Category Archives: India
Posted by opus125 in India, Poetry
R. LAKSHMANA RAO, The HYpnosis
Gaze, gaze into my eyes, he said
I gazed.
Take a deep breath, a deep breath, he said
Now what you see
Is only me
What you hear
See, it is dark everywhere
You see nothing
You see no one
not even me
Now you go to sleep
deep, deep sleep
you cannot open your eyes now
you try, but your eyelids are heavy
heavy with sleep.
Try, if you can, he said
I could not.
Lie down, he said
I just collapsed.
What is your country? he asked
Bharat, I said
Very good, he said
Look around, now
It is green everywhere
everywhere is plenty
and you have no hunger, he said.
My belly puffed like a ballon.
You have no cold, he said.
I was hot as if I had pissed all over myself.
Why do you bother to think, he said.
Leave that to me
You have no need to talk,
You have my talk.
Take the load of your brains off your head
You cannot think now.
Try, if you like:
but it was a hallow boom in an empty shell.
Try, if you can talk, he said
I did,
but my balls were bashed
and my penis dangled like a pendulum.
Ah, you are my dog now,
wig-wag your tail, he said.
I looked for my tail.
Where is it? I couldn't find it.
Die now, he said
I woke up, as from a whiplash
– R. LAKSHMANA RAO
Translated from Kannada by Polanki Ramamurthy
This poem was written during the Emergency in India (195-1977), a 21-month state of emergency unilaterally declared Prime Minister Indira Gandhi from 1975 to 1977.
Officially issued by President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed under Article 352(1) of the Constitution for "internal disturbance", the Emergency was in effect from 25 June 1975 until its withdrawal on 21 March 1977.
Posted by opus125 in India, Religion & Spiritualty
I think there is more to life than acquaintance or social relativism. The tribal peoples connect to the earth. People who follow a lunar calendar based traditions seem to be more sensitive connecting all within the divine. Whether we reach the point of recognising our collective humility I am still to see.
When we admit in each of us is every possible experience, and in every inconsistency an admission of our own shadow.
I often reflected on the Adivasi of India. There art is often admired but as a people they are marginalised. Their connection to land decimated by land grabbing demands of economic growth. It is easy to dismiss them, in the name of progress. To ignore the consequences to the environment.
The same is true of blaming Britain – and Britain did much harm. The few families that controlled her were exploitative in their policies. But why do people attack it so viscously?
I suggest because there is a shadow of fear within India that Britain exploited a weakness already apart of her. Go back and read the writings of the early Hindu reformers like Ram Mohan Roy and you see they express this point.
I know people will say I dont understand "because you are a foreigner". I hear this said of people who have lived there for decades. The divisiveness that accuses me of not being able to understand, also blocks the accuser from self-reflection.
I have witnessed the most serene and sacred. I have equally felt a cynical disgust for saffron robed businessmen pretending to be holy. Their diya plastered sanctums of self glory.
At the call of dawn, in sari and Sunday best, I wonder if we can look beyond the symbols. There is great beauty in the serene devotion of people praying before the joyful Garnesh, or to consider the sweet sacrifice of Sita.
But what of the temple that sits beside an open sewer? The beauty of marigold flows onto the street, but so do the plastic bags that clog the drains and from them food scraps are eaten by cows, the swallowed plastic often causing agonising consequences.
It is all to easy to say that reality is an illusion and dismiss the consequences. This Maya however, is a reflection of who we are within. So how we treat others, and how we treat our world, is a mirror of how we view divine truth.
Posted by opus125 in India
Octavia Paz
The Ardhanari, Elephanta Island
In that moment I felt only a deep warmth for Khan Bhai: ever faithful, ever sincere.
Our eyes met.
"Salaam" he said, his fingers tracing his thoughts:"my mind, my breath, my heart".
"Salaam alaikum" I said. I smiled, but wanted to cry.
He pulled me over in embrace. "Wa-Alaikum-as-Salaam."
The memory still brings me to tears. Why? I'm not a Muslim. The farewell has no religious connotations to me. But sincerity from one of the most genuine I have ever met crosses religious boundaries.
Strangely, I am reminded of when Octavia Paz resigned his post as Mexican Ambassador to India. He could not be formerly be sent off from India because Paz had resigned in protest of his government's oppression of protestors in his home country. Instead he was invited by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi for a meal, along with Rajiv and wife Sonia.
A poet, the former ambassador met with artist friends, and then would farewell India with a trip to Elephanta.
I have flown from Mumbai many times and Elephanta still remains one home of my deepest reflections. Like Octavia Paz, the great sculptures half lit in contrajuer remind me of my own impermanence.
The Ardhanariswara, half man half woman, reminds us of our polar opposites we to must embrace. Like Chiron we are half animal and half divine. Eve came from Adam, say the Jews, because in Adam was first both Male and female before both aspects were manifested in separate complementary forms and yet "one flesh".
After visiting Elephanta, Paz penned a goodbye that I cannot surpass:
"Shiva and Parvati:
we worship you
not as gods
but as images of the divinity of man.
You are what makes and is not,
what man will be
when he has served the sentence of hard labour.
Shiva:
your four arms are four rivers,
four jets of water.
Your whole being is a fountain where the lovely Parvati bathes, where she rocks like a graceful boat.
The sea beats beneath the sun:
it is the great lips of Shiva laughing;
the sea is ablaze: it is the steps of Parvati on the waters.
the woman who is my wife
ask you for nothing, nothing
that comes from the other world:
the light on the sea,
the barefoot light on the sleeping land and sea."
"Thank you India for discovering myself ….. and thank you Octavia Paz" I wrote that night.
Discovered myself? I had done nothing o the sort.
I remain incomplete, and so I return home to India.
Like Khiron the wounds of childhood leave many of us alone, a guide comes and aids us. But the wounded healer of myth, in a form of mythical euthanasia, escaped eternal pain by giving up his immortality to release Prometheus from the talons of Zeus liver gorging eagle.
My own myth must be dissolved that I can recreate my legacy.
Moreau's Europe and the Indian other
Colonization, Gustav Moreau, Indology, Le Triomphe d'Alexandre le Grand, Porus, Sinology, Triumph of Alexander
Le Triomphe d'Alexandre le Grand Gustav Moreau
At the Musée Gustave Moreau in Paris hangs a mysterious incomplete painting The Triumph of Alexander the Great ("Le Triomphe d'Alexandre le Grand'). Begun by Gustav Moreau in 1880 and left unfinished, it's incompleteness adds to its dreamlike character and how Europe saw itself in relation to India.
All the features which Freud attributed to dreams are to be found at work here. The 'temple' in the background, with it's 'idols', is itself a condensation of all the religious building and images of ancient India (Hindu, Buddhist and Jain), combined together (from drawings of monuments at Elephanta, Sanchi, Ajanta, Mount Abu, Bhubaneshwar, and elsewhere) in a single structure. At the same time, these religions of mysticism and dread are all summed up in the giant, dark statue that stands menacingly in the centre of the picture – he seems almost to levitate – separating the foreground scene of homage, from the temple behind it " muses Ronald Inden[1] Alexander himself, whose white clad figure dominates the foreground, at right, is the only one seated. His throne, apparently assembled out of available materials, on top of a small Buddhist chaitya, (congregational hall) and surrounded by a Winged victory, must be one of the most undetermined chairs ever painted! The whole ensemble completely dwarfs the figure of the defeated King Porus, who stands, arms upraised in salute, in his chariot before the youthful, new overlord.
The Indian idol can be seen as displaying from within itself the lower, lower emotional depths of the human mind, the imagination that, Indology tells us, dominates in India. The figure of Alexander, can be taken to exemplify the world-ordering rationality of the West. We see in this canvas, the triumph of the latter over the former, There is however, something disturbing about this dream, of the West (as there is in many of his works) that Moreau has depicted. The Kings of India, the instruments of her mind, have clearly submitted; the women of India, the embodiment of her sensuous beauty and riches, have laid themselves to the feet of the triumphant West. Yet the immense monolith hat embodies the mentality of the East, broad-shouldered and standing erect, faces serenely and over this passing moment of conquest, seemingly unaffected by it. We can also see how in Moreau's notebook and on his easel the metaphor of Indian thought as dream collapses back on itself. Is it his dream image of India that we see or does he simply mirror what is there?
India differs because she survived repeated invasion mostly unchanged.
It is useful to compare how Sinologists describe neighbouring China.
China, say Siniologists reached its fundamental shape under 3rd century BCE Han dynasty and continued to unfold. Until the Sung period of the 13th century then survived attempts of the Moghuls to govern it after conquest. Then remained static and slipped behind the west.
India, say Indologists, begins with the Aryan invasion in 2nd millennium BCE, flowers under the Mauryas 4th century BCE then began to decline exacerbated by invasions of Hellenes, Scythians, and Turks in 1st 2nd cent BCE to 1st cent AD renascence under the Guptas of the 4th and 5th century declined again with the Hun invasion in the 6th and never reversed.
In other words, China fended off but India succumbed[2]. The myth of Aryan speaking conquest of India, Persia and the Mediterranean essential for the myth of an Aryan pure Greek civilization, so inspiring to Europeans. Nor did European mind did not seem to account the glories of Medieval India, such as Khajuraho.
Yet the conquest of India remained incomplete, like the incomplete outlines of captives and elephants centred in the foreground, of Moreau's work.
Arabs replaced the previous cultures of the Levant, Africa and Persia, Indian civilisation , or an idea of India, remained!
Islam "introduced new forms into some of the principle departments of state" but, said Mill(Mill,1858: II, 165), "it had not greatly altered the texture of native society,"
Nehru agreed with similar observation by Arthur Anthony MacDonnell:
"And in spite of successive waves of invasion and conquest by Persians, Greeks, Scythians, Muhummadans, the national development of the life and literature of the Indo-Aryan race remained practically unchecked and unmodified from without down to the era of the British occupation. No other branch of the Indo-European stock has experienced an isolated evolution like this.[3]
India differs because she survived repeated invasion mostly unchanged. The conquerors come and go, and like Alexander in Gustav Moreau's painting, they leave a legacy that pays homage to India.
[1] Ronald Inden, Imaginative India, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
[2] P54, ibid.
[3] Jawaharhal Nehru, 1951, p. 71, The discovery of India, London, Mridan books.
What is Real India?
No thanks to Rimsky Korsakov's Scheherazade I am in India.
"Disgusting" spat a bigots description of Sultan Shahryār's polygamy. "OK disagree if you wish", I said defensively. "But why such hate? It's only music." His fury extended to a culture he knew nothing about.
I was determined to journey with an open heart. Perhaps I defended what I didn't know to freely. I came with no opinions.
So what is India? An impossible question, but here goes:
"Arey dost!" India is thirty rickshaw wallahs demanding your attention in your first hour off the train… and after the 15th time one morning I finally snapped "Ex –Er – Cise!" with exaggerated gestures. I had enough.
Real India is the mothers cutting subze. The delicious taste chai elaichi or the disgusting sugar tea bag swill served on trains that somehow is called tea. India is the politicians wife who wants prestige and accuses your landlord of renting to "foreigners whoring around." (I suppose she didn't know I'm celibate).
Yes, India confronts you: An outback loving Aussie my nations population sits at Mumbai airports doorstep! Yet half Mumbai is homeless.
Yet in every shock you find a beauty to balance it. Diverse India is a macrocosm of what I now believe is a universal truth: for every good there is an equal challenge. My own life reflected this macrocosmic Indian expression.
The gut wrenching grab of stereotypes is not the real India: of starving beggars child hung limp, women washing at dawn, or children at school 6 days a week.
The Real India is in the smiles in the side streets. A times at times India is the annoying hunt for foreign cash. But I remember most down by Moti Talab the husband who called me from the street, insisting on chai, with wife and kids, and refusing any offer I pay for it; the soldier who, finding m hopelessly lost in dead end lanes on the Igdah hills, puts me on his bike to a central road; the man who drives me to a bank, or the family who see me, a total stranger, safe from a concert.
Hospitality, that is the real India.
The Heart of Islam
Islam, Muslim spiritual purification, personal transformation, Spiritual heart, spiritual heart disease, spiritual transformation
Almost all traditions stress a good heart. In Islam neither wealth nor children will benefit anyone on the Day of Judgement, except one who comes to God with a sound heart (QURAN, 26:88-89), free of character defects and spiritual blemishes.
This of course, refers to the spiritual heart, although, like the Heart chakra of Hinduism, it centre's in the region of the physical organ. In traditional Chinese medicine, the heart houses what is known as shen, or spirit. The Chinese characters for thinking, thought, love, the intention to listen, and virtue all contain the ideogram for the heart.
Now extraordinary research suggests the fist sized 10 ounces of heart, that so marvellously pumps life-giving oxygenated and nutrient-rich blood throughout our bodies, greatly influences our mental, emotional and physical processes.
"The heart is a sensory organ and acts as a sophisticated information encoding and processing center that enables it to learn, remember, and make independent functional decisions," Institute of HeartMath Director of Research Rollin McCraty wrote in the paper, The Energetic Heart: Bioelectromagnetic Communication Within and Between People.
The heart's electromagnetic field contains certain information or coding, which researchers are trying to understand, that is transmitted throughout and outside of the body. One of the most significant findings of IHM's research related to this field is that intentionally generated positive emotions can change this information/coding. Heart Math research suggests the cardioelectromagnetic field transmitted from the heart of people angry, fearful, or depressed take on beneficial energetic influence of others positive emotions.
That care, compassion, or love can be transmitted throughout through our body's cardioelectromagnetic field suggests the truths found in many ancient traditions.
Metaphors abound. The merciless and unkind are "Hard-hearted". People are cold hearted or warm hearted. Others wear their hearts on their sleeves, unconcealed. In love someone person "touched my heart" or "touched the core of my being."
I am not a Muslim but have lived with the Muslim community in India and enjoyed kind hospitality. So I write as an outsider seeking to understand.
The Arabic equivalent for the English word core (which originally in Latin meant heart) is known as lubb, which also refers to the heart, as well as the intellect and the essence of something.
Hamza Yusuf in his Translation and Commentary of Imam Mawlud's Matharat al-Qulub, points out that "in most ancient Indo-European word for heart means "that which leaps," which is consonant with the idea of the beating heart that leaps in the breast of man."
We find this in every day expressions their heart "skipped a beat" when startled, a lover's "stealing one's heart."
Ancient traditions speak of spiritual heart disease.
"And this understanding is certainly at the essence of Islamic teachings. The Quran defines three types of people: al-mu'minun (believers), al-kdfirun (scoffers or atheists), and al-munafiqun (hypocrites). The believers are described as people whose hearts are alive and full of light, while the scoffers are in darkness: Is one who was dead and then We revived [with faith] and made for him a light by which to walk among the people like one who is in darkness from which he cannot exit? (QURAN, 6:122). According to commentators of the Quran, the one who was dead refers to having a dead heart, which God revived with the light of guidance that one may walk straight and honorably among human beings. Also, the prophet Muhammad %£> said, "The difference between the one who remembers God and one who does not is like the difference between the living and the dead." In essence, the believer is someone whose heart is alive, while the disbeliever is someone whose heart is spiritually dead. The hypocrite, however, is somebody whose heart is diseased. The Quran speaks of certain people with diseased hearts (self-inflicted, we understand) and, as a result, they were increased in their disease (QURAN, 2:10)."
In the Muslim tradition belief is intended to be more than formalism.
Ahmed Mater (b. 1979). Magnetism. British Museum
Just as the heart is slightly to the bodies left, the "two sacred languages of Arabic and Hebrew are written from right to left, toward the heart, which, as some have noted, mirrors the purpose of writing, namely to affect the heart." The importance of the heart on the left side is mirrored in Islamic ritual.
The circumambulation of Ka'ba in Makkah during the Hajj pilgrimage is performed counter clockwise, with the believers left side facing the Ka'ba, "heart inclined towards it to remind us of God and His presence in the life of humanity."
Beating 100,000 times a day, pumping 100 gallons per hour through 60,000 miles of the cardiovascular system, the heart beats before the brain is fully formed, without control of the Central Nervous System, "it is actually self-initiated, or, as we would say, initiated by God." Even if all of its connections to the brain be severed as during a heart transplant, the heart continues to beat.
Hence traditional Islamic thought differs from the modern view the brain is the centre of consciousness.
Wayward people who have hearts with which they do not understand (Quran 7:179). It is God placed over their hearts of mockers of the prophet a covering that they may not understand it and in their ears [He placed] acute deafness (6:25).
"Their inability to understand is a deviation from the spiritual function of a sound hear ……. we understand from this that the center of the intellect, the center of human consciousness and conscience, is actually the heart and not the brain. "
With over 40,000 neurons in the heart, brain and heart are in constant communication.
As early as the 1970's researchers John and Beatrice Lacey found the heart itself has its own type of intelligence that made its own decisions in response to signals from the amygdala, thalamus, and cortex. The amygdala relates to emotions, while the cortex or the neocortex relates to learning and reasoning.
"The Prophet of Islam described the heart as a repository of knowledge and a vessel sensitive to the deeds of the body. He said, for example, that wrongdoing irritates the heart. So the heart actually perceives wrong action. In fact, when people do terrible things, the core of their humanity is injured."
As Fyodor Dostoyevsky reminds us in his Crime and Punishment, crime itself is the punishment because we ultimately live with the painful consequences of our actions.
To commit a crime, is first against your own heart, which affects your whole human being. Then follows spiritual agitation, which you may suppress.
"The root meaning of the word kufr (disbelief) is to cover something up .. the problems we see in our society come down to covering up or suppressing the symptoms of its troubles" perhaps with drugs, alcohol, sexual deviance or power grabs.
Heedless of their essential nature, we work hard at distracting ourselves fro from our heart and natural feelings. Once connection to the heart is severed we decline further into spiritual malnutrition.
A starved heart is unaware of God and mans ultimate destiny. Refusing to accept accountability for their actions, physical disease manifests before spiritual death.
In Islamic tradition, these diseases fall under two categories:
The first is known as shubuhat or obfuscations, diseases that relate to impaired understanding.
The second category of disease concerns the base desires of the self and is called shahawat. This relates to our desires exceeding their natural state, as when people live merely to satisfy these urges and are led by them.
shubuhat or obfuscations
Consider someone fearful God will not provide for him or her. "This is considered a disease of the heart because a sound heart has knowledge and trust, not doubt and anxiety. Shubuhat alludes to aspects closely connected to the heart: the soul, the ego, Satan's whisperings and instigations, caprice, and the ardent love of this ephemeral world. The heart is an organ designed to be in a state of calm, which is achieved with the remembrance of God: Most surely, in the remembrance of God do hearts find calm (QURAN, 13:28). This calm is what the heart seeks out and gravitates to. It yearns always to remember God the Exalted.
But when God is not remembered, when human beings forget God, then the heart falls into a state of agitation and turmoil. In this state it becomes vulnerable to diseases because it is undernourished and cut off, Cells require oxygen, so we breathe … the breath of the heart is none other than the remembrance of God. "
This the purpose of divine revelation.
At birth our original state and inherent nature is state is called fipa: disposed to accept faith and prefer morality. Soon we learn from anxiety from others According to the Quran the heart is created vulnerable to anxiety and agitation (QURAN, 70:19). Prayer protects the heart. The highest of people are not diverted from the remembrance of God, whether standing, sitting, and reclining on their sides (QURAN, 3:191).
Shahawat
When led by our desire to satisfy natural urges, our desires exceed their natural state.
Islam claims to be method to make the heart whole and safe again. Centuries of scholarship have gone into examining the human heart.
The Islamic tradition, says Hamza Yusuf, is "in essence is a program to restore purity and calm to the heart through the remembrance of God."
A major text on the "alchemy of the hearts," the poem known as Matharat al-Qulub (literally, Purification of the Hearts), which offers the means by which purification can be achieved. Written by the great scholar and saint, Shaykh Muhammad Mawlud alYa'qubi al-Musawi al-Muratani, from Mauritania in West Africa.
A manual on heart transformation, It was written because he observed the prevalence of diseased hearts, neglecting the spiritual condition of the heart.
For example, he often cites the Prophet who said, "Actions are based upon intentions." All deeds are thus valued according to the intentions behind them, and intentions emanate from the heart. So every action a person intends or performs is rooted in the heart.
Imam Mawlud realized social weakness is weakness of character in the heart, Imam Mawlud based his text on many previous illustrious works.
"If we examine the trials and tribulations, wars and other conflicts, every act of injustice all over earth, we'll find they are rooted in human hearts. Covetousness, the desire to aggress and exploit, the longing to pilfer natural resources, the inordinate love of wealth and position, and other maladies are manifestations of diseases found nowhere but in the heart. Every criminal, miser, abuser, scoffer, embezzler, and hateful person does what he or she does because of a diseased heart. If hearts were sound, these actions would no longer be a reality. So if we want to change our world, we do not begin by rectifying the outward. Instead, we must change the condition of our inward.
Everything we see happening outside of us is in reality coming from the unseen world within. It is from the unseen world that the phenomenal world emerges, and it is from the unseen realm of our hearts that all actions spring."
As Martin Luther King Jr. reminded us, to condemn injustice people go through four stages.
Ascertain an injustice has occurred
Negotiate, approach the oppressor and demand justice.
If the oppressor refuses, King said that the third stage is self-purification, which starts with the question: 'Are we ourselves wrongdoers? Are we ourselves oppressors?"
True self-examination, after removing one's own wrongs before demanding justice from others.
Modern man is reluctant to look at himself. It is easier to condemn.
When terrible things occur Hamza Yusuf suggests we ask "Why do they occur?" And if we ask that with all sincerity, the answer will come resoundingly: "All of this is from your own selves." In so many ways, we have brought this upon ourselves. This is the only empowering position we can take. The Quran implies that if a people oppress others, God will send another people to oppress them: We put some oppressors over other oppressors because of what their own hands have earned (6:129).
As a non Muslim how this doctrine works out is hard for me to grasp. Because, as Hamza Yusuf notes, 12th century scholar Fakhruddin al-Razi explains the verse to mean the existence of oppression on earth may be caused by previous oppression. Being part Gandhian in my views could this justify retaliation? I recognize that historically it has been true. The great epics of Major religions tackle the full range of human experience: for example cause and consequence fuels the Mahabharata.
A type of social karma, where, by implication, victims of aggression were once aggressors themselves. But could it now justify retaliation?
Not always. People can be tried and God gives relief and victory to those of patience and perseverance, just as the Prophet s community in Makkah won over oppression. Despite their former brutality toward him, the Prophet forgave them and admitted them into the brotherhood of faith.
"Those who are merciful will be shown mercy by the Merciful. Be merciful to those on the earth and the One above the heavens will have mercy upon you. The womb is derived from the Merciful, so whoever keeps relations with his family then Allah will keep relations with him, and whoever abandons his family then Allah will abandon him."
Impure people oppress, and the pure-hearted not only forgive their oppressors, but elevate them in status and character.
This requires a truthful heart examination. Self purification changes our life and the lives of others around us.
There are two types of therapy: a theoretical understanding of the disease and the practical prescription we must take in order to restore the heart's natural purity.
Islam teaches therapy comes from knowledgeable scholars of spiritual purification, the teachings of the Quran and the exemplary model of the Prophet.
Having searched across a vast religious terrain, I feel that in all traditions, in and out of Islam, few people examine their lives and hearts. Religion to easily becomes formalism. Or a good luck charm, designed to buy favour of God.
Few take their spiritual medicine, whatever tradition they choose.
We must turn to a life of spirit, that examines the leadings of our heart.
Salty hard labour
Gujurat, Palani Mohan, Rann of Kutch, salt workers, The Hidden Faces of India
The Hidden Faces of India = Palani Mohan
The glare of sun on salt quickly saps their vision. First there world turns black and white. Then, as cataracts turn their eyes to milky orbs; grim reality is day by day painted in softer focus. They say their thirst is unquenchable. As the monsoon abates and the sun turns merciless, conspiring with the growing accretions of crystals to steal every last drop of water, each breath rasps the throat like sandpaper.
Each day is like the last: the pans are raked, and the crystals tendered. In the heat shimmer is a vista of impressions: bent, burnished backs raking and baking; anklets and nose-rings glinting in the glare; flowering saris, a curve of hip, pots perched insouciantly atop heads.
Children's giggles emanate from within the scant shelter of thatched huts, the only shade for miles, nd in between the clank and shudder of the pumps can be heard the resentful murmurs of the workers cursing mendacious traders.
Jason Gagliardi
The Hidden Faces of India – Palani Mohan
Rusting too, are the worker who move whithered and whispering across the endless salt pans of the Little Rann of Kutch in Western Gujurat. They produce millions of tonnesbof salt each year – translucent cubes that appear as if by magic, like some invisible Picasso wielding his brush. The workers cracked and scaly legs come to resemble the very earth they tread. Its hard to tell where flesh ends and salt pan begins. By the time a salt-worker dies, his skin is so cured it wont even burn on his funeral pyre.
– Palani Mohan
RosemarySheel.com
However, let us remember the wise words of travel photographer Rosemary Sheel: Happiness is where you find it.
Boy with Wheel, Rosemary Sheel. com
A small boy plays with his toy, an old bicycle tire, on the salt flats of the Little Rann of Kutch in Gujarat India. His body language expresses his joy in keeping the tire upright and rolling across the dried mud of the marsh. We can find happiness if we just look for it is the message I get from this. I think he looks as if he is having more fun than a child sitting at a computer, but maybe I'm wrong. My children grew up playing the old-fashioned way.
Thank you Rosemary for reminding us of lifes true perspective. For there is also fairytale beauty in this land.
Where are your principles!
Posted by opus125 in Caste & Social position, Madhya Pradesh
corruption, culture shock, hypocrisy, morals, shadow side, society shadows
Pottery workshop at 'Merkaba the Ascension' my Bhopal home.
Returning to Bhopal I find my sump has been 'hacked' by water deprived neighbours. In my absence back in Australia, they decided it was cheaper to pipe from my supply than repair the pump to their bore.
In fact my arrival caused somewhat of a shock to their servants. While I did not over act to this innocent piracy, I was not impressed when they refused to let me turn off my own sump tap as water refilled from the mains.
It seems my partner had another cause of consternation. The neighbours cleaner had offered to sweep out the house before she began her work there at 10 am. For some reason the neighbour accused us of poaching her staff – "Where are your principles?" she demanded even though she had evicted them from her home and Advity had allowed them temporarily to stay in space behind my rental.
It seems the only ethics offended is her pride. Guilty conscience at being caught out for ripping offer her workers and the risk of being publicly shamed. Shame seems compelling in the network of down to earth grittiness in the lived details of architectural planning and haphazard lives.
What does it reveal about me?
Bhopal is less compact than some Indian cities, its variegated population exudes a surprising hope in the dense safety of knowing everyone possible. With a roving population can that be really true? All cities In a society, or ashram yes perhaps. I suppose the locals have their myths. It seems cities are now only for business or cars. How dare you put in a RTB lanes and expect the middle class to take the bus!
Later , that day, as I cycled to Shahjehanabad, through Bitten market, I smiled at the fancy plastic angles of modern forms will soon look like 70's forgotten architectural leftovers. I was reminded of an architectural conference that spoke of fancy designers who forgot the toilets.
Then at MP Nagar for Poha, the grass close to the rail ray line, reminds me cities are like ecosystems. (Will that ever be true in India, I wonder, when in Delhi, stone pavers blocked the water run off and is reducing the water table?).
Finally, in the Old City. I love the small blocks and allies that chance new discoveries. Past the lower lakes Shri Mataji Temple, used more , it seems for washing clothes than worship, then across to Bara Bagh.
I reflect on the dignity of the old Muslim cemetery. I would prefer the serenity of a stupa than a therapist, I decided. In that moment I remember own social mistakes. The uncouth loudness of an outback Aussie at times outspokenly offending neighbours who had politely left unsaid what they thought I would understand.
India confronts me. It forces me to face my shadows.
Cities are like people. They offer hope and freedom, and oppress others. Behind houses , each side tells a truth of the experience. Every culture has a dark underbelly a shadow it wants to hide.
In Australia, a people yearned to be free, yet they ignored the oppression of aboriginals or blackbirds, the islander 'labourers' who worked the cane fields.
"They must work for it", I hear them scream. "No more hand outs."
Something of an older tribal walking by reminds me of an aboriginal body ritual, tattoo scarred like the stripped earth mined for a profit and scars our soul.
No country is better or worse. In every land we find the focus on national identity and values shaped by a nation's myth. We also find the exact opposite, simultaneously. Perhaps less, focused, a shadow diffused through the masses, at times through its underclass.
In India perhaps it is Kashmir that is denied. Or we praise Akbar's tolerance yet ignore the women of Gwalior who burned themselves alive rather than be his soldiers concubines.
Or should we criticise Aurangzeb oppression yet ignore the Hindu temples he sponsored no doubt out of political need? Admire Gandhi for non violence and ignore that in the process – as well meaning as it was – he alienated his son?
The West praises it heritage freedom and ignores Ashoka offered equal right s for all sexes, religions and castes. Greek democracy applied only to the 20 percent male population and not women. It took the US 150 years to legally ensure black people "were created equal" and enjoy "the pursuit of happiness" enshrined in their constitution. Australia took 68 years to recognise Aboriginals as citizens.
So much for its principles.
Meanwhile, India's Constitution gave equality to all 2 years and 4 months after Independence. All three lands have racial shadows haunting them.
Next morning as I dig soil at dawn, the Sindor swastika from yesterdays Pooja attracts the dancing feet of minor birds pecking rice from the remains of offered rice. A small satin blue bird dances in the tree above the hardened shallow soil.
Then, I find a yellow envelope waiting addressed from Delhi. It must have arrived while I was away. The customs declaration is ticked gift, and described as "ORNAMENTAL BEADS FOR DECORATION ONLY". Of course , in it seeds in plastic envelopes were inserted in a standard sized envelope also yellow.
It's probably cheaper than admitting seeds are being posted, i thought.
"WITHANIA somnifera , ashawaganda Indian Ginseng"
"stevia revaudiana sweetleaf , sweet leaf, sugarleaf seeds"
"seeds tribulus terrestris puncture vine SPEED POST"
So much for principles.
Imagining Old Delhi back to life
Abdul Qadir, Asar-al-Sanadid, Mirza Sangin Beg, Old Delhi, Qutab Minar, Sair-al-Manazil, ShahJehanadabad, Syed Ahmed
For millennia the iron pillar by the Qutab Minar has defied rust. It predates the tower and is full of legends. It is claimed that if a person can circle their arms around it they are legitimate, if not, they are the illegitimate offspring of their parents.
"I was sitting near the pillar writing my notes" wrote Syed Ahmad in the first edition of his Asar-al-Sanadid[1]. of 1847, " when suddenly several young and beautiful women arrived, and tried to encircle the pillar [with their arms in that manner]. By chance, they all succeeded except the prettiest among them. Her companions started teasing her, so much so that she was about to burst into tears. Meanwhile I was quietly sketching and writing notes. God alone knows what the women thought of me, that I was a mullah perhaps, or a spell-caster, or perhaps an attendant at the [nearby] shrine.
In any case, they turned to me and asked, 'Miyanji, isn't it true that anyone whose arms fail to encircle the pillar must be of illegitimate birth?'
I laughed in my heart, and told myself, 'Now here is a task fit for a Munsif.' Then I said to the women, 'What you say is true for those who are above the age of twenty. Tell me if you're that old, for only then can I say anything further.'
Since none was that old, they all burst into laughter and went away, and I returned to my own work.' [As the poet says,] 'When everyone sets out at dawn to do the mundane chores, those who are burdened with love trek to the beloved's door.'
Chandni Chowk, Old Delhi
Delhi is really (atleast) eight Delhi's. The first four Dehli's were close to where the Qutab Minar now stands.The 5th was Firozabad, the 6th Pirana Qila (in present day New Delhi) and the 7th Shahjahanabad. Or what is commonly called Old Delhi.
New Delhi was built from 1911.
The first time I first rode Delhi's underground futuristic rail, it felt distant from the class ridden chaos above ground.
I had travelled up from Pune, the home of Commonwealth Games organizer Kalmadi. People were still smarting over the corruption of the Delhi games. Kalmadi's mistake was not corruption – everyone does that. Kalmadi broke the most important rule. Be as corrupt as you like but don't embarrass your country or family.
The chai wallah's and street trades that are the soul of an Indian city were moved out to make Delhi appear a modern Megacity. "What will the foreigners think" mattered more than the people.
Instead, Kalmadi's failings left a sour taste in India's mouth.
Playing dodgem cars with city traffic I am reminding that Delhi is a city of contrasts.
Tomb of Mirza Jahangir of Delhi
You can visit Humayan's tomb or hear qawwali, devotional songs, at Hazrat Nizam-ud-dim Dargah. Women of different classes may pass the same desolate tree lined alley.
The pure virtuous heroine may pass the mirage of a Westernised 'vamp' in rubber chappals. But the haveli's have all but disappeared down the sharply receding perspective of time.
Perhaps, for the wrong reason then, the Qutub Minar, in Mehrauli, Delhi will stand out in my memory. Stomach griping with Agra Belly (I had drunk bad water in Agra so I can't call it Delhi Belly) and water was out at the local shauchalay, unable to flush or wash. I am please do say I have for years never had a repeat performance, as I delight in spicy food.
However, I have since returned many times to enjoy the 1500 year old rust free miracle of Delhi's rust free iron pillar.
Old Fort Delhi
First I wanted to know Old Delhi's Spirit
So I read the history books, beginning with Asar al Sanadid. Perhaps, Syed Ahmed wrote his book in hope of gaining full membership in the Archaeological Society of Delhi which in September 1850 had only three Indian members, which included Nawab Ziauddin Khan of Loharu. Was this why the book was dedicated it to the Metcalfe, expecting some special appreciation from the Governor General, who had recently put together a sumptuous album of Delhi's monumental structures for his daughters in England? Ahmed was made a member in June 1852.
Delhi painters, some well known to the author, seem to have appreciated his work.
The first volume, of over 700 folio-size pages, was abridged in 1852 of anecdotal stories to more scientific style with redrawn smaller images. The first edition, published in 1833-34 when Ahmed was 54, narrated Ahmed's extensive travels from the age of 17. The topgraphical account also includes learned discussion and autobiography.
The Mosque of Delhi and the Iron Pillar – Mid 19th Century Watercolor of paper
Another writer was Zainul Abidin Shirwani, who arrived in India around 1800, who claims to have spent eight years here. His book mentions over forty Indian cities, indicating those that he personally visited and the noteworthy stories he heard of others.
Shirwani spent ten months in Delhi:
Concerning Dihli. . .it's also called Dilli. As told in the books of the Hindus, its walls in the First Age (daura-i-awwal) weremade of red ruby, in the Second of emerald, in the Third of red gold, and in the Fourth of steel. Then, as the ways and habits of the people changed the walls also changed; now they are made of bricks and stones. In the Fourth Age, a mighty king named Dihli built a city and named it after himself. Making it his capital, he resided there for long. After that it continuously remained the abode of powerful Rajas (rajaha) and Rays (rayan). After the emergence of the Exalted People, Muslim kings also made it their capital. They built so many buildings and such grand palaces that one can neither enumerate nor describe them today, even though the buildings were ravaged several times in the past. When Shahjahan, son of Jahangir, built the city anew, he named it after himself.
It is now called Shahjahanabad. Under the Gurgani kings its population so increased that the city came to be 12 farsakhs long and six wide. But ever since Nadir Shah Afshar and Ahmad Shah Afghan came here, the city has fallen into bad shape. At present it contains nearly 100,000 houses, most of them beautifully built of bricks and having two or three stories. Of these, some 10,000 are such that the least of them must have cost two thousand tumans. Then there are a thousand houses of nobles and princes that must have cost three million (si-sad hazar) tumans each. There are elegant mosques, fine Sufi hospices, attractive markets with overflowing shops, delightful gardens and orchards, and countless tombs of saints and kings. The city lies in the third clime (iqlim); its air is warm and gentle; it gets its water from wells and a river; and its soil is equally desirable. A major river flows nearby. Coming from the north, from the mountains of Kashmir, the river passes the city on its north and enters the region of Purab; there it joins with the river Ganges, and after crossing Bengal falls into the sea. Delhi stands on a plain, and huge open expanses surround it in every direction.
The imperial fort lies to the east of the city and beside the river itself. As God is my witness, such a fort has rarely been seen or heard of in the world. Its ramparts are made of carved stones of the colour of sumac berries, and each stone is approximately a yard and a half long. There are many fine buildings within the walls, made of marble and decorated with designs contrived from many-hued stones. When [its builders] wished to make a design they first carved [the design] in the marble, and then set in place colourful stones such as cornelian, turquoise, and many others. Their work is so fine that what is merely a design appears like the real thing. There is a garden within the fort; it is small in size but grand in sight. This humble person understands that [the Emperor] spent one hundred crore rupees on the fort and the buildings in it, [including] the audience chamber, the small garden, and the garden behind the fort. And one crore equals one hundred lakhs, and each lakh equals one hundred thousand rupees, while each rupee consists of two and one-half mithqal of silver—and God knows best.
The region was for long the capital of sultans. Among them were the slaves of Ghur, the sultans of Khilj, the Qutlugh shahs, the Khizkhanis, the Lodis, the Syuris, and the Timurids. I have written about them in detail in my book, Riyaz-al-Siyahat.Because these grand kings showed favours on men of superior talent, raised armies, trained nobles, and made the needy happy with their generosity, people came to the area from most regions of the inhabited world.
They arrived, found favor,married, and settled down, particularly those from Iran, Turan, Khwarizm, Badakhshan, Turkistan, Turkey (Rum), Syria, Arabia and Europe (firang). They left their homes to find well-pleasing lives under these kings' benevolence. Verily, the beauty of the people of that region takesmany shapes. Mostly they are of a 'salty' complexion and proportionally bodied. [Verse:] 'No youth is without a tang in all of Hind; it's as if God had washed them all with brine.' The writer stayed in that city for ten months, interacting with the nobles and Sufis and people of every sect and group, and established friendly ties with its notable men. About some of the latter I have written in my book Hada'iq-al-Siyahat[2].
Edwin Lord Weeks – The Old Blue-Tiled Mosque Outside of Delhi c1883
Shirwani then writes about meeting Emperor Shah Alam II, and the famous physician Hakim Sharif Khan. He describes them more to talk about himself and his own views and also lists important people giving us a flavour of Delhi's past glory.
The writer Abdul Qadir agrees. Delhi was not just a site of antiquities and past glory but also a place made significant by its residents. We see this when he describes how the Iron pillar in Delhi was built.
Why was Dehi's Iron Pillar built?
Abdul Qadir writes:
The story about Raja Pithaura, who was told by his Brahmins to plant the pillar so deeply that it would penetrate the head of the mythical snake on which rested the earth.
Then he adds:
A strange story it is. The earth, according to the Hindus, rests on a snake's head. In which case, the pillar must be bigger than either the diameter of the earth [if the earth is round] or its diagonal length [if the earth is rectangular], and the two differ only slightly. It follows then that the width of the pillar must be from China to the lands in the West. Secondly, how could the Brahmins dare to do such a thing when in the twelfth skanda of the Bhagwata—a heavenly book for them—it is declared that kingship over Delhi would shift from the Hindus to some other people? Further, according to the story of Raja Janmajaya, who used to kill all snakes, magic shall not be effective in the kaljug. It declares that [in that age] Mahadeva will so fiercely cast to the wind all magical spells that no one would be able to put together their words again.
Then there are those who say the pillar is one of the weapons used in the battle between Duryodhana and Yudhishtra; much later someone brought and set it up here. Ignoring the incredible powers ascribed to those warriors—similarly unbelievable things are found in the histories of all people—there is still another matter to bear in mind. Why would a Muslim sultan set up here a useless weapon of the Hindus? And if it were the Hindus who did it, why didn't the pillar become an object of worship for them? For if the Hindus [supposedly] gave up the worship [in the past] fearing the Muslims, they should have commenced it again after the latter's power declined[3].
The Rai Pithaura story is given four full pages in the first edition of Syed Ahmad 's work. He personally measuring its height twice, he assures us, at '22 feet and 6 inches' once with a yardstick, then again with an astrolabe[4]. In the two different volumes we find two explanations of the towers construction, revealing a change in his own thinking and differing from Abdul Qadir .
Syed Ahmad first rejects the suggestion the pillar was intended as a sundial by Sultan Mu'izuddin. He argues that indecipherable ancient text suggests an earlier date although it may have been intended a sundial and preserved with the same purpose in the mosque and to display Islam's glory (shaukat-i-islam).
Next Syed Ahmad narrates the Rai Pithaura story, adding:
I find only this story closer to truth. My readers may consider it only a fantastic tale (fasana), but those who study history and know astrology will surely recall that in ancient times wise men and astrologers often constructed things of that nature. When something happened to the thing they made, it foretold a greater event that soon followed, for example the replacement of one imperial rule by another. We find such matters described in reliable books of history.
Consequently, it wouldn't be surprising if the Brahmins [of Pithaura] built something of that nature[5].
What do modern researchers think?
One theory suggests the 7.2 meter tall pillar (of which 1.12 meters is underground) was probably from a temple dedicated to Vishnu (the Hindu God of life & nourishment), and intended as a standard to support a figurine of hawk-faced, winged Garuda, Vishnu's carrier, fitted in a deep socket embedded on top of the pillar.
The pillar is pinned to the ground by lead and iron projections from its buried portion.
Another theory is that the pillar itself portrayed Vishnu's mace ("gada") surrounded by his serrated disc ("chakra").
Further evidence comes from the six-line three-stanza Sanskrit inscription in Brahmi script inscribed on the pillar. The inscription refers to its erection by Emperor Chandra, a devotee of Lord Vishnu, as a standard, or "Dhwaja Stambha", in a temple called Vishnupada.
"He, on whose arm fame was inscribed by the sword, when, in battle in the Vanga countries (Bengal), he kneaded (and turned) back with (his) breast the enemies who, uniting together, came against (him); He, by whom, having crossed in warfare the seven mouths of the (river) Sindhu, the Vahlikas were conquered; He, by the breezes of whose prowess the southern ocean is even still perfumed;
He, the remnant of whose energy – a burning splendor which utterly destroyed his enemies – leaves not the earth even now, just like (the residual heat of) a burned-out conflagration in a great forest; He, as if wearied, has abandoned this world, and resorted in bodily form to the other world – a place won by the merit of his deeds; (but although) he has departed, he remains on earth through (the memory of his) fame;
By the king, who attained sole sovereignty in the world, acquired by his very own arm and (possessed) for a long time; He who, having the name of Chandra, carried a beauty of countenance like the full moon, having in faith fixed his mind upon Vishnu, this lofty standard of the divine Vishnu was set up on the hill Vishnupada"
Uyudagiri Caves, Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh
Palaeographically the pillar belongs to the Gupta period, but who is 'Chandra': Chandragupta I, Chandragupta II, who is also called Vikramaditya, or, as some believe, Samudragupta? Vishnupada is accepted as the temple caves of modern-day Udaygiri, Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh near the famous Buddhist stupas at Sanchi.
Meera Das and R Balasubhramaniam believe the pillars position in the Udaygiri caves near Sanchi, Madhya Pradesh, right on the tropic of Cancer, is where its shadow would fall at the base of a panel dedicated to Lord Vishnu at the summer solstice.
Why no rust?
Perhaps it is Delhi's low humidity, but the reasons remain lost in time.
How metal workers could make iron that is 99.72% pure is unexplained[6] requiring temperatures higher than generated from coal. There is some rust in the underground portion of the pillar but why it remains rust free has inspired Von Daniken to claim it has extra terrestrial origins, for believers to affirm it was protected by regular annointings of ghee, or that it was made of meteorite material.
The primary scientific explanation combines several factors: the irons high purity with a high proportion of phosphorus and negligible sulphur and manganese, the dry, less humid climate of Delhi and less exposure to industrial pollution because it is isolated at Mehrauli, and also the enormous bulk of metal absorbs surrounding heat and releases it slowly when the temperature drops (at night) thereby ensuring it remais dry with little dew forming on the surface.
The Beautiful City
One thing is certain. Old Delhi was a vibrant city. You see this reading another of old Delhi writers was Mirza Sangin Beg author of Sair–al–Manazil ('A tour of the mansions).
As author C M Naim writes[7]:
More than anything, Sair-al-Manazil is about a city throbbing with life, written by a person with a remarkably expansive view of Shahjahanabad as a habitat. It details at length the city's various markets, and informs us where different goods are sold, and various trades practiced. It is as much a general directory of the city as a treatise on its historical buildings. As Beg guides us to some monument, he carefully points out police outposts and homes of the city's notables—Hindu, Muslim, and British—not neglecting the homes of a few famous courtesans. His historical comments, on the other hand, are uneven in length and detail; very often the text of some inscription provides all the information.
To put the matter differently, while a historian would find Syed Ahmad's book very useful, any novelist seeking to bring to life the Delhi of the 1820s would find in Sangin Beg a more valuable 'helpmate'.
Sadly by tidying up his second volume, Syed Ahmad certainly becomes more historic. He omits the charming anecdote of the little girl at the Iron pillar at the Qutab commenting instead: 'Young men try to encircle the pillar with their arms; in doing so they play a game in which the one who succeeds is considered a legitimate child of his parents, and he who fails is deemed illegitimate'.
A shame really, for I want to feel the joys and sadness's of the lost city and relive them in my mind.
But for many years visitors tried to encircle the pillar for luck. As the myth spread the hands that wanted to encircle it also increased. This was found to be detrimental to the pillar and since has been fenced.
In 1961, the pillar was removed for conservation work. It was later reinstalled in the same place on a new pedestal.
However, Delhi's grandeur inspired Syed Ahmed moved to ignore the the traditional praising of Allah with a more personal devotion:
Praise be to God, who blessed Man with such gifts as eyes and ears and intelligence and speech, so that Man could act after hearing all and seeing all, and after full consideration of the matter. And thus, enabled by God, Man discovers things that are totally amazing.
[1] Asar-al-Sanadid, p. 159. The quotes of this article, unless hyperlinked, are from C M Naim, Syed Ahmed and his two books called Sar-al-Sanadid, Modern Asian Studies: page 1 of 40 C Cambridge University Press 2010
[2] Zainul Abidin Shirwani, Bustan-al-Siyahat, Tehran: Kitabkhanah-i-Sana'i, 1897(?). pp. 317–318.
[3] Abdul Qadir, 'Ilm, p. 242.
[4] Asar-al-Sanadid -1, pp. 155–159.
[5] Asar-al-Sanadid, p. 158.
[6] According to Sir Robert Hadfield in 1912.
[7] C M Naim, Syed Ahmed and his two books called Sar-al-Sanadid, Modern Asian Studies: page 1 of 40 C Cambridge University Press 2010