June
22, 2007
The Mystique of California
California is not just another state on the map
of the United States. It is unique, it stands out,
and it is where the esoteric merges with the mundane,
where myth often overshadows reality. It is a scintillating,
brilliant collage of legends, tales and folklore,
of fantastic fortunes, of dreams fulfilled and also
of heartaches and disasters. It has, unlike any
other state, a mystique of its own.
“Californians”, said one of America’s
foremost writers, O. Henry, “are a race of
people; they are not merely inhabitants of a state.”
Another writer, M.G. Lord, described it as a place
“Where people come to make their fortunes
… where beautiful women are ‘discovered’
in drug stores, and a man can turn a mouse into
an empire.”
Shaped like a boomerang, it keeps coming back to
you even if you passionately hate and repel it like
actress Ethel Barrymore who said: “The people
are unreal. The flowers are unreal, they don’t
smell. The fruit is unreal, it doesn’t taste
of anything. The whole place is a glaring, gaudy,
nightmarish set, built upon the desert.”
Yet, all new comers to California fall under its
spell whether they like the place or not. Therein
lies its mystique.
Its very name originated in the fertile imagination
of a Spanish novelist, de Montalvo, who produced
a romantic confection about a mythical island, California,
he referred to as the “celestial paradise
on earth”, inhabited solely by seductive,
dark–skinned women ruled by a queen, he called
“Calafia”. This name was probably
chosen by the writer as a feminine gender of Califa,
the title of the Muslim ruler of a good portion
of Spain till 1492 whose grandeur inspired unmitigated
awe and respect.
Published in 1510, the novel had drawn heavily on
the romantic tales let loose by Columbus and his
companions about the land they thought they had
discovered in Asia, while in reality they had landed,
on all four voyages, at the coast of Cuba which
was inhabited then by primitives originating in
Africa.
The book became an immediate hit and left such an
abiding impact that even today one finds in Mexico
many restaurants, hotels and businesses named Calafia.
Hernando Cortez, the Spanish conqueror of Mexico,
provided the initial impetus for the discovery of
California. By conquering the Aztec Empire, Cortez
had acquired riches beyond the wildest dreams of
most men. Yet, he had the insatiable lust for more.
Besides its lure of gold, what Cortez was interested
in was to occupy the legendary strait of Anian,
which was supposed to provide sea passage through
North America between the Atlantic and the Pacific
at a point where California is located.
The territory his expeditions captured was called
by him “California” after Monalvo’s
legendary island. And, this territory remained a
part of Mexico until it was ceded to the US in 1848
just before the discovery of gold in the Sierra
foothills.
The gold rush of 1849 has shaped California society.
It brought a tidal wave of humanity from the older
states in the East. The hardy dreamers who came
to this place were not the sort to live by ordinary
rules. They were given to seeking challenges, excitement
and taking chances. No mountain was rugged enough
to block their march, no river turbulent enough
to scare them off. Schemes and dreams became a way
of life. That is the spirit that still dominates
life in California. And, that spirit is kept alive
by a continuing and pulsating immigration.
The pursuit of gold, symbolizing the intense zeal
to labor and live well, has been the major contributor
to the California dream. In a colorful eye witness
account of California diggings, Frank Marrayat in
his book“Mountains and Molehills”(1855)
writes: “A turn of the road presented a scene
of mining life, as perfect in its details as it
was novel in its features. On the banks was a village
of canvas…and round it the miners were at
work at every point…All was life, merriment,
vigor, and determinations, as this part of the earth
was being turned inside out to see what it was made
of.” These qualities still condition life
in California and lie underneath the mystique of
the place.
It was this spirit that made it possible for water
to run uphill -towards money of course. The massive
man-made plumbing that draws water down from the
north, lifts it over the Tehachapi Mountains and
turns arid Southern California into one of world’s
great metropolises, is a monument to human ingenuity
and tenacity.
The severe drought of 1984-90 created such scarcity
of water in Santa Barbara and adjoining coastal
areas, which were not served by the canal net-work,
that water rationing was imposed. The residents
were forbidden to water their lawns. After a hard
day’s work nobody wanted to reach home to
a brown lawn. Their labor and ingenuity turned the
brown grass to green by the use of vegetable dye
of that color.
Although bulk of the people live in urban areas
and it is generally regarded as a hi-tech, industrial
state, California is also the nation’s leading
agricultural state. It has the world’s oldest
and tallest trees and the largest telescope. It
sports the highest mountain, Mount Witney (14,494
ft), in all contiguous states and its lowest point,
the Death Valley, which is 282 ft below sea level.
Millions of fish died some time back in the Salton
Sea, located in the valley, as summer heat depleted
the oxygen in the water.
Walt Disney selected Anaheim as the locale for building
the first “Happiest Place on Earth”
because of its sunny and wholesome weather. Anaheim
is actually Disneyland surrounded by a city by that
name.
It was again the year-round sunny climate of California
that attracted moviemakers of East Coast to set
up studios in a sleepy little town called Hollywood
transforming it into the glamour capital of the
world.
Then there is that beautiful city, San Francisco,
where even in summer mornings and evenings are ‘sweater-weather’.
Mark Twain, known for his wit, once described it:
“The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer
I spent in San Francisco.”
Nestling almost in the lap of this city is the Silicon
Valley, the birthplace of the personal computer
revolution.
California society has been shaped by many kinds
of people: native Americans, Spanish grandees, American
gold and fortune hunters, railroad tycoons, and
movie moguls. Entertainment is the number one export
of America today.
Because of their distinctive lifestyle, the Californians
were described by O. Henry as a race of people,
not just the inhabitants of a state. In point of
fact, California is a potpourri, a mix of various
races interacting, intermarrying and adhering to
their respective dreams but contributing in the
process to the common cultural wealth and value
system.
Traffic congestion, air pollution, street violence,
berserk behavior of white supremacists, and earthquakes
might have disturbed the sublime serenity of queen
Calafia’s paradise, but her spell continues
to condition undisturbed the general lifestyle and
in particular of the typical woman of California.
She is more equal than her spouse and is often the
man of the house. That is perhaps in keeping with
the spirit of California, but it also turns out
to be the cause of many marital disasters whenever
it became too assertive. Women of California given
to such an attitude agree with Oscar Wilde who said:
“Marriage is an institution but who wants
to live in an institution.”
arifhussaini@hotmail.com
