Race, Religion and Rock N' Roll!

Blinded by the Light (2019)
Director: Gurinder Chadha

Maybe it is the slave mentality at work. The slaves looked up to their masters and wanted to be like them very much. They see them as the proof of success, the pinnacle of achievement, and yearning to walk in their shoes. That is where the buck stops. The slaves chose what was 'good' and what was not acceptable.

Many middle-income Malaysian Indians who were teenagers in the late 70s and early 80s had to endure this, yours truly included. The parents worked hard to provide their offspring what they missed growing up. What they thought they missed most was the ability to acquire education, pass examinations and the remunerations that came with it. They wished to achieve what they did not get, like the opportunity for education, freedom by their standards and academic achievements through their children.

They did not, however, want the Master's idea of independence. Their idea of children is to be seen but not heard. The last thing they wanted was children talking back to their parents. They did not appreciate the parents' shortcomings in parenting to be pinpointed. No matter how high the children flew, they had to display Asian values, filial piety and show unwavering loyalty to the clans till their dying days. 

One peculiar thing about my mother is she was not too keen on us, the children, listening to Western songs. They wanted us to be conversant and proficient in English, but Tamil songs on RTM Red Network were the only songs blaring over the family radio. When my parents were away on errands, we heard English songs clandestinely over Radio RAAF and the RTM Blue Network. She feared we would be wild kids, showing disrespect and forgetting our roots. That was what she thought of the Masters - only substance but no soul. She wanted us to learn the things that would pull us out of the clutches of poverty but keep the Indian values.

Fast forward to the 21st century. A few of the family members have uprooted themselves from this country, seeking greener pastures in the land of the Masters. In their minds, their children would be more assured of a comfortable lie ahead.

With the children now at rebellious ages, these parents face the same dilemma as my parents. Like my parents, they wanted their kids to absorb what they viewed as 'good' qualities and reject the 'bad'. Of course, life is never so easy.

Boy George

That is what Malik, a Pakistani immigrant to the UK, had to encounter bringing up his children in Luton in the 1980s. On one end is Malik, who uprooted his life for a better life for his family. He has big plans for his family, things he never had in Pakistan. On the other hand, he wished his host country could be more cordial with their arrival. It was the 80s at the heights of unemployment and Thatcherism. Malik's son, Javed, has a mind of his own. He wants to experience life, be a writer, enjoy music, and not follow the uninspiring path that a typical Pakistani teenager is made to follow. Somewhere along the way, Javed is introduced to Bruce Springsteen's music. It just blew his mind. He finally found someone who reads his mind.

The rest of the movie is a musical galore for teenagers of the 80s who grew up with liberal doses of synthesisers-filled Brit new-wave music. It is a long trip down memory lane with the likes of 'Pet Shop Boys', 'A-ha' and an overdose of Bruce Springsteen. Sadly, I never grew up appreciating his type of shouting melody. It was a time when girls dressed up like Boy George with pleated hair, thick make-up and chequered dress, and Boy George was not a boy. But nobody made a fuss about it.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.