#ThiagoBarbosa & #UrmillaDeshpande

Darkness Falls

by Thiago Barbosa (University of Leipzig) and Urmilla Deshpande

In 1927, the Indian anthropology student Irawati Karve arrived at age of 22 in Berlin, where she found herself working at an infamous eugenicist anthropological research institute. However, contrary to the expectation of her German colleagues, she dared to contradict the racist theories prevalent in that time and place. Later, in India and through her travels around the world, her career took off as an anthropologist and sociologist. She wrote extensively on issues ranging from gender and caste to nationalism, but not without contradictions.

The passage below is an excerpt of the book Iru: The Remarkable Life of Irawati Karve (2024: 33-44), co-authored by novelist and fiction writer Urmilla Deshpande and anthropologist Thiago Pinto Barbosa. This novel-shaped biography draws inspiration from Saidiya Hartman’s approach of critical fabulation.[1] By this, we mean that we authors conducted solid historiographic research on Karve, who sadly left behind only sparse archival records of her life, and, as we wrote this book, we wove together different bits of her story, allowing creativity to fill the gaps in history. Striving for a realistic balance between historical facts and creativity, as well as between personal empathy and social critique, this collaborative process resulted in a book that offers an intimate portrait of Irawati Karve, the scholar, and Irawati, the woman deeply engaged with the world around her.

“The day was supposed to be as long as the night, it had always been that way, all of her life. And now, when she stepped outside the building of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology and Eugenics, or the Wilhelm University where she also took classes, it was dark. At four in the afternoon, when it would be time for a cup of tea or a walk or a swim at the Pune Gym, it was night-time in Berlin. It was dark. And before darkness fell the day had been mostly grey. She walked to the train station, or sometimes took the bus home, depending on where she was. In winter, migrating birds had left for warmer lands in Africa. There was no birdsong except for the male blackbird’s, a deep and melancholy sound as if he too felt alone in the winter. He did, the females had gone south. Irawati walked from one circle of lamplight to the next, disconcerted by how bitterly cold it was, and growing colder every day. That first winter she was tempted to go straight to bed when she got home, it seemed the right thing to do. But she soon got used to it, that it wasn’t the night, but rather just that a part of the day was dark. She even went to the park, and a few times to cafes in the early evening, with Oma, or other students who were by then friends, to sit at the sidewalk tables and watch people.

It was not as it was in the summer, when organ grinders could be heard sometimes, playing their happy-sad tunes as people chatted and laughed, smoked and drank, read their books and papers, or Die Schönheit, the beauty magazine. Now, they were in long thick coats, in gloves and boots and all manner of hats and scarves, women and men in furs, their breath appearing in small clouds to hang briefly on the cold air. She began to enjoy the subtle and not so subtle changes of this season: the muted sounds, the ice flowers on her window panes, even the bare trees, the frozen river and the snow itself. She wondered how it was for those who would always have this season, for whom it was normal. She wondered how she would feel about it if it wasn’t an anomaly in her own life. Children were apparently not as affected by the cold as adults. They did things that small children back home could never do—throw snowballs, pull each other around on pieces of cardboard or homemade sleds on the ice, and make snowmen. In December, there were Christmas markets with their smell of hot spiced wine, and food stalls and pretty lights, and it was odd to her, but common to see people dragging, or hauling large trees in trucks.

Before Christmas Day, Irawati took the train to Leipzig. She would not be returning to Berlin for a month.

In 1920, barely two years after the end of the Great War, Dinkar Karve had arrived in Germany much the same way Irawati had. By passenger steamship, for higher education. He had stayed four years in Germany. He had clearly enjoyed his time in the country, he talked about it fondly, and he kept in touch with friends he had made there. Photographs of him from his German years show him in many family gatherings. Festive meals, picnics and outings, even trips far from the places where he was studying, such as The Bodensee (Lake Constance,) far in the south, on the border between Germany and Switzerland. He had stayed first in Berlin, with Oma, to learn German, and then in Leipzig, where he did his PhD in chemistry, at the Leipzig University. There he stayed with the lovely, and loving, and very large, Seebass family. Herr and Frau Seebass—Karl and Maria—had five sons and four daughters, who all lived with them in a large house. Dinu had enough money in his possession to meet all of his daily needs for the entirety of his stay there, or so he believed. The money, as a citizen of the British Empire, was in pounds sterling, and, as was normal, he converted all of his pounds to Reichsmark. But, as the Weimar Republic struggled to pay its war reparations debt, the value of money steadily declined, and by 1923, Dinu would have been destitute, and left with no choice but to return home. The Seebass family was by then his German family. They fed and took care of him till he had his degree, never wanting anything in return. They had naturally stayed in touch, so it was with great joy that they took the news of Irawati’s arrival in Berlin. They told Dinu that she must stay with them during her holidays—all her holidays.

Any apprehension Irawati might have felt dissipated within seconds of arriving at their house. She was hugged and kissed, whether she liked it or not, by every member of that large family. The old parents, the sons, the daughters, the daughters-in-law, and children who were new additions since Dinu’s time there, and even visiting cousins—they all lined up and welcomed her with kisses. She didn’t dislike it, but it was strange, to have such intimate contact with complete strangers. By the end of that first visit, she became completely accustomed to the kissing, and she too, like Dinu, became a member of the Seebass family. They, like Oma, began their relationship on a positive note. They already expected to love her because she was the wife of their ‘Dinu’. She went back to Leipzig on all the festive holidays. It was nice to get away from Berlin and her studies, but it was genuinely good to be surrounded by people whose company she enjoyed, and who all clearly enjoyed hers and looked forward to her arrival with as much pleasure as she did, in spite of all the kissing.

Irawati was particularly drawn to Ria, the eldest Seebass son’s wife, possibly because they were around the same age. Their friendship made her look forward to her Leipzig visits even more. After that first Christmas, it had been some time before she could visit again. Ria was pregnant, and, when Irawati finally went for a proper long stay, Ria had given birth to a baby boy. He was a delightful plump creature, and Irawati was thrilled and loved him at once. She snatched him from Ria, cuddled him and held him close.

‘Ria, I could eat him up, he’s so lovely,’ she said, and covered his little pink face with kisses. She became aware that the family were staring at her in consternation, and Ria laughed as she took the child back and laid him in his cot. After dinner, Irawati walked with Ria in the grounds and asked about the incident. Ria said gently, ‘Iru my dear, it’s alright with us, but you must never kiss little babies like that.’ Irawati was thoroughly confused. With all the kissing that went on between random adults, she couldn’t kiss a perfectly kissable baby?

‘Babies have weak immune systems,’ Ria explained. ‘They could get very sick from the germs we adults carry, you know. He could get a cold, or worse. I hope you don’t mind me telling you.’ To prove she was not hurt or angry, Irawati kissed Ria, and they laughed.

Irawati took this incident, characteristically, as a lesson. It was the opposite back home. There you could kiss all the babies you liked, but kissing between adults was not ever a subject of conversation. One day when she was visiting Oma, the old lady had actually burst into tears saying, ‘I know I disgust you, it must be because you are high caste, isn’t it so?’ Irawati had been stunned to discover that she had been unconsciously wiping her cheek whenever Oma kissed her. She had been the one laughing that day, and apologising for her inadvertent gesture. It was from being unused to being kissed, she explained.

‘Do you wipe your face when your mother kisses you too?’ Oma had asked her, unbelievingly.

‘Oma,’ Irawati said, ‘Unlike you, my mother would not ever kiss a grown woman, not even her own daughter!’ They had both laughed at that. Cultures are so different, Irawati thought, and so are their ways of showing affection and love.[2]

After the idyllic weeks in Leipzig, the warmth and the meals, and sweets and festivities, surrounded by a family that treated her as one of their own, Berlin looked bleak and felt terribly cold. It was a beautiful but dreadful sight when ice blocks formed on the Spree and the canals and lakes all froze over. It seemed the long part of the winter that everyone had warned her about had now begun. With the holidays behind them, there was nothing to sustain them but the hope of an early spring—which, if they were fortunate, would arrive in March.

Life went on as usual, cold or not, dark or not—the work on her PhD project, her classes. Day upon day upon day. One afternoon she finished her work for the day and went to the window and sat there on a chair, staring at the leafless tree outside. She just wanted to gather herself before tackling the dark and cold and strangers that she would encounter on her way home. She had no idea how long she had been sitting there when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned and saw Professor Eugen Fischer standing behind her, an expression on his face that she had never seen before: concern, empathy, as if she were his daughter. She did not realise that her face was wet from the tears still streaming from her eyes.

‘The leaves will be back soon,’ he said, ‘the winter is over.’

Irawati was at once comforted and confused. How could this man, so unlike her in every way, know what she was feeling, and how could he show such a side of himself to her, she wondered. He stood there for a moment, looking at the stoic linden, and then quietly left.

As she walked down the staircase that she was now used to, she thought about that first winter, the first time it snowed and how that was for her, the soundless precipitation, something she could not even have imagined, coming from the land of monsoons, of thunderous rain, pittering rain, battering hail—where even the gentlest rainfall made a sound when it touched a solid surface. Snow fell that night, enveloping the sounds of the city, and all night there was a glow inside her room. And the next day the snow was in a different, a treacherous form. She had slipped and fallen on the unseen ice beside the pavement and had broken her arm. When she had been x-rayed and plastered at the Charité hospital she went to see Eugen Fischer. She was feeling alone, feeling like a small unwanted and lost stranger in the metropolis of Berlin, and a broken one. He had been kind and reassuring, and given her work that she could do with her one good arm. That had made her feel useful, and that made her forget how poor she felt. He was a strange man, she thought. She was still a stranger in this city, and she had been grateful to him then.

~

New Orleans Honky-Tonk spilled out from the open doors and windows of the enormous restaurant that had been rented for their year-end party. The sound of revellers shouting and laughing could be heard for at least a block. Not that this was unusual or much of a spectacle on any Berlin evening, drinking and dancing was a normal matter, every day of the week. Irawati noticed a man in a peculiar bulbous hat leaned up against a lamppost, smoking a cigarette. He watched as the crowd of people outside were slowly accommodated into the restaurant. He had a pile of cigarette stubs at his feet, and he seemed to be in an ill mood. He made eye contact with her and shook his head disapprovingly. Irawati felt she understood the generally dour spirit of the native Berliner. It reminded her of the attitude of the Punekar, and she was quite at home with it. Berlin bus drivers were as likely to refuse to give out information; Berlin shop owners were as likely to make you feel you were imposing on their time by shopping at their establishment; and old Berlin ladies were just as likely to teach you the local manners, as were all their Pune counterparts. But it was also true of Berliners that they would go out of their way to take you to an address if you were lost and asked for directions.

‘Nofretete,’ the smoking man said to her with a sudden wide smile, bringing her out of her reverie. She had heard that one before. She smiled back at him, and then moved with the crowd as it trickled through the doors. It was raucous inside. Beer had already been consumed in large amounts, people were singing with all their might, they were not yet dancing on the tables, but she knew that was coming, and in the melee, students and teachers were indistinguishable from each other in their revelry. Irawati stood against a wall with a glass of Apfel-Schorle in her hand. She thought about what the man outside had said. It was not the first time someone had compared her to that other, more famous, Berlin native since 1920. They called her ‘Noff-ruh-tay-tuh’. It became a sort of compliment, because she was just exotic enough, she supposed. Sometimes she was asked if she was a Pashtoon lady from Afghanistan, by people who knew a bit better than those who likened her to the newly acquired bust of Nefertiti. Though she herself wasn’t dark enough or different enough to alarm anyone’s sensibilities, they knew she was foreign, perhaps because of her sarees, which most people found exotic, even if they said they were elegant.

The queen was a new and amazing arrival in the city, and not only that, she too, like Irawati, was installed in Dahlem. Irawati and Nefertiti, Oriental and exotic, it seemed acceptable for people to compare them.

The face of Nefertiti was two mirrored halves, whether the work of the artist or the god who made the woman he rendered in limestone and paint. What did they know, these Germans, about symmetry, about asymmetry? Asymmetry was normal, and the Nile Queen, in her perfection, was a singularity. What did Eugen Fischer know about symmetry, or was it that he knew, and was so jealous of it that he found a way to punish them, Irawati and Nefertiti?

Fischer had assigned her to prove his hypothesis. He had instructed her to ‘1) determine if there exist differences in the [skull’s] right-side and left-side asymmetry, and 2) if differences in the frequency of the asymmetry of different races occur, especially in the case of European and other races.’[3] She had done the work, precisely and meticulously. She had measured the skulls she was supposed to measure. The European, the African, the Papua New Guinean, the Melanesian. One hundred and forty-nine head bones had answered her question. They had spoken to her from the past, they had sent their message, through her and her calculations, to her present.

Irawati had done what no one else, in the entire history of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology had done. She had stated that she could not observe any correlation between racial differences and the measured skull asymmetries. Asymmetry in the human skull was normal—independent of which ‘race’ that skull was supposed to represent. That asymmetry did not point to any racial superiority or inferiority in the owner of said skull, and not to the ‘race’ the owner of the skull belonged to either. Nor did she stop there. She put forward another hypothesis for skull asymmetry, asymmetry in the spinal column—a product, not of heredity or race, but a physical characteristic that could be a product of the environment, and not an inherited, born-with characteristic. She had contradicted Fischer’s hypotheses, of course, but also the theories of that institute and the mainstream theories of the time to boot.

Irawati’s research disproved her Doktorvater’s theory that European skulls would be found asymmetrical because of their superior powers of logic and reasoning, and non-European skulls would be, for obvious reasons, symmetrical.

Eugen Fisher had not been pleased, let alone proud of his student. He had not failed her outright, but he had given her the lowest possible grade: Idoneum, Latin for suitable, or sufficient. He had alluded to her non-native, German speaking skills as being a possible reason. Her foreignness. Irawati thought this was laughable. What would Oma say, she thought, when Irawati told her, in perfect German, that her German had been judged inadequate. Her friends and colleagues had laughed. They had all joked about it. In German. Still, Irawati was relieved. She would have her degree after all. She would soon be Dr Irawati Karve. Soon, and forever.

If symmetry is a form of perfection, Nefertiti’s symmetrical head, and her symmetrical skull, were really just perfection then. And Eugen Fischer would have to live with that. A black African woman, who had been dead for longer than time. The most beautiful woman in Berlin, they said. Irawati smiled once more.

One of her fellow students, a young man who had been singing, dancing and drinking vigorously, and kissing everyone in the room in a fit of high sentimentality, came right up to Irawati, and before she could react or say anything, took her face in his hands and kissed her loudly on both cheeks. She was taken aback, offended, and shocked all at once. She wiped her face with the end of her saree, and shook her head disapprovingly, but he just laughed and moved on to his next victim.

The party was just beginning. She was glad she would be home again, not soon, but soon enough.”

[1] Hartman, Saidiya. 2008. “Venus in two acts.” Small Axe 12 (2): 1-14.

[2] Karve, Irawati. 1949. Paripurti. India: Deshmukh & Co, p. 8.

[3] Translated from the original in German: ‘erhielt von Herrn Professor Fischer die Aufgabe, lediglich festzustellen, ob 1. Unterschiede in der rechtsseitigen und linksseitigen Asymmetrie bestehen und 2. Unterschiede in der Häufigkeit der Asymmetrie bei verschiedenen Rassen, speziell bei Europäern und anderen Rassen vorkommen.’ Karve, Irawati. 1931. Normale Asymmetrie des Menschlichen Schädels: Inaugural-Dissertation. Leipzig: Schwarzenberg & Schumann, p. 9.