There are three dreams that any Bengali would love to fulfill: eat and drink themselves to death (no wonder Bengali households are stocked with Digene and Gelusil), travel around the world (yes, the monkey cap is the best friend), and revel in arts and music (from Rabindranath to the Beatles- everyone is "ours").
So when a desi Bengali woman gets to fulfill even one of these pursuits in a place that has practically fallen off the map, one would obviously expect some strange encounters, right? (like meeting yet another member from Bong land..yes, we are omnipresent!). There were encounters alright- not the exuberant sorts that would make you jump off the seat...but the more shadowy, whispery sort- the kind that tickle you on the neck and then vanish into nothingness.
When I dreamed of Llano del Rio that night, a dusty, stony world filled my vision. The crisp light bouncing off the mountains sharpened the shadows of trees. Two men stood in a pit surrounded by sandy dunes and watch each other. Their eyes twitched on the golden, rugged faces. A slow drip of water fell in to a bowl of cowboy hat. A confident hand reached towards a black leather holster. A cloud of red dust got kicked up by the hooves of horses as a gun fired in the silent air.
The great American hero even in his violent and destructive acts, emerges as the symbol of hope and an agent for attaining utopia in a world ridden by treachery, devils and savages. This is where I encountered American history- not in the unequivocal narratives of my history textbook but in these formula films that tell stories of moving westwards, expansion and conquering frontiers. I wished for the desert sanctuary to be filled with these vivid men on horsebacks because the idea of searching for a socialist city in the global palace of capitalism seemed slightly perplexing.
When I travel to a new place or within a new place, I am scared of getting lost in unfamiliar surroundings. I have never been good with maps. The arrow marking the north confuses me because I never know how to orient myself. For a long time now, I have learned to rely on landmarks. I try to memorize the names of the most insignificant stations and obscure buildings. I know that a Metrolink train stops at both Tustin and Irvine but an Amtrak train stops only at the Irvine station. Time is of utmost significance between landmarks. When I take the Metrolink from Los Angeles, I start packing my bag as soon as my train reaches Sylmar to get down at Newhall. There is not enough time between the two stations to get up and make my way to the door. And if I get lost, I have no qualms in stopping people on the roads and asking for directions.
But as we set out to visit the Utopian site of a colony named Llano del Rio that the American Socialists had envisioned in 1914, my usual travel gear failed significantly. Miles and miles of sprawling barren land filled the way from Newhall to Llano del Rio. Black rock faces and dry bushes, charred from the recent fires in the Los Angeles county rose up to face the surprisingly harsh November sun. No walking sticks would even mistakenly find their way there. There were no pedestrian sidewalks, crossings or subways. One arresting bend of the road, like many others had a sign warding off pedestrians. Masses of shimmering gray concrete had taken over the topography of the desert. Streams of cars and trucks flowed past us in to the urban wilderness. A couple of romantic names like Singing Hills Drive and Littlerock are the only diversions that I can now recall. Despite being in a car with my classmates, all united in our attempt to seek this historical site, I felt as though I was straggling in the landscape of sameness. The desert seemed to have an effect of sucking one in to temporary amnesia- to keep its mysteries and secrets alive- so that no one can go tell it to the rest of the world.
And so I tried to keep up by noting down everything in an “almost stupidly” manner like Perec suggests. In the colorless forms, standing out against the spotless blue sky, there were miles of walled subdivisions. There were million dollar condos. The condos had pools, golf courses, gyms, spas and jacuzzis. Jack in the Box, Wendy's, Taco Bell, Mc Donalds, KFC, CVC pharmacy, Ralphs, Vons, In and Out, KFC, CVC, In and Out. The subdivisions began to flounder as the beat started to repeat itself. The number of cars thinned down as we crossed a little shop of horrors selling goblins. The site, as indicated by a Google map, is located on the elbow of Pearblossom Highway, tucked away in Antelope Valley.
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Dan, sitting in the front of the car, playing the role of the navigator in the desert, pointed to a narrow, brown trail and yelled, “I spot Utopia.” Caroline's car dipped and swerved on the unpaved road before coming to a halt. There were no similarities to the photographs that I have been looking at. Instead a parking space for helicopters greets us. We backtracked towards Pearblossom Highway.
As we reached the site of Llano, a familiar view of the ruins took over. Familiar only because of having seen a vast range of photo archives struggling to keep a utopic past alive. Photographs give you a sense of fixity in a new place, despite the body being in a state of flux. But sometimes there is a danger of knowing too much and a pleasant surprise being spoilt. Milt Stark was our official guide for the day. Almost eighty-five years old and a resident of the Valley since 1923, he was the co-founder of the Antelope Valley Heritage Foundation, an organization established in attempt to save important historical, archaeological and biological sites in the Antelope Valley. As we went trooping in to the depths of the ruins with Milt Stark directing us to the history of alternative future, I found myself not discovering the banal details like the color and the texture of the stone surfaces anymore, but noticing and excavating artifacts that lay buried in the middle of Milt Stark's memory and the surrounding mountains turning blue under the sun. We walked through the skeletons of the fireplaces marking the location of an old hotel building. Wandering down a little further was the remnants of a water creek, a cannery and a field stone cistern. A pile of copper cans lay strewn around, almost as if people had dropped them in haste and fled the miseries of the colony. Stark said that people in the colony had used them for storing food. And the glorious cinema hall, post office and California's first Montessori school seem to have disappeared in the desert soil.
As Stark started to speak, the figure of Job Harriman began to shroud the silent, ghost colony. Disillusioned with the state of politics and an economy bending down in Depression, Harriman and his associates set out to set up a model commune according to the Marxian school of philosophy, based on the idea of surplus value for the common good. The means of production were to be owned jointly and equally by the colonists and they were to share the benefits of surplus labour. In Stark's view, a major reason for the Colony's failure in its quest for Utopia lay in the fact that the colonists were not grounded in the principles of socialism. At the end of the day, they just wanted their pay of four dollars a day and shirked their duties, wanting the largest share of the commissary. A wide difference of opinions and in fighting escalated between the colonists as the colony itself grew over matters of agricultural produce and its distribution.
In a letter (dated February 21, 1918) to a prospective colonist, a Llano committee member explaining the rules and formulae of peaceful cohabitation writes-
"Remember, should you come here, that this is no heaven. We can't do the impossible. We haven't an Utopia. You'd think we were some lumber town if you dropped in just now. It will be that way for some time. Also we haven't a bank in the sky out of which we can coin money or power. We must work with what we have and do as all pioneers do overcome by sheer force and persistence. Would like to have you become an installment member. The Ten dollars you send here monthly will help develop the place, you can see that.
If you are in doubt about anything please write at once.
Fraternally
LLANO DEL RIO COMPANY of Nevada.
Membership Department.
E.S. Wooster,
Dict. Williams.
PS--Almost forgot to mention that we found no enclosure in your letter. Did you neglect to send it?"
As I walked along the dusty lanes of a dead Llano, I thought about this letter and the contradictory nature of its foundational philosophy seemed to loom larger than the greed and mental attitudes of the colonists. It was perhaps not just the harsh realities of the surroundings (it was discovered that an earthquake fault line diverted much of the colony's water supplies) and the quarrels amongst the people that spelled a slow disappearance of the colony, but money, capitalism and socialism themselves formed an unfaithful triad. Job Harriman's utopia was ultimately premised on an industrial enterprise, the off shoot of which was to be a system based on equal opportunities. But I wondered if the author of the graffiti knew this as he sprayed “APOCALYPSE SHORTLY” on the very ground that Harriman must have walked on.
In an undergraduate class of social anthropology, I had read a fascinating account of how traditional societies such as those of the agricultural communities of the Kwakuitul tribe in the Pacific North West, are marked not money or goods of monetary value. Instead a symbolic idea of exchange perpetuates the idea of economics through the traditional feast of the Potlatch. A Potlatch is a grand feast and a large presentation of goods that aim for not only a reciprocity and redistribution of wealth, but in fact maintain the kinship structures of the society.
As I left Llano and Stark and the traces of Harriman behind I felt that perhaps Utopia was never the aim of the colony. It was perhaps a chapter of struggle in history to capture an alternative frontier of value systems. It offers no clear answers and remains mystical much like the desert itself. Or perhaps the desert has the ability to lock up the past in its vast expanse and the men of the desert - Harriman, Stark and the cowboys seek nostalgia in the loneliness.
Travel Bee is getting a little spooked out here, dear readers..
Till next time..
Safe travels!
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