Author: devayanitirthali

India Outside India

Figureheads

devayanitirthaliLeave a comment
Was surprised to see Maratha looking figureheads in the Mystic Seaport museum among mostly European Ladies some more dramatic, some realistic.
This one did not have a name or origin except the sparse description of it being ‘exotic’. To me it looks very much like a Marathi/Maratha saint. The beads he is wearing reminds me of Varakari tradition and the scroll in his hand says that he is mostly not a warrior. 

This figurehead is identified as ‘Asia’. It was carved by an Indian artisan for H.M.S. India, launched in Bombay in 1824. The description below says “The turbaned figure is an impressive symbol of India’s economic and social importance in the British Empire.”

Musings

My history, Your history

devayanitirthaliLeave a comment
Among other things, participating in Gallery Night Providence was one of the ‘things to do’ I have been planning for quite a long time to know more about my new city of residence and meet new people. As meeting people and knowing about the city were two important objectives, I decided to go for the theme based guided walks/tours offered last month rather than visiting the participating venues myself. Read more about the tour itself in the previous post.

Everybody at the information desk was happy to talk and give more information. The most interesting conversation of the evening however was with an older lady. We were talking about Myanmar, a word she could not place. I described it as Burma, the country to the east of Bangladesh. We had a lot more confusing back and forth as she thought it was next to Pakistan and I could not understand how she could miss the whole big chunk of India in the middle.

After some back and forth we realized that the visual of the map in her head was fine, facts from history was the problem. She was in school when Bangladesh was still part of Pakistan and was not aware of its formation in 1971. Part of history that I took for granted as part of world history was not an obvious nugget of information for her.

Some of it is also about geography and how we see things as near-far, relevant-irrelevant, or in size big-small based on where we currently live. More on perception of geography and how we see maps some other time.

Musings

Providence Firsts

devayanitirthaliLeave a comment
Providence hosts an event every third Thursday named Gallery night. On October 21st I went for one of the tours offered as part of this event. We had a guest guide for this tour Michael Carroll, the docent of the John Brown House Museum in Providence. It was the most remarkable introduction to Providence and Rhode Island. Michael talked about a lot of firsts that can be attributed to the area.

One very important event was burning of the Gaspee as the event leading to the declaration of independence rather than the Boston tea party that I learned about in school (in India) learning about American Independence.

The Gaspee Day committee has been arranging various events to acquaint the public with an event that is as much a part of the national heritage as Paul Revere’s ride and the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The Burning of the Gaspee was the first link in the chain of events that led directly to the Declaration of Independence.

A short description from the Gaspee Day committee website:
“In June of 1772 brave colonists from Rhode Island burned the British revenue schooner, HMS Gaspee, during what has become recognized as the first bloodshed of the American Revolution.
For the past 49 years the village of  Pawtuxet, RI has commemorated this act with our annual Gaspee Days Celebration. “

The other first (or is it a second) was the Providence art club. The club was started in 1880s by 10 men and 6 women who wanted to create a permanent place for artists to get together, work, have an exhibition gallery and where connoisseurs can go to buy art.

It was fascinating to visit studios that some of the artists opened up for the gallery night. Most interesting was talking with Anthony Tomacelli. Listening to him explain his process of painting and how different colors interact with each other changed how I look at art and the different hues of blue, orange, and violet.

The Little Pictures Show and Sale that the Providence Art Club hosts every year is also a first. The exhibition starts in November and goes on till Decemerb 23. The art has to be smaller than 16 X 16 and priced at $250 or less. I was told that this is an opportunity to buy an original piece of art by some well known area artists cheaper. This year is the 109th year of this exhibition.

There were other firsts and seconds (Providence seems to have a lot of seconds) mentioned by tour participants. I am planning to explore the history of the area more through its buildings and museums. Will post more as I explore more. 

India Outside India

Indian subcontinent as seen through an American merchant’s eyes

devayanitirthaliLeave a comment

I was surprised and elated to see a map of India when visiting the John Brown House Museum in Providence. The map is actually of Asia next to another framed map of America with western part uncharted.

John Brown was a merchant and ship builder. He was active in the China trade during 1760s -80s. The map looked like it was well used. You can see the paper worn out and with creases in spite of it being displayed flat in a glass frame at present.

I was quite excited to see the old names/spellings of the familiar land masses of the Indian subcontinent. If you see the larger version of the above map you can clearly see the northern part named as ‘The Empire of the Great Mogul’. On the west of that is Empire of Persia and to the east is Empire of china. There are many kingdoms marked so are ports, major inland cities, rivers, and mountains.

 

India Outside India · Musings

The tale of two Indias

devayanitirthaliLeave a comment
I saw this PBS documentary today. On the website the description is as follows:
‘The World Before Her’ is a tale of two Indias: In one, a small-town girl competes in the Miss India pageant. In the other, a militant woman leads a fundamentalist Hindu camp for girls.

Lot to digest, for example – Choosing two girls from these specific circumstances and not others to contrast, especially since the struggle between tradition and modernity was a thread throughout. The visual of the girl sitting at the beach facing the Mumbai skyline juxtaposed with silhouettes of mountains and temple spires on the left shows this thread of presentation to come. As the documentary progressed, it was very interesting to see assumptions made about what is ‘modern’ when it comes to women in India. What is considered freeing, enabling and how it is shown as one or the other rather than a complex mix in both the paths these girls chose. 

I want to go back and watch it again to see how certain views, values, visuals were highlighted or played down. 

A lot there to process and comment but before I write a coherent review I just wanted to share the documentary itself. 

http://video.pbs.org/viralplayer/2365078770

India Outside India

Collecting Deities

devayanitirthaliLeave a comment
Yesterday we stumbled on a flee market outside YMCA on Hope street. There was such a wide collection of household items, vases, planters, clothes, decorative items and what not. Some of it Indian – beautiful dupattas (scarves), cloth pieces used as table mats, beads. The most exciting however was this idol of Shiva. I have seen Ganesha, Buddha, and sometimes Krishna but this Shiva was the first one I saw in US outside of an Indian home or Indian reference. 
The idol in abhay mudra is well made with eyes painted beautifully expressing benevolence. Nandi on one side, Shivalinga on the other, damaru on the trident. 

The lady manning the booth had various Ganesha idols, a bull that looked more like Nandi than the bull outside New York stock exchange. It seems her friend collected deities and these were some of her finds on a trip to India. 

Musings · Social Media, Technology & Education

Circles in my life

devayanitirthaliLeave a comment
I am increasingly having problems with managing my connections. I felt it was easier before in 2005 when everybody from India was on Orkut and everybody I met in US was on Facebook. My Indian connections moved from Orkut to Facebook slowly some 2-4 years ago and my Orkut account gets only a trickle of relevant activity. However, even without the move that kind of division would not have worked for me today with the kind of sharing patterns I have.

My efforts at creating google circles was supremely unsuccessful (mostly because of google+ not working for me) so has been making groups on Facebook to selectively share stuff. Some of what I share is geographically related. For example the Africans in India exhibition I recently shared is accessible only to people living in NYC, so are various events at TC, Columbia University or other neighboring institutions. Some of it is more personal, like cute photos of my friends visiting us and celebrating Christmas, opening presents that are not necessarily unworthy to be shared with acquaintances but not particularly necessary to broadcast either.

I created a page on Facebook for my extended family and it has picked up really well. However, there is no way I can include some of the activities of the family I acquired here in US over time like my friend Marcelle and her two boys, my roommate Selen. After my parent’s visit to US the task has become much more difficult. Not only do I have two versions of family but some of the members of these two versions know each other well and I would like to share ‘stuff’ that both will enjoy.

The other side of it is to think about what will people I am related to want me to share. I had not thought about it before. Now that I think about it, I enjoy, actively read everything my sisters, friends in India post in spite of it being absolutely not related to me due to it being locally relevant geographically or local to some conversation I am not party to. Stalking my sisters and friends gives me a feeling that I am part of their lives more than possible given the distance (much of it in time zones).

This long ‘thinking out loud’ is not about the functionality so much but my inability or I think more of my aversion to define my various relations as to where they fit on the plane of relatedness. 

India Outside India

Siddis on the Indian Subcontinent

devayanitirthaliLeave a comment
I found on Facebook the link for the online exhibition named African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean World on the New York Public Library’s (NYPL) website. The exhibition is curated and hosted by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black History.

I have talked once in a while with my friends from South Africa about the people of African origin on the Indian subcontinent. I knew of them as Habashis who lived in Gujarat. I know that they came to India first as traders and seamen. However, I did not know anything about them beyond their existence. Habashis or the Abyssinians came to India from Ethiopia (Abyssinia). The exhibit mentions the port of Barygasa (modern day Bharuch, Gujarat) that was considered to be an Ethiopian town because of the east African traders who had settled there. So that is where my story of Africans in Gujarat came from I guess. I also knew of Siddis of Janjira but had not really thought of them as people from Africa.

The online exhibit put a lot of people and events I knew in perspective of the flow of people between different continents. This experience was similar to how things I already knew clicked in place when I was reading the book Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh. I knew of the opium wars in China, the famines in Bengal, the British in Calcutta, history of Parsis in Bombay and so on but all of it clicked together in terms of actual people who moved between different places at that time and how happenings in one affected people in other far away places.

I could identify some of the historical happenings and names but did not know their African origin. For example, Ibn Batutta is a well known name for the record of his travels during 1300 A.D. in India, but I had not thought of his origins. He was a Moroccan. Malik Ambar, the formidable general during the Nizamshahi rule in the Deccan. I know of him but now I can place him in the overall migration, and movement of people from Ethiopia, to Arabia, to India as slaves, seamen, ivory traders. See the map of movement of people here.

The most surprising find was of the group of Habashi slaves from Goa when it was under Portuguese rule who ran away to Karanataka in free India. I had no awareness of these events. When we were growing up I heard stories of how my grandfather sneaked in and out of Goa during the Portuguese rule to see his relatives and friends and visit the temple of the family goddess. I never heard the story of the Habashis though. Now it is too late to ask him about them.

The online exhibition has a lot of images, paintings and photos – past and present that make this discovery interesting and more human than just reading the text.

The Schomburg Center also has an ongoing exhibition of images and artifacts open till July 6, 2013. Here is the information about it in case you are in NYC and are interested.

PS: Africa felt like a far away land when I was in India. I think I understand Africa (especially east Africa) differently now after coming to US in terms of where it is geographically in relation to the Indian subcontinent and how it is connected from land and sea.  Conncections that I did not clearly see before. I wonder if physically being on another continent changes the way you look at the world geographically. Or does the awareness come from the multi-national crowd and subjects I am exposed to in New York City and in Teachers College. 

Musings

Remembering the dearly departed

devayanitirthaliLeave a comment
I stumbled upon an article in the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal (Jan 4,5 2013) titled Life and Death Online: Who Controls the digital legacy. It is a story of a teenager who died and her parents were fighting to get access to her online presence like emails, social network site accounts and so on.

Around the same time, after death of activist Aaron Swartz, there is an ongoing conversation on AIR about a pdf memorial for him. This subject also stuck in my mind because just a week back there was a discussion about online bereavement, memorials, and presence after death and related research on the AIR listserve.

I had not thought of my online presence as my legacy or memorabilia that my family might want as a keepsake. I most definitely had not thought about the legalities concerned and the need to add instructions for handling my various online presence as part of my will.

One reason for not thinking about it is that the thought of death and related practicalities has not been the foremost in my mind right now. Secondly, the idea of keepsakes from and memorials of dearly departed is not something that is culturally obvious to me. My friend showed me a watch that was given to her by her aunt as a keepsake after her death. I have read in novels and seen in movies and in TV series that people keep items of their departed relatives and friends as keepsakes. I have seen many deaths as I grew up but do not remember any practice of keepsakes. There is no custom of burial so no tombstone to visit, the ashes are thrown in the river so no keepsake urns on the mantle piece.

I wonder if it is the difference between the attitude towards death – the idea of moving on after a death vs. keeping memory of a person alive after death. Then I think of all the rituals we have for dead ancestors. The yearly food donation my parents make for my grandparents on their death anniversary. May be it is just a different way to remember.  

India Outside India

India portrayed in Indian restaurants

devayanitirthali1 Comment
We were visiting Rasoi, one of the Indian restaurants in Providence, with our friends from South Africa (via NYC). We have been frequenting Rasoi for their Sunday brunch. They have the best Indian food I have tasted in a while. They also have huge photos from India as decoration on their walls. I was pleasantly surprised and excited this time to see photos that seemed like they were taken in Maharashtra. On closer inspection I found a note about the exact location. Mandai!!! Who knew I would sit next to photos of women making garlands and a man selling onions taken in Mandai of all the places. For the people who do not get the reference, Mandai in Pune, my home town, is a marketplace bang in the middle of the old city. Well that description doesn’t do justice to what Mandai and the whole experience of going to Mandai is all about.

These photos reminded me of other surprising visuals used for decorations in other restaurants.

The following two paintings are from a restaurant in Niagara falls, US. The paintings portray the Peshvas based in Pune, one of the important players on the political scene locally in Maharashtra in 18th century and possibly on the subcontinent during the reign of Bajirav Peshva in the first half of the 18th century. The romantic story of Bajirav and Mastani the courtesan is well know in Maharashtra. The other painting was that of the Shanivarvada, the fortified palace of the Peshvas in Pune. You can see only a part of it behind me in the second photo. I was quite surprised to see the Peshvas as visual representation of Indian. Even in India, many of the people outside Maharashtra do not know of the Maratha and Peshva history as the history books focus more on the dynasties based in Delhi and the Rajputs of the North western region.

The other painting that caught my eye and made me chuckle is in another restaurant in Providence – Not Just Snacks. The painting has all the symbols of ‘exotic India’ bringing together different pieces of place and time in an unusual collage – elephant, peacock, Tajmahal, coconut, palm, and mango trees,  a boy flying kite, a singer (Meerabai??) with a string instrument who is from some bygone era, and people who look like they are from northern India on the banks of a river (Ganga??) Oh and I forgot the deer mesmerized by the song Meerabai is playing/singing.  Mountains behind the Tajmahal, the river plains in the middle and I am assuming desert behind Meerabai.