Indian films and Nigerian lovers: media and the creation of parallel modernities-XIV

For soyayya authors there is a didactic and moral purpose to their discourse on love that gives their novels a sense of social responsibility. They argue that incompatibility in the choice of marriage partner leads daughters to run away from their parents to become 'independent women' (and hence prostitutes), or to attempt suicide, or to go through an unhappy marriage and an early divorce - even if the partner chosen is wealthy. But as the author 'Dan Azumi Baba argues, 'now everything has changed [and] because of reading such books [soyayya books] no girl agrees with forced marriage and parents understand that if they force their daughter to marry somebody she will eventually go and become a prostitute' (interview, 28 June 1995). He continued, 'the main problem of marriage is lack of love', adding that most women now are wise to the fact that 'if there is love, they will not mind about any problems'. The concerns aired by 'Dan Azumi and others over the increasing commodification of contemporary love and the iniquities of forced marriage are not just the province of soyayya books but have formed staple themes of Indian films. For over thirty years Indian films have provided an extended narration of the problems of arranged marriages and of the place of materialism in a 'traditional' society that mimics real events in everyday Hausa lives. Before discussing soyayya books themselves it is worth returning briefly to the concept of fantasy and imagination to give an example of the investment of viewers in Indian narratives.

The possibility of imaginative investment was brought home to me one day when I was talking to an older Hausa friend in his 40s. Knowing he liked Indian films, I was surprised to hear him say that they had a negative influence on Hausa culture. He cited the example of his own marriage. He said that when he was young, in the 1970s, he went to see lots of Indian films. He, like many other men, liked the commitment of Indian films to the family, the importance of marriage and children, and many other cultural values in the films. The problem, he said, was that in Indian films women are very supportive of their husbands. He explained that what he meant was that when an Indian man sees his love they talk about their problems. He declares his love for her, she declares hers for him, and they embrace. In the 1970s men who went to the cinema were expecting or wanting similar behaviour from their wives. It was what he had wanted when he got married. But when he returned home and tried to talk to his wife she would turn away, answer as briefly as possible and try to leave the room. He told me women in Hausa society were taught that their husband is everything and they should be in awe of him. His wife was acting with the modesty that a good Hausa wife should have, whereas he wanted the sort of relationship he had seen in Indian films. As a result he had encountered many problems early in his marriage and that was why, he argued, the films could be harmful. Indian films, he said conveyed ideas about marriage and relationships that local culture could not support.