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
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
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
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