‘Curd Rice’ evokes a certain inexplicable emotion in the south part of India like no other rice dish does. One has to get under the hood to discover the physical relationship between rice and beholder. The process of savoring it is indeed much greater than the product itself! If relishing is greater than the relish, we have zoomed in on the right dish.
A good amount of buttermilk (‘moru’ in Tamil) is first added to piping hot steamed rice. The ratio according to some experts in this field is one-is-to-one. Traditionally plantain leaves have been used with much success as mixing plates but not so much as holding plates. Technological advances such as stainless steel plates were introduced in the 60’s and have gained immediate acceptance worldwide among the “moru sadham” populace as they could help in the mixing and holding. ‘moru sadham’ loosely translates to ‘curd rice’ in the tamilnadu part of the south India.
The traditional plantain leaves however offers an interesting challenge which can be met with some techniques advanced by field technicians. There is tremendous “run” of the buttermilk which should be curtailed at once to avoid ruining the tablecloth. Although traditionally, one has squatted on the floor, one can foresee the elevation of the status of the plantain leaf from floor to table soon. An 8″ dia. pappadum or ‘appalam’ as it is called here, can come to the rescue to contain the hasty ‘run’ of the buttermilk.
The pappadum should be crushed in the hand and immediately sprinkled around the “running” buttermilk. This arrests the spread of the buttery menace at once. More crushed pappadum can be added and a small berm shaped out of the soggy mess. The increasing pore pressure from within this coffer dam of sorts should be kept in mind and a hasty meal is required to counter any circumferential rupture. The mix can now be moulded in the hand and quickly taken up to the mouth. The head should be bent low and held close to the plantain leaf so that falling debris does not ruin the tablecloth, sleeved bush-shirt, angavastram or even heaving exposed belly.
It should be noted that the buttermilk has a knack of seeping through the moulded ball and cascading down the arm.
Various remedies have been suggested to counter such an unexpected and untimely cascade. Due to the explicit nature of some of the testimonies provided, the author deems it necessary to censor the topic of tongue-arm interactions in this fine discourse.
Certain detours are made between the pappadam crushing motions arresting the separation of the runaway ‘moru’ from the said ‘sadham’ and the ongoing clock-wise crushing of the ‘sadham’ component into the ‘moru’ in a rhythmic and quick ritualized fashion:
A steady stream of buttery-milky fluid is poured on to the said ‘sadham’. This could have been an earthy bhartha serving his bharya in the good old days! Or commonly a male volunteer on those festive mass gatherings where you squatted in rows, ‘nana leaves edging cheek-to-jowl while many a quiet romance blossomed between squatters in adjacent male and female rows.
And while the steady stream was pouring onto the ‘sadham’, the busy recipient is engaged in multi-tasking: alternating in split-seconds between catching a cupful and slurping it away, containing the runaway ‘moru’ and cupping the palm for more fluid lest the provider goes away and gingerly dipping a forefinger into that ‘thokku’ in the far left corner, transferring more morsels into the mouth with the pappadam….another dab at the ‘pullikacchal’, an exotic ethnic creation…
Finally, heaving a great sigh of relief after the energetic ordeal and casting a gleaming eye at others in utter bliss the satisfied recipient proceeds to untangle legs, if in the traditional position, and walks towards the faucet, returns with an enigmatic strut of satisfaction while dabbing the edge of the mouth with that angavasthram and then quickly spotting his next hop, advances towards the betel-nut table…
I stumbled upon a great interview of MF Husain. He had already passed away a Qatari citizen. It made me wonder, what lead him to abandon his India and become a Qatari citizen. Let us start with India:
‘Tanjore Paintings of Balaji with Gold leaf and Semi precious stones’
proclaimed the craft store in the neighborhood. This summarizes to me the middle class understanding of art. At least it does in good old South India. The leap from this middle class sensibility to that of an art aficionado is a mighty one and fraught with many misinterpretations.
Often times class gets confused with crass in the eyes of the beholder. The gold leaf and semi precious stones dictates fine taste. That which had a price has value. Not the other way around as value simply cannot be judged. No bragging rights if you cannot convince your audience that the item you posses is of immense value.
MF Husain painted on a very different canvas using strange colors and brush strokes to manifest a new grammar for a new language. His subjects depicted the vibrancy of Indian life. None of them wore gold leaves or semi precious stones, most wore nothing at all. The artist himself was a shabby barefoot painter of thoughts.
He loved being barefoot for a couple of reasons. He mentioned once that he wanted to be assessed for his works and not by the footwear he dons. He was making a statement by being barefoot. The characters in his artwork were naked for the same reason. They were making a statement and he never once wanted to gild them with gold leaves and lose the message. Know them not for their heavily ornamented and stylized calendar art depictions.
Among the many colors he dipped his brush into, the red vermillion of controversy was his trademark. He never apologized for it. It’s a color he used often to be rightfully dubbed a repeat offender by his critiques. He went as far as saying ‘if there is no controversy, it’s not art’. He imagined a purity of form that defied an interpretation based on the saree, dhothi, and denims they could have worn. Or the gold leaves and semi precious stones they could have been gilded with.
He depicted his characters in the nude. Depicting characters in the nude is distinctively different from *exposing* characters in the nude. There is a fine line between depiction and exposure. That controversy is to be expected, encouraged and lastly, let be. It’s what lends character to his canvas.
It is this borderline interpretation that is controversial in MF Husain’s artwork. He loved it and like a naughty child painted it often. An artist can only hope that the artwork he creates will be talked about. MF Husain had some passions raging and tongues wagging. This was the desired effect of controversial art. He was never apologetic for it, nor did he coerce a different interpretation.
His paintings today truly reflect the ethos of the moment, more so the ethos of a universe caught in a whirlwind of change. The true color of his *message* then is Cosmic Latte.
Cosmic latte is a name assigned to the average color of the universe, given by a team of astronomers from Johns Hopkins University.
India need not feel ashamed for the loss of her son because of a certain outcome of a certain interpretation. This artist would have it no other way. As his middle name Fida implies – may he impart the spirit of obsession in all who uphold their personal works of art.
Art is never chaste. It ought to be forbidden to ignorant innocents, never allowed into contact with those not sufficiently prepared. Yes, art is dangerous. Where it is chaste, it is not art – Pablo Picasso
Husain was the greatest iconographer of Hinduism. The references being to his 150-plus paintings on Ramayana and Mahabharata done at the behest of Ram Manohar Lohia. The paintings were done at the house of Socialist leader and art connoiseur Badrivishal Pittie in Hyderabad where a priest would come every day and read out the epics while Husain would paint. It was done free of charge.
– Ashis Nandy, Social Psychologist had this to say –
Ashis’ brother Pritish Nandy noted – Husain being Muslim was only accidental
Barkha Dutt:What would be your message to Indians who have been watching you?
MF Husain: Tu kahe to main unwan badal dun, lekin ek umr darkaar hai afsaana badalne ke liye
(only titles of paintings are told, the real story takes a lifetime)
My first interpretation:
Whether my paintings are done in India, New York or Qatar, only the title has changed, nothing else. In my small way, I have told my own story through a personal interpretation, which I hope will remain in the hearts of millions of my countrymen.
My second interpretation:
I personally think they got the translation wrong. Here then is my take on ‘Tu kahe to main unwan badal dun, lekin ek umr darkaar hai afsaana badalne ke liye‘
If you so desire, I will oblige and change the title of my work. But it may take me a lifetime to change my story.
I believe MF Husain was defining his own conviction against the backdrop of a demand to apologize for his work. He is going a little further than the explicit statement regarding NY and Qatar. The title can be changed easily. He could have titled a piece ‘Madhuri’ instead of ‘Saraswati with Veena’ and could have instantly blunted the arrows pointed at him but near impossible (a lifetime according to him) to erase the underlying story of Saraswathi with Veena. That canvas will always mean and signify Saraswathi with Veena no matter what title was enforced upon it for frivolous reasons. Another interpretation could also be that irrespective of the depiction (or ‘exposure’), that canvas will always remain Saraswathi with Veena. The inherent intention remains the same while the expressed intent can vary.
My third interpretation:
I think I am converging on a more mature meaning behind his quoted couplet: MF Husain has obliged to change the ‘title’ but not the story. A few radical elements found fault with the ‘title’ of his paintings. MF Husain really believes that by moving his studio’s location from India to Qatar, he has changed the ‘title’ of his story. He is firm in his conviction that he cannot change the story itself.
He will not stop painting what he loves to paint in the manner he loves to paint it, keeping the storyline intact.
In conclusion, the title he is referring to is not the name of his canvas, but himself. By relocating his canvas’ geographical location, he believes the titles have been altered to satisfy the elements hounding him. The censor boards and court houses will have no jurisdiction over depictions or exposures of an artist from Qatar.
One of my principle grouses when I moved to Bangalore, was the bland food on offer from the street vendors. Every big city that I had been to, I have fond memories of vendors dishing out their kebabs, chats or the kotthu-parrotas of the south. Bangalore was different. I had to search far and wide, but nothing came close to the big metropolitan fanfare.
Until recently that is. I was making a dash to the local restaurant at HSR Layout to pick up dinner for the kids. I was lucky to find a parking lot for myself but was surprised that the other cars parked there had passengers in them. I presumed that the smiling faces were enjoying the McDonald’s paneer tikka burgers. I could see from the parking lot, that the McDonald’s that was nearby was packed with people on a Saturday. But the folks in these parked vehicles were enjoying something else being dished out by a street vendor close at hand.
There was an open auto-rickshaw on the sidewalk. The milling crowd was unusually vocal and boisterous. I had to know what drew everybody there. I had to nudge my way through. i was hit with the aroma and a sizzle of melting butter that I can only explain as other worldly.
There were six flaming stoves that were being tended by a man with a small electric fan. A quick check by tracing the twisted wire confirmed to me that a 12 volt battery from underneath the auto-rickshaw driver seat, was powering this contraption and a couple of CFL lightbulbs dangling from the makeshift canopy.
A slight cold drizzle added to the magic of the moment. I was given a token with a hand scrawled numeral that either looked like a ‘2’ or a ‘5’ depending which way you held it and how soon you wanted your dosa! I was eager to claim ‘2’ but was outsmarted by a mean looking lady. I resigned my fate to the numeral ‘5’ which seemed quite far from the ‘2’ somebody snatched away from me.
There were two cooks that were super busy at their task. They scooped up the dosa batter and poured it on the hot iron pan. They then swirled a round bottom spoon to get a super thin layer, that will form the dosa layer. On top of this went assorted ingredients, like onions, masala, grated beetroot, grated carrot, potatos, baby corn, capsicum, mushroom and even noodles! We all love Chinese food around here.
I looked around and quickly grasped the fact that the Mysore Masala Dosa was the most in demand. I ordered the same. I liked the color of the grated beetroot and the regular sound of the flat spoon against the iron tawa. This reminded me of the fantastic rhythms of the kotthu-parrota makers of tamil nadu. After what seemed to be ages, I finally got my mysore masala dosa. It was hot and it was tasty. The dosa has been transformed to a very impressive tasty bite. I managed to take a picture of one customer almost losing his patience and wondering when they will serve him his dosa.
I later found out that this is a franchise of five such dosa camps around the city. The proprietor Hemanth, modeled it after the food fare of Mumbai railway stations. ‘My menu is simply what you get in gullies surrounding railway stations in Bombay’ he says. His 36 verieties of dosas make for a very exciting menu. It is amazing what he has done to the humble dosa. You must give it a try!
The story of Sita’s abduction by Ravan, a demon king, is one of lust. In the epic Ramayan, Soorpanaka, Ravan’s sister, lusts after Ram and loathes Sita his dutiful wife. She tricks her brother Ravan into abducting Sita to Sri Lanka, so Ram will distance away from Sita on grounds of infidelity and make way for Soorpanaka’s advances.
At least, this is Soorpanakas’s plan and it backfires tragically.
Sita is abducted by Ravan. Ram is heart broken and he searches for Sita but cannot find her. It is Hanuma that sights her in Lanka. He is overjoyed at this. He spends considerable time, assessing if this is the Sita that he is searching for. Finally concludes it is her, by giving her Rama’s ring that she recognizes at once and is overjoyed. He then proceeds to get back to Ram and give him the message that he has been dying to hear:
The Carnatic vocalist Nandini, dramatizes Hanuma’s sighting of Sita in Lanka to Ram. The first word that he expresses is almost of disbelief that he has actually sighted Sita there. That abrupt expression (a single word meaning ‘I have sighted’) of joyous disbelief is the genius in this rendition.
Why is this song more popular with the female vocalists, even though this is Hanuma’s point-of-view?
Hanuma’s poetry conveys Sita’s abject sadness at being distanced from her beloved Rama. The message is so poignantly conveyed that the messenger disappears and the poetry seems to emanate directly from Sita herself. Hence popular with female vocalists. They are best suited to give voice to Sita’s yearning and therefore soul to this song. The messenger in showing his intense loyalty to Ram and to Sita, once again effaces from his own message. In any event, they are permanent residents of his heart.
The colloquial versus the literary
Embedded in this song are the words that Sita uses in disgust at Ravan’s advances. Those two words do not belong in this literary poetic piece. But they do color her rage like no other two words can. The poet mixes with great ease the colloquial with the literary. They are ‘che che’ which defines the dirt that Ravan is. The dirtbag is after all in close proximity to the divine.
Nandini’s vocals are at times abrupt and choppy. This goes well with the storyline. Hanuma is exhausted from the search but his message needs to be conveyed decisively (hence he repeats the sighting three times in quick succession lest the point be missed!) but also in a tone that calms Rama. ‘Do not worry, I have sighted Sita’ is what he needs to convey through his breathlessness and exhaustion.
Hence the vocalist’s mildly quivering style behooves this drama.
Adhering to the old addage of supply meeting demand, the Hyderabadi bazaar hawked it’s tupperware and boti kebobs amidst the thickest of human civilizations. The milling crowd was so dense that if Rahim bhai with his Dubai luggage got onto the local APSRTC bus he would create enough room for people a mile around to at least swing their arms while walking.
Something wasn’t right. Invariably, there were more passengers boarding the bus than were alighting. The volume of humanity in the bus grew bigger and larger but amazingly by some quirk of science called surface tension that keeps an overfilled glass of water from spilling over the brim, the bus could actually hold more than it could actually hold!
It was a hot summers afternoon and one could almost hear the heat crepitating. Rahim bhai was slammed between a cold steel railing in the bus and an open shirted Romeo with a calico bandana and a “char anna ki atter” swab plugged in his ear. The exuding aroma of this over killed Yeves Saint Laurent made the cunductor sneeze. “Arganic Chemistry at vark!” thought Subba Rao already running late for his 2.30PM Chemistry Lab, Osmania University. Rahim bhai stood on his toes to get a glimpse of the outside world through the small window which was now almost completely obliterated by this pan-chewing Romeo, leaning over, like a dunking duck, to spew out a jet-stream of red betel-juice onto the cracked hot asphalt road passing swiftly below.
The median to this two-way traffic lane was a broken yellow line. The Romeo’s red streak aligned well with this yellow line. The ever late, impatient Subba Rao would normally eyeball the speed of the bus by noting the pace of this jaundiced visual staccato. Today, he realized he had a “kalar-aption”- yellow or red.
Rahim bhai caught a glimpse of the blossoming Gulmohar tree in the Woman’s College compound. “Koti” mumbled the conductor as the bus rolled to a stop. “Next istop apna hai” advised the Romeo, giving advance notice of his whereabouts to the world.
Once in a while you hear a soul stirring rendition that stops you on your tracks. That makes you forget your past and your future. Actually makes you forget the present too!
This piece here is breathtaking for multiple reasons. The singer Rohini Ravada, the clarinetist Shankar Tucker, the Urdu poet Faiyaz Hashmi collude to bring time to a standstill.
Faiyaz Hashmi’s innate genius is on display here: taking what appear to be commonplace words and infusing them with extraordinary depth of meaning.
Shankar Tucker is an American jazz clarinetist who has successfully crossed genres: Western and Indian. That’s no easy feat considering the fact that Western jazz accords an unrestricted freedom and Indian classical music has it’s incredible but inspiring restrictions! An accomplished Hindustani and Carnatic musician, he studied under the classical Hindustani bamboo flutist Pundit Hariprasad Chaurasia. Shankar calls Chennai home, but is globally popular for his YouTube videos at ShrutiBox, and locally much sought after by his India fans during his India tours.
Yes, he loves the Kolavari song, especially the nadaswaram piece and mimics it “pa pa pa pam” with a smile. Cross over artist, he must be!
आज जाने की ज़िद न करो
यूं ही पहलू में बैठे रहो
हाय मर जायेंगे हम तो लुट जायेंगे
ऐसी बातें किया न करो
Do not leave me Come, stay by my side I think I’ll die, or be lost, if you insist on leaving me tonight
तुम ही सोचो ज़रा क्यूँ न रोके तुम्हें
जान जाती है जब उठके जाते हो तुम
तुम को अपनी क़सम जान-ऐ-जान
बात इतनी मेरी मान लो
Think for a moment Why wouldn’t I stop you? Because, every time you leave me, I am left lifeless Listen to this one request of mine, Don’t insist on leaving me tonight
वक़्त की क़ैद में ज़िंदगी है मगर
चन्द घड़ियाँ यही हैं जो आज़ाद हैं
इन को खो कर मेरी जान-ऐ-जान
उम्र भर न तरसते रहो
Our lives are trapped, in time’s prison We discover within it, a few precious moments; Squandering away the time we could have spent together, You may come to regret it, your entire life Don’t insist on leaving me tonight
कितना मासूम-ओ-रंगीन है ये सम्मा
हुस्न और इश्क की आज मैय्राज है
कल की किस को खबर जान-ऐ-जान
रोक लो आज की रात को
How innocent and colorful is the weather, Is it not the reign of beauty and love? Who knows what tomorrow will bring? Let this night last forever
You are correct and it’s no mistake. Shankar left out the last paragraph of Hashmi’s poem in the interest of meeting YouTube restrictions over time!
If the above was modern, then here is the original classic sung by “Malika-e-Ghazal” (Queen of Ghazal): The iconic Ghazal singer from Pakistan, Farida Khanum’s rendition of this song that she is most associated with:
I dedicate this hauntingly melancholic song to Pakistan’s brave daughter, Malala Yousafzai. I pray that we learn to protect our sons and daughters from ourselves. – Nov 10, ’12, Malala Day for Girls Education, UN
சாத்திரம் பேசுகிறாய் கண்ணம்மா சாத்திரம் ஏதுக்கடீ
ஆத்திரம் கொண்டவர்க்கே கண்ணம்மா சாத்திரமுண்டோடீ
மூத்தவர் சம்மதியில் வதுவை முறைகள் பின்பு செய்வோம்
காத்திருப்பேனோடீ இது பார் கன்னத்து முத்தமொன்று
Translation
The sun and the moon kaNNammA are they the light in your eyes? Dark round eyes kaNNammA Are they the darkness of the skies?
In the violet silk sari the diamonds embedded They are the stars seen in night’s darkest hour
The light of the garden flower Is it your beautiful smile? The blue sea’s waves Are they the waves of your heart?
The graceful koel’s sound Is it your sweet voice? I’ve fallen in love kaNNammA with you
Rules you speak to me kaNNammA why do we need rules? Those who are impatient kaNNammA What do they have as rules?
If the elders agree kaNNammA we will seek the marriage rites later Why should I wait any longer? Look here, a kiss on your cheek
(Came across Deepak Blue at SoundCloud. His rendition is inspired.)
This is Hariharan’s rendition of the same poem for the Tamil movie: Kandukonden Kandukonden.
Chinnaswami Subramanya Bharathi (Tamil: சின்னசுவாமி சுப்பிரமணிய பாரதி) (December 11, 1882 – September 11, 1921) was a Tamil writer, poet, journalist, Indian independence activist and social reformer from Tamil Nadu, India. Popularly known as Mahakavi Bharathiyar (Tamil: மகாகவி பாரதியார்), he is a pioneer of modern Tamil poetry.
Born in Ettayapuram in 1882, Subramanya Bharathi studied in Tinnevely and worked as a journalist with many newspapers, notable among them being the Swadesamitran and India.Bharathi was also an active member of the Indian National Congress. In 1908, an arrest warrant was issued against Bharathi by the government of British India for his revolutionary activities forcing him to flee to Pondicherry where he lived until 1918.
Bharathi is considered to be one of the greatest Tamil poets of the modern era. Most of his works were on religious, political and social themes. Songs penned by Bharathi have been widely used in Tamil films and Carnatic Music concert platforms.
Knowing my sorry plight of being unable to see your charming face with a smile,
can’t you save me, Supreme among Raghus, O Rama!
naga-rājadhara nīdu parivārulu ella
ogi bōdhana cēsē-vāralu gārē iṭula uṇḍudurē
O Bearer of the great Govardhana mountain! Isn’t there anyone in your retinue
to correctly advise you of your daily engagements? Why are they like this?
Eeven after hearing your order, Garuda did not execute your commands expeditiously?
Could he have excused himself saying that he was far from earth in VaikuNTha, your heavenly abode?
Exalted Lord! Ruler of the Universe! To whom else can I appeal?
I can’t bear it if you disregard me. Take me under your fold,
One praised by Tyagaraja!
I love this song! This was the theme song played by the nadaswaram troupe during my wedding. Set to the the Carnatic Abheri raga (Bhimpalasi in Hindustani), this here is a fusion rendition by Karthik and then a Canadian Band “Phatwave” singer Aathirai Sivapalan in the second interpretation. Fabulous! I include the lyrics, because I had no clue what it meant when I fell in love with Nagumomu and Abheri
There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold And she’s buying a stairway to heaven When she gets there she knows, if the stores are all closed With a word she can get what she came for Ooh, ooh, and she’s buying a stairway to heaven
The lady here represents our naive selves. We get what we want all the time and in our naivety think that the glitter is the gold. But she does not know if the doors to the store are open but she is on her way there, nonetheless. This alludes to a naive hope that she has. She is buying herself a spiritual after-life, or so she seems to think.
There’s a sign on the wall but she wants to be sure ‘Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings In a tree by the brook, there’s a songbird who sings Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven Ooh, it makes me wonder Ooh, it makes me wonder
The sign on the wall, is difficult to comprehend. We know they have multiple meanings and we need a guide to help us interpret it correctly. This guide could be an authoritarian entity that gives us a singularmeaning to the sign on the wall. The songbird represents our own deep thoughts and when it sings, we like what it says. And what it says is that this authoritarian guide could be plain wrong in his singular interpretation. But we are apprehensive of our own logic and interpretation of the sign on the wall. We are afraid we could be as wrong as our guide. But this is sufficient reason to question why the guide is so cocksure. It makes me wonder.
There’s a feeling I get when I look to the west And my spirit is crying for leaving In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees And the voices of those who stand looking Ooh, it makes me wonder Ooh, it really makes me wonder
Looking to the west, appears to be for better prospects than the current quagmire you are in. My spirit is crying to go west. The rings of smoke that appear through the trees, is my soul trying to tell me something; send me smoke signals. I pine to leave and breakaway from the clutches of the current condition I am in. Unlike those onlookers that appear to be standing motionless around me. I wonder when I will break free. I wonder.
And it’s whispered that soon if we all call the tune Then the piper will lead us to reason And a new day will dawn for those who stand long And the forests will echo with laughter
There is a quite rumor going around that if we pick the tune, the piper will lead us to enlightenment. This is unusual, because we are given to following the piper who plays a tune of his choice. This then is alluding to the fact that you are your own piper. And if you tirelessly seek the truth and stand long enough, you will wake up eventually to a new existence. An existence that you will love and all of nature will reflect your frothy happiness.
The drums start pounding, as does this new vision of existence.
If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, don’t be alarmed now It’s just a spring clean for the May queen Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run There’s still time to change the road you’re on And it makes me wonder
If you are shaken by the truth that greets your mind, do not be alarmed, it’s just a temporary phase in your life. It’s a spring cleaning to clear the dead dregs of a past life that has run it’s short wonderful course. Sure, you can decide on a path now but if you change your mind later or if you think that you have picked one that leads nowhere, you still have the rest of your life in front of you to decide on another path. The piper of infinite chances, beckons you. And the piper is you.
Your head is humming and it won’t go, in case you don’t know The piper’s calling you to join him Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow and did you know Your stairway lies on the whispering wind?
The piper of infinite chances, beckons you. You hesitate. You know you have to act now. You know the truth. You know the stairway you already paid for is just a false promise leading nowhere. And it glitters but is not gold. It’s expensive but like twigs with rungs, could be tossed around in winds of change. It’s not rooted in a truth evolved of your enlightenment. Of your experiences, it knows nothing about. Stop caring for a whimsy, it’s not going to take you where you really want to be.
An abrupt change in musical tempo, represents a transition moment: from one of lethargic slump to aerobic flourish, from naive innocence to enlightened truth.
And as we wind on down the road Our shadows taller than our soul There walks a lady we all know Who shines white light and wants to show How everything still turns to gold
And as we take this new path, our shadows are cast long by the rising sun of our new dawn. It’s longer than our soul in that our desire for a new enlightenment is greater than the soul sapling we carry. The lady has moved on from being naive and innocent to being the enlightened one shining the light ahead of us. She shines with a new found truth and tells us that she is no longer in search of false glitter. And how everything she touches actually turns into the new gold. She is indeed picking her own salvation, her own gold.
And if you listen very hard The tune will come to you at last When all are one and one is all, yeah To be a rock and not to roll
And she’s buying a stairway to heaven
If you listen carefully, and you stand tirelessly long enough, the tune you seek will appear. You will be one with the other seekers of this elusive truth. You have a communion of truth seekers that will stand strong together and be unshakable in their newfound meaning in their lives. The communion you belong to is also of your choice. You have decided to be part of it and have allowed them to be part of you. This unity transforms you and you in turn transform the ones united with you. What you have touched has indeed transformed to gold.
Mary Jane Blige ( /ˈblaɪʒ/; born January 11, 1971), preferably known as Mary J. Blige, is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and occasional actress. She is a recipient of nine Grammy Awards and four American Music Awards, and has recorded eight multi-platinum albums. She is the only artist with Grammy Award wins in R&B, Rap, Gospel, and Pop.
I came across a fascinating story recently. The famed Tequila and Margarita of the West being processed and manufactured, right here in India. The guy behind this was Desmond Nazareth. This being an India first, I had to participate in the toast first and a blog next!
Tequila is a refinement over a native drink of Mexico, by the Spanish Conquistadors more than 500 years ago. They took the sweet syrup of the agave plant and fermented and distilled it further. It has come to become the national identity of Mexico’s proud heritage. From Jalisco, Tierra del Tequila, published by Artes Mexico, 1995:
Tequila reminds us of a particular world, a world that was born of shared imagination – a wild, rural landscape of robust men on horseback, accustomed to difficult tasks. A powerful shadow, that of the mountain also called Tequila, falls over this great region. That terrain of hard beauty is as hypnotizing to contemporary travellers as it was in centuries past.
Almost all of the Tequila is manufactured in Tequila, a small town in a valley west of Guadalajara, in Jalisco state, Mexico. The largest consumer of tequila is the US and then Mexico. Two of the largest and well known tequila brands being Cuervo and Sauza. It takes a minimum of 8 years to make a bottle of tequila. It is distilled from the roasted center (piña) of the blue agave plant. Tequila is a Geographical Indication (GI) belonging to the Mexican Government.
Panning the camera back to India, we see a man in search of bringing this Mexican buzz to India. In the process, he went the whole 9 yards:
From growing the blue agave Indian equivalent to also manufacturing the liqueurs essential for a great margarita.
While doing some spirit and soul searching in India, Desmond appears to have had an ‘aha’ moment. In his own words:
A random question was triggered off in my mind, for no apparent reason: why is Tequila®, a globally known alcoholic beverage, made in only one country (Mexico), whereas almost any other equally well known alcoholic beverage (whisky, vodka, rum, gin, champagne, wine, beer) has multiple producers in multiple countries?
Researching this, I saw photos of the blue Agave used in Mexico and had an ‘aha’ moment – I was sure I had seen similar Agave plants growing in India during my childhood. Having some general knowledge about these matters, I immediately looked up a map of the world and traced the latitude lines for the Agave growing regions in Mexico (Jalisco & Oaxaca) across to India. They crossed right through the Deccan Plateau! Looking at the other key parameters for the possible migration of plant species, I found startlingly close matches in terms of soil, rainfall, temperature, altitude i.e. key geo-climatic factors.
I concluded that I must have seen these plants while traveling through the Deccan on trains in my youth! I continued my research for the next few years and collected enough information to develop a process for making Agave spirits from the blue-green Agave, if only I could find it in India! Shortly after moving to Goa, and meeting the right people who could help me find and experiment, we set off on a road trip into the Deccan, armed with all my data files, in search of the blue-green Agave – lo and behold, we found some within a day!
Thus the desi-avatar of the tequila was born. The amazing details are as intoxicating as the brew itself! But a margarita needs it’s liqueur, right? Desmond went the whole hog and manufactured that as well. In his line DesmondJi Orange Liqueur, you will find the Cointreau equivalent. In Desmond’s words:
Having successfully made very high quality Agave spirits by 2007 in R&D mode, I realized that the main use they were put to was in the making of Margaritas. For the classic Margarita, one needs a good Orange liqueur like Cointreau®*, Grand Marnier®*, Triple Sec, or Blue Curaçao.
I wanted a world-class Orange liqueur to go with my world-class Agave spirit to make world-class Margaritas in India! So I contacted a couple of the French producers of renowned Orange liqueurs and requested them to consider making their products in India, so that the cost to the Indian consumer would be affordable. They ignored me.
Having researched the making of these liqueurs, that lack of response was all the impetus I need to say ‘What the heck? I’ll make these on my own, with oranges from India.’ I quickly chose the Nagpur Orange as my basis and over the next few years developed what I believe is a world class Orange liqueur and Blue Curaçao liqueur. I now had two of the key ingredients of my classy Margarita, made entirely in India with Indian raw materials! The third, fresh lime juice, is readily and affordably available in India.
So, here’s a toast to a new and exciting India. The one that breaks free, the one that races ahead. Amidst the heat and dust of modern India, give me a margarita!
DJ’s basic 100% desi-margarita
Lime juice, freshly squeezed from one lime
DesmondJi 100% Agave, one part
DesmondJi Orange Liqueur, half part
Blend these into a margarita glass, with some crushed ice. The rim of the glass laced with salt, makes for a basic, classic margarita.
PV’s DJ Agave Grilled Lime Shrimp
500 gm medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
100 ml olive oil
12 cloves garlic, minced
60 ml DesmondJi 51% Agave
Juice of two limes
salt + pepper + cumin + one green chili to taste
If you do not have a measuring cup, you can fall back on approximations. Cup your hand and pour the the DJ into it. That should approximate 50 to 60 ml. Two cupped handfulls will be the olive oil. Fresh ground pepper on the shrimp looks magical. Cumin adds a subtle flavor and it was actually lost to my tastebuds. One level teaspoon would suffice. I left the head on the shrimp, for effect.
Mix all the ingredients together for the marinade and add the shrimps last. Let it marinate for 20 to 30 minutes. The original recipe calls for a refrigeration of 2 to 4 hours. I am not sure if that is necessary other than the fact that the cold shrimp may behave differently to the high heat of the grill. Worth a try. The shrimps turned out succulent and great.
Here they are, fresh from my local Meat Mart and ready to be deveined:
After marinating it for about 20 minutes, I threw the lot on my weber grill on a moderate Indian charcoal fire:
Took them off the grill while they were translucent. The aroma was splendid, the flavors, well, you will have to try it yourself, and let me know!
I’ll slip an extra shrimp on the barbie for you mate, if you are having a DJ-margarita! Cheers and a Happy New Year!
If you have a recipe suggestion with a DJ involvement, please send in your suggestions and I would be glad to post them here. Some accompanying pictures would make it 100% authentic!
I met Desmond in Bangalore and we took a few pictures in front of an agave plant that started it all! He said he bought it at Lalbagh and planted it about six years ago
My daughter loves my cooking. Only because it is usually experimental stuff and the exitement is in waiting to see how the dish turned out! Some consolation if it actually turns out good. So I made her Sunday breakfast – Kati Roll with Kulcha and Goan Sausage.
Here is a small variation to the famous kati roll of Calcutta. Instead of the Sheek-kebab, I substituted it with some Goan sausage. The Goan sausage at my local meat mart is usually very spicy so I use regular sausage to blunt the effect. Use them half and half for my recipe here.
Anardhana Sauce
Half cup pomegranate seeds, ground
two tablespoon honey
half a lime
quarter teaspoon of chat masala
The anardhana (pomegranate seed) softens up if you soak it overnight. This is a souring agent and it has been losing it’s prominence in the Indian recipes, hence my reintroduction. I have no clue how it is actually done and this is my experiment. Mix everything and keep aside. The best of this sauce is from Kati Zone, a kati roll franchise in Bangalore. It’s their secret sauce, and I confess I cannot even claim to have reached the first rung to saucy heaven.
Yogurt sauce
Half cup yogurt
small cucumber grated
Mix it up, keep aside.
I got some semi-baked kulchas from the neighborhood bakery counter of the Total Mall. This flat bread has a semi-sweet yeasty good flavor that forms the basic flat bread to this roll. Bake it for a few minutes till it picks up a tan. Let cool outside the oven for a few minutes. A teaspoon scoop of the sour pomegranate paste is spread on the kulcha. Hold an aluminum foil in your left hand, place this kulcha on it, throw in the Goan sausage and fold it with the foil. Wrap the aluminum foil so the ingredients are held tight.
Offer on a plate to a deserving candidate! Awaiting feedback as she is not done with breakfast yet. I think it turned out good. Substitute sausage with potatoes and paneer or minced lamb and I am sure it will be equally yummy. Kati roll rocks!
Ingredients:
Anar dana: 1 Cup
Raisins: 2 Tbsp
Vinegar or Lemon Juice: 1 Tbsp
Black Pepper: 1 Tsp
Cilantro (Hara Dhaniya): 1 Cup Chopped
Mint: Some leaves
Ginger: 1/2 inch
Green Chilli: 2-3
Salt to taste
Instructions:
Soak anar dana over night.
In a grinder add all the ingredients and grind them well.
Delicious anar dana chutney is ready. This is a great side dish, you can use it as a dip also.
Mate, the tiger fish curry is done cooking and Joseph’s girl is here. Jesus has showered his blessings
Elay = Mate; Keechan = Tigerfish, freshwater fish available in Tuticorin and Cuddalore
Joseph’s girl = Mary. In this case Beatrice
This opening title song Elay Keechan, immediately brings to mind a certain people. Elay and Yekki are how you would address a boy or a girl in this coastal town. It’s a corruption of the Portuguese terms Ela and Equ.
How did the Portuguese come to influence the language, culture and religion of the fishermen here?
Mani Ratnam’s latest movie Kadal is about a fisherman from a village close to Tuticorin called Manapad. This is of immense interest to me, as I consider the place my cultural roots. Having grown up in bigger cities all my life, I always come back here, to figure out what makes me me. That journey of self-discovery is absolutely thrilling. I wanted to see if Mani Ratnam added to my understanding of myself through this movie.
Let me introduce my cultural heritage to you then, via a popular song. A 1973 movie Do Phoolsaw Mehmood singing and dancing to a funny Tamil song. The Hindi speaking population ingloriously mutilated a Tamil song in Muthu KodiKawari Hada much less understood what it meant. Apparently Mehmood used to love mimicking Nagesh and Asha Bhosle loved LR Eswari and the song and dance in Do Phoolwas a remake of another tamil song called Muthu Kullika Varigala from a 1967 Tamil movie:Anubhavi Raja Anubhavi.
What does Muthu Kulikka Vaarigala mean?
Muthu Kulikka Vaarigala, in Tamil means Do you want to go deep sea fishing to harvest oysters for pearls?
Pearl diving used to be the profession of the fishermen in this coastal town of Tuticorin. At one time, the Tuticorin coast was the global hot-spot for pearl trade. The Arabs, the Chinese in particular descended to this pearl harbor to buy pearls from this community. Big fat beautiful and perfectly round pearls that commanded a good price in the global market. Sister Dekla summarizes my community’s lifestyle and evolution during that period in her doctoral thesis.
Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango. Thunderbolt and lightning, very, very frightning! That’s about it. I have just exhausted my Opera expertise with Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. I am clueless about opera really, but here is Les pêcheurs de perles (The Pearl Fishers). An opera based on this fishermen community, by the French composer Georges Bizet, first performed in 1863.
But it was the other Frenchman, Jules Verne, who actually popularized the oppressed Indian, in 1870, when he wrote about this community in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
It was a man, a living man, a black Indian fisherman, a poor devil who no doubt had come to gather what he could before harvest time. I saw the bottom of his dinghy, moored a few feet above his head. He would dive and go back up in quick succession. A stone cut in the shape of a sugar loaf, which he gripped between his feet while a rope connected it to his boat, served to lower him more quickly to the ocean floor. This was the extent of his equipment. Arriving on the seafloor at a depth of about five meters, he fell to his knees and stuffed his sack with shellfish gathered at random. Then he went back up, emptied his sack, pulled up his stone, and started all over again, the whole process lasting only thirty seconds.
Captain Nemo pulled a bag of pearls from a pocket in his diving suit and placed it in the fisherman’s hands. “That Indian, professor” he said, “lives in the land of the oppressed, and I am to this day, and will be until my last breath, a native of that same land!”
That must have surprised you as you probably thought the captain to be European. But no, Captain Nemo is in fact a descendant of Tipu Sultan (a Muslim ruler of Mysore who resisted the British Raj), who took to the underwater life after the suppression of the 1857 Indian Mutiny, in which his close family members were killed by the British. He was very much an Indian and hence his comment to the professor. He belonged to the oppressed masses, as much as the poor devil of a forefather of mine did. He championed the cause of the oppressed and identified the British as the oppressor.
My ancestors are sitting on the edge of this Dingy, some clipping their noses and ready to dive into the ocean. The first three on the right are ready to take a quick plunge. Their feet are dangling just above the waters. I cannot make out clearly, but they must have a sugarloaf shaped stone tied to their legs for quick descent.
The men standing behind the seated pearl divers, are holding fast to ropes tied to the pearl diver’s waist and another to the sugarloaf shaped stone. As soon as the pearl diver reached the bottom, he would give one of the ropes a tug and the man above would pull the sugarloaf shaped stone up.
After the pearl diver collected the pearl laden clam-shells, he would give another rope a tug, signalling that he needs to be pulled up quickly as he was running out of breath. It was this precarious life that was hanging by a thread in the ocean’s depths, that demanded an alert man on the boat. That alert man by tradition was his machan or brother-in-law. For very obvious reasons!
The black Indian fisherman, a poor devil, just so happens to be my ancestor from this coastal region. Captain Nemo, in a moment of largess, actually awards my black forefather with a string of pearls. That must have startled my forefather considerably! At a time when Europe was milking their colonies of their natural resources, Captain Nemo takes pity on my skinny forefather and visualizes him as an oppressed Indian working as a slave under the Europeans. This is a bit fictional, but it drives home Captain Nemo’s true patriotism to his own motherland – India
The situation above the oceans was a different issue altogether for my ancestor. His pearl-fishing rights were usurped by the muslims of that region, who were exerting their powers in that region. They undertook a voyage to Goa, the headquarters of the Portuguese presence in India and asked for protection. At a time where the Portugese religious were simply an extension of the Portugese governance and army, protection was granted by their governor under condition that they convert their religion from Hinduism to Christianity.
So what was it going to be? Religion for food was a fair bargain. And so, the largest mass conversion in 1536, of Hindus to Christianity in Tuticorin happened right here, with each of them getting a new Christian name along with one of the 64 surnames of the Portuguese sailors on board the Portuguese ship.
Needless to say, I got stuck with one – Vas.
Here then is a small board outside the church, tracing the trajectory of a historic event.
The Prostitute’s Burial
Early into the movie, Mani Ratnam gives his story a running start. Some villagers carry a dead prostitute to a local church for last rites, with her doting son following around. The priest refuses as she is a sinner. They give her a burial outside the cemetery, out in the open sea. A hastily procured box doubles-up as coffin, but proves to be a bit short and a quick frame shows us a leg dangling out. It is twisted to break point and stuffed into the coffin, with one of the guys joking that in death as in life her legs were spread apart.
If this was a gruesome explanation, it’s true to the frame and context of the depiction on film. It is the high-point of high-art in this movie. No other song, fight and picture touches the rock-bottom of human frailty as this scene does. It closely matches a Shyam Banegal style of stark realism. But what it fails to do, is deliver on the promise of this running start and inciting incident. However, it does carry with it a potent unsaid subtext:
In death as in life, a prostitute’s dishonor is maintained by the men who want her the most
Why is it that those who love this prostitute have absolutely no qualms in saying that they are not sinners? A prostitute is not only considered a sinner but also bears another sinner’s sin, sometimes in the form of her own child. It is this polio-stricken woman’s unconditional love for her son that becomes the sacred flaw in it’s gnawing absence after her early death, for the protagonist, her son. A patriarchal view of prostitution, puts the blame of immorality squarely on the prostitute while not only being conveniently redeemed of this sin, but compounding it by enjoying it.
The presumptuous immorality in prostitution, is the straying away from the acceptable norm that a woman ‘belongs’ to one man alone, while refusing to entertain the question of how many women this presumptuous moral policeman belongs to.
It is this un-shared sin that put’s Thoma’s life into high-gear. He is in search of his loving mother who once fed him with her own hands. He does not find her in religion. He finds her eventually in another woman who bears a similar un-shared sin. Religion plays less of an enabler and more of a visible stage prop. Mani Ratnam gives religion, and in this case – Christianity, a grand slip, not withstanding the incessant vocabulary referencing it though!
This is the cave where St. Francis Xavier spent a couple of years. It belonged to a Naik, a tax collector, and his woman companion who had taken refuge here. After they vacated this cave, St. Francis took abode in it. It’s a dugout sandstone cave and is typical of caves that extend along these shores into Thiruchendur, a neighboring town with a prominent Hindu temple dedicated to Lord Murugan the son of Shiva. St. Francis tried converting the Hindu priests of this temple with some theological debates that are best forgotten now.
A picture I took of the marker to St. Xavier’s cave in 2007
A new and politically correct version of the same marker in 2010
Naik was a Saivite, or a worshiper of Shiva. The cave now is consecrated to St. Francis Xavier. in essence the cave’s fate resembles that of the local fishermen in Manapad who were converted in 1540. A re-purposed cave and a re-purposed people.
St. Francis Xavier was a hard nosed negotiator. After these churches were built, he placed Tamil teachers and instructors in charge of the upkeep of these churches. But he had to pay them and he had no money. He pleaded with Queen Catherine of Portugal to send money, imploring her thus:
You need no fitter shoes to climb to heaven than the Christian children of the Manapad coast. Therefore I humbly request that you bestow your annual footwear budget to these teachers here and make yourself a ladder to heaven.
Christianity was spread and then sustained by the footwear budget of Queen Catherine on these shores. In essence, I owe my religion to this Queen’s footwear budget. I hope the lady has brought herself a stairway to heaven after this good deed.
The Bastard
I came across a fascinating story once. A government official was taking a census of Christians in this coastal village. He went about gathering data from the local churches that kept good records of births and deaths in the village. On paging through these records, he was struck by the fact that many of the children of this village, were born to the same father! That person, who had fathered so many children was one Mr. Painao Sabido. How is this possible? he asked himself. He was even more startled at the fact that many such registers in many churches listed him as the parent of so many children!
His mystery was finally put to rest when he was told that Painao sabido actually meant “Father Unknown” in Portuguese. Thus when the child is illegitimate the Church’s baptist would put down Painao Sabido in the church register. Something that the Portuguese missionaries taught him to do! The tradition was carried forward into a time where it’s true meaning was forgotten. Just like some of the other cultural relics that exist even today.
Thoma, the protagonist of the movie Kadal, is born out of wedlock. His father is really Pai nao sabido according to the Church registers. He thinks he knows who his father is, but that man rejects him completely. His father wants to remain Pai nao sabido beyond the Church register and makes every attempt possible to maintain distance from an incriminating evidence – his son.
The son never hates him for this rejection. He knows of no other father, and a father who exists is sufficient for him. A father that throws a fish from his catch, either from guilt, affection or sympathy, we do not know, but for the bastard it’s a sign of the only form of love he has ever experienced and it’s good.
The boats are a palimpsest for this communities’ varying culture and religion. The eyes painted in the front are a pledge of allegiance and invoking the blessings of Meenakshi – the goddess with the large fish eyes.
Prior to that conversion by the Portuguese missionaries this community worshiped Varuna the sea God and prayed to Kaniyakumari for protection.
I believe Kanyakumari, a virgin goddess was also one of the primary deities to this community prior to their conversion to Christianity. Hence the introduction and eventual replacement for this community, by a similar virgin goddess Kanni (Virgin) Mary was a divine missionary prestidigitation.
The name of the boat itself is written in Tamil – Mary, referencing the new religion of Christianity and a one-to-one replacement of the Mother Goddess that happened during India’s largest mass conversion in 1536 in this port town in the 16th century.
Oh! Mother, Where are You?
A recurring theme in Kadal is the loss of the mother and an undying search for her by her bastard son.
Does the Christ save the bastard? Does Jesus redeem the prostitute?
The movie does not force these questions on us, but plays with an answer given us by a Christian allegory to the Virgin Mary in the form of Beatrice. Beatrice plays the redeemer and savior for the prostitute and bastard.
The Prostitute as Mother
Nobody loves a prostitute in this village. They just lust after her to satisfy their primal urges. One such is Chetty. She bears him a son, Thoma. Chetty, disowns the boy and is outraged at both Thoma and the priest Sam, who name him as the father in the Church Register, when Thoma wants to receive a baptism there. Sam, the priest, offers this as justification for implicating him as Thoma’s father:
We all know about our fathers only through our mothers
Meaning to say that Thoma could not be wrong in naming Chetty as his father as that was what was told him by his mother. The prostitute is not a beautiful woman. She is shown as a polio-stricken woman with unkempt hair. But her love for her child is something else. It is pure, unadulterated, pristine, undying and unconditional.
An imperfect woman but a perfect mother
Thoma is on a life long quest in search of this woman, this perfect mother. His heart bleeds with pain and he cries – Oh! Mother, where are you?
Beatrice as Virgin Mother
Beatrice is an innocent and naive girl. She is shown wearing a flowing white gown most of the time, as though she is in a permanent state of purity. She has in fact had a traumatic experience as a child which has arrested growth beyond that stage. She has only physically grown into a beautiful woman. She is a calm and collected mid-wife and helps deliver babies in the village. She does not know what sin is, though she is born of one. In that sense, her conception itself is blemished, hence not immaculate. But the innocence of the child needs no dogma to uplift it further towards heaven. It is this innocence bordering on naivete that redeems Thoma. It replaces the unconditional love of his mother. He sees his mother in Beatrice.
Beatrice, the village mid-wife helps deliver Thoma from sin. She has helped yet another mother from the village deliver a healthy and happy baby. That mother died a long time ago. That mother was a prostitute and it does not matter to Beatrice. It’s what makes Beatrice a living Mother Mary. All she ever says is – Let it Be
Here is a 2013 Golden Car Festival Special Video that I made at the 300th Anniversary of Our Lady of Snows, Thoothukudi. The Paravar community celebrates this festival with aplomb. Here is the church portal which carried it.
The Prostitute’s Reburial
With the burial of his prostitute mother, the bastard’s die has been cast. He is a seashore urchin that nobody wants. He is witness to his mother’s burial out on the open seashore, with a lone vulture assessing the situation by circling a sunny noon sky above. A poignant visual of excommunication of the mother and of her son, will burden him for life. He gets out of this vortex of poverty and being unloved or cared for by going astray into a life of crime.
He finds comapany in the evil Berchmans, who loves him on condition of being his partner in crime. Thoma willingly gets into this arrangement in exchange for a little respect and love from this new found friend, however satanic he maybe. Now that crime has brought him respect, he is awash with pride of accomplishment. He yearns to correct a visual that keeps bothering him:
The disrespect his mother was shown in death.
Thoma manages to rebury his mother inside a church cemetery with full honors only accorded to a woman who has lead a life of prayer and dedicated to God’s will. The crowd that mills around a well built memorial and tombstone makes way to a powerful Berchmans who wades through the crowd and places a flower wreath on the tomb of the resurrected sinner.
Her place in society has been purchased. Her son has a new shining visual of acceptance. His mother has been redeemed of her sins by this simple act of reburial in a better and accepting place.
Thoma wants a little respect from the villagers, and he is perfectly fine if he gains that through fear.
A bastard’s past bears down heavily on him. He needs to do everything possible to remove and put down the burden on his back, so he can move on with a light step. Are not the dead, equals in the eyes of the creator? The sinner and saint are equals in the place of the skulls.
The bastard has exacted social justice. His mother lies interred at the foot of the Church. The pretentious fools who once said of his mother’s open burial – grass will not grow where this sinner is buried, are now singing high hymns of solace and grace around her. The priests have accepted Berchman’s money for the upkeep of the church, in spite of him saying it was money he earned from a life of sin.
The past will eventually catch up with the present, so hurry, correct it. Redo the past to make it worthy of the present!
The Tortured Christ
The priest Fr. Sam walks in the footsteps of the Christ. He attempts to save the village. Thoma is still a work in progress. But when somebody else is responsible for Thoma’s conversion, he asks Thoma with a tinge of regret – who could have possibly converted you [Thoma], when I couldn’t?
After his resurrection from the dead, Jesus presents himself to his apostles. One among them is a Thomas who seriously doubts if this man in front of him is actually Jesus raised from the dead. He doubts in Jesus’ Resurrection, the central event to Christian faith. Jesus asks him to put his finger into his wounds to prove for himself that he is indeed the resurrected Christ with the five wounds he suffered on the cross. Thomas inserts his fingers into Jesus’ deep wounds and believes.
At this conversion from disbelief to belief, Jesus says – Blessed are those who have not seen me and yet believe in me.
Fr. Sam makes multiple attempts to bring Thoma into the fold of righteousness, to save him, but to no avail. On the other hand, Beatrice does nothing spectacular to convert Thoma who is steeped in sin. Thoma however, is smitten by her unconditional grace in simply being associated with him a sinner. For this Thoma, the resurrected Christ who will be his savior is the Virgin Mother and not the Christ himself.
This switch is not complicated to understand, as it is the Virgin Mother Beatrice that has the deep wounds.
Fr. Sam is falsely accused of a murder and of breaking his priestly vow of celibacy and is defrocked from priesthood and sent to prison. After he serves his sentence, he comes back to the village with the same resolve he had when he was a priest.
He does not need the garb of priesthood anymore to execute his simple vision of shepherding the flock into the path of righteousness.
Interpretations are not absolute but here is my attempt at mapping the various Christian names to who I think they really are:
Beatrice – I have referenced an interview with the author of the Kadal story, Jeyamohan. In that interview he mentions: Beatrice was the name of the angel who takes Dante to heaven in the epic work Divine Comedy, he says that the movie’s theme is about how it takes just one step or action to turn man into God but it takes several steps to turn a man into the devil.My interpretation of Beatrice as the Virgin Mother Mary is more in line with Madhan Karky the lyricist in the Eley Keechan song (he is Vairamuthu’s son) : Soosa ponnu – Joseph’s girl – Mary. This traslation of Soosa ponnu as Joseph’s girl is given in Nandini Karky’s blog. She is Madhan’s wife and I trust that she got Madhan’s intent correct.
Barnabas – This is possibly a simple Christian name given him. But they refer to him by another name in the movie – Chetty, which is much more interesting to me. When the fishermen community’s fishing rights were usurped by the Muslims, they approached a horse trader who was associated with the Portuguese but was of Indian descent. His name to the Portugues was Joa Da Cruz. His name to the Indians was Chetty. He was instrumental in pulling the trigger that lead to this mass conversion to Christianity. Not that Barnabas Chetty is instrumental in any memorable deed we know of. Ponvannan, essayed this negative role with aplomb!
Berchmans – A Mesaikarar. There is a current living priest in Tuticorin that was excommunicated by the Catholic church. He leads a popular charismatic Christian movement and many of his followers are almost cult-like in their beliefs and practices. It is this Berchmans as an excommunicated priest that lends his name to the antagonist in the movie Kadal, who is also excommunicated by the church for a barnyard frolic.
Thoma – My interpretation of the Doubting Thomas is already explored in this blog. Rameshram has an interesting mapping to Thomas Aquinas in the comments section below.
Notes
I constantly refer to some of these characters as prostitute or bastard. There is a shock-value in exploiting the plot-line to it’s fullest and giving these characters their (im)moral titles given them by society. I understand that these are not endearing terms for the actors who have done an excellent job in depicting these characters. I am not exploring Gautham Karthik, for instance, just his character.
Another low-budget movie recently shot in Manapad, was about the lifestyle of the fishermen community here. Neer Paravai touched upon the Sri Lankan territorial sea warfare that kills poor fishermen of the coastal Tamil Nadu. Some thought, before it’s release, that Mani Ratnam picked up this theme in Kadal
Mani Ratnam has painted with broad brush strokes and wants you to fill the blanks. The novella by Jeyamohan is spiritual and philosophical in tone. Ratnam translates that into visuals. This feat is similar to Ang Lee translating the Life of Pi
I talk about Muslim oppressors here, but that’s way back 500 years ago. I am from Hyderabad and have many Muslim friends. I have written about Muslims in India in a very positive light too.
I have not mentioned AR Rahman by name. but this story is awash with his bewitching music that casts a divine spell. He is the wind beneath this soaring eagle.
As a creature of politics and social justice, I am disappointed with some Christian group that has taken Mani Ratnam to court over a few scenes that offended them in the movie Kadal. An artist must have the right to use irony as a powerful vessel for a greater truth.
The greatest irony of Christianity should not be forgotten:
Jesus was stripped naked, nailed to a cross wearing a crown of thorns. A sign on the cross mocked this man who claimed kingship: Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews
That dying man was a sage and artist, one who couldn’t save himself but promised to save you. It is in this irony that Christianity finds the greatest love story ever told.
Christianity itself loses its essence, if we were to censure this irony or disallow it’s interpretation.
Like many current science fiction authors, Jules Verne would’ve been surprised to learn he was one. His ambitions were somewhat different. As he told Alexander Dumas, pere:
“Just as you are the great chronicler of history, I shall be the chronicler of geography.”
And he proceeded to do just that. There are four recurring characters in a Jules Verne novel: air, fire, earth and water. The womb’s domain, so to speak. Verne liked to place his human characters in enclosed, self-contained, unique spaces of one kind or the other– heavier-than-air flying machines, isolated islands, floating cities, villages on tree-tops, the earth’s core, cannon-balls to the moon, steel submarines 20,000 leagues under the sea– and send them out for a spin. For the most part, his people are two-dimensional cross-hairs; their main role is keep track of places in the reader’s mind.
But there is one marvelous exception. In 1912, some forty odd years after the publication of20,000 leagues Under The Sea, Sir Earnest Shackleton wrote in The Future of Exploration:
“…all the work of our modern oceanographers– of Sir John Murray of Challengerfame, Dr. Hjort of the Michael Sars, Prince Albert of Monaco, and of the various marine biological stations– has won less of public attention and interest than did a single one of Jules Verne’s heroes, Captain Nemo of the Nautilus. Thus does a good tale overshadow the romance of real life….”
How did Captain Nemo ever become something more than one of Verne’s story pegs? F. P. Walter provides one answer:
“…much of the novel’s brooding power comes from Captain Nemo. Inventor, musician, Renaissance genius, he’s a trail-blazing creation, the prototype not only for countless renegade scientists in popular fiction, but even for such varied figures as Sherlock Holmes or Wolf Larsen. However, Verne gives his hero’s brilliance and benevolence a dark underside–the man’s obsessive hate for his old enemy. This compulsion leads Nemo into ugly contradictions: he’s a fighter for freedom, yet all who board his ship are imprisoned there for good; he works to save lives, both human and animal, yet he himself creates a holocaust; he detests imperialism, yet he lays personal claim to the South Pole….Hate swallows him whole.”
It is a plausible explanation. As Captain Nemo readies to destroy an enemy ship– of unspecified nationality– he rages at the tale’s protesting narrator in an Ahab-type outburst:
“I’m the law, I’m the tribunal! I’m the oppressed, and there are my oppressors! Thanks to them, I’ve witnessed the destruction of everything I loved, cherished, and venerated–homeland, wife, children, father, and mother! There lies everything I hate! Not another word out of you!”
But who destroyed everything Nemo loved? Which homeland? 20,000 leagues was deliberately silent on these issues. Verne had wanted Nemo to be a Polish rebel who’d participated in the January Uprising and whose family had been murdered by Tsarist Russia for that reason. But Russia happened to be a pal of France at the moment, and Verne’s editor, Pierre-Jules Hetzel, “persuaded” him to omit crucial details.
It resulted in an inferior book. Captain Nemo became a man driven by a series of general nouns. Just compare him with Captain Ahab, in whom motion and motive merged in an ivory stump.
But characters like Nemo do not leave their authors in peace. In 1875, five years after 20,000 leagues, Jules Verne wrote L’île mysterieuse (The Mysterious Island).
French readers learnt that Nemo was Prince Dakkar of Bundelkhand, a distant relative of “Tippo Saib” (Tipu Sultan); someone who’d fought for freedom in the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857, and whose family had been murdered by the British.
However, readers of the English translation– by W. H. G. Kingston– encountered a very different version. Here are some samples; the fragments on the left are from Kingston’s censored version, the ones on the right are from the much more accurate version by Stephen White.
1. Regarding Nemo’s Origin:
“Captain Nemo was an Indian, the Prince Dakkar, son of a rajah of the then independent territory of Bundelkund. His father sent him, when ten years of age, to Europe, in order that he might receive an education in all respects complete, and in the hopes that by his talents and knowledge he might one day take a leading part in raising his long degraded and heathen country to a level with the nations of Europe.” [Kingston]
“Captain Nemo was an Indian prince, the Prince Dakkar, the son of the rajah of the then independent territory of Bundelkund, and nephew of the hero of India, Tippo Saib. His father sent him, when ten years old, to Europe, where he received a complete education; and it was the secret intention of the rajah to have his son able some day to engage in equal combat with those whom he considered as the oppressors of his country.” [White]
2. Regarding the effect of education on Nemo:
He traveled over the whole of Europe. His rank and fortune caused him to be everywhere sought after; but the pleasures of the world had for him no attractions. Though young and possessed of every personal advantage, he was ever grave–somber even–devoured by an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, and cherishing in the recesses of his heart the hope that he might become a great and powerful ruler of a free and enlightened people.””Still, for long the love of science triumphed over all other feelings.” [Kingston]
“He travelled over all Europe. His birth and fortune made his company much sought after, but the seductions of the world possessed no charm for him. Young and handsome, he remained serious, gloomy, with an insatiable thirst for knowledge, with implacable anger fixed in his heart.””He hated. He hated the only country where he had never wished to set foot, the only nation whose advances he had refused: he hated England more and more as he admired her. This Indian summed up in his own person all the fierce hatred of the vanquished against the victor. The invader is always unable to find grace with the invaded. The son of one of those sovereigns whose submission to the United Kingdom was only nominal, the prince of the family of Tippo-Saib, educated in ideas of reclamation and vengeance, with a deep-seated love for his poetic country weighed down with the chains of England, wished never to place his foot on that land, to him accursed, that land to which India owed her subjection.” [White]
3. Regarding how the world viewed Prince Dakkar:
To the eyes of those who observed him superficially he might have passed for one of those cosmopolitans, curious of knowledge, but disdaining action; one of those opulent travelers, haughty and cynical, who move incessantly from place to place, and are of no country.””This artist, this philosopher, this man was, however, still cherishing the hope instilled into him from his earliest days.” [Kingston]
“In the eyes of a superficial observer, he passed, perhaps, for one of those cosmopolites, curious after knowledge, but disdaining to use it; for one of those opulent travellers, high-spirited and platonic, who go all over the world and are of no one country.””It was not so.This artist, this savant, this man was Indian to the heart, Indian in his desire for vengeance, Indian in the hope which he cherished of being able some day to re-establish the rights of his country, of driving on the stranger, of making it independent.”[White]
4. Regarding the Sepoy Rebellion:
Instigated by princes equally ambitious and less sagacious and more unscrupulous than he was, the people of India were persuaded that they might successfully rise against their English rulers, who had brought them out of a state of anarchy and constant warfare and misery, and had established peace and prosperity in their country. Their ignorance and gross superstition made them the facile tools of their designing chiefs.” [Kingston]
“The English yoke was pressed, perhaps, too heavily upon the Indian people. The Prince Dakkar became the mouthpiece of the malcontents. He instilled into their spirits all the hatred he felt against the strangers. He went over not only the independent portions of the Indian peninsula, but into those regions directly submitted to the English control. He recalled to them the grand days of Tippo-Saib, who died heroically at Seringapatam for the defense of his country.” [White]
So on and so forth. At the end of the rebellion, the British kills Prince Dakkar’s entire family, he loses his kingdom and his fortune, and he is left only with hate. He became a man in search of death. As is often the case, he proceeded to inflict on others what he sought for himself. In The Mysterious Island, Captain Nemo, now on his deathbed, sought something else from the protagonists: understanding.
“I had right and justice on my side,” he added. “I did good when I could, and evil when I must. All justice is not in forgiveness.”[White]
It is the first time the word “justice” appears in the tale. This line is missing in Kingston’s translation.
Of course, the British translators were faced with a difficult dilemma. What were they to do with the iconic Captain Nemo whose hated enemy was revealed to be… their homeland? The revolutionary had become a terrorist. It’s not surprising the translators elided what they could not swallow.
What is surprising however, is that the White version was available as early as 1876. But until Walter James Miller publicized the discrepancies in 1963, most English readers– including myself– typically encountered W. H. G Kingston’s version or other equally distorted versions such as those by Rev. Mercer Lewis and Edward Roth. Even today, Barnes and Noble continues to sell Kingston’s version under the “Signet Classic” imprint (Penguin); in fact, the volume has a new foreword by Bruce Sterling as well as the original introduction by Isaac Asimov. It is unconscionable. Walter Miller, discussing the misleading Mercer’s translation of20,000 Leagues, remarks:
“…there is still residual bad news. Barnes & Noble, in their fat Verne anthology, actually feature the Mercier Lewis version of Twenty Thousand Leagues! The Quality Paperback Book Club, Scholastic Magazine Press, Wordsworth Press, and Nelson/Doubleday all still issue the Mercier Lewis as genuine Verne….Thanks to publishers like these, many American adults still do not know the genuine prophet of science fiction; do not know about his social and political stance or his splendid literary talents.”
I should mention that B&N also sells Jordan Stump’s accurate translation (Modern Library Imprint, Random House).
The perils of translation are many. Consider:
The sentence “This sentence is in French” is false.
What would happen to the truth-value if the above sentence had to be translated into French? Or how about this: the Aymara of the Andes don’t match up the words “back/front” in the usual way with “past/future.” They seem to have a different conception of time. As far as they’re concerned, the future is what you cannot see, so why should it be lying in front of you? So how should “Back to the future” be translated? The surprising twist in the movie title, obvious in English, is completely lost in Aymara.
Proust thought C. K. Scott-Moncrieff’s rendering of A la Recherche du Temps Perdu asRemembrance of Things Past completely misrepresented his work. I ran the title through Google’s translator. I doubt Proust would have been happier with Google’s version: With the Research of Wasted Time.
Fortunately, great works survive their translations, great authors survive their works, and great characters survive their authors. Nemo is neither Prince Dakkar nor is he a Polish rebel. As E. F. Bleiler wrote:
“Who else was Nemo? It used to be said that Nemo was Lord Byron in a diving suit, but a fitter description (as Verne’s friends and relatives knew) is that Nemo was Jules Verne in a diving suit.”
In researching for a movie review, I came across this piece written by Anil Menon. There was a despicable illustration and quote on his blog site (had nothing to do with the article itself) that I wanted excluded, hence copied the contents over to this site. This is Anil Menon’s masterful analysis and not mine.
walks a tight rope, little girl
as we squint at the bright sun and gaze up
she moves, she sways to the drum beats
of an equally hungry father
she moves, he moves from
and we cannot see the pillar
or post up-ahead
she makes progress, she stops
she feigns a tumble
a misstep and we gasp
how bold, how brave, how young
we do ask relevant questions
relevant to us
a village circus ekes out a city life
it can’t, but we won’t, tell them
we have pinned her forever
to the sky
one less to worry about here on earth
she helps us navigate
boredom of ground realities
Notes
This is poetry of the damned. Poetry involves risk taking. One has to be a bit depraved or deprived of something to actually make an impact as a poet. They are personal and leave you vulnerable. That is the reason I stopped taking these risks. These risks are scary to me and I cannot sugar-coat them. But I intend to take some now. This being a revival attempt after I left the poetic form alone 25 years ago.
A Good Friday reflection, set to the Carnatic raaga, Jounpuri. Aadi taalam
Mahakavi Bharathiyar, wrote this poem when he had misplaced a photograph of his mother. He pines to see her face again. I have set this poem and it’s lyrics to the sorrow of a mother who has just lost her son.
The Shroud of Turin, was made public after 40 years. It is assumed to be an image of Jesus. Mostly wrapped in controversy and mystery! Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, signed it’s public viewing, beginning Good Friday 29th March, 2013. The need to see a picture of the divine christ, bears an uncanny but easy human parallel to the poet’s intense need to recover his mother’s picture. It is this intense need that keeps the Shroud of Turin very real for many believers of the faith, irrespective of what science confirms as true or untrue.
Good Friday commemorates the death of Jesus. Pieta is a marble statue of Michaelangelo that depicts a limp and dead son in his mother’s arms. I wonder if these words of the Mahakavi, did not pass through a grieving mother’s mind?
Aasaimugam marantho pochey,
Alas, I have forgotten love’s very face,
idhai yaaridam solven adi thozhi;
My grief is unbearable, my friend;
Nesam marakavillai nenjam,
My heart remembers the tender affections,
enil Ninaivu mugam marakalaamo;
Memory cannot fail me now;
Kannil theriyuthoru thotram,
I perceive him in my mind’s eye,
athil Kannan azhagu muzhuthillai
But I fail to capture his beauty in full;
Nannu mugavadivu kaanil, andha
and I find his eyes,
Nallavalla sirippai kaanom;
Wanting of his winsome smile;
Oivu mozhithalum illamal
And without any respite, my heart beats
Avan uravai ninaithirukkum ullam
Only to remind me of him;
vayum uraipathundu kandai
You would assume that,
Andha maayan pughazhinai eppodum
I enjoy illusion’s cruel tricks;
Kangal purinthuvitta paavam
As my eyes have understood a deception,
uyir Kannan urumarakkalachu
That has caused him to disappear;
pengalinidathil idu pole
Have you noticed such folly
oru pedamai munbu kandathundo?
In other women, my friend?
Thenai maranthirukkum vandum
Does a bee forsake honey?
oli sirappai maranthuvitta poovum
A flower shirk sunlight?
vaanai maranthirukkum payirum
A crop ignore rain,
Indha vaiyam muzhuthumillai thozhi
Any place else in this world?
Kannan mugam maranthuponal,
If I forget love’s very face,
intha Kangal irunthu payan undo;
Would I have further use of my eyes?
Vanna padamumillai kandai,
Alas! I do not have a picture of him to remind me,
inni Vaazhum vazhi ennadi thozhi;
Where will life’s path lead me next, my friend?
Chinnaswami Subramanya Bharathi (Tamil: சின்னசுவாமி சுப்பிரமணிய பாரதி) (December 11, 1882 – September 11, 1921) was a Tamil writer, poet, journalist, Indian independence activist and social reformer from Tamil Nadu, India. Popularly known as Mahakavi Bharathiyar (Tamil: மகாகவி பாரதியார்), he is a pioneer of modern Tamil poetry.
Born in Ettayapuram in 1882, Subramanya Bharathi studied in Tinnevely and worked as a journalist with many newspapers, notable among them being the Swadesamitran and India. Bharathi was also an active member of the Indian National Congress. In 1908, an arrest warrant was issued against Bharathi by the government of British India for his revolutionary activities forcing him to flee to Pondicherry where he lived until 1918.
Bharathi is considered to be one of the greatest Tamil poets of the modern era. Most of his works were on religious, political and social themes. Songs penned by Bharathi have been widely used in Tamil films and Carnatic Music concert platforms.
– wikipedia
Notes
I made minor changes to the English translation to this Tamil poem, to keep the essence alive. These may not be exact word-to-word translations.
Asaimugham probably does not have a proper English translation. Desire-face comes close. I initially translated it to my love’s face, but later did away with the possessive adjective my. That put’s the focus back on the all-consuming love that the poet has for his mother and it diminishes his self.
I am a closet guitarist. When the institute where I train, offered me a chance to take a few free classes, I asked more out of a whim: you wouldn’t happen to teach carnatic vocals, do you?
Laxman, the institute manager, swiveled around in his chair towards a girl seated next to him and gave her two thumbs up. Then he swiveled back towards me with the same two thumbs lifted in elation. Responding to my quizzical look, he said, throwing a glance at the girl –
The teacher just accepted our offer to join us, about five minutes back! Your classes begin next week
I gauged her to be a pleasant 20-something. Every teacher here at this institute, was a 20-something and she fit in like a glove. It was me that was a bit fossilized at the edges.
I have been enjoying carnatic music for a long time. I remember it playing on our Murphy vacuum-tube-valve-radio of my childhood. It would entice me with it’s green-glowing magic-eye, like a firefly on a dark night. All India Radio ruled our house. A time before the advent of television. The gadgets of today appear to be post-armageddon by comparison! But I had never taken any formal carnatic vocal classes.
Armed with an old memory of having bagged a first prize for western style singing, a stainless steel lunch box, that we later etched my name on (for posterity, joked a sibling), I caved in to a heady rhetorical question – Why not?
I sharpened my two HB pencils and put it inside my soft leather pencil pouch. I threw in the sharpener and an eraser for good measure. Just in case we need that. There might be a lot of note taking. Don’t want to be caught without the correct instruments of this trade. I went to class with a mix of anticipation and nervousness. The guitar, on the other hand, was a safe bet, a familiar territory, do some fly-by strumming and pass off as an incorrigible junkie. Vocals sounded plain defeating. I was setting myself up for a grand fall here.
I waited for a few minutes inside our sound-proof audio room. Simple mercies, this soundproofing. I do not want the entire world to listen in!.
Did you guys meet yet? Laxman stopped by to ask.
No, I said, somewhat relieved.
She probably did not recognize you, he said, and went in search of her.
Why don’t we keep it that way? I thought, fidgeting nervously with my notebook.
Inside my head, I am a smart-aleck. Outside, I wasn’t so sure.
She barges in, while I am still appreciating the sound-proofing materials.
Hello, how are you, I inquired in my super-cool natural voice.
I did put on a brave front till she asked me to sing. I gulped some much needed oxygen.
Did I hear that right? Me? Sing? I flatly refused to sing, to which she said –
You have to, or we will never know your pitch!
I thought to myself – She is forcing me to sing, is this even legal?
I do all this thinking, but she is firm in her demands.
I did some quick thinking and took out my mobile with a flourish. Brilliant, I’ll just sing-along. I played a carnatic tune by Karthik.
Big mistake.
I cannot sing like Karthik. I cannot breathe like Karthik. I am no Karthik. Here is what my mobile played:
The silly machine assumed that I will adhere to pure gold standards. Wrong!
I started off with my eyes closed. Closing ones eyes during such times is a very cool ostrich trick. I felt I had sound-proofed myself from eternal damnation. After about a minute that seemed to have lasted forever, I opened my eyes, expecting her to have run away or disappeared from the audio room.
But there she was. Unmoved. Unsympathetic. Not a trace of humor to break the embarrassment, in the relentless pursuit of music and it’s teaching.
The demolition was complete. Vestiges of my self-respect were visibly floating around the audio room. I coughed silently. Mostly to comfort myself.
I don’t remember all of the other details in this one hour session, as the carnatic vocabulary fell on me like a Chennai torrent on a tin roof. Thankfully, all bad things come to an end too. She proffered a hand-shake in the end and then introduces herself. Interesting, I thought to myself. She first icily demolishes, then she warms up.
The next day after my vocal misadventure, I open my notebook over a cup of coffee in the morning. Trying to remember what I had learned and hoping my note-taking will rescue me from a quickly fading memory. A near-blank first page greeted me, and one word, scribbled hastily on it, stared back at me – Mayamalavagowla.
Just one word.
I was overly equipped with assorted accouterments to scribble this one raga’s name in a notebook of 100 pages. The lessons must have glided smoothly over my head, for me to have trapped just one butterfly in an hour. I have work to do. This is a beginner’s raga. It should have had an easy two-syllable name. I’d have named it Ma-ya.
Oh! why did they have to complicate it?
Here is Professor Mysore Nagamani Srinath teaching her students Mayamalavagowla. Great for practice, I listen to her while driving, and practice with the windows rolled-up!
Bhanu Devi left the small water tap running while she scrubbed off the dried-up blobs of henna paste on her palms and feet. As the olive green henna dregs, washed away on the white tiles of a dimly lit bathroom, an intricate bloody-red pattern emerged on her palms and feet. She reminisced on her own wedding preparations of a long time ago.
“Not even a mosquito should find an open spot to land” demanded her mother to the one applying the henna design, a day prior to her wedding, some three decades ago.
With that, the design grew even more intricate. Bhanu Devi snapped out of this dreamy haze when she heard foot steps behind her.
“Don’t waste the water” said Meera Bai the prison warden, rather stiffly.
Bhanu Devi looked at her palms. They were flush red with the henna design. Yes, they were intricate. Yes, a mosquito will find it difficult to find an open spot to land. She turned her palms over to reveal an equally red finger tip and nails. She weaved her fingers together and imagined herself as a dead corpse. She would make a pretty one, she thought. She shut the tap, picked up her white saree and gave it a quick wiggle. She was prepared to die.
Meera Bai escorted her back to her cell. It was too early for the other prison mates to be awake. It was 3:00 AM on a cold Tihar jail Thursday morning, and Bhanu Devi’s anklet bells proved an insufficient wake-up ringtone for the deep sleepers. She passed Rupali the prayerful, Mohsina the beautician, Savitri the musician and Jamila the vaastu expert. The anklet bells were Savitri the musician’s idea. They were all behind bars, they were all fast asleep. They knew each other for more than a decade now. They were the survivors who lived past an alarming mortality rate in this notorious maximum security prison for hardened criminals. She stopped at her tracks, as she felt a tug at her saree. She looked down. It was Jamila the vaastu expert, kneeling down, one hand holding the prison bar and the other, Bhanu Devi’s white saree.
“Face east, you will attain moksha” she whispered fiercely. Having said that she let out a loud wail and started crying.
Just the previous night, Mohsina the beautician applied the henna on Bhanu Devi’s hands and feet. She was constantly reminded of her brief as the rest of the girls giggled – “Not even a mosquito should find an open spot to land”
Rupali the prayerful, read from the scriptures, but they did not have the patience to hear it. So she slipped into a love triangle Bollywood potboiler. “Rupali, tell us what you would have done, if you caught your husband cheating?” They actually knew it in great detail, and needed nothing to jog their memories. This unusual night was a last supper of sorts, and it threw up unusual questions. They already knew that Rupali had made it impossible to find any trace of the victim – her cheating husband, and his illicit lover, some two decades ago.
“Let us not dwell in a past where we can never find redemption. Memory only serves to confirm our rotten selves.” Rupali slipped into a simple sermon to an attentive audience of four that night. “Only action is a great redeemer, hence let us do good deeds”
Bhanu Devi leaned forward to clutch Rupali, but stopped abruptly realizing that she had pasty henna on her hands. “Thank you for keeping me alive in this dark world”
Mohsina the beautician pulled her gently back and signaled to Savitri the musician to wipe the tears from Bhanu Devi’s face “Just dab, not wipe. We do not want the kajal to smear the entire face”
Savitri the musician made it abundantly clear that the anklet bells be of the seventh note of the swaras. The “Nishadha” or the high pitched “ni” of the musical scale. “Nothing else would do” she had mentioned to Lalu the pimp, who was a tone deaf gate-keeper of prisons, and got it right after the fifth try. “Ni, you bloody idiot!” yelled Savitri the musician loudly into his ears. “Ni, Ni, Ni, SaRiGaMaPaDhaNi, Ni, Ni, get it?”
Lalu, finally got it by sheer luck. It was the luck of trial-and-error. The anklet bells matched the damned “Ni”, a high-frequency note that Savitri the musician swore you could hear from the other side of the universe. It was her damned idea, that this high pitched note, could be heard loud and clear from a distance. Even from the gallows, that is.
Jamila the vaastu expert, gasped for breath, by which time everybody was awake. “Do not worry darling, we are with you!” cried somebody in the dark and it was clear it was a male voice.
Bhanu Devi walked the 240 steps north, 300 steps east, up a small staircase of 5 steps, 34 steps right and across the multi-faith temple-mosque-church for lost causes to arrive at the gallows. “Hey, Bhagwan!” said the hangman as he nervously slipped the black mask over her face and proceeded to tighten the noose that he hoped would not fail. He was no professional hangman. But they said they will pay him Rs.5,000 if he gets it right. They forgot to tell him it would be a woman though. India’s first woman to be hanged to death. “Beyond rarest-of-rare cases” he thought to himself as he pulled the lever.
Bhanu Devi slumped out of sight and into the dark gallows. She did make a valiant attempt to jangle the anklets in the depths to produce the “Ni” that Savitri assured would reach their ears. That she had moved on from this world to another.
“Did you hear that?” asked Savitri at around 5:01 AM that fateful Thursday morning. That high pitched “Ni” reached her ears.
“Coach S3! This way, slowly, slowly” puffed the old man with a sense of urgency, as he navigated through a chaotic sea of humanity towards an impatient train.
The Chennai Mail threatened to leave anytime without notice, from Platform Number 5. The shrill voice of the multi-language announcer was drowned out by the sound the Fanta cool-drinks bottles in a tray were making as the vendor dragged a bottle-opener vigorously back and forth across their necks. “Fanta Orange!”
The old man had refused the help of red-uniformed, surly-burly porters of Southern Railways to carry his luggage.
“They are not that heavy, I can lift them myself” he mentioned to Ramesh his son-in-law.
Ramesh had a large bag slung on his shoulder. His pregnant wife Sindhu grasped him with one hand to steady herself. He shooed the listless sleeping dogs away from their path on this platform. Sindhu stopped to catch her breath.
“I can’t take it anymore” she said with her sweaty face contorted in pain.
“Just a few more steps to S3, we are already at S1″ Ramesh wrongly assumed this would help, but it had the opposite effect, with Sindhu breaking into tears.
“I can’t do it. I can’t walk anymore”
As the kids started singing “Happy Birthday to you! You were born in a zoo!” Sindhu watched admiringly at her five-year old brat running around with a large party hat. “Indeed, that Chennai Mail was a zoo!” she mused as she remembered that eventful night of five years ago.
The old man was getting tired with all the heavy lifting and was beginning to lose his patience. He rudely asked the three card-players to vacate from their seats.
“This window seat belongs to us”.
The three men in their baniyan-vests, lost in their game, picked up their cards, moved to the opposite seat, without protesting or even looking up from their hand full of cards. Sindhu, sat down gently near the window. Ramesh and the old man quickly shoved the luggage under their seats as the train started rolling out of the station.
Three transgendered aravanis appeared out of nowhere and with a loud clap, demanded that the passengers contribute to their country-wide gathering to celebrate their wedding to their deity. One of them spotted the visibly pregnant Sindhu and mentioned to Ramesh
“Anna, she will have a safe delivery and a healthy baby”.
Saying that, they exhorted five-hundred rupees from Ramesh. As they began singing an earthy song with their guttural voices the old man made motions with his flailing arms, asking them to leave. “She needs rest” he said.
A fight broke out in the neighboring cabin. A lady was screaming at the Ticket Teller
“I don’t want these drunk people next to me. Ask them to drink somewhere else!” she screamed.
In the ensuing argument, a loud clink could be heard. A bottle had slipped from the drunk’s hands, hit the swaying train floor and rolled beneath the seats. It’s erratic movement was eventually arrested by Sindhu’s feet in the next cabin. The contents of the bottle spilling and splashing the airless cabin with the pungent smell of cheap brandy. The card players inhaled the brandy soaked air with some relish, and pretended they got a high just breathing it in.
Sindhu was moaning softly with great pain. She bit her lips so as not to disturb the peace of this already chaotic zoo. She did not want to embarrass herself and her family.
An IT guy, who was up until this time taking pictures of himself in the Upper Birth, with his fancy mobile camera, peeked down to see what the commotion was all about. He was oblivious to the happenings on the ground below, till the whiff of strong brandy hit him hard. His iPod ear-buds fell out of his ears and dangled menacingly in front of Sindhu’s nose. Ramesh got up instantly and snapped at the IT worker:
“Keep your belongings to yourself! Don’t drop it on people below!”
The IT guy re-plugged his ears, adjusted his Duckback Air Pillow, and continued taking pictures of himself. The red glow of the infrared proximity sensor, just before the bright LED mobile-camera flashes from his mobile camera was driving Ramesh crazy.
“Can you please stop that?” he pleaded. “You are making my wife dizzy”
The drunk from the other cabin teetered aimlessly looking for a bottle he had dropped. He went down on his knees
“It must be here somewhere, yaar” he muttered as he searched the dark crevices under the seats.
“Take him away! Take him away!” cried the old man, to nobody in particular.
The aravanis, flush with the crisp five-hundred rupee note in their blouses, decided to help.
“Who is an aravani, amma?” asked the brat. “Are they men?” he inquired.
“They try not to be” said Sindhu, with a wisp of a smile eked out by an old memory.
“But they are men?” pushed the brat.
“Only when the situation demands”
The situation demanded that aravanis show some muscle now. They tucked their sarees onto their hips to show they meant business. One clutched the drunk’s pants at waist and two held him by his hands and hoisted him up from under the seat. When in the dim light, the drunk realized who was handling him, he shrieked “Don’t touch me!” and shuddered violently. He swung his arms out dangerously and lashed out at the aravanis. His actions stopped cold in mid-air, when one of the aravanis clutched his crotch in a tight vice. He let out a yelp, like a defeated dog.
The IT guy’s infra-red proximity sensor gave out a ghoulish glow to the vice-like aravani’s hand. A few seconds later, a bright flash ensued. The aravanis took this as a cue to pose for a picture and leaned on the drunk to fit into an imaginary picture frame.
“Hold!” said the IT guy, as he clicked away the third time.
After which they pinched the drunk as he protested with vigorous wiggles. He let out a loud gasp and passed out. The aravanis dragged him to one end of the coach and splashed cold water on his face to revive him.
As the IT guy leaned forward to capture the moment and live-update his Facebook commentary, his Duckback Air Pillow, slipped off the edge of the three-tier sleeper. Ramesh realized a tad bit late that an object was falling on Sindhu, and reflexively leaped to his feet. The Duckback Air Pillow landed on the groaning woman’s full-term tummy. It proved to be the trigger that beckoned the unborn to be born.
Sindhu went into labor inside Coach Number S3 of the Chennai Mail, exactly at 10:03pm that moonless Thursday night. The coach was speeding along in the dead of night through unknown fields, casting it’s lights through barred windows on sleeping crops that night.
Oblivious of his wife’s labor, Ramesh was besides himself. He slapped the IT guy and belted out some expletives that surprised even him. The IT guy tumbled down, collected his backpack and left the cabin in a huff. He was being driven out of the cabin by a very upset Ramesh. His backpack had an embroidered tagline “Powered by Intellect, Driven by Values”.
“What is IT, amma?” asked the brat. “Oh, them? They are a bunch of curious people. Just like you” answered Sindhu.
Ramesh threw the IT guy’s Duckback Air Pillow after him. That expressed the pent-up disdain for this immature guy absorbed in his gadgets.
“Sindhu! Sindhu!” the old man cried frantically. Sindhu’s soft groans became much louder. “Amma!” she wailed out loudly. Ramesh came running back to her. He held her hand. She clutched it wildly. “Are you alright?” asked Ramesh, unsuspecting of the labor she was in.
“She is going to have a baby, anna” one of the aravanis said. “Move everybody!” she said. “This is not a peep show for your entertainment!”
Having said that, the aravanis quickly pushed aside the unwelcome onlookers. “Get me some bed sheets” shouted the lead aravani “…to give her some privacy”
There was a crowd that had already gathered to get a first-hand eye-witness account of the happenings. Neighboring passengers were rubber-necking through the wire mesh that separated the cabins at the third tier.
The IT guy appeared from the crowd and offered his bed sheet. He took instructions from the lead aravani “Just tie them around so we can have some privacy for the lady”
The old man was dazed and looked about to faint. “Go get some hot water” said one of the aravanis to the old man. “Hot water?” he repeated, unable to convert instruction into action.
“We need it for Sindhu. We need it for her baby”
That seemed to have jolted the old man into action. He ducked under the curtains that the IT guy had fashioned out of his bed sheets and darted out barefoot. He was now a man with a mission that he understood and was determined to accomplish it without wasting a breath.
“Sindhu. The Baby” he muttered as he parted the sea of onlookers who were still hanging out behind the curtains holding their breath and piecing together a cohesive story based on bits of information being picked up by their sharp ears.
The drunk was seated at the far corner and was sipping hot sweetened milk tea from a small cut-glass tumbler. He was intensely staring into deep space, while blowing into the glass and taking short sips, slurping like a baby. The old man knew exactly where to get his hot water. He grabbed the chai-wallah’s shoulder and said there was an emergency. They both went back to the curtained Operating Theater with the hot water meant for the tea inside a large five-liter stainless steel canister.
“Push! Push!” said the aravani mid-wife, while Ramesh never suspected for a moment if the aravani knew what she was doing or if she was up to the task. He could do with some help from any quarter. Right now a doctor of the third-gender appeared not to raise the slightest discomfort. Gender definitions dissolved in this dire moment of need. The IT guy who was standing guard outside the curtains with the other two aravanis, offered his Duckback Air Pillow to the old man. “For support” he said “Take it”
The Duckback returned like a faithful boomerang into Ramesh’s hands. He adjusted the air in it and placed it under Sindhu’s head and comforted her.
It seemed an eternity, when suddenly there was a cry of pain. Sindhu nearly died delivering the baby. The baby came out alright, but confused the aravani mid-wife. The face had no features and the mid-wife took a moment to compose herself from the shock. The features were actually hidden behind a veil. It was a veiled birth that she had only heard about. The most auspicious birth ever.
She burst into a song “Chunari ke neeche kya hai?” – what’s beneath the veil? and before removing the veil, called her other two partners to come take a look. It was considered auspicious for the baby to see an aravani, but this was different: it was the baby that blessed these mid-wives in a surprise twist in Coach S3.
She wiped the baby clean with the cloth soaked in warm water meant for the railway tea.
The news of the veiled birth spread quickly through S3. It was not long before the card-players started singing “Choli ke peeche kya hai” – what’s behind the blouse? to the chugging rhythm of the night train.
The aravanis cheered loudly and joined in the merriment.
As the brat and his friends jiggled to the rhythms of the same song, Sindhu who was almost dead tired after blowing air into twenty large festive birthday balloons, found it fairly easy to blow one last Duckback Air Pillow with a smile.
