It all started a few months back. Initially I thought it was funny, entertaining. I would be sitting in class, usually the third section or fourth out of five, when a shallow rumble of voices and feet would come from one of the side corridors. Initially we ignored it, meaning me and the professor and my Iranian colleague, but the noise approached and escalated and suddenly a mass of students where in the class shouting "Jai Telangana" and shoving a paper with Telugu slogans and exclamation marks under our pens. I refused to sign, since I think it is a like heady and ridiculous for me to trumpet for the independence of a state I have lived in for only a few months.
Also, the whole protest, the slogans and the convenient timing of strikes on classes around exams just seemed so childish. In a way I understood. Getting caught up in a protest is exciting. It feels like history is shifting and in a way its because of something you are doing. Many of the students are from small villages and towns outside of Hyderabad and have been excited into a political helter skelter by politicians who need mass and volume to get there message heard.
So, I laughed about it and my classmates waved it off as something that has happened and will always be. The cry for "Telangana independence" has gone from a whisper to a shriek on a constant cycle since Indian achieved independence in '47 and the country was divided along linguistic lines in the early 50's. Furthermore, linguistically Telangana, Andhra (the coastal region) and Rayalaseema (the rocky southern district) are similar. The local language is Telugu and though there are differences in certain nouns and pronunciation (maybe a little more pronounced than the conflict between y'all and youse guys) the language is still mutually intelligible and the cultural and festivals are all similar.
Anyway, the semester ended and I went on a trip only to return to a shuttered Hyderabad. The buses weren't running, gas stations were closed, and as I shared an overpriced auto with a Hyderabadi back to my apartment I learned that student-protesters had taken over Osmania campus for the past few days, destroying buses and shops and forcing the police to enforce a city-wide curfew. Then, a few days later, spurned by the 11 day 'fast' (more about this fasting epidemic later) by a politically decrepit local politician, the federal government declared that they would give Telangana independence.
I was shocked. How did those motley hallway-crusaders manage to do this? How had a poorly printed pamphlet turned into a pan-Indian movement for mini-state independence? The local ripple has now caused a tsunami of statehood independence battles throughout India, with small groups demanding to be recognized and state bifurcation. Daily the paper is filled with stories of how this battle has been copied and pasted all over India, and it seems farcical but maybe, as with Telangana there a backdrop of serious political turmoil that I am missing.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Euphonious
Tonight was the last night of Diwali – the festival of lights and the celebration of Krishna vanquishing the rakshasi from the earth. For one or two days, families string their homes in light and places oil lamps around the periphery to make the god feel welcome, like he can come home any time. And, most importantly, in celebration and maybe to scare off any lingering evil spirits the streets or land-mind with fireworks. And these are not Fourth of July government regulated or lakeside fireworks that pop and whiz but can be slept through, these are the sounds of war, explosions that hammer the stucco walls and blasts that go off inches from passerbies and flowing sarees. As can be imagined, all the noise is not tolerated too well by the non-Hindus and the foreigners. Lack of sleep and the fear of flying sparklers and bottle rockets turns nerves a little raw. But it all made me think of India in terms of sound; I mean a country of 1.6 billion people makes a lot of noise.
So, in my observation, sound can be classified into a few categories:
1. Sound that exists alone, personal sounds, mainly morning noises. I live in a Muslim neighborhood, so the call to prayer to all believers, if one is awake to hear it, is a pretty powerful sound, a kind of rich baritone hum that sits like a cloud over my apartment building for the first few minutes of every morning. Then there are the chants, the groups of men and women on rooftops and in gardens doing their morning sun salutations, recitating of mantras. This comes right after the call to prayer around 5 or so, as if Muslims and Hindus broke the times of day up evenly so as not to overlap. And then there is my favorite sound: the sound of a whole apartment building or even just one man on the balcony below, doing a early morning cleansing of the system. I won’t describe too much, but let your mind wander to all the sounds and throat and nose can make after 8 hours of sleep. This took a long time to get used to.
2. Then there are the street sounds, the communal sounds. The locomotive-chugging of generators when the power goes out. The sounds of samosa sellers who talk and hawk so quickly that their sentences attack each other like puppies rough housing in an indecipherable ball. And there are the horns. In India, and especially in Hyderabad, honking is not a rude brush-off or reprimand, but better translated as “Hi, hello… hello, hi” like a nervous interviewer trying to get his subjects attention. Blinkers are completely out of fashion and the white lines divided lanes have no sovereignty, so when veering from left to right, trucks and rickshaws chirp out a long-winded trail of sound, more like the beginning of a song. In addition, there is the sound cars make in reverse. My friends small hatchback blurts out a medley of Christmas carols, and then there is a man who leaves my apartment building everyday at 7 am who is followed in reverse by ‘You are my sunshine’.
3. And then there are the international sounds, the sounds that make me feel like I am at home, back in Birmingham on a Sunday morning. There are the children playing hide-n-seek and ring-n-run, games of which I and my Iranian roommate as foreigners are the main target. And on the trains there is the soft-whisper of friends, of husband to wife, figuring out which bunk is whose, whether to order tea or coffee… And there is music. Everywhere. Western music, Hindi music, Telugu music. There is the vina and violin and drums. There is always drumming. Sometimes it is used politically for the campaign of a local BJP candidate and sometimes, like in a New Orleans Second-Line, when someone dies the drumming and singing of their friends and loved ones follows them to the grave.
So, in my observation, sound can be classified into a few categories:
1. Sound that exists alone, personal sounds, mainly morning noises. I live in a Muslim neighborhood, so the call to prayer to all believers, if one is awake to hear it, is a pretty powerful sound, a kind of rich baritone hum that sits like a cloud over my apartment building for the first few minutes of every morning. Then there are the chants, the groups of men and women on rooftops and in gardens doing their morning sun salutations, recitating of mantras. This comes right after the call to prayer around 5 or so, as if Muslims and Hindus broke the times of day up evenly so as not to overlap. And then there is my favorite sound: the sound of a whole apartment building or even just one man on the balcony below, doing a early morning cleansing of the system. I won’t describe too much, but let your mind wander to all the sounds and throat and nose can make after 8 hours of sleep. This took a long time to get used to.
2. Then there are the street sounds, the communal sounds. The locomotive-chugging of generators when the power goes out. The sounds of samosa sellers who talk and hawk so quickly that their sentences attack each other like puppies rough housing in an indecipherable ball. And there are the horns. In India, and especially in Hyderabad, honking is not a rude brush-off or reprimand, but better translated as “Hi, hello… hello, hi” like a nervous interviewer trying to get his subjects attention. Blinkers are completely out of fashion and the white lines divided lanes have no sovereignty, so when veering from left to right, trucks and rickshaws chirp out a long-winded trail of sound, more like the beginning of a song. In addition, there is the sound cars make in reverse. My friends small hatchback blurts out a medley of Christmas carols, and then there is a man who leaves my apartment building everyday at 7 am who is followed in reverse by ‘You are my sunshine’.
3. And then there are the international sounds, the sounds that make me feel like I am at home, back in Birmingham on a Sunday morning. There are the children playing hide-n-seek and ring-n-run, games of which I and my Iranian roommate as foreigners are the main target. And on the trains there is the soft-whisper of friends, of husband to wife, figuring out which bunk is whose, whether to order tea or coffee… And there is music. Everywhere. Western music, Hindi music, Telugu music. There is the vina and violin and drums. There is always drumming. Sometimes it is used politically for the campaign of a local BJP candidate and sometimes, like in a New Orleans Second-Line, when someone dies the drumming and singing of their friends and loved ones follows them to the grave.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Pooja on a full stomach
I don't know if right now can be called 'festival season'. Frankly speaking, I don't think a week has gone by when there hasn't been some sort of celebration of some god, or more often goddess, which required some sort of pooja [Hindu prayer] and, of course, the cancellation of classes. But the past few weeks have just seemed to be more spectacle and spiritually filled than normal.
Last week marked the end of Rammadan, culminating with the feast of Eid, which ends the month long fast. Because of Hyderabad's history [being under the moghul rule and having close ties with Persian kings and traders] and because I live in a more Muslim part of town, the past month was especially loud and meat-filled. What does that mean? Well, loud comes from the call to prayer which is blasted from the loud speakers of a mosque nearby at around 4:30 every morning. There was also a man with a piercing voice and Stomp-quality stick who walked around my apartment to wake those especially deep-sleeping devotees. But mostly, I learned, that Rammadan in Hyderabad is the festival of Haleem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyderabadi_haleem
The Wikipedia entry above has the details, but as a casual eater, Haleem is basically lamb that has been boiled and combined with beans, onions, garlic and chilli powder and mashed into a paste, which is eaten with roti. It has the consistency of babyfood but is incredibly fatty and a wonderful somnolent. And it is everywhere and eaten by every one. Containers and take-away orders are filled outside every grocery store, not to mention almost every Muslim restaurant has a giant sign out front 'HALEEM!! Best in town!". They have even developed a vegetarian version so as not to leave the higher-caste Hindus out of the magic.
This past week, the Hindus retaliated with a 9/10 day festival of Dasara (or Navaratri) which celebrates the 9 day battle of Ram version the 9-head demon Ravana, depicted in the epic Ramayana. I traveled south to Bangalore to visit with friends. I stayed with a Rotarian and his family and celebrated the middle-to-final days of the 9 day saga. The festival is divided into threes. The first third concerns prayers to Durga - the female goddess/power that cleanses believers or their impurities. Day 4...5...6 are spent in prayers to Lakshmi, goddess of wealth. And the final days are taken up in prayers to Saraswathi, goddess of success and wisdom. On the final three days children bring all their books and pads and pencils to be blessed and offices and computers are blessed with a auspicious yellow dot and turned off to rest for a day. Narayan and Chitra (the Rotarians I stayed with) hosted celebrations in the form of a dinner or lunch almost every day. Each day a new segment of their friends or family would come over to pray and receive prasada. Technically, prasada is a sweet - anything from a banana to a coconut to the much cherished laddoo - that is given after an important pooja or after the end of a pilgrimage. It is meant to show the exchange between god and pilgrim, the sugary manifestation of generosity.
But something that I have noticed - and this will need its own entry all together - is the Indian penchant for singing. While hiking in the Himalayas, whenever there was a dull moment, a down moment or even a slightly long-lasting silence, someone would start singing. And the sometimes off-key explosion was not merely relegated to girls or kids, but was even more likely among men, and serious, normally silent men at that. So, once eating and praying were through and the party guest sat around in plastic chairs with their small bags of take-home prasada, what should happen but for someone to suggest a song. It started with some Carnatic music sung by a classically trained girl. After a few serious songs, it became obvious that all the guest wanted to take part... and so a game of Antakshari began. The game literally means ant - 'end' and akshar - letter of the alphabet. So the room was cut in two and whatever the left side sang, the right side had to counter with another song that began with the first letter of the last word of the former song. It started out slowly and divided down the middle. And it seemed easy enough for each team to counter. Flipping back and forth from Malayalam to Kannada to Telugu to Hindi to Tamil it seemed like they would never run out of songs... and it continued for 2 hours. For the first hour and half the seriousness escalated. One team calling out the other for re-singing different parts of a previously sung song. But the last half hour was simply a chorus, right and left singing each other's songs and every one laughing at nearly forgotten or strangely archaic rhymes.
I don't think anyone knew who won.
In attempts at sharing, here is a snippet of some Himalayan campfire singing.
Up next on the festival circuit: Diwali.
- A
Last week marked the end of Rammadan, culminating with the feast of Eid, which ends the month long fast. Because of Hyderabad's history [being under the moghul rule and having close ties with Persian kings and traders] and because I live in a more Muslim part of town, the past month was especially loud and meat-filled. What does that mean? Well, loud comes from the call to prayer which is blasted from the loud speakers of a mosque nearby at around 4:30 every morning. There was also a man with a piercing voice and Stomp-quality stick who walked around my apartment to wake those especially deep-sleeping devotees. But mostly, I learned, that Rammadan in Hyderabad is the festival of Haleem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyderabadi_haleem
The Wikipedia entry above has the details, but as a casual eater, Haleem is basically lamb that has been boiled and combined with beans, onions, garlic and chilli powder and mashed into a paste, which is eaten with roti. It has the consistency of babyfood but is incredibly fatty and a wonderful somnolent. And it is everywhere and eaten by every one. Containers and take-away orders are filled outside every grocery store, not to mention almost every Muslim restaurant has a giant sign out front 'HALEEM!! Best in town!". They have even developed a vegetarian version so as not to leave the higher-caste Hindus out of the magic.
This past week, the Hindus retaliated with a 9/10 day festival of Dasara (or Navaratri) which celebrates the 9 day battle of Ram version the 9-head demon Ravana, depicted in the epic Ramayana. I traveled south to Bangalore to visit with friends. I stayed with a Rotarian and his family and celebrated the middle-to-final days of the 9 day saga. The festival is divided into threes. The first third concerns prayers to Durga - the female goddess/power that cleanses believers or their impurities. Day 4...5...6 are spent in prayers to Lakshmi, goddess of wealth. And the final days are taken up in prayers to Saraswathi, goddess of success and wisdom. On the final three days children bring all their books and pads and pencils to be blessed and offices and computers are blessed with a auspicious yellow dot and turned off to rest for a day. Narayan and Chitra (the Rotarians I stayed with) hosted celebrations in the form of a dinner or lunch almost every day. Each day a new segment of their friends or family would come over to pray and receive prasada. Technically, prasada is a sweet - anything from a banana to a coconut to the much cherished laddoo - that is given after an important pooja or after the end of a pilgrimage. It is meant to show the exchange between god and pilgrim, the sugary manifestation of generosity.
But something that I have noticed - and this will need its own entry all together - is the Indian penchant for singing. While hiking in the Himalayas, whenever there was a dull moment, a down moment or even a slightly long-lasting silence, someone would start singing. And the sometimes off-key explosion was not merely relegated to girls or kids, but was even more likely among men, and serious, normally silent men at that. So, once eating and praying were through and the party guest sat around in plastic chairs with their small bags of take-home prasada, what should happen but for someone to suggest a song. It started with some Carnatic music sung by a classically trained girl. After a few serious songs, it became obvious that all the guest wanted to take part... and so a game of Antakshari began. The game literally means ant - 'end' and akshar - letter of the alphabet. So the room was cut in two and whatever the left side sang, the right side had to counter with another song that began with the first letter of the last word of the former song. It started out slowly and divided down the middle. And it seemed easy enough for each team to counter. Flipping back and forth from Malayalam to Kannada to Telugu to Hindi to Tamil it seemed like they would never run out of songs... and it continued for 2 hours. For the first hour and half the seriousness escalated. One team calling out the other for re-singing different parts of a previously sung song. But the last half hour was simply a chorus, right and left singing each other's songs and every one laughing at nearly forgotten or strangely archaic rhymes.
I don't think anyone knew who won.
In attempts at sharing, here is a snippet of some Himalayan campfire singing.
Up next on the festival circuit: Diwali.
- A
Thursday, September 17, 2009
You Gotta Fight For Your Right To.....?
For the past two days my classes at Osmania have been cut short by student protests/celebrations. The concept of protest is nothing startling or new - the clash of young v. old, good handwriting v. texting - but it is the form of protest here that I find, well, completely bizarre.
As a visual aid, here is my classroom.
On Wednesday, during the middle of a lecture on transformational grammar, the sound of chanting and crowds of laughing boys and girls filled the hallway. My professor continued to lecture but started to shuffle papers and seemed to kind of brace herself for some sort of confrontation. All the students in the class (which doesn't ever exceed 9) began to whisper and discuss something in Telugu. Suddenly 9 guys entered the classes and in loud, authoritative Telugu said something to the tune of "you are liberated..." or maybe just "Freedom!". Noticing that me and my Iranian compatriot appeared quite blank faced, they rattled of some broken English about class being over....
I sought an explanation from my clasmate Srikant who rolled his eyes and said it was 'a bunt' and that there would be no more class today. When I asked 'Why?', he just told me that it happened often, it's normal, no need for a reason. Every one left the class, the professor being the first out the door, and the gang of 'activist-liberators' marched onward to the Sanskrit department nextdoor.
Not satisfied with Srikant's explanation, I went to the department head, who had yet to be informed that there would be no more class today, to ask again, 'Why?' Again, I was met with a certain nonchalance, 'Oh, that again' look. They also did not know why the students were protesting, nor did they care. When I asked why they didn't stand up to the students, why there was no debate, and how the students had the power to stop all the classes in the whole college, they all smiled. As far as I have been able to ascertain, strikes (in Indian English 'bunts') are triggered by any student dissatisfaction, from a professor showing favoritism to a conflict with the administration, to the lack of acknowledgment of a certain holy day or holiday of X Y or Z religious group. Apparently also, the student union is backed and much-more-than tacitly supported by local political parties in Hyderabad / AP, so the professors and administration are wary of getting involved because of repercussions. Often, the professors told me, the only way to get classes started again is to call the police, which would end in some sort of violent conflict. 'No one wants that...' they said.
Today (Thursday) was a much cheerier demonstration. The strikers entered the class smiling, declaring today September 17th, Telagana Independence Day i.e. the day that Hyderabad, formerly under the control of the Nizam, became a part of of independent India, more than a full year after Indian independence.
newspaper article here:
http://blog.taragana.com/n/telangana-celebrates-liberation-day-171140/
There was a flag-hoisting ceremony that only a handful of students attended.
So, I hesitate to weigh in on this matter without solid facts, but I can't help but think the situation a little peculiar, even ridiculous. I fully support the use of free speech and protest. When the Columbia graduate students refused to hold recitations and classes until the administration listened to their demands, I empathized fully with the students-cum-moms and dads who couldn't find a decent preschool for blocks around Morningside Heights. In this case, I don't see any demands, or at least the people I have talked are unaware of any. It sounds and looks like bullying to me, ochlocracy in brand named jeans and flip-flops.
Now this is not to say that I did not take advantage of the sunshine and 3 extra hours to take a walk into Tarnaka, eat the best MLA Dosa (the steroided cousin of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dosa) and take a few minutes to watch a man sharpen knives by riding a bicycle, which was attached to a sharpener, which lived in the house that Jack built....
Let's see what happens tomorrow.
In the meantime, pre-sarees:
Let's see what happens tomorrow...
- A
As a visual aid, here is my classroom.
2nd floor, back corner, Arts College, Osmania University, Mr. Medio Azadi (L)
On Wednesday, during the middle of a lecture on transformational grammar, the sound of chanting and crowds of laughing boys and girls filled the hallway. My professor continued to lecture but started to shuffle papers and seemed to kind of brace herself for some sort of confrontation. All the students in the class (which doesn't ever exceed 9) began to whisper and discuss something in Telugu. Suddenly 9 guys entered the classes and in loud, authoritative Telugu said something to the tune of "you are liberated..." or maybe just "Freedom!". Noticing that me and my Iranian compatriot appeared quite blank faced, they rattled of some broken English about class being over....
I sought an explanation from my clasmate Srikant who rolled his eyes and said it was 'a bunt' and that there would be no more class today. When I asked 'Why?', he just told me that it happened often, it's normal, no need for a reason. Every one left the class, the professor being the first out the door, and the gang of 'activist-liberators' marched onward to the Sanskrit department nextdoor.
Not satisfied with Srikant's explanation, I went to the department head, who had yet to be informed that there would be no more class today, to ask again, 'Why?' Again, I was met with a certain nonchalance, 'Oh, that again' look. They also did not know why the students were protesting, nor did they care. When I asked why they didn't stand up to the students, why there was no debate, and how the students had the power to stop all the classes in the whole college, they all smiled. As far as I have been able to ascertain, strikes (in Indian English 'bunts') are triggered by any student dissatisfaction, from a professor showing favoritism to a conflict with the administration, to the lack of acknowledgment of a certain holy day or holiday of X Y or Z religious group. Apparently also, the student union is backed and much-more-than tacitly supported by local political parties in Hyderabad / AP, so the professors and administration are wary of getting involved because of repercussions. Often, the professors told me, the only way to get classes started again is to call the police, which would end in some sort of violent conflict. 'No one wants that...' they said.
Today (Thursday) was a much cheerier demonstration. The strikers entered the class smiling, declaring today September 17th, Telagana Independence Day i.e. the day that Hyderabad, formerly under the control of the Nizam, became a part of of independent India, more than a full year after Indian independence.
newspaper article here:
http://blog.taragana.com/n/telangana-celebrates-liberation-day-171140/
There was a flag-hoisting ceremony that only a handful of students attended.
So, I hesitate to weigh in on this matter without solid facts, but I can't help but think the situation a little peculiar, even ridiculous. I fully support the use of free speech and protest. When the Columbia graduate students refused to hold recitations and classes until the administration listened to their demands, I empathized fully with the students-cum-moms and dads who couldn't find a decent preschool for blocks around Morningside Heights. In this case, I don't see any demands, or at least the people I have talked are unaware of any. It sounds and looks like bullying to me, ochlocracy in brand named jeans and flip-flops.
Now this is not to say that I did not take advantage of the sunshine and 3 extra hours to take a walk into Tarnaka, eat the best MLA Dosa (the steroided cousin of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dosa) and take a few minutes to watch a man sharpen knives by riding a bicycle, which was attached to a sharpener, which lived in the house that Jack built....
Let's see what happens tomorrow.
In the meantime, pre-sarees:
Let's see what happens tomorrow...
- A
Sunday, September 13, 2009
The Allure of Tollywood
So, because of my negligence, I feel the nostalgic call to backtrack a little.
Before coming to India, I designed kind of a crash-course in everything I could think of India. I went to almost every library branch in Jefferson County getting books on Devanagari script, Hinduism, and most importantly Hindi movies. The JCLC has a surprisingly large collection, though I am afraid I forgot to return the few I borrowed…
The first movie I watched was “Sawaariya”. It’s a joint production between Bollywood and Sony and was supposed to launch a new era of Bollywood-Hollywood. That idea flopped… but the movie is great in terms of color and the ever-present dance scene. Also, it is ‘loosely’ (emphasis should be made) based on Dostoevsky’s White Nights, so as a Russian literature nerd I had to check it out.
Of course, since it was my first movie, I had no way to gauge or analyze the merits of a Bollywood movie. I have since learned what most movie are judged on:
1. how cute the hero / how beautiful the heroine
2. male dance numbers
3. and most important the heroines fashion sense
During down time and tent-lounging around time in the Himalayas, most of the girls’ conversations revolved around movies and the stars in them. Over and over again was mentioned “how X dressed in such movie”. It’s not that acting and talent don’t matter, but in a three-hour movie in which 1/3 is singing and dancing, bad acting is not as noticeable.
But watching a Bollywood movie at a couch in Birmingham does not compare to going to the screening of a Tollywood movie (Telugu-language) movie in Hyderabad.
Last weekend, I was invited to go see the new Telugu movie “Magadheera”. I have heard about this movie for weeks. It is so big that it is being shown illegally in the southern Karnataka, where there is a rule about how much time has to elapse before a movie from another state can be screened.
I went with my friend Soujanya, her mother, cousin and aunt, all of whom had seen the movie one time before. “It’s that good”…they told me. Movies show one toe two times a day – first showing and second showing. This movie had been showing for 6 weeks already, but still the theatre was sold out and the crowd out front, leaving the first showing, was impenetrable. Once inside we found our seats and Soujanya sat next to me to translate if I had any questions.
The movie started immediately, no previews, no warning for the all-encompassing massively loud surround sound. And the yells and the cheers started immediately too. I have a feeling this was the second time round for the whole audience, aside from myself,– they cheered before the hero appeared, they boo’d the coming villain.
The first dance sequence in the movie is here:
Though the movie was in Telugu, I didn’t really need subtitles. The story was basic: 400 years back a hero and a princess, very much in love, are tested by an evil villain. The princess dies and falls off a mountain, and the prince in a wild-eyed show of love jumps after here. Now, jump forward to 2009, Hyderabad. The hero and princess have been reborn, but their past lives stay with them. One day, the hero drives by a bus stand and accidentally touches the hand of a girl standing there. Suddenly he has a flashback of his past life. Now begins the quest in which he searches for the girl with the flashback-inducing hand, the princess. Of course, she leads him on, tricking him before ultimately falling in love with him. And then, obviously they must return to their past and change the ending to happily ever after.
Stretch that paragraph in three hours and you have a Telugu movie.
In the middle, during the intermission, every one goes to the lobby and gets corn with masala, tea and chips. The intermission came right when the characters were about to journey back into their past, and while drinking tea, Soujanya assured me that the next half was the best…
After the movie, every one asked me what I thought… did I like it? did I understand what was going on? Honestly, it’s hard to say what I thought. How do you rate a movie that is based on songs and dances in which the characters travel to ‘foreign countries’ (very well-made sets at Ramoji Film Studio) and sing about finding their one true love? In which the plot moves and jumps in time with little explanation and no demand for one? I refuse to judge a Telugu movie based on some A.O. Scott critic of plot and how the characters mirror the less palatable parts of the world around us. That is not the point. The point of Magadheera, and most blockbuster Indian movies as far as I can see, is entertainment, escapism. The US makes movies like this too – Spiderman, Batman - we just have yet to master the art of the 15 minute dance scene, and we are more concerned with heroes and villains than we are with reincarnation and love….
According to Soujanya and her cousin the movie ranked high in terms of the heroine’s clothes, the dances and songs. However, they complained, ‘the hero was nothing special to look at'. Allof this, I completely agreed with.... and, honestly, I think I am being won over by 'Tollywood'...
More movies and photos soon -
- A
Before coming to India, I designed kind of a crash-course in everything I could think of India. I went to almost every library branch in Jefferson County getting books on Devanagari script, Hinduism, and most importantly Hindi movies. The JCLC has a surprisingly large collection, though I am afraid I forgot to return the few I borrowed…
The first movie I watched was “Sawaariya”. It’s a joint production between Bollywood and Sony and was supposed to launch a new era of Bollywood-Hollywood. That idea flopped… but the movie is great in terms of color and the ever-present dance scene. Also, it is ‘loosely’ (emphasis should be made) based on Dostoevsky’s White Nights, so as a Russian literature nerd I had to check it out.
Of course, since it was my first movie, I had no way to gauge or analyze the merits of a Bollywood movie. I have since learned what most movie are judged on:
1. how cute the hero / how beautiful the heroine
2. male dance numbers
3. and most important the heroines fashion sense
During down time and tent-lounging around time in the Himalayas, most of the girls’ conversations revolved around movies and the stars in them. Over and over again was mentioned “how X dressed in such movie”. It’s not that acting and talent don’t matter, but in a three-hour movie in which 1/3 is singing and dancing, bad acting is not as noticeable.
But watching a Bollywood movie at a couch in Birmingham does not compare to going to the screening of a Tollywood movie (Telugu-language) movie in Hyderabad.
Last weekend, I was invited to go see the new Telugu movie “Magadheera”. I have heard about this movie for weeks. It is so big that it is being shown illegally in the southern Karnataka, where there is a rule about how much time has to elapse before a movie from another state can be screened.
I went with my friend Soujanya, her mother, cousin and aunt, all of whom had seen the movie one time before. “It’s that good”…they told me. Movies show one toe two times a day – first showing and second showing. This movie had been showing for 6 weeks already, but still the theatre was sold out and the crowd out front, leaving the first showing, was impenetrable. Once inside we found our seats and Soujanya sat next to me to translate if I had any questions.
The movie started immediately, no previews, no warning for the all-encompassing massively loud surround sound. And the yells and the cheers started immediately too. I have a feeling this was the second time round for the whole audience, aside from myself,– they cheered before the hero appeared, they boo’d the coming villain.
The first dance sequence in the movie is here:
Though the movie was in Telugu, I didn’t really need subtitles. The story was basic: 400 years back a hero and a princess, very much in love, are tested by an evil villain. The princess dies and falls off a mountain, and the prince in a wild-eyed show of love jumps after here. Now, jump forward to 2009, Hyderabad. The hero and princess have been reborn, but their past lives stay with them. One day, the hero drives by a bus stand and accidentally touches the hand of a girl standing there. Suddenly he has a flashback of his past life. Now begins the quest in which he searches for the girl with the flashback-inducing hand, the princess. Of course, she leads him on, tricking him before ultimately falling in love with him. And then, obviously they must return to their past and change the ending to happily ever after.
Stretch that paragraph in three hours and you have a Telugu movie.
In the middle, during the intermission, every one goes to the lobby and gets corn with masala, tea and chips. The intermission came right when the characters were about to journey back into their past, and while drinking tea, Soujanya assured me that the next half was the best…
After the movie, every one asked me what I thought… did I like it? did I understand what was going on? Honestly, it’s hard to say what I thought. How do you rate a movie that is based on songs and dances in which the characters travel to ‘foreign countries’ (very well-made sets at Ramoji Film Studio) and sing about finding their one true love? In which the plot moves and jumps in time with little explanation and no demand for one? I refuse to judge a Telugu movie based on some A.O. Scott critic of plot and how the characters mirror the less palatable parts of the world around us. That is not the point. The point of Magadheera, and most blockbuster Indian movies as far as I can see, is entertainment, escapism. The US makes movies like this too – Spiderman, Batman - we just have yet to master the art of the 15 minute dance scene, and we are more concerned with heroes and villains than we are with reincarnation and love….
According to Soujanya and her cousin the movie ranked high in terms of the heroine’s clothes, the dances and songs. However, they complained, ‘the hero was nothing special to look at'. Allof this, I completely agreed with.... and, honestly, I think I am being won over by 'Tollywood'...
More movies and photos soon -
- A
Saturday, August 15, 2009
First Adventures
[That date up there is a complete lie. It is, in fact, September 10th]
A few days ago I returned from a 20 day expedition through the Northeast Himalayas.
When the possibility of hiking in the Himalayas was first suggested by my host father it sounded like an offhand comment. And I readily said yes, in that American, or maybe more accurately Southern way, in which since I don't believe something is going to happen, I agree to it. But that sort of agreement does not translate here. The following weekend, I joined him and 6 other people for sprints and push ups and crab-walking in a park by Hussein Sagar.
The weekend after that at five o'clock in the morning we met 40 km outside of the city in a village called Bhongir to hike around an old fortress.
We spent the whole day climbing up and down stairs. Literaly. You see, as I came to learn, I had joined with a serious hiking club. Not only are they hikers, they practice martial arts, do hyatha yoga, scuba dive, and explore wildlife sanctuaries all over India. They are serious. They are fit. And the idea was that we would be too.
I started to have doubts. For one, I had only been in India 2 weeks. Two, I have never been hiking in the US, so why should I start now. Three, I am terrified of heights.
I can't really say what it was that made me say 'Yes' definitively, buy a train ticket and start searching for gloves and wool socks. But I think it happened somewhere in Bhongir. Somewhere between seeing my first monkey in the wild and crawling down to see a lone lotus flower floating in the recesses of a pond.
But even after packing, even on the train to Dehli, I didn''t really understand what was happening or really, what was going to happen. In truth, I had very little information about the particulars. Because I don't speak Hindi or Telugu, I have to rely on translation for any and all information. Sometimes there is a translator and sometimes there isn't. Plus, translation is often a notorious paraphrase, and sometimes pertinent information like 'bring two pairs of gloves' or 'book your train ticket well in advance so your bunk gets confirmed' was left out.
To be honest, it was only at the end of the trip that I realized what we had just done.
The train from Dehli was the beginning, and the first time I had been on an Indian train. They are strikingly similar to the Russian platz-kart; a long narrow corridor with bunks along the windows and thin walls separate each compartment of 8 beds. The group was big - around 40 or 50 people - all from Bangalore. The organization we went through - Adventure Sports Association of India - is based there, so along with the 15 or so members there were 25 high school to college aged girls that had heard about the trip through their schools and friends.
I am unable to tell the age of Indian men and women. I have no scale. So I was constantly assuming that sixteen year-olds were really my age and that 20 year olds were 15.
The train ride was long 26 hours, straight up the center of the country. In Dehli we changed to a local train and went north to Chendigarh. Then there was an exchange to a bus that drove us by night into the mountains so that we reached Kuulu and Manali, small resort towns at the base of the Himalayas by the next morning.
The farther North we traveled the more clothing and snacks and items we shed, and the more the group began to feel like an adult summer camp. Groups of friends started to form and songs were sung on the bus, not only by the teenagers but led by the men. As the altitude rose and the air thinned, every one started laughing and talking about glaciers and how we would stay warm and what we would be doing.
In Manali, we stopped at an ashram to take the last shower we would have for 17 days and whittle down our belonging to one pack of 8 kilos. And then we drove up along the official state highway. Because of the remoteness and the grade of the terrain, the road is impossible to maintain. There are constant avalanches and rock slides and from Oct to May the entire road and area is closed because of snowfall. So along a serpentine, one-way road we went.
And then down into a rocky, grey valley without trees or towns or people. At night, in the rain we reached Batal, which was to be our first camp.
The next 15 days kind of merge into one long sequence in my head and this post is already long winded and windy. It took a few days to get acclimatized to the altitude and cold. Batal was at around 14,000 feet, which was not so noticeable in a bus. However, the next morning (and about the next 7 mornings), I couldn't see clearly when I woke up and when I tried to stand and walk my legs swerved and snaked. I had headaches and couldn't breathe fully. And the strangest thing of all, with only 40% of the regular oxygen, I couldn't recall the basic names of people or things. When I was asked to sing an English song, I couldn't think of the lyrics to "Hard Days Night".
Some days we stayed in camp and played cards and snuck off to a dhaba (a small, roadside, or in this case cliffside, hut for food and tea) to drink tea and eat the coveted roti. You see, we had to carry everything we needed, so food was boiled down to dal' and rice and later only dehydrated upma and rice pilaf. So, at the sight of a shepherds tea or dhaba, we (meaning the less-disciplined youth and all the older men) began to calculate how many bars of chocolate and packs of cookies we needed till the next stop.
And some days we walked. Sometimes up hill for 16 km, sometimes we scaled up to 15,500 ft (Humpta Pass) and they descended into a valley of marshlands and lost trails. And sometimes it was downhill and it was raining and we fell in mud and skidded down rock faces.
Was I happy to get a bath after seventeen days? Most definitely. And I was happy to eat something green, to change my socks, to feel hot water. But the moment we walked into Manali, I felt this surge of anger. As shops and businesses started to multiple and divide into a street, then two, then 7, then a whole city, I started to feel this compression of pollution and noise and advertisements and stares. And a bigger part of me, a part that had been incubating for 17 days and had only now just woken up to what happened and where I was wanted to turn around and walk backwards.
I know I haven't mentioned the people or much of the actual events of the hike. This is for a few reasons. One, the hike was a serious of small events that are hard to describe in words. Luckily, there are photos. As for the people, I interviews and recorded the songs and jokes and stories of many of the people on the trip, and I will be posting snippets and edits soon. Also, I have a feeling that these people, or at least a select few, will be part of continuing adventures in the future and writing about them now feels like I am laying to rest something in its nascent form.
For all photos, look here: http://picasaweb.google.com/ashley.cleek/HiHimalayas?feat=directlink .
For now its back to Hyderabad, a city I feel I know way too little about, and classes and this apartment that is starting, ever so slowly, to look and feel like a home.
A few days ago I returned from a 20 day expedition through the Northeast Himalayas.
When the possibility of hiking in the Himalayas was first suggested by my host father it sounded like an offhand comment. And I readily said yes, in that American, or maybe more accurately Southern way, in which since I don't believe something is going to happen, I agree to it. But that sort of agreement does not translate here. The following weekend, I joined him and 6 other people for sprints and push ups and crab-walking in a park by Hussein Sagar.
The weekend after that at five o'clock in the morning we met 40 km outside of the city in a village called Bhongir to hike around an old fortress.
We spent the whole day climbing up and down stairs. Literaly. You see, as I came to learn, I had joined with a serious hiking club. Not only are they hikers, they practice martial arts, do hyatha yoga, scuba dive, and explore wildlife sanctuaries all over India. They are serious. They are fit. And the idea was that we would be too.
I started to have doubts. For one, I had only been in India 2 weeks. Two, I have never been hiking in the US, so why should I start now. Three, I am terrified of heights.
I can't really say what it was that made me say 'Yes' definitively, buy a train ticket and start searching for gloves and wool socks. But I think it happened somewhere in Bhongir. Somewhere between seeing my first monkey in the wild and crawling down to see a lone lotus flower floating in the recesses of a pond.
But even after packing, even on the train to Dehli, I didn''t really understand what was happening or really, what was going to happen. In truth, I had very little information about the particulars. Because I don't speak Hindi or Telugu, I have to rely on translation for any and all information. Sometimes there is a translator and sometimes there isn't. Plus, translation is often a notorious paraphrase, and sometimes pertinent information like 'bring two pairs of gloves' or 'book your train ticket well in advance so your bunk gets confirmed' was left out.
To be honest, it was only at the end of the trip that I realized what we had just done.
The train from Dehli was the beginning, and the first time I had been on an Indian train. They are strikingly similar to the Russian platz-kart; a long narrow corridor with bunks along the windows and thin walls separate each compartment of 8 beds. The group was big - around 40 or 50 people - all from Bangalore. The organization we went through - Adventure Sports Association of India - is based there, so along with the 15 or so members there were 25 high school to college aged girls that had heard about the trip through their schools and friends.
I am unable to tell the age of Indian men and women. I have no scale. So I was constantly assuming that sixteen year-olds were really my age and that 20 year olds were 15.
The train ride was long 26 hours, straight up the center of the country. In Dehli we changed to a local train and went north to Chendigarh. Then there was an exchange to a bus that drove us by night into the mountains so that we reached Kuulu and Manali, small resort towns at the base of the Himalayas by the next morning.
The farther North we traveled the more clothing and snacks and items we shed, and the more the group began to feel like an adult summer camp. Groups of friends started to form and songs were sung on the bus, not only by the teenagers but led by the men. As the altitude rose and the air thinned, every one started laughing and talking about glaciers and how we would stay warm and what we would be doing.
In Manali, we stopped at an ashram to take the last shower we would have for 17 days and whittle down our belonging to one pack of 8 kilos. And then we drove up along the official state highway. Because of the remoteness and the grade of the terrain, the road is impossible to maintain. There are constant avalanches and rock slides and from Oct to May the entire road and area is closed because of snowfall. So along a serpentine, one-way road we went.
And then down into a rocky, grey valley without trees or towns or people. At night, in the rain we reached Batal, which was to be our first camp.
The next 15 days kind of merge into one long sequence in my head and this post is already long winded and windy. It took a few days to get acclimatized to the altitude and cold. Batal was at around 14,000 feet, which was not so noticeable in a bus. However, the next morning (and about the next 7 mornings), I couldn't see clearly when I woke up and when I tried to stand and walk my legs swerved and snaked. I had headaches and couldn't breathe fully. And the strangest thing of all, with only 40% of the regular oxygen, I couldn't recall the basic names of people or things. When I was asked to sing an English song, I couldn't think of the lyrics to "Hard Days Night".
Some days we stayed in camp and played cards and snuck off to a dhaba (a small, roadside, or in this case cliffside, hut for food and tea) to drink tea and eat the coveted roti. You see, we had to carry everything we needed, so food was boiled down to dal' and rice and later only dehydrated upma and rice pilaf. So, at the sight of a shepherds tea or dhaba, we (meaning the less-disciplined youth and all the older men) began to calculate how many bars of chocolate and packs of cookies we needed till the next stop.
And some days we walked. Sometimes up hill for 16 km, sometimes we scaled up to 15,500 ft (Humpta Pass) and they descended into a valley of marshlands and lost trails. And sometimes it was downhill and it was raining and we fell in mud and skidded down rock faces.
Was I happy to get a bath after seventeen days? Most definitely. And I was happy to eat something green, to change my socks, to feel hot water. But the moment we walked into Manali, I felt this surge of anger. As shops and businesses started to multiple and divide into a street, then two, then 7, then a whole city, I started to feel this compression of pollution and noise and advertisements and stares. And a bigger part of me, a part that had been incubating for 17 days and had only now just woken up to what happened and where I was wanted to turn around and walk backwards.
***
I know I haven't mentioned the people or much of the actual events of the hike. This is for a few reasons. One, the hike was a serious of small events that are hard to describe in words. Luckily, there are photos. As for the people, I interviews and recorded the songs and jokes and stories of many of the people on the trip, and I will be posting snippets and edits soon. Also, I have a feeling that these people, or at least a select few, will be part of continuing adventures in the future and writing about them now feels like I am laying to rest something in its nascent form.
For all photos, look here: http://picasawe
For now its back to Hyderabad, a city I feel I know way too little about, and classes and this apartment that is starting, ever so slowly, to look and feel like a home.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
A Late Beginning
As a warning this journal will be full of piecemeal information like the above. I don’t seem to get all the proper facts, either from not knowing just what questions to ask or because of some ‘untranslatable’. I have faith that at a certain point all these things that don’t make full sense will mature into actual reasons or ideas…and you, dear reader, will simply have to be patient with me.
India as facts:
It has been over a week since I have been here and I haven’t been able to write because I have been without a charger / converter for my computer.
Presently, I am in the city of Hyderabad which is in the state of Andhra Pradesh in the Deccan Plateau of India, basically the center (or some would say South-Central) India. It is farming country, mostly rice and maize, and apparently, Hyderabad used to be a small ‘village’ (people say) but you would never know it now. The city is technically 6.5 million but like most metropolitan areas that doesn’t count commuters. Also, I learned from a Indian man on the flight over: most Indians over 30 do not have birth certificates or an id number that is traceable by the state. So, there is little way to know for sure how many people live anywhere. There are driver’s licenses but many don’t have them. So when people move from state to state there is little to no way to track them. Also, interesting (though somewhat tangential) for the first nine days of a babies life it is traditional not to name it – so many people have records that just say “Girl” or “Boy” baby.
Anyway, there are a lot of ‘Girl’ and ‘Boy’ babies here, but I don’t feel this surge of population as people said I would. Or, I feel it sparingly, like on the bus at rush hour [which is going to be an entry all of its own, once I manage a good picture].
Mostly, I feel foreign, which bring with itself both the good and the bad. The bad things about sticking out - the constant stares and pointing and the occasional being pegged with fruit from a homeless woman fruit and most of all the being ripped off - are all things that are straining on the surface. Of course, they have the ability to destroy a day and make one angry and tired and feel like yelling. And sometimes I do. And, I am sure there will be entries in the future full of frustration and bitter words written after a long day. I will try to spare you, but here's the fare warning. BUT, mostly, I find that being a foreigner, particularly being an American in India elicits nothing but questions, handshakes, invitations to dinner. On a small note, today I went to get my ID card from the University Press Office. I passed 2 rupees through the barred window for a blank card and handed the woman one of the 30 passport photos I carry with me. She looked at the photo, then up at me.... "You are from?" "US," I said, "America." She smiled and asked "Do you like my country?" "Very much", I said, "I'm new here and every one is very kind." "I like your country too," she answered, "But I love my India."
India as facts:
It has been over a week since I have been here and I haven’t been able to write because I have been without a charger / converter for my computer.
Presently, I am in the city of Hyderabad which is in the state of Andhra Pradesh in the Deccan Plateau of India, basically the center (or some would say South-Central) India. It is farming country, mostly rice and maize, and apparently, Hyderabad used to be a small ‘village’ (people say) but you would never know it now. The city is technically 6.5 million but like most metropolitan areas that doesn’t count commuters. Also, I learned from a Indian man on the flight over: most Indians over 30 do not have birth certificates or an id number that is traceable by the state. So, there is little way to know for sure how many people live anywhere. There are driver’s licenses but many don’t have them. So when people move from state to state there is little to no way to track them. Also, interesting (though somewhat tangential) for the first nine days of a babies life it is traditional not to name it – so many people have records that just say “Girl” or “Boy” baby.
Anyway, there are a lot of ‘Girl’ and ‘Boy’ babies here, but I don’t feel this surge of population as people said I would. Or, I feel it sparingly, like on the bus at rush hour [which is going to be an entry all of its own, once I manage a good picture].
Mostly, I feel foreign, which bring with itself both the good and the bad. The bad things about sticking out - the constant stares and pointing and the occasional being pegged with fruit from a homeless woman fruit and most of all the being ripped off - are all things that are straining on the surface. Of course, they have the ability to destroy a day and make one angry and tired and feel like yelling. And sometimes I do. And, I am sure there will be entries in the future full of frustration and bitter words written after a long day. I will try to spare you, but here's the fare warning. BUT, mostly, I find that being a foreigner, particularly being an American in India elicits nothing but questions, handshakes, invitations to dinner. On a small note, today I went to get my ID card from the University Press Office. I passed 2 rupees through the barred window for a blank card and handed the woman one of the 30 passport photos I carry with me. She looked at the photo, then up at me.... "You are from?" "US," I said, "America." She smiled and asked "Do you like my country?" "Very much", I said, "I'm new here and every one is very kind." "I like your country too," she answered, "But I love my India."
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