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Mother Parbat Split

2013-06-16T12:35:00.000-07:00

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Khayyam's Parbaton Ke Pedon Par Shaam for film Shagoon (1964) and Kashmiri Bhajan 'Maej Sharika' sung by Kailash Mehra as it is by most pandits.

It seems to have been a trend in Kashmir. Trilokinath Raina in his book "Ghulam Ahmad Mahjoor" mentions that some songs of the poet were set to popular Hindi film songs of the time.

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Kashmiri Pandits by Pandit Anand Koul, 1924

2013-06-15T09:31:00.000-07:00

Around 1881, 14-year old Pandit Anand Koul was one of the first Kashmiri to join the missionary school set up in Srinagar by Rev. John Smith Doxey. In around 1883, the working of this school was taken over by Rev. J. Hinton Knowles. Knowles in around 1885 went on famously to document the folklore of Kashmir, a task in which he was assisted by a young Pandit Anand Koul. In around 1895, Knowles made Anand Koul Headmaster of this missionary school. This proximity with the missionaries probably made him understand the need for documenting culture in 'other' language.

Pandit Anand Koul's book on Kashmiri Pandits can be considered first book written in English on pandits by a Pandit. Around 1921, the population of Pandits in the valley was around 55000. Of this around 5000 men and 50 women were literate in English. While reading this book, it is comprehensible that the book was written primary for non-Kashmiri readers and written by a man quite proud of his origins and passionate about documenting the history of his land. This passion was later inherited by his son P.N.K. Bamzai who went on to be even more prolific at documenting Kashmir's History.

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Index of Content:

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Download link

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Previously:

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zoon~moon

2013-06-14T13:31:00.000-07:00

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The Pundits of Kashmir by J.J. Modi, 1915

2013-06-14T08:11:00.001-07:00

Jivanji Jamshedji Modi's paper 'The Pundits of Kashmir' (1915) for Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay (Vol. X, No. 6, pp. 401-85) was probably one of the first writing on pandits that looked at them from the prism of an ethnographic questionnaire. An interesting work because some of the topics touched here were mostly left unsaid by Pandit writers of the time.

Check: An additional division of Pandits along language spoken, Malechchas of Mirkhula as Zoroastrian fire worshipers, no marriage with outsiders, no talking in front of elders for married couple, no to polyandry but yes some cases of polygamy, mechanics of divorce, dressing differences between followers of Shiva and those of Shakti, river in Lar as nakali Ganga, rare cases of private prostitution, yes to meat, no to beef, pork and eggs, no to onions, tomatoes, carrots as they can cause 'excitement', can only eat uncooked food sitting with other Hindus and no food with others, yes to opium, charas and wine while some non-pandit Kashmiris brew Kehwa with snuff.

Read:

Download link

We have come a long way.

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Unrelated post:

We want Divorce, 1937

Vessels Redux

2013-06-12T07:23:00.000-07:00

Above: Martand shot by Brian Brake in around 1957.

Below: A photograph of an old terracotta Kashmiri vessel brought to Jammu along with other things. Shared around two years ago by Man Mohan Munshi ji.

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Kashmir in Kerala film fest

2013-06-11T12:54:00.002-07:00

I spent this Sunday doing nothing but watching films and just films. Traveled from Cochin to Trivandrum to catch some short films made by Kashmiris on the "Pandit" experience.

First up was in "showcase" segment Siddharth Gigoo's The Last Day (12 min.). Siddharth Gigoo was already was a poet, then a novelist and now he is a filmmaker. The scene he picked to shoot is something that a lot a pandit's witnessed and can relate to. Old pandits slow dying in Jammu with fading memories of Kashmir. The execution is simple. Not bad for a first attempt.

Second up was Rajesh Jala's 23 Winters (30 min.), competing in 'Fiction' category. The story follows the "Back to Kashmir" trip of a pandit in Delhi named Bhota (a popular nickname among pandits of a certain generation) who is suffering from schizophrenia. It makes strong use of visuals and sounds to put the viewer in the mind of the protagonist. The experience is unnerving. Specially when you know it is not fiction.

The director was present at the function, so later had a little chat with him over a coffee (which he generously sponsored). Rajesh Jala was living with the real life protagonist Bhota as a neighbor in a Delhi camp for nine years. When he started shooting him last year, he didn't know Bhota was going to visit Kashmir and have a breakdown. Rajesh went back to Kashmir to trace him and get him medical help.

I could hear sneers in the hall during the screening. Rajesh probably heard that. Even though I didn't ask, he did mention its not a film for everyone and its the only way he could have made this film.

The use of radio sounds in the film reminded me of a little video I made around 4 years ago:

In addition to these two movies, there was Firdous/Paradise (11 min) by Tushar Digambar More. What this film offers is the 'military' experience of Kashmir. The episode takes place inside an abandoned Pandit house where a group of troops and a local Muslim villager, under some sort of protective custody, take shelter during a "cordon and search" operation. Here they share a brief conversation on the former owners of the house. By the end of the story we realize, unknown to him, the helpful and decent villager has lost his house to the operation.

The surprise for me in this little film was a sequence in which an officer goes through an old family album he finds in the house. The bits and pieces from this blog have again helped someone fill a gap.

A screenshot from the film

Photograph of of a Kashmiri Pandit Family taken in front of their farm house at a stones throw from the famous Neolithic site of Burzahom, Kashmir in 1930s.
Shared by a reader, Man Mohan Munshi Ji, in 2010

Although the makers didn't give credit or a line of thanks. Some of those images are from this this blog. Some from vintage books. Some shared generously by readers from their private albums.

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Oddly enough there was a Bulgarian film too that somehow reminded me of Kashmir. Tzvetanka by Youlian Tabakov (66 min). This stylish documentary tells the story of modern Bulgaria, mapping it to the events in the life of a girl born in a bourgeois family just before World War 2. By the end of the war, her idyllic life is destroyed with the coming of communist regime. The regime ends in 1989, democracy comes, she thinks the world will now be a better place. It turns out to be a mirage. She realizes world is still the same. It's the same men from the regime now championing the cause of democracy. Revolution came and nothing changed. It is clear that this woman has seen a lot in her life and yet her love for life is unshakable and inspiring.

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After catching these films (and around 15 others), I headed further south to Kanyakumari. Where I was greeted by this:

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The Day Jumoo went Mad

2013-06-07T14:02:00.001-07:00

Jumoo wasn’t his real name. Although he was from a migrant camp in Delhi, nobody at college called him Dilli. They called him Jumoo for the way he pronounced Jammu.

‘You can keep two. But I will keep one.’ That’s how he introduced himself to me when we first met. He was just behind me in queue for submission of admission forms to an engineering college. I turned around to see that face of the person who whispered the lines into my ears. I found a sun burnt face with a long beak and two squinty eyes. I stepped back a little to look at the complete form. He was skinny, like a boy just out of teens, and short, like a man shortchanged by evolution. I couldn't understand what he meant by that “two-one” business. The boy read my face and pointed to the girls in the alternate queue. He meant the pandit girls. He let out a big laugh. The smell of his soul engulfed me. The boy had horse breath. His innards were eating him inside. But he looked like a cheerful person, a person full of cheers even though he probably didn’t have much to cheer in life. I knew he was trying to be friends with someone from his own kind. At that moment I knew I was going to avoid this person for rest of my coming years in college. But something told me it wasn’t going to be easy.

Next time I saw him, he was crouched in a ‘murga’ position on top on an almirah, his head only inches away from ceiling. These were the first day of ‘first year’ ragging. We both were getting ragged. A boy in the room had ordered me to fetch water for him. This boy was a super senior, which meant he had been in college for years and wasn't going to pass out anytime soon. While I was fetching water for him, he had found better entertainment. As I entered the hostel room, the boy on the almirah greeted me by flapping his arms like a chicken and laughing. The tone of his relation with this world was set.

Although for a year we lived in the same hostel, our friend circle was different. I moved in with guys from Delhi. He moved in with guys from Bihar. So I only heard stories about him. Jumoo was seen dancing on the road pretending to be Hritik Roshan. Jumoo was seen at a roadside stall pretending to be Sunny Deol, trying to lift a bicycle on his head. On Holi, a group of boys ganged up on Jumoo and torn off all his cloths and left him without a stitch on his body. Sometimes he would come to meet me, ask me to help him with studies, then would suddenly change topic tell me about some girl that he thought liked him but who he thought I might like, then he would suddenly try to sing English songs…mixing Metallica with Backstreet boys and lot of cuss words. He would stay till some of my roommates would ask me to show the door to my mad friend. I would tell them he isn't my friends. He is just another mad Kashmiri. A Jumoo. Jumoo would leave but not before making some more self deprecating jokes. The world avoiding him like something of him would rub off on them.

A year ended. Before the start of next session all the students went back to would places. I went to Jammu. Jumoo went to Delhi. Then one day in summer, he showed up at my place in Jammu. He had some relatives in Jammu and was staying with them. While in Jammu he thought of catching up with me. During our conversations I had only given him brief details about the place where I lived and yet he managed to find my house. As cruel providence would have it, while trying to trace my address, in the bus he asked a woman about directions to a certain locality. This woman lived in the same locality so she asked him some more question. The woman he met was my aunt and she led him straight to our house thinking Jumoo was my college friend. I was angry. The rules of randomness that govern the universe, should not have let this happen. Even my real friends, my best of friends had not been to my house. The last time I had invited a friend home, I was in Kashmir, I was at home, at our real house. And now this mad boy knew my corner on this planet. My hiding place. Jumoo invited himself to lunch after an inspection of our house. I made an excuse about some urgent work in the city and told him I could accompany him the way back to town. We got in the bus together. I got down from the bus at a stop, waived him goodbye and returned home. It was all an inconvenience, something not even worth remembering.

Back at college, I passed to second year. Jumoo failed most of the papers. He somehow blamed me. We both moved out of the hostel. I was still with people from Delhi and he was with people from Bihar. Over the next couple of months I heard less and less about Jumoo and his performances. Meanwhile, I was having my own set of problems with the world. I was reading books. And what I read of the world and what I saw of the world, didn’t match. I read some more. Marquez, Nabokov, Coetzee, Dostoevsky, Kundera, Bellow, Burgess, Conrad, Camus, Faulkner, Eco, Heller, Huxley, Gandhi, Malamud, Koestler, Orwell…Puzo, Sheldon, Newspapers, Comics, Magazines… whatever I could find. Still nothing made sense. I was training to be an engineer, but the drabness of its technical text was making me mad. I knew I was being taught bull crap. My grades were dropping. It’s not that I didn’t understand the topics, I did. What I didn’t understand was how any of this was relevant. They taught you Turing and Chomsky but told you nothing about their lives. Maybe I was at the wrong place. Over the next coming year, I was to know failure in its truest sense. I failed at everything. I knew I was going down into a dark pit that probably had no end.

During this time, one day a roommate told me some terrible news about Jummoo. ‘Your friend Jumoo has finally gone completely mad!’

That morning, Jumoo had been found lying unconscious on the steps leading to the rooftop of the college by some students who had raised an alarm. The people who arrived in response to the alarm found Jumoo conscious but in a state in which he was not able to comprehend anything he was seeing or hearing. His eyes were blank. It seemed he had spent the whole night on those stairs. An ambulance was called and he was sent to a hospital. At the hospital after some basic test they discharged him as they couldn’t find anything wrong with him. A few days later his parents came from Delhi and took his back with him. I thought they should have come for him earlier. He wasn't meant to be there.

A year passed. One hot afternoon, I found Jumoo at our door ringing the bell. He had a big smile on his face, his usual smile, a smile that seemed like a conscious attempt at hiding uneven teeth. Expecting that he be denied entry, he had brought along a gift: a girlie magazine and a Nagraaj comic. It seems his breakdown had made everyone sympathetic to him. None of my roommates raised an objection to his presence.

After the usual catching up, some casual ‘Hi and Hellos’, some ‘Haa-Hees’ and after savoring his gifts, everyone went back to whatever they were doing before the interruption by Jumoo. Jumoo on his part went back to his usual mode, sitting silently in a corner, trying to stay out of everyone’s path, but still hanging around, like an apparition. It was just like old times.

I went back to computer, writing a program for ‘Snakes and Ladder’. An hour later he quietly sat next to me and asked if I would like to hear the story of the day he went mad. I kept typing on the keyboard while he told his story:

“After migration my family moved to Delhi where Kashmiris were living in a camp near ... It wasn’t much of a camp…there was a hall where a lot of families put up… each camping in a particular corner, the households separated by pardhas… people fought all the time among themselves over things like right to window, right to turn on-off switches, right to better spot under fan, right to use toilet first…I time a man abused my mother in front of me…I wanted to kill him…I fell in love with a girl…I put a hole in a pardha to peep at her secretly, sleeping, changing…you know…there there was no privacy…it drove me mad…I would beat-off in toilet and my mother would be outside knocking asking if my stomach is alright (laughs)...I am mad…no I am really mad. Why do you think I act like this? Look like this? Look at my face…my parents took me to Dr. Razdan in Jummoo. Are you related to him? He gave me some pills…I stopped taking them some years ago… we never had much money…your house was big… a few years ago we moved to a migrant apartment at Dwarka…My father had a private job in Kashmir, in Delhi he took job as a lab technician in a private school. …I studied in that school…I was never good at studies…then I came here…to the college…you didn’t help…I moved in with those Biharis…no one else would live with me…hostel fees was too much…But those guys turned out to be benchods…they would steal money from me…one of them would beat me up with a belt... sometimes just for fun…you know the guy…I hear you had a run in with him not long ago…still it was all good…then the results came...I failed…I didn’t send the news home…still my parents said they were coming to see me…that day I was really worried about the idea of them staying with me with these Biharis…that day Biharis were really giving me a headache…when they heard the news they said they would throw me out…I thought they were kidding me…but then they really locked me out…so that day I just walked around the city all day…thinking what shall happen of me…I had no money in pocket…when evening came I didn’t know what to do…where to sleep…I was sure my roommates were not going to let me in…so I thought maybe I will sleep in the college…it was the best place…so I started walking to college… on way to the college I saw a truck on the road heading my way…a thought occurred to me: This truck cannot harm me. If God exists, this truck will stop if I were to come in front of it, or it will just pass right through me, I am air, I don't exist…so I walked in front of the truck…the truck stopped…the truck did stop…but the driver started abusing me, I ran and ran (laughs aloud)…I continued walking to college…it was night by the time I reached…there were no guards…nobody stopped me…all the rooms were locked so I headed for the roof…the roof was also locked…I was tired…so I slept on the stairs to the roof…in the morning some girls caught me sleeping on the stairs and started screaming…I was caught…when the people came…I didn’t know how to explain my situation so I pretended I had gone mad. I pretended I couldn't see or hear them. I couldn’t understand them. You should have seen their face...they carried me down the stairs like a king…I was taken to a hospital in an ambulance…at the hospital, a lady doctor asked me question…I continued acting…responding with umm-umm-aa to her queries…kidar darad ho raha hai...I even sang to her in Kashmiri (laughs). She concluded I had lost my mind…I was only acting…it was a classic performance of a mad guy…I should have won a medal for it...let's go out to have tandoori chicken...how come you are always busy?”

A year later, Jumoo waylaid me in college. At the same place where we had first met. From his back pocket he took out an album of photographs, it was a family album and all the photographs were of him posing with a car, a Santro that his father had recently purchased. He was carrying the album in his pocket and showing it to anyone and everyone walking that way. That was the last performance of Jumoo that I unwillingly witnessed.

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Kashmir and Kerala by Pandit S. Anand Koul, 1928

2013-06-06T14:48:00.001-07:00

Note on the Relation between Kashmir and Kerala
(By Pandit S. Anand Koul. Kerala Society Papers -1928. T. K. Joseph (Ed.) )

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Aside:

I waited a week for the book to arrive. All for a paper that I expected would throw up something interesting. But Koul Saheb's paper turned out to be a bit disappointing. Much of what he writes her already was presented by him in his book on Kashmir Pandits. Besides reference to Kerala astrology in Kashmir and (in comments) Mankha's work traveling to Kerala, there isn't much. The story of white men on Malabar coast could well have been of Parsees or the Jews, but Koul Sabheb mentions in any case and tries to imagine then as Pandits. He seems to have been quite fascinated by the story. Mentions it in his Pandit Book too. In an attempt to reach borders of Kerala, his only manages to reach Durbhanga (Bihar, where from returned the Kouls), Ellichpur (Maharashtra, where from returned the Dhars) and then Madras (where from came Ramanuja). It's a sad attempt. I wish there was more.

Why more was I expecting more? Consider this: there is Thiruv'anantha'puram in Kerala and there is Anantnag in Kashmir. Two cities dedicatedly named after a snake. King Solomon's ships sailed to Kerala coast. Solomon's throne is supposed to be in Kashmir. Ancient Jews lived in Kerala. And according to some at one time only Jews were allowed to enter Kashmir. (and not to forget, Kashmiri obsession with Jews. Interestingly, first person to broach up persecution of Jews in Germany during world war into a discussion about persecution of Pandits in medieval Kashmir was one Mr. GMD Sufi in his book Kashir (1948) while trying to form a defense for Sikandar Butshikan's actions in response to popular discourse on the subject, an example of which would be writings by Anand Koul . Weird world). Malayalam, the language that survives today was considerably shaped by westerners (particularly Rev.Benjamin Bailey and Hermann Gundert) who pulled it closer to Sanskrit (even at cost of other variants). The language is alive and kicking. In case of Kashmiri, which is much older than Malayalam, here is the difference, one time opium agent Grierson's work still divides the people on origins of the language as it pulls it away from Sanskrit. The is no single definitive script. Result: My Christian friend from Kerala, who is great at using programming languages, uses Malayalam in regular life, can sing some Sanskrit prayers as they are quite popular in the land, know Hindi as it was part of school curriculum but is not so great with English. In my case, I am not so great at programming, can barely speak Kashmiri, definitely can't read or write it in anything besides Roman script, don't know Sanskrit, can't truly appreciate Hindi and can just about manage English, using it as a tool to earn my bread and butter.
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"Even the gods must die"~Kalhana~Gautier

2013-06-05T13:28:00.000-07:00

Martand

One the exercises I indulge in at this blog is looking at the "meta-information" and usage of information. What happens to information over the years?

Exercise

Problem: Why do some books (starting from 1950s, ending in 2013!) attribute the following beautiful lines to Kalhana when even a basic Google search says that the lines belong to a Frenchman, Théophile Gautier?:
"Even the gods must die; But sovereign poetry remains, Stronger than death"

Solution:
The lines do indeed represent thoughts of Gautier. These line were used by Ranjit S. Pandit in 1933 to end his invitation (introduction) to his translation of Kalhana's Rajatarangini (1935). He wrote: "Kalhana knew that everything withered with age and decayed in time; only the artist could seize the passing form and stamp it in a mould that resists mortality". And then to put emphasis on the thought, he quoted a poem by Gautier.

The complete poem goes like this:

All things pass; strong art alone
Can know eternity;
The marble bust
Outlives the state:
And the austere medallion
Which some toiler finds
Under the earth
Preserves the emperor
Even the Gods must die;
But sovereign poetry
Remains,
Stronger than death.

That much is fine and clear even if quoting Frenchman Gautier's poetry to explain greatness of Kashmiri Kalhana's poetry now appears to be a ludicrous. Over the years what happened was even more ludicrous as it became a victim to a curious phenomena observed by Aldous Huxley during his visit to India and Kashmir in mid 1920s. He laughed at Indian fascination for starting passages with 'apophthegms, quotations' and ending it with 'cracker mottoes', and for saying things like ' As the Persian poet so beautifully puts it '.

"Even gods must die" is a powerful thought, occurring in Nordic and Greek myths, Buddhist and Hindu works and even used in Superman comic). The first instance of that poem's wrongful attribution appears in "Mārg̲: A Magazine of the Arts" (1954). Then this wrongful attribution kept getting replicated over the decades in other books and publications. It seems as if people, given the beauty of the lines, and the context it was used, wished and then believed that the lines were actually written by Kalhana. Most recent case: a pandit book on history.

This seems like a good time to remember Jonaraja's explanation of Rajatarangini. As Jonaraja, the Sanskrit poet so beautifully put it, Rajatarangini is "a tree of poetry in whose shades those travelers who are kings can cool the heat of the prideful ways of their forebears"*

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* quoted in "The Death of Sanskrit" by Sheldon Pollock (2001)

Kashmiri songs and stories for Rustam

2013-06-04T09:53:00.001-07:00

An illustration to the Shahnama ("Book of Kings"): Rustam and the White Div, Kashmir, circa 1800
Source: christies

"Even now, the people of cashmere read and hear with pleasure, some of the touching episodes about the ancient persians in the Shahnameh of Firdousi. During my visit to that country, last May I frequently heard the Pandits saying:

i.e.,"the person who reads Shahnameh, even if he were a woman, acts like a hero." The episodes are rendered into Cashmiri songs, and sung on special occasions by musicians and singers, before large assemblies at night. In the midst of a very touching episode, when, owing to the difficulty or the danger of the favourite hero of the episode, who has for the time become a favourite of the audience as well, the excitement of the hearers is raised to the highest pitch,the singer suddenly stops and refuses to proceed further. The hearers get impatient to know the fate of their favourite hero, and subscribe among themselves, a small sum to be given to the singer as the price for releasing the favourite hero from what they call his "band," i.e., difficulty or danger. It is only, when a sum is presented, that the singer proceeds further. They say, that even on marriage occasions, some of the marriage songs treat of the ancient Persians. For example, I was told that one of the marriage songs, was a song sung by the mother of Rustam, when her son went to Mazindaran to release king Kaus.

It was for the first time, that I had heard in Kashmir, the following story about Rustam and Ali. I do not know, if it is common to other parts of India. They say, that Rustam was resuscitated about 500 years after his death for the following reason. Ali, the favourite of the holy Prophet, had fought very bravely in the war against the infidels. The Prophet complimented him, saying: "You have fought as bravely as Rustam." This remark excited the curiosity of Ali, as to who and how strong this Rustam was. To satisfy the curiosity of Ali, but without letting him know about it, the Prophet prayed to God to resuscitate Rustam. God accepted the prayer. Rustam re-appeared on this earth, and met Ali once, when he was passing through a very narrow defile, which could allow only one rider to pass. Rustam bade Ali, Salam Alikum, i.e., saluted him. Ali did not return the Alikum Salam. Having met in the midst of a narrow defile, it was difficult for anyone of them to pass by the side of the other, unless one retraced his steps. To solve the difficulty, Rustam lifted up the horse of Ali together with the rider hy passing his whip under his belly, and taking him over his head, placed him on the other side of the defile behind him. This feat of extraordinary strength surprised Ali, who on return spoke of it to the Prophet.
After a few days Ali again met Rustam, who was sitting on a plain with his favourite horse, the Rakhsh, grazing by his side. On seeing Ali, he bade him Salum Alikum, but Ali did not return the salam. Rustam then requested Ali to bring to him the grain bag of his horse, which was lying at some distance. Ali found it too heavy to be lifted up, and it was after an amount of effort that he could carry it to Rustam. Ali thought to himself: What must be the strength of the horse and of the master of the horse, if the grain-bag of the horse was so extraordinarily heavy? On going home, he narrated to the Prophet, what be had seen. The Prophet then explained the matter to him, and said that it was Rustam, whom he had seen during these two visits, and that God had brought him to life again at his special request. He then reprimanded Ali for his want of respect towards Rustam, in not returning his salams, and said, that, had Ali been sufficiently courteous to Rustam, he would, have prayed to God to keep him alive some time longer, and in that case, he (Rustam) wouid have rendered him great help in his battles."

~ Cashmere and the Ancient Persians, Jivanji Jamshedji Modi, B.A. (1871), read on 9th December 1895 for Asiatic Papers Papers Read Before The Bombay Branch Of The Royal Asiatic Society. Published 1905.
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Kashmir in British Vogue

2013-06-03T02:07:00.001-07:00

"Barbara Mullen floating in the water in a cotton mousseline dress by Atrima in Dal Lake, Kashmir, India. Norman Parkinson, British Vogue, 1956."
Image via: sighs and whispers
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The story goes that in 1957 in Kashmir, one Sultan Wangnoo, gave Norman Parkinson a traditional handmade embroidered Kashmiri wedding cap. Norman Parkinson got so superstitious about it that he took to wearing it all the time while shooting as he believed if he wasn't wearing one the photographs wouldn't come out at all.

Norman Parkinson at work in his Kashmiri Cap

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Waters of Kashmir were again the background canvas for a Vogue fashion shoot in 1969. This time the photographer was David Bailey. At the age of 16, David Bailey was inspired to take up photography after seeing the famous Cartier-Bresson image of Kashmir: Muslim Women Praying at Dawn in Srinagar (for Cartier's influence on Kashmir photographs and phographers, check this ). The model was a teenaged Penelope Tree, a style icon from swinging 60s whose fashion career ended due to acne.

The Lake this time was Wular.

Images for this issue via: modern vintage clothing

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Spring Comes to Kashmir, 1956

2013-06-03T00:13:00.000-07:00

I was looking for Mani Kaul's "Before my Eyes", his Kashmir film, instead found this little treat in Eastman color...

video link
Director: Ravi Prakash
Voice: Zul Vellani
Year: 1956
Duration: 12 min

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Shakyashri - the Great Kashmiri Pandit of Tibetans

2013-06-01T14:42:00.000-07:00

An undertaking accomplished without analysis,
But who would regard it as wise?
After worms have eaten,

Although a letter may appear, they are not skilled writers.

~ Sakya Pandita, student of Shakyashri

http://nicbommarito.com/translation/sakyalegshe/sakyalegshe.pdf

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...
"Jagadhala, name of a place in Orissa where Sakya Sri Bhadra of Kasmir had taken refuge, after his flight from Odantapuri vihara when that place was sacked bv Bakhtyar Khilji in 1202 A.D.35"

The Indian Historical Quarterly - Volumes 30-31 - Page 144, 1954

books.google.co.in/books?id=A98BAAAAMAAJ

According to Taranatha, at Odantapuri the vihar was turned into a Tajik fort and pandits fled to other countries.9 Sakyasri went to Jagar- dala (Jagaddala) of Odivisa, i.e. in Orissa, and from there, three years after, to Tibet. Ratnaraksita went to ...

Studies in Asian history: proceedings - Page 46

books.google.co.in/books?id=2lrRAAAAMAAJ

Indian Council for Cultural Relations 1969

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taranatha

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikrama%C5%9B%C4%ABla_University

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakhtiyar_Khilji

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Shakyashri Bhadra (11271225), whose immense learning was incomparable even in
India, who was head of the famed dharma universities of Vikramashila and Nalanda, and who was continually blessed with visions of the mother of the buddhas, Arya Tara, was
the last of the great Indian panditas to visit Tibet. He is somehow less wellknown to Westerners than his two predecessors, perhaps because, unlike them, he did not compose
a major text of his own; yet his impact was immense. In Tibet, the name Shakyashri Bhadra, or Khache Panchen (‘the Mahapandita of Kashmir’), was known in the gompas of every tradition across the entire Himalayan plateau.

At Nyang, northeast of Sakya in Tsang, he was visited by the 23 yearold Khon lama and
future ‘Sakya Pandita’, Kunga Gyaltsen, whose knowledge of Sanskrit greatly impressed
the mahapandita. The descendants of Sachen had already inherited a vast ocean of
dharma, unrivalled by other institutions, of which the foremost were the tantric teachings
of the great lotsawas Bari, Drokmi and Mal.Through his studies with the mahapandita
and the junior panditas, the young Khon’s learning was increased yet more with works of
sutra, tantra and, importantly, classical secular subjects which were previously unknown3
in Tibet, brought from the now destroyed universities of India. Sapan returned to Sakya
to continue his studies with Sugatasri, one of the learned assistant panditas.

In 1214, after ten years in Tibet, he set out on the road back through Gungtang and Ngari
in the west of Tibet. Before departing Tibet, he donated his considerable remaining gold
to the astounded Trophu Lotsawa who had accompanied him that far. After a long but unmolested journey across the Himalayas by the now very aged mahapandita, he arrived back in the luscious valley of his Kashmiri homeland, not seen since his youth. There, he
restored many viharas and greatly increased the teachings, as the sun of dharma was
setting on the country of the Aryas. Shakyashri Bhadra passed into nirvana in 1225. His
life was one of remarkable accomplishments, and great historical significance. For the
fortunate followers of Shri Sakya, the blessings of Shakyshri Bhadra endure in the precious jenangs and sadhanas held by contemporary Sakya masters.

http://www.dechen.org/resources/pdfs/shakyashri.pdf

Śākyaśrībhadra was born in Daśobharā, in Kashmir, in 1127 (some sources have or 1145). He had a brother named Buddhacandra. At the age of ten he studied grammar under the brahman Lakṣmīdhara. At the age of twenty-three, in 1149, he was ordained by Sukhaśrībhadradeva who gave him the name Subhadra.

At the age of thirty he went to Magadha where he received initiations from Ṥāntākaragupta, Daśabala, and Dhavaraka.

When Śākyaśrī was seventy-seven he was invited to Tibet by Tropu Lotsāwa Rinchen Sengge (khro phu lo tsA ba rin chen seng+ge, b. 1173) who went to the Chumbi Valley in search of him; they met in a town called Vaneśvara. Śākyaśrī was initially disinclined to accept the offer, as Tropu Lotsāwa was, at the time, quite young. Tropu Lotsāwa was able to ask questions on doctrine to each of the paṇḍitas in his retinue, and the following discussion impressed Śākyaśrī sufficiently to convince him to go to Tibet, arriving in 1204.

He was accompanied by several Indian paṇḍitas: Sugataśrī, an expert in Madhyamaka and Prajñāpāramitā; Jayadatta, in Vinaya; Vibhūticandra, in grammar and Abhidharma; Dānaśīla, in logic; Saṅghaśrī, in Candavyākaraṇa; Jīvagupta, in the books of Maitreya; Mahābodhi, in the Bodhicaryāvatāra; and Kālacandra in the Kālacakra.

http://www.treasuryoflives.org/biographies/view/sakyasribhadra/2810

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Kha che pan chen ('The Great Kashmiri Pandit"; Kha che, which literally means 'big mouth', being the appellation by which the Tibetans refer to Kashmiris and Moslems). Kha che pan chen spent the years between 1204 and 1214 preaching
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The Royal Chapel (Chogyel Lakhang) depicts clay images of the ancient kings. Images of Atisha, Kamalashila, Padmasambhava, Shantarakshita, Manjushri, eleven-faced Avalokiteshwara,Vajrapani and Shakyashri of Kashmir are also seen in this chapel

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palcho_Monastery

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kha che - 1) Moslem. 2) Kashmir. 3) person from Kashmir, Kashmiri. 4) saffron

kha che skyes - saffron [lit. the produce of Kashmir]

kha che gur gum - Kashmiri saffron

kha che mchog - saffron [lit. the chief article of Kashmir]

kha che 'dus bzang - Hinayana proponent

kha che pan chen - the great scholar of Kashmir, Shakya Shri

kha che paN chen - the great scholar of Kashmir, Shakya Shri

kha che pan chen zla ba mngon dga' - Kachey Panchen Dawa Ngön-Ga. Same as {kha che pan chen}

kha che pan chen lugs - the tradition / system of {kha che pan chen}

kha che paN chen lugs - the tradition / system of {kha che pan chen}

kha che ba - syn {kha che bye brag smra ba}

kha che bye brag smra ba - the Kashmiri sub-school of Vaibhasheka

kha che bye smra - {kha che bye brag smra ba}

kha che dbang thang - wealth, possessions, property

kha che yul - syn {kha che lung pa} Mohammedan country, Kashmir

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'grel pa zla zer - by the Kashmiri pandita {zla ba mngon pa dga' ba} a commentary on {slob dpon dpa' bo'i yan lag brgyad pa}

tsong kha brgyad bcu pa - Eighty Tsongkhas, eighty verses in praise of Tsongkhapa by the Kashmiri Pandita Punya Shri

http://www.dharmabook.ru/TibetanStudy/__Tibetan_text__/Yagpo!Wylie(copy%20shimla)_RIME_80/PadmasambhavaCenter/YangPur/Sambhota/Sambhota/Rangjung%20Dictionary/1%20Ry_Dictionary%202.0/1%20Ry_Dictionary%201.0/cdd97-al.doc.

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He: Sakya Pandita

A Treasury of Aphoristic Jewels: The Subhāṣitaratnanidhi of Sa Skya Paṇḍita in Tibetan and Mongolian

Sa-skya Paṇḍi-ta Kun-dgaʼ-rgyal-mtshan, James E. Bosson, 1969
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First Refuge, 1990

2013-05-30T13:50:00.000-07:00

First Refuge
Bohri, Jammu. March, 2013.

'We are here!'

Getting out of the Auto-Rickshaw and dropping the bags to ground, that's how my father announced our arrival. He could have added a 'TaiTaDae' before or after the sentence and the feeling he wanted to convey would have been the same. TaiTaDae we are in Jammu.

We had a place to stay in Jammu. It was house of a kin. For the first few days, we had the entire first floor of the house. In a few days my father was to leave again for Srinagar to get my grandparents. But before that a cycle had to began afresh. Purchases were to be made.

A kitchen was set up. An electric stove was the first thing we bought. Then a bowl, an exact number of plates, a knife and some spoons. Pressure cooker we had brought along. A milkman was sought and easily found nearby. Just next to the house was a field. In the field was a tree to which was always tied a sickly cow. The owners of the cow lived nearby in a shed parked next to a pile of grass. In the field lived some buffaloes, tied to a pole by steel chains. I could see it all from the roof of the house in which we had taken refuge from Kashmir. That tree's top was just with in reach. I could pluck its leaves, if I could learn to avoid its long pointy thorns. From its branches hung no fruits, but some few nests of weaver birds. With what mad fervor they build their homes!

Tea was ready. But it's taste caused an instant revulsion. I imagined it tasted like smell of a buffalo. I hated it. Made me nauseous. Kashmir had cows. But cow milk here was costly. Salaries were three digit and savings five digit. Cows would have to wait. [Note for future refugees on getting their priorities right: Isn't it true that refugees have other priorities? In fact, the first are only two - Food and Shelter, and often in that order. In 1990, we were first only looking for these two things. And the number of seekers kept swelling. As often happens. Refugees kept pouring into town, first a trickle and then a downpour. At first almost unseen, silent. Too ashamed to be alive. Then not sure of their existence and in the end alive, and consumed by a new world.]

A few days the arrival of my grandparents, a newly arrived migrant family took the first floor on rent from the owners of that house. This migrant family belonged to Anantnag. With their arrival we moved to the top floor. To the top of the top floor. To the roof. On the roof was a store room. Our first refuge. I liked it. The roof of a traditional Kashmiri house is an endearing space, a intimate cave. It's a triangle. A crown. But seldom does anybody live there. Maybe cats. Maybe Ghardivta, the lord of the house. This space is used for storing wood for harsh winters, grains at times of weddings and always the ghost stories. I wanted to live there. I wanted to live on that roof. Certainly, day-dwell. But the roof I got was flat. All the houses in Jammu were crown less.

[Note for future refugees on setting up spaces and boundaries in the new world:
A kitchen was set up. Electric stove, bowl, plates, a knife and spoons, all parked neatly in a corner. Next, to preserve an archaic concept of pure and impure, an old cloth was rolled and set on ground to mark the boundary for pure 'Kitchen corner'. Over the next few days, as the space kept getting accidently defiled by miss-steps, this boundary was re-enforced by bricks. Not that it helped much, but an illusion of a room within a room was enough to satiate minds seeking a certain familiar order in an unfamiliar territory.]

The next thing they say a refugee seeks is shelter, a shade, a place to sleep. This need is somewhat overrated. Pushed enough and given enough time, people would sleep anywhere. But still, some may try to get a bit comfortable. The room on that roof wasn't big enough to house eight people. But the roof was like an open field. The next big purchase was a folding cot. At least one person need not sleep on the ground. We took turns. But I liked sleeping on the ground. It's warmth even in summer a welcome hug, a fine Kashmiri rug. In the dead of the night, if you put your ear against the surface, you could hear the distant hum of a ceiling fan. For me, folding cot with all its Nylon stripes proved to be a thing of wonder only for a day or two. I soon realized those things are not reliable. One night, just before the start of summer, a thunderstorm broke in the sky. A mad wind blew and rains lashed down like whips, catching us all unaware in sleep. We ran into the storeroom. But in our panic forgot to fold the cot and bring it in. Next morning, we found the cot open and spread out in the middle of the road outside. People were walking around it, avoiding it like it was a holy cow or a car parked in the middle of a road. Getting that thing back up on the roof was more embarrassing than living on the roof.

As the summer started, it was obvious that the table fan we had bought with us from Kashmir were not enough. Even if we had bought the one we left in Kashmir, it would not have been enough. We perspired more, unnaturally more than the locals. It was like our skin had become surface of a CampaCola bottle freshly moved out of a fridge. Something had to be done. Our next purchase was a big one. We got a big coolar. It was love at first sight. It was like getting a personal robot. I bought some He-Man stickers and posted on its dashboard. It was obviously going to be our savior. In the sun burnt afternoons, we would keep the door of the room open, and move in the coolar (which was so great that it even had pearly rollers at the bottom). The angle of the sun after noontime was kind enough not to light up the room, and the coolar, once its belly was full of water, would magically turn the killer loo to a cool breeze. To truly enjoy a coolar, you have to sit really close to its mouth, let it blow your hair, dry the sweat off your brows, and then wait patiently for this electric deity, in its benevolent mood, to spit some cool water into your unexpectant face.

The only problem with coolar was it had to be fed water, and that too, frequently. At least five buckets. And on good day, two buckets extra. Since we were living on a roof, getting water in itself was a challenge. There was a water tank on the roof, a big steel one, conducive for getting boiling water in Summer, but there was no tap. So an engineering solution was applied. Father dropped a rubber pipe in the tank. And the tap was ready. My father explained how to operate this fancy tap. 'When you want water, just suck on the pipe, suck till water reaches you, then drop the pipe. If your level is lower than water, hydraulics will take care of the rest. Greeks built great cities on the principle. You can certainly learn to have a bath using this principle.'

As summer progressed, there were other sources of water too. On the day of Baisakhi, a small drain just across the road sprang to life like a snake. They called it a 'Kanaal'. Icy muddy water of Chenab making its way down from high mountains, passing through sweltering plains, on a particular day, 'released', diverted through a network of canals named after the old Dogra Monarch of the State, reached our door step, passed it to reach the farms. This canal was lined with mulberry trees, their branches brimming with a sweet fruit. The tar road near the trees a canvas of violet on black. The fruit was edible. I was told. The tempting cold water in the canal, not. I was warned. So instead I jumped into the canal for a cold bath. The water barely reached my knees. There was no chance of drowning. I liked it. I could be my private pool, I thought. After an hour of lounging in the shallow waters as I came out of my pool, some buffaloes took my place. Goodbye pool!

With time, I did get over my dislike for some things. Like I did find a good use for that folding cot. It was ideal for watching TV. It took the experience of watching television under an open sky to the next level. Get the TV out of the store, spread the cot, light some Kachua Chaap, apply some Odomos, spread yourself long on the cot and watch some good old TV. It's practically a heaven. No fear of scorpions or snakes. There are none in Paradise. Even this fear is actually overrated. After few days of stay on the roof, I did discover scorpions, I did lose some sleep over it but eventually if you are alive and young, the sleep always wins over fears.

Best thing about Jammu was you had multiple channels. There was always Doordarshan but Jammu offered a great reception for PTV too. On Saturday nights PTV offered English movies. I remember watching Jaws one night. In the evening, we could hear news on both the channels. People were dying on both the channels. But the number varied. On one: 50 people dead while protesting bravely on a bridge. On another: 5 militants dead in a counter, 5 bystanders in crossfire and a bridge burnt down by unidentified men. I figured if my schooling hadn't been disrupted, I would have learnt the laws that explained these numbers. I thought I would have learnt why it was all morbidly entertaining. These deaths. Most of all I would have picked a better sense of geography and direction.

Towards the west, in the direction of sunset, Pakistan was only miles away from where we stayed. At night, one could see red bulbs lining the sky. 'That's where Pakistan is.' I was told. But it was obviously too far from Kashmir, from the place in Srinagar where I was born. And yet in Jammu, it was closer. I couldn't grasp how long the borders of countries could run, how deep.

Every morning, my Grandfather took to going for walks in this direction. I never liked getting up early but on a roof there isn't much choice in the matter. Sun is a cruel alarm clock. With it arrive the singing parakeets, and from a nearby marshy field, mad war cries of a early rising titahari defending its land against invisible aggression. Did-e-do-it.Did-e-do-it. Did-he-do-it. Did-he-do-it.

Most morning I would get up at dawn, pick my pillow and get some extra hours of sleep in a corner of the storeroom. But then kitchen too is a cruel alarm clock. Either Mother, Grandmother or Aunt would start stirring things. A ting of a bowl hitting a spoon. A tang of a spoon hitting a bowl. So some mornings I too would accompany my Grandfather on his morning walks. These walk would usually end with a bath in a fresh water pool he discovered somewhere off the main road. He always liked to walk. Over the years, he taught me to walk the whole length and breadth of Jammu, covering it within hours, from one end to another, taking trails through fields and ravines, learning together short cuts that often turned out to be long cuts. Jammu back then too was called a city. BC Road, Parade, Panjtarthi on one side of river Tawi and Gandhi Nagar on the other. One, the old Jammu and other, the new Jammu. Everything else was mostly uneven open fields covered with wild bushes. Or, Nallas that came alive in monsoons. And in these spatial spaces often lived a few Gujjars here or a few Duggar there, some Sikhs here or some Mashays, the recent Christians there. That's about it. Beyond it, on one side there were villages grown around an irrigation canal. Villages in which people bravely tried to be cultivators. And on the other side of town, settlements of transporters around the highway. If you walked blindly in one direction, you could find yourself in Pakistan and if you walked the other way, plains of India awaited. The city that Jammu is now was born somewhere in between these spaces. Feeding on a growing population. I learnt to walk these spaces even if these weren't the space I wanted to traverse. In Kashmir, my Grandfather used to take me to the ghat to get rations. I couldn't carry much weight but he would pretend I was a help. In Jammu, at our first refuge, he would take me to a wheat mill by a canal. Buying aata this way was cheaper and the quality better. He explained. I felt wiser. I liked walking with him. I used to pretend I was a help. It made me happy. In fact, I remember most of that year as a happy year.

I was happy there was no school. A few months later, as a new school session began, all the school were already full to their capacity. Even above it. There were classes being held in playgrounds, prayer grounds and even roofs. Later, when I did get in, I got a rooftop section. And I had to repeat a school year. Thinking about it now make me feel like a rat running on a treadmill. I feel like I was part of some great failed experiment conducted by history and civilizations. Which reminds me of a funny story from that year:

One day news spread that government was doing evaluative work to see what kind of monetary help could be offered to Pandits. At Shastri Nagar (in a school, I think) was set-up a make-shift office of a government representative doing this evaluation. Pandits were happy that finally the government, their 'Center', was doing something for them. They thronged to the place, all lined up dutifully outside this office. Here, a man handed them all a form to fill-up and list all their movable and immovable assets. Some filled it out right there. Some took it home to deliberate. I still remember the lengthy discussion that my grandfather, father and uncle had about the dilemma posed by this miraculous form that promised to ease their financial troubles. But it also posed a puzzle. They wondered if they should mention things like '1 old Table fan', '2 new Tubelights', '1 very old Philips Radio set', 'a brand new Geyser', 'a pile of galvanized steel sheets'...over assets like these they wondered if listing everything truthfully was going to send them into some 'income-tax' bracket and instead of receiving money, they will have to pay money. In the end, after much thought, they did list all their assets into that form. Next day, this form was duly submitted in that office. Some days later, just as suddenly the office had opened, it closed. The man with the forms was gone. It was much later that the Pandits realized that the man was probably just a student working on some PHD.

The only worry I suffered that year was the thought of not seeing my father again. In the first month, my father disappeared for two days. He just took off. Didn't tell any body where he was going and just went away. I became worried only on the second day of his disappearance as all those Hindi movies started running through my head, 'Tumhara Baap kaun hai?' Thought of Rajkumar from Mother India. And that union leader guy from Deewar. That evening father returned with a coconut and some red shiny bordered cloth in hand. He had gone to Vaishno Devi. From the roof at night I could see the hill that housed the cave shrine. A hill dotted by a stream of bright lights. Obviously, now this Sherawalli I took seriously. Some years later, when I did visit the place, lack of Sher on the hill proved to be a bit of disappointment. I would have been a believer today had I found a tiger on that hill.

The only traumatic memory I have of the year on the roof is of my grandfather breaking the television one day. He threw a metal jug on the screen. In happened one evening when the elders were having some discussion in the storeroom behind a locked door while my sister and I roamed around on the roof. I didn't think much of it. Locked door discussions were common that year. Even before leaving Kashmir, the subject of leaving was discussed by elders behind a locked door. I thought it was one of those normal family talks but then suddenly, I could hear my grandfather's raised voice and the next thing I heard was glass breaking, followed by the long winding sound of metal ringing on the floor. The discussion ended. There was no television that day. I wondered what they must have been discussing in the room. I never found out. I guess they were not happy on the roof. It was a silent night. A horrible thought took root in my mind. What if it really was a sad situation? What if it was a permanent state? What if we never returned? I hadn't met any of my cousins during this time. Everyone had stopped visiting each other. I wondered if they too were living like this. What would happen to my treasure that I had buried in Kashmir before leaving? Before leaving, in a far off corner of the courtyard I had dug a hole in the ground and placed buried inside my precious things for safekeeping: a small wooden black horse, a plastic wound up jeep toy with a missing roof, half a magnet, some tips of broken pens, some empty casings of sketch color pens, a dead lighter belonging to a dead grand-uncle, some marbles and a piece of a blade of hand saw. What would happen to them? There were more...a hot-wheels car, one EverReady cell, bottle caps, a shard of green colored glass, whistles collected from sauf packets, two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle...counting my treasures I went to sleep. Next morning, father made me carry our broken 14-inch television to a repair shop to have its tube replaced. It survived. The show continued...

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Rooftop of the place I am staying these days.

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Pestonji's White Horse, 1983

2013-05-27T10:21:00.003-07:00

White horse outside
'Bank of Baroda',
Pestonjee Building, Kothibagh,
Residency Road

I knew this one was going to be a special book but what I didn't expect was an image of a prized memory of Srinagar City: Pestonji's White Horse.

Raghubir Singh's 'Kashmir: Garden of the Himalayas' (1983) has the photograph explained as, "The white wooden horse was a joke-present from one polo-playing Maharaja (Jaipur) to another (Kashmir). A White Horse whiskey dealer rescued it from a junk heap and installed it in front of a building in Srinagar which he rents to a bank."

Although the book does not mention it, yet I had heard so much about it (although not the story about its origin), I knew I was looking at the famous Pestonji Ka Ghoda.

Pestonji name figures in history of Kashmir right from late 1800s to the early times of Sheikh Abdullah (Jinnah and his wife apparently stayed with him during a trip to Srinagar in 1920s).

A shopping mall now stands in its place.

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The book took almost 14 days. Whoever said world has become smaller hasn't obviously tried bringing in a book from overseas. Originally costing Rs. 280. It cost me around Rs.1600 for a second hand first edition. Some more on the book later. And also some more rare books. And when I get some time some old writings of an incredible Parsi on Kashmir, its lore, Pandits and their ways of life.
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The definitive index to Kashmir Images through the ages

2013-05-23T05:38:00.000-07:00

A simple guide to go through more than 3000 vintage images posted on this blog in last four years. The links are ordered in increasing order of year of creation ( and when info. not available based on year of publication)

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And something different

Kashmiris in Persian tales and in Europeans arts

Palladium Goers, 1980s

2013-05-21T06:29:00.001-07:00

The irony isn't lost on me. Over at my other blog I have written extensively on history cinema in this part of the world. I wanted to write even more. The fact that the place where I was born has no cinema halls keeps mocking me. I remember the first ever movie I ever saw in a theater was in Srinagar. The first and the fast in Kashmir, somewhere around year 1988-89.

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A seven year old kid goes to a late evening show of a Mithun movie with his father and an uncle. Two men walk a kid and a green atlas cycle to a theater. The theater looks like a palace. The kind you read in storybooks. It's majestic with all its pillars and high ceiling. After buying tickets from a pigeon hole in a wall at the end of chain cage. They walk into the hall through a small door that didn't befit a palace this size. Inside, a sudden darkness seizes him, terrified, he holds on hard to his father's hand. Father, it seems, can see in the dark. Just like a cat. The kid doesn't realize that it's just that his father has spent too much time wading through these aisles. They find the seats, somewhere near the front, just as the kid's sight returns. He sits feeling the handle bars of a flat wooden chair with his hands. He turns and a strange setup confronts him. A wall with what appears to be giant purdahs hanging at two sides. It suddenly lights up. His eyes follow a beam of light. The source somewhere high at the back. He looks back but can't make out anything in the darkness. Just a lit little window. It was then that his father asked him,'Where's Bh'Raja?' Uncle was missing. Father asks the kid to get up and look around to see if he can find. The boy gets up reluctantly asking,'How do I find him in this darkness? I can't see!' Father a bit disappointed in boy's intelligence, 'You just call out his name.' The boy starts walking towards the back of the hall, towards the light window box, all the while meekly ringing out a name, 'Bhaeiraaj Nanu. Bhaeiraaj Nanu.' He is embarrassed of the thought that other people besides Bhaeiraaj Nanu might be hearing him. He realizes the light box at the end is too far. He doesn't want to loose sight of his own seat. The thought of being lost in that big hall among stranger, frightens him. He makes his way back faster.

'Couldn't find him!' he exclaims with a puff, as if tired.
'Look down at the front. Try the lower stall. He must have bought a stall ticket for himself. That's where he likes to sit.'
'Stall?'
'Down. At the front. Go look.' Father know the kid has a lot to learn. A couple of more trips and he too would think himself the lord of this theater.

The kid walks to the front. There's a wooden railing at this end. He grabs it. He get's still closer and sneaks a peek down. Down, there's a big dark pit. In the white light coming off the screen he can see heads of people seated in chairs. Some hurriedly walking to their seats. Some walking at leisure. As vertigo starts to set in, he takes a step back. Still holding on to the railing, he starts chanting, 'Bhaeiraaj Nanu. Bhaeiraaj Nanu'. He is sure uncle is down there. He chants a little louder. The walls of the hall respond back with a faint echo. The force in his chanting increases. He doesn't care who is listening. He cries out still louder. 'Bhaeiraaj Nanu. Bhaeiraaj Nanu.' Just then the screen comes alive with colors. A second later, hall is drowned with a cracking sound. And then trumpets blow. The show had begun. The kid ran back to his seat praying his uncle is really down in stall.

'Couldn't find him.'
'Alright. Now, let's watch the film.'

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Bhaeiraaj Nanu passed away a couple of years ago. He died in a road accident on his way to "back to Kashmir" trip with some old friends. He was an expert ticket buyer. Father tells me getting a Palladium ticket wasn't easy. For a new show, the lines would be long and the crowds maddening. Theater owners had a man employed solely for controlling the ticket buyers. And this man would do his job by whipping people with his leather belt. Or just by the sight of his belt in hand. The ticket booth was at the end of a caged structure. An expert ticket buyer was one who could, like a lizard, crawl on the sides of the cage, over the heads of men standing in queue and forcefully place his hand into the booth's pigeon hole for tickets.

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Palladium cinema, Srinagar.
Probably early 1980s (based on the film)
Credit: Wish I knew who uploaded the photograph so I could give proper credit

Another image (down). Possibly from the same set (although I couldn't confirm)

Palladium, 1983.
Via: Aga Khan Visual Archive, hosted at Mit Libraries. The archive offers 'Images of architecture, urbanism, and the built environment in the Islamic world'.

A Zoom-in on the notice board hanging from the theater.
"Due to Non Arrival of Print Private Benjmin
Showing Hera Pehari"

Palladium cinema, Srinagar. [1930s - 1992]
Shot by me in Summer of 2008

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Another one on philim culture in Kashmir. Source: ~~Unknown (came across on Facebook. I wish people of the network would start citing sources more often). Year: Probably early 1980s.~~

By Raghubir Singh, Kashmir: Garden of the Himalayas (1983)

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Previously:

A list of all cinema halls in Kashmir

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Aurangzeb's Kashmir fleet

2013-05-19T04:30:00.001-07:00

A defunct houseboat on Dal. 2008.

"About 1665, Shah Jehan died in the palace at Agra, not without suspicions of foul play. Aurangzeb had been suffering from serious sickness, but after his father's death he was sufficiently recovered to proceed to Kashmir, where he recruited his health in the cool air of the mountains. At Kashmir he attempted to form a fleet which should rival the navies of European countries. Two ships were built by the help of an Italian, and were launched on the lake of Kashmir; but Aurangzeb found that it would be difficult to man them efficiently. No amount of teaching would impart the necessary quickness, nerve, and energy to his own subjects; and if he engaged the services of Europeans, they might sail away with his ships, and he might never see them again."

~ 'India and the Frontier States of Afghanistan, Nepal and Burma, with A Supplementary Chapter of Recent Events' by James Talboys Wheeler and Edgar Saltus (1899).

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Unrelated post:

Beheading of Dara

Jugnu T'choor

2013-05-17T13:58:00.001-07:00

15th May, 2013. Kochi.

Kashmir had Khar, T'char, Wattil and Kan'hapin, it was in Jammu that I first saw a Jugnu. But the only Jugnu story I know comes from Kashmir and has been told once too often to me by mother. Kashmiris have been telling venerative stories of thieves for ages but this one is more recent.

There once was a thief in Kashmir who took his name from Dharmendra's film titled Jugnu (1973). Inspired by the film he took to leaving letters at crime scenes, all of them marked 'Jugnu'. It is said, one night he climbed into a house and not finding anything else worthwhile, served himself dinner, eat and left. Next morning the victims found a letter in the kitchen. It went something like this:

Jugnu aya
Gad'e Khaya
Bahut Maza aya

Jugnu came
Had fish
Relished

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Ezra Mir's Pamposh

2013-05-15T13:56:00.000-07:00

Still no trace of the film...but I managed to find the synopsis and international reviews of the film. One would have thought finding a Cannes nominated (1954) film, that too India's first (Geva) color (processed entirely within the country) would be easy, special in the year when the people are celebrating 100 years of Indian Cinema. Yet, no trace.

Said 'L' Humanite:
"A real discovey and revelation! 'Pamposh' is one of the most poetic works, completely impregnated with the most delicate sensitivity! The image are of rare beauty! This film reaches in its simplicity a rare nobility and grandeur...It is a typical national work, which is not only a picturesque evocation of manners and traditions which are not common to us of a distant and mysterious folk, but also prescribes us the human content of a rare healthiness, a rare grandeur and emotion..."

Pages from 'The world of Ezra Mir' (2005) by N. J. Kamath.

Not so uncanny that the film Indian film in color should have been shot in Kashmir. And the film's Kashmir connection would be the music by Mohanlal Aima.
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Kashmiris and the tales of Sea

2013-05-14T12:08:00.001-07:00

A footnote from 'Folk-Tales of Kashmir' by Rev. J. Hinton Knowles (1888).

Video: Arabian Sea at Kochi, Kerala. 2013
Audio: From Pushkar Bhan's radio play 'Sindbad Machama' (1960s)

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El chal de cachemira

2013-05-13T12:59:00.003-07:00

El chal de cachemira : juguete cómico en un acto (1852)
[The cashmere shawl: comic sketch in one act (1852)]
Alexandre Dumas (in French)
adapted to Spanish by José Díaz Tezanos.

Generally, number of times a woman is draped in a Kashmiri Shawl in a work of Dumas > number of times a woman is draped in Kashmiri Shawl in a work of Kashmiri writer.
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Lal Vakh, audio

2013-05-12T05:58:00.000-07:00

A recording of authentic Kashmiri rendering of Lal Vakhs by Pandit Sarvanand Sagar, produced by Vir House, Jammu.

[archive.org link]

In all there are three files. First two are the vakhs (almost 1 hour in playtime, around 60 Vakhs) and last one is a Kashmiri Bhajan. The whole setup (starting with Shuklambaradharam and ending with stutis and a Bhajan) gives a feel that there must have been a time when just like Gita Path, a night just for listening to Lal Vakh too must have been organized by Pandit families. Besides more popular vakhs of Lal Ded, I heard some for the first time. Like:

Gita Paraan Paraan kuna mudukh
Gita Paraan Paraan kun gai suur
Gita Paraan Paraan Zind kith ruzukh
Gita Paraan Paraan dodh Mansoor

Why didn't you die listening to Gita
How many turned to ashes listening to Gita
How did you live listening to Gita
Listening to Gita, Mansoor went ablaze
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Harwan Tiles

2013-05-11T13:36:00.000-07:00

“These terracotta plaques at Harwan each of which was moulded with a design in bas-relief, are of a character which makes them unique in Indian art. Pressed out of moulds so that the same pattern is frequently repeated, although spirited and naive in some instances, they are not highly finished productions, but their value lies in the fact that they represent motifs suggestive of more than half a dozen alien civilizations of the ancient world, besides others which are indigenous and local. Such are the Bahraut railing, the Greek swan, the Sasanian foliated bird, the Persian vase, the Roman rosette, the Chinese fret, the Indian elephant, the Assyrian lion, with figures of dancers, musicians, cavaliers and ascetics, and racial types from many sources, as may be seen by their costumes and accessories.”

~ Percy Brown, Indian Architecture: Buddhist and Hindu periods (1942)

Aurel Stein in his edition (1892) of Kalhana's Rajatarangini identified terraced site of Harwan as Sadarhadvana, ‘The wood of six saints’, the place where once lived the famous Bodhisattva Nagarjuna of Kushan period in the time of King Kanishka. The site was first excavated in year 1923 by Pandit Ram Chandra Kak. Based on masonry styles Kak categorical the structures and findings into three types: (i) Pebble style (ii) Diapher Pebble style, and (iii) Diapher Rubble style. The pebble style being earliest in date, the diapher pebble of about 300 A.D. and the last one of about 500 A.D. and later.

Here are some of the photographs of the tiles of Harwan ( Harichandrun, originally in Kashmir) provide by Kak (came across in booklet 'Early Terracotta Art of Kashmir' by Aijaz A. Bandey for Centre of Central Asian Studies, University of Kashmir, Srinagar (1992)):

First one, a tile that gave me an opportunity to interpret a symbol.

Here above are shown four full blown lotus flowers; below a procession of geese running with their wings open. It is to be noted here the four geese from left have already picked up a stalked flower in their bills while the extreme right bird is about to pick it up. This males the scene more alive.

The point here is that it is not just an 'alive scene', it is an animated scene, there are no four, five geese, there is only one goose, the way the scene is set, it looks like an "animation cel", it is as if the artist was not trying to capture just the subject but also motion, hence we have an animated scene of a geese in motion, catching, leaving, holding on to a flower.

Why geese? What does this motion symbolize?

Goose in Indian motifs (both in Buddhist, to a great degree and in Hindu art and lore ) is the most common and recurring symbol of an ascetic in search of truth. In art, geese with a flower in beak would be the state of perfection, and the flight would be the journey that an ascetic undertakes. And then in addition, there is this impression of "passing" time that the flight symbolizes. It is a simple and obvious explanation.

In fact, it must have occurred to some other observers too. In 'The Goose in Indian Literature and Art' (1962), Jean Philippe Vogel cautions against such a tempting answer easily. "It is tempting to assume a connection between the yogis and the geese, although the latter appear also on tiles belonging to the courtyard where they seem to have a merely decorative function."

Can't a religious symbol be used in a secular space with a decorative function? But then, that would be akin to how in present times say a 'Ganesha' statue might be found in a corner of drawing room of a Hindu household, performing a decorative and a religious function. Is is difficult to assume that people back then too were capable of doing something like this.

Dating back to third and the fifth century, Harwan is not an easy site to decipher. Each symbol is capable of throwing interesting questions at the observer. Take the case of ascetics. When we see ascetics in these tiles, are we seeing Buddhist ascetics? Although Harwan is often though as a Buddhist site, there are theories according to which the Buddhist site was built on top of an existing site belong to a religious sect called Ajaivika belonging to Nastika thought system. The sect peaked at the time of Mauryan emperor Bindusara around the 4th century BC. But by the time of Ashoka the sect quickly went downhill (apparently, the fact they published a photograph of Buddha in negative light didn't go well with Ashoka the Great and he had around 18000 followers of the sect executed in Pundravardhana, present day bengal). The sect disappeared without leaving much trace.

However, it is interesting the only image of an Ajaivika ascetic may have been provided by Kashmir. Below is given a page from 'Indian Sculpture: Circa 500 B.C.-A.D. 700' by Pratapaditya Pal.

Some other tiles from Harwan (a site that was almost lost again and buried after a cloud burst in 1970s):

A female holding a flower vase in upright hand, the left hand lifts the end of transparent long robe. The woman on either side has lotus petals, below in a separate register is a procession of four geese. The marked difference, this tile from harwan displays, is in its shape which is unconventional but could have fitted in the pavement plan at the site.

Medallions contaning cocks, regardant, with stylized foliate tails. Below in running spiral in an unending whorl.

A squarish tile has in the centre two seperate stamps, the left one in a dotted boarder a standing male figure with splayed out feet, a long tunic extending upto knees, holding in the left hand a long spear, while the right rests on the lip. All along the border of the tile on each side is a procession of four geese.

A female holding flower vase, a male holding spear, medallion with cock, and procession of geese.

In the left a deer looking back, with moon at the top and wheel below. right, a mounted archer "The Parthian shot" of ancient Iran.

Upper register, a couple in a balcony. The coarse features of the couple having high cheek-bones, prominent noses and low receding fore head, allowed thr excavator (R.C. Kak) to identify them with a racial group of Central Asian people. Below, a feeling deer who is just to be struck with an arrow.

A composite mortified tile from Harwan. the tile above has lotus flowers; below in one compartment is a winged conch-shell, through the upper part of it protrudes neck of a bird (?) emitting pearl. This composite creature is flanked on either side by a fish at the bottom. To its right in a separate compartment is another composite figure, in this case half human and half vegetal; the upper part is of a female bust.

Three lotus petals and two rams.

Two cocks fighting over a lotus bud. Two deers at night.

Medallions with cocks with grape vines scroll above and below

Mixing of motifs. Cock, Lotus, Geese,

Lotus

unconventional. A free hand drawing of a flower.

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intolerable beauty

2013-05-10T11:22:00.001-07:00

Painting: 'Nightfall on Wular Lake' by Col. H.H. Hart, R.E. From the book 'Our summer in the vale of Kashmir' (1915) by Frederick Ward Denys.
Quote: Silvia Baker, 'Alone and Loitering: Pages from a Artist’s Travel Diary (1938-1944)' . She was describing her visit to Wular Lake in around year 1944. [via: exiledstardust]
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