Archival Stills of Anglo-Indians in various occupations.
My Voice Over: "The British had this knack for assigning different religious groups for different kinds of occupations. It was their way of keeping the country weak and divided. Sikhs were in the military, Hindus were in trade, and the Anglo-Indianswere given offices in the Government Post, the Railways and the Prisons."
Last Archival Still of prison guards. Repeat and flow into footage of prison guards corralling prisoners into formation. Unmatched full colour shot of girl-child being prepared for marriage.
Music Under.
My Voice Over: "The mixing of British blue blood with the dark red of the Indian was simply beyond contempt for the Indian. The Indian of today will deny that there was any prejudice but in the end, when pushed to the wall, they preferred things to remain as they were, that the Indian remain with the Indian and the British remain with the British. The British have another story – of course. They had even encouraged the men in the East India Company to marry the Indian – to integrate with the locals. Hindu girls of twelve and thirteen were married off to the British. They gave up their names for Christian ones and never saw their families again. The East India Company had promised these British merchants employment for their sons but when times got difficult in Mother England, those jobs were given to the sons of purebloods. So the Anglos eventually lost any status promised them and were stuck somewhere in the middle to create their own world."
Archival Stills of pre-adolescent Indian brides.