Evolution of Love 2

Mayor of New York

Today I am one of many Delhi “Aunties” (to use Zohran’s description of us elderly biddies!) whose heart is thrilling with vicarious pride and pleasure at the extraordinary victory of Zohran Mamdani in the USA; wresting the New York Mayorship, against all odds, from the entrenched and increasingly corrupt and entitled political establishment.

My thoughts were with Zohran’s parents all yesterday. Just as they’ve been in the preceding weeks, when fear for his safety vied with one’s hopes for his success. I’ve known Zohran’s mother Mira since her teens, when she and my younger brother Khalid were best buddies, acting together in TAG, Barry John’s Theatre Action Group, and sharing the joys, angsts, and excitement of University life. Mira was in and out of our home and has remained part of our family ever since, especially dear to my late father, who greatly admired her vibrant personality and passionate engagement, as well as her magnificent eyes!

We got to know Mehmood, Zohran's father, soon after Mira met him. One is always fussy about whom one’s dear ones marry, but Mehmood passed the test with flying colours. No intimidating dry academic, despite his distinguished career as a scholar, writer and political analyst, Mehmood is both fire and fun, with humour, warmth and a luminous intellect that matches Mira’s creativity and imagination. And of course he’s an activist too, expelled from his homeland Uganda for opposing the dictator Idi Amin.

I’ve known Zohran himself since he was a bump in Mira’s belly! I remember her being heavily pregnant with him when she had to go to the Venice Film Festival. Was it the Golden Lion nomination for Best Film? I was delighted when she asked me to design her outfit. All his life since, Zohran has travelled the world with Mira and Mehmood wherever they went; scenarios as diverse as movie sets, the corridors of academia, glitzy Film Festivals, or get-togethers with his gregarious, outgoing yet close-knit Indian family. It’s given him his eclectic spirit, his ease with people, the way he relates to the old, the young, the marginalised, and reacts to diverse issues and situations. His pride in and acknowledgement of his parents is one of the lovely parts of his personality.

Despite the globalisation and accessibility of information of our world, we all live in tightly sealed silos. This was marked by the reactions to Zohran’s campaign and ultimate resounding victory. In Delhi we celebrated, elsewhere there was apprehension. It was the biggest turnout of voters in New York’s history, but there were an equal number of naysayers. Zohra’s had a 100,000 passionate, idealistic, deeply motivated volunteers, but we hear that over a million New Yorkers, mainly the white and the wealthy, are planning to leave New York in fear of what he will do to the city! Political commentators and talk show hosts find it funny to misremember and mispronounce his name, and few seem to have bothered to do a deep dive into his beliefs and background, or to listen to what he actually says. They use a captured moment of his eating biryani with his fingers as if it was proof of his being some kind of animal, and like Trump, they equate democratic socialism with dyed in red rabid Communism on one hand, and on the other are convinced he will introduce Shariat Law! Just because Sadiq Khan has made a mess of London, they are convinced New York will follow the same way. The inability to differentiate between one brown South Asian Muslim and another and to lump us all together is concerning; and the ignorant and inflammatory comments beneath these podcasts and programmes deeply troubling. People from the UK, Australia, South Africa and even India are writing in predicting doom and sending their condolences to New Yorkers. Even the leaders of his own Democratic party failed to endorse him. Obama, that was so disappointing.

None of this should deflect Zohran from his vision and path. He has the energy and hopes of the young and the disadvantaged behind him. They will sustain him. My only caveat is, as in the Japanese haiku poem by Basho, “Climb Mount Fuji, but slowly, slowly...” (And I pray that you stay safe while you do it.)