Tag: festival

Dilli Diary

Ramleela

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After agonizing over which Ramleela to go to we selected one at the Red Fort. We started towards the pandal we could see as we were coming out of the station. The red fort is closed for the duration of the festivities. P1030213.JPG

The first reaction when we entered was excitement like a child. There were joy rides including multiple ferris wheels; all the mela food items – buddhi ke baal (cotton candy), bhel and variety of chaats, barfacha gola (chusky/shaved ice) were right there with the other fun stuff like photo studios, stalls where you could win gifts when you throw a ring or shoot correctly at a target, kid’s toys, haunted house. Basically all the things you experienced in a mela as a child or saw in an Indian movie where the brothers get separated. LOL.

After taking in all that was on offer, we made a beeline to the Ramleela stage. On both sides of the stage there were empty pandals, some with lavish seating. As we realized later, these were for the special guests of people who paid for these spaces as a contribution to the Ramleela.

No crowds at this time so we decided to explore the huge food pandal in front of the stage. The stalls were beautifully decorated with the ingredients of dishes they were selling and the chefs and servers were dressed impecabelly. The pandal had much more of a royal feel than the food stalls we saw coming in.  We ended up trying three snacks – Mung chilla, Kulle, and paneer mava tikki. The green and mithi chatanis were nothing like I have had before. Thick and flavorful.

After PetPuja we decided to explore the rest of the mela beyond the stage. To our greatest surprise it was the LavKush Samiti’s mela right next door. The feel was much different than the New Dharmik Samiti mela we had just left behind. It was also bustling with people. The ramleela was going on the stage already.  No royal looking food stall here though it was full of the same kind of stalls and food items but with slightly less fanfare. Both the Samiti’s had put up digital screens as backdrops but the Lavkush also had huge screens further away from the stage that showed multiple storylines going on the stage. When we arrived Ram and Lakshman were walking in the forest probably after Sita’s abduction. The song narrated their dialogue. For a long time they kept walking slowly across the stage so we decided to go back to the New Dharmik to see what was going on there.

We sat for a long time waiting for some movement. The volunteer kids dressed in white and khakis arrived, had their food, took their places for crowd control and tied the remaining food in a bag next to their posts to the bamboo poles dividing the seating zones. After a short chat with them we realized that the performance will not start for another hour and will go on past midnight. The weather was beautiful, the air smelled of grass clippings, so we decided to settle down with our main course of dinner.

Throngs of crowds started arriving and we realized it must be time. Ram, Lakshman, Sita arrived in a chariot and went round the huge seating area. Then Bharat and Shatrughna arrived and did their rounds. The story moved faster. The background music was sophisticated and more importantly the acting was really good and believable. As the scenes unfolded on the stage, newer characters came out to make their rounds through the crowds.  We liked the imposing Ravan the most.

Ready to go home we reached the metro station and realized there was a third mela organized by the Shri Dharmik Samiti, next to the first one. We had missed it as we came out of the metro with our backs to their entrance. This one needed an Entry Pass. We were told this was the best one that we should not miss and some person at the door made sure that we got a pass. Visits to the three melas was a lesson in sociology and how the class differences play out. We realized that the placement matched exactly with the classes that gathered there Lavkush, New Dharmik, and Shri Dharmik – everybody going to the one that they felt most comfortable with. The look and feel was different; the security arrangements were different; some food items in Shri Dharmik weren’t available in others and some of the toys on offer showed the class divide as well. I wondered if the Shri Dharmik used the passes as a special effort to keep what they thought as the ‘rifraff’ out. It was quite an education about Delhi society.

New Dharmik
Shri Dharmik

Some interesting things we saw in Shri Dharmik Samiti’s mela:

dessert
Very traditional Ramleela stage
Jatayu waiting in the wings to fly in
Musings

Navaratri vs Durga Puja

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The Navaratri vs DurgaPuja fights continue. I wrote about the meat shop closures in Gurgaon and Faridabad couple days back. That was Delhi NCR, so although ignorant, I can understand it somewhat.

Now hindutva groups are taking offence to a Bengali advertisement by Fortune foods that shows a woman planning for the 4 day feast including fish and meat. See Scrolls’s coverage here. According to Scroll the organization translated the lyrics in Hindi. From what I can see it is a completely wrong translation that adds the Navaratri ethos to a Durga Puja related video and creates a completely different story. I could not find that translation but on twitter found the @HinduJagrutiOrg congratulating themselves with followers commending them and the Hindu Ekta/unity.

Hindujagaran.org has a message about the advertisement on their site  “इस विज्ञापन में महिला को आदिशक्ति दुर्गामाता के रूप में दिखाया गया था आैर उसके हाथ में शस्त्रों की जगह विविध प्रकार के खाना बनाने के चम्मच दिखाएं गए थे । इस तरह मां दुर्गादेवी का मानवीकरण कर उसका अपमान किया गया था”

So the outrage here seems to be about humanizing the goddess. The problem however is that Bengalis do consider Durga as if she is a family member coming down to her Maayaka for the four days with her family and pamper her as if she is the daughter of the house. She is the mother and the daughter and a lekurvali as we would call her in Marathi. This is my understanding from interacting with Bengalis around me. This advertisement perfectly showcases the Bengali spirit during Pujo times. You can see that in the comments from Bengali people on the youtube video. It sounds somewhat like the liberties we take with Ganesh, our favourite deity. It is done out of love and sense of closeness. How can that be insulting?

Last year Javed Habib similarly had faced outrage for ‘using’ Durga in his print advertisements that show Durga coming to his saloon with her family. Here is the Indian Express coverage.  I am told that it is a tradition for Bengalis, in print media and cartoons, to showcase Durga with her family doing everyday tasks. The article at the end also shares some of the print ads that have appeared before. Habib is not insulting a Hindu goddess, he has depicted the Bengali spirit perfectly.

These episodes were pretty disturbing for me, much more than the meat shop closures. Both these advertisements were targeted at Bengali people. It wasn’t even in their North Indian backyard. The hindutva organizations in both these instances have gone looking for insult and excuse for outrage. Is this a pre-election ploy to get people riled up about things that don’t matter or do not even exist?

The people responding to the tweet are Marathi and Hindi. Marathi probably because ShivSena is part of the consortium of hindutva organizations. That scares me. I wonder about the future of my home state Maharasthra, the social activism hub of 19th century. It is unfortunate/alarming if this is what we are leaving behind for the next generation when the previous generations left us the legacy of Phule and Karve.

To improve your mood a bit after all this doomsday talk, here is one more Pujo song from Sawan Datta. Enjoy!

Musings

Your food, my food

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I am pretty excited about pendal hopping for Durga Puja. I know it is not Kolkatta but I will take whatever I get as my first experience of Durga Puja in  Delhi – the dhak, dhunachi, the dance, the merrymaking, and most importantly the food. Started the planning already by joining a pre-Durga Puja guided walk (more about it here) and googling for lists of ‘do not to miss’ pendals and food items.

Although Bengali Durga Puja is about the goddess and coincides with the Navaratri celebrated in North India, it has a completely different ethos. Navaratri is about fasting while food, dressing up, and merrymaking are the integral part of Pujo. These are both Hindu people celebrating Hindu festival but the practices are completely different. During the pre-Durga Puja walk a north Indian couple of foodies were telling me about how difficult it is for them during pendal hopping as they see all this wonderful food but can’t touch it as they don’t eat non-veg (meat, seafood) during Navaratri. They were at the pre-Durga Puja walk so that they could eat what they would otherwise miss during the actual celebrations.

In the popular media however, there is utter ignorance about other communities living in such close proximity. Not just ignorance but belief that their version of the Navaratri is The Hindu version of what happens during the nine days.

A comment on article about ‘not to miss food items during Pujo’ ridicules the author for mentioning non-veg dishes. “How can you be stupid to add this during these days. Don’t you know people don’t eat non-veg during this time?” is the general tone in many places on the internet as Bengali people remind sommenters that for Bengalis the rules are different. The bhog for the goddess includes illish, the fish most favourite of the bongs.

On this background I read the news today that a consortium of 22 Hindu groups has threatened to force shut all meat shops in Gurugram (Gudgaon) during the festival of Navaratri. Shivsena, one of the member of the consortium, has gathered 125 members to coax or coerce meat shop owners to comply. First of all what is Shivsena doing in Gurgaon of all the places. It is a local organization from Maharashtra. Secondly, who gave them permission to decide what people should or should not eat during Navaratri.

I am not quite sure if this is being portrayed as a religious thing – Hindus vs other meat eating religions. It is wrong even then. However, it is worse as one way of being a Hindu is being touted as The way. How about look just a few miles away in Chittaranjan park, shops brimming with mutton and fish readying themselves for Durga Puja. Those are Hindus too. That is also a ‘traditional’ way to be a hindu.

This monolithic image of a Hindu being touted and enforced with threat of violence is the most dangerous thing about the right wing spread.  I always thought that acknowledging the different practices of Hindus makes them open to live with people of other religions peacefully and participate in their celebrations.  If we loose sight of the colourful diverse canvas of hindu practices and our ethos of celebrating each one, there is no hope left for harmony among religions.

Dilli Diary

Pujo Ascche

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p10301291.jpgAs the weather gets better I am planning my walks to understand this city I call home now. Opened up the season with a pre-Durga Puja walk with Delhi By Foot yesterday.  My way of trying to get a hang of how to do pandal hopping during Durga Puja, supposedly the thing to do in Delhi in October.

The walk in CR park ended up being an insider’s look on the frenzy as Bengali’s get ready for the most important festival of the year. The bazars were overflowing with people shopping in the book fair; buying the special Pujo magazines; wandering through Pujo mela bursting at the sims with stalls of clothes, accesories, home goods; preparing for cultural programs, dance competitions, and last minute planning meetings.

The pandals are getting ready for the arrival of the goddess and her family.

The idols are getting ready at the Kumhor next to the Kali badi in CR Park. Some are being created in the pandals. The visit to the workshop where artisans were preparing the idols reminded me of our childhood visits to the Dhondphale workshop in Rastapeth before Ganesh festival. My father in a bid to avoid the fetival crowds used to take us to the workshop in lieu of the pandal hopping later.

The idol making is completely different in this case however and I am glad I could see behind the curtain work going on. Unlike the lone Ganesh, Durga Puja idols we saw were created as a family – Durga with her lion, flanked by Ganesh with the mouse, Kartikeya with his peacok, and the sisters Lakshmi and Saraswati. The whole family is created on a backdrop built with bamboo. The torso, limbs and body parts, unlike the ganesh murti are first created in hay and then finished with multiple applications of clay of various viscocity. Most of the idols were going to be dressed in actual cloth so only the visible parts were being painted. This was new and different as Ganesh idols come ready with the clothes and accessories created in clay and painted to show the fall of the cloth.

Durga with her family
Bamboo backing
hay filler for limbs

The idols in one of the CR park pandals are ready but still need color, clothing and accesories. The artisans from Kolkata have been working right here since August. When we visited the pandal they were creating paper mache decorations that depict the art forms of Bengal. Organizers urged us not to post photos and ruin the surprise. Looking forward to visit some of the pandals starting saptami to see the finished look.

 

 

India Outside India

Trinis at Patel’s

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Yesterday I was pleasantly surprised to see my colleague from Brown University in the Patel’s store. Since the opening last year we have been regular customers but never imagined meeting anybody I know professionally.

She had three big bags of dried hibiscus flowers. I have never seen dried hibiscus as food ingredient in Indian stores in USA or consumed dried hibiscus except once as part of some exautic tea. My colleague told me that Trinis make a tea with the hibiscus flowers and some spices for Christmas. I wonder if availability at Patel’s is because a lot of Trinis and Caribean customers frequent the place or I missed some Indian connection, which is quite possible given the culinary diversity of India.

India Outside India · Musings

Gudhipadva and the Hindu New Year

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Now that we have Whatsapp in addition to Facebook and a growing number of people back home using it, we don’t need Kaalnirnay. As any important festival or religious day dawns in India earlier than in US, we start getting whatsapp messages the previous night.

It was Gudhipadva on March 28. I received plenty of images of gudhi and wishes for the new year. What surprised me this year was the number of messages that said Hindu Navavarshachya Shubheccha. When did Gudhipadva become Hindu newyear? At best it is Marathi new year.
Hindu Nav Varsh Ani Gudi Padwachya Hardik Shubhechha
Gudhipadva is the first day of the first month (Chaitra) of the year, making it the new year’s day. But this calendar is not ‘The Calendar’ of India or Hindus. To start with there are regions that follow the amaant system and others that follow pournimaant system. In north India the month ends with a pournima or a full moon day while in the south it ends with amavasya i.e. no moon day. This clearly makes the first day of month 15 days apart so how can we have the same new year’s day?

Secondly, there are regions that follow a completely different calendar system other than the lunisolar calendar that we use in Kalanirnay for example. The Malyalam calendar is a solar calendar. First of each month is based on the movement of sun through the zodiac. When I started digging more I realized that there are other regions that follow a similar method. Read more details about different calendars in India here. I have not even started digging into conventions in different communities that start the year in different months or seasons.

People calling Gudhi Padva, hindu navavarsha or Hindu new year wipes out all these differences. These are not nuances. These are completely different practices.

I wondered where the ‘Hindu nava varsha’ nomenclature came from suddenly as I had not seen it before. Seems that RSS always referred to Gudhi Padva as Hindu nava varsha. I wonder if the copy paste and forward system of whatsapp made it so ubiquitous that it finally reached me. The question is whose new year is it then? Mostly Marathi upperclass hindus pretending that their practices are the practices of Hindus of all shapes and sizes.

You might think it is a small thing, it is just wording but for me it showcases homogenization of hinduism and what it means to be a Hindu. It is disturbing.