We've been a few days in Amritsar now. Still in the gurudwara among the thousands of pilgrims, eating and sleeping almost for free for now. Bunch of freeloaders we are. Well, we do have the excuse of being busy enough filming and recording many things around the golden temple complex and the gurudwara's daily ways. Such as parades, like there was a big one a few days ago where kids of elementary and secondary school were dressed in either Punjabi or Sikh costumes and playing marching style band music. Thin whistles, dhol drums, karthals, trumpets and even bag pipes with an Sikh styled Scottish squared design on them in orange!
Also since the gurudwara here has a 24h internet cafe (which actually isn't really open 24hrs a day) we have been able to update the site, upload stuff like movies and photo's and even send longer e-mails to friends and family back home.
The communal eating while sitting on the floor with a pilgrims is good fun. It also strikes nice conversations with your neighbors or glazed looks from young kids. The menu is a basic one, with normally 1 or 2 main dishes that they scoop out in big sauce spoons when the food service men walk past everyone. Most of it is dal (lentils), either in yellow or black sauce. Our review on cheapo eating concludes that the black dal tastes best. Unlike Maarten, I like the kir plenty (plain rice pudding like grandma and aunties would make in olden days). The chappati breads however, are quite bland. To the extent that some batches are really hard as it made out of cardboard. The chappati's are actually machine made and processed so yeah, there you go. -when we ate simple crisp chappati's at a dim street corner the other day, we knew we weren't acting the spoiled westeners- Even the pilgrims find the chappati's nasty to eat and rather take heaps of rice with their grub.
To clean the eating floors of the residue of dal, kir and whatnot, they smartly are using small driving cleaners that sweep the floor, near zamboni style. Since a big number of Sikhs are living in Canada, I reckon that they might have introduced this harhar -bad joke. That aside, it's funny to have a lot of Canadian Sikhs around us who always come up to ask us in a crystal clear Canadian accent where we're from. "You're from Canada, right?" We'd ask them back. "Aww, how'd you guess ey?". Well, "ey?". (oh we just met a way tall Sikh dude from Turr-ono, right ey Aly, heehee ;)
A few days ago we have also met the most peculiar and neurotic music collector of old Punjabi and Pakistani folk songs, who holds a little grubby cassette shop taken over by dust and mice-gnawed old record covers. Earsational! Folk tunes over a heavy crackling of tape hiss into forgotten styles. The man pirates all these cassettes himself since they are not to be found anymore in India nor produced, let alone that anyone would master them into modern standards. So he does his bit to keep the music alive for those very few interested in it. We ended up sitting 3 hours in his shop, as he manically wanted to make us listen to every old cassette and unique lost style that he could find. Out of utter chaos and no order but which seemed totally logical to him (hmmm sounds familiar, such music nerdism eh?)
Soon we'll put up a short clip of him here.
Today we have been at the Wagha border, gateway to Pakistan. We took a bus from Amritsar and drove through the village of Attari before stopping. Straight out of the bus we got hawked by every young local person asking us if we wanted coke or pepsi, some tikky or crisps, a border ceremony dvd or cd, this or that. Anything. It was kind of insane this sudden manifestation of border tourism. Even the Indians got hassled, no scrutiny in selection whatsoever. Small plastic Indian flags or cardboard caps were being sold so that the spectators could support *their* side. Before we had a quick talk with some Pakistani tourists who were on the way home from a 2 week travel in Indian. They all came from Islamabad, the city right next to Rawalpindi where Bhutto got murdered. They told us that all is calm again now in Pakistan and that the riots where isolated incidents over a few days.
Soon the first gates went open and we had to walk through a 1 km corridor up to the big border gates for the ceremony. Army officers were trying to put us into the stands, but we cleverly walked around their back and up to the main iron gate where we even managed to get past an officer walk for some quick snaps, look and touch of the gate and get a clear view of the Pakistani side.
The whole ceremony is about soldiers on both sides strutting around with their feet raised high up in the air, stamping their feet on the ground and shouting a lot of commands. We found this command sounding like the way sports commentators scream *goooooooool* in Brazil, so we mimicked this to annoy the Indians. Which we succeeded in. On both the Pakistani and Indian side they have built high ranking stands so they can bring in spectators. The spectators naturally scream for *their* side. Such is the pride of nationalism, isn't it great? At first we didn't know what to expect but as the show went on, it proved that it wasn't done out of envy or hate, but rather out of curiosity for each other's side. No nasty gestures, shouts or abuse was sent to the Pakistani side and probably neither came from theirs. Respect carried out in a peculiar showcase of booming sounds, hindi dance pop versus pakistani vocoder pop tunes. The Indian women went down and were dancing among the soldiers on the ground before the strutting began. On the Pakistani side, there were a few bearded men running around in Pakistani flag kurta's, waving flags. No women dancing there, they were all congregated together on the right side of the stands but were all waving their hands and seemed to sing along to their tune. Strutting on both sides commenced, fierce steps towards each other. The Indians dressed in khaki with red, the Pakistani's in black with red. People on both sides clapping loudly. Also military or holy music on both sides and interesting enough, every side stayed quiet for the other's sound of music and audience. I made some great recordings of that, not to mention all the great footage that Maarten has shot. The end of the ceremony was that of the flag lowering. Both flags had to be lowered equally down, so that one would not rise above the other. Signification goes a long way. That was it basicly. The Pakistani tourists that we spoke earlier were waiting on a little detainment field to be let through and we waived each other goodbye, as if they stepped into another world not to return. For us Western Europeans, scenes like borders only seem a thing of the past or more like a distant memory monument indicating an invisible line that now with the EU only exists on paper and maps. Having witnessed a border crossing in this setting, it makes you realize that for some nations it still are very sensitive -and real- lines.
Important update, we have just decided to go to Pakistan! 180 degree turnover indeed. Please friends and family don't be alarmed despite our previous promises of not going there, but that what we have heard the past few days has only been positive. Like what the Pakistani tourists told us today, the fact that we met other western tourists on their way to Pakistan -today at the border ground even a white Canadian family with 2 infants who crossed over-. Also the story of a Polish guy that Maarten met was interesting, as he was in Pakistan during the Bhutto assassination and stayed for 1,5 week more without any problem whatsoever. No fear, abuse or in any danger experienced. So why should we chicken out if others prove it safe now? We will linger a week or so more here in Punjab as we will go to Ludhiana and Chandigarh to do things, before getting our visa in Delhi.
till the next update.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Punjabi gunshots from the liquor store and soothing spiritual raga's on pillows
first off all, a very shanti 2008 from me and Maarten! May all the best come to you and so on! :P
Jalandhar, what fame the city holds? Well, the manufacturing of sports articles and fashion like Adidas and Reebok. Hence a lot of the guys walk in sweaters or track suits of said brands. Oh, and wikipedia tells us that Apache Indian originally hails from Jalandhar. Wow, boom shak-a-lak it is. :)
We were at the Harballabh festival for 3 days, the main days that the Indian classical masters would perform their intricate styles of improvisation and themed raga's. The festival was set in the Devi Talab temple where we also cheaply stayed in the Mandir of the temple (a Mandir is a sort of holy hotel for pilgrims on temple grounds). Very handy for us, as we just had to walk up 2 stairs to be at peace in our rooms after every festival night.
The temple complex was quite a surreal place because it also was a holy entertainment park where many locals and Punjabi's come looking for blessings, like a small Disneyland -or Efteling- of some sorts, but then hindu inspired! One *attraction* was a grotto that had a big lion mouthed entrence in which faithfull kids and adults could walk into knee deep water and make a blessing at a Shiva shrine. Allover the park there were big plastic or stone statues of Hindu gods and holy animals, made colorful to attract the children's attention.
We sort of got a press accreditation by request and the organization arranged the room cheaply for us. sweet! But we didn't get press cards or anything, rather our skin color seemed to be enough so that every festival person including the armed guards with AK47's, let us into the backstage and vip buffet area. Yup, again free buffet food of high class quality. We're almost getting a bit spoiled from it you might think heh ;)
We weren't just there to freeload, but really for the 3 days of live music by a whole lineup of famous classical Indian musicians, mostly from Northern India.
I only know a little bit about raga's and what specific rhythms they consist of in building up their improvisation, but by far not enough to give it a decent review. Plus, that would be too academic and not fun to read if you have no clue what raga's are or how Indian classical music sounds like. The simple approach it is, so here it goes. Reviews!
oh yeah, It all took place in a big white tent and everyone was seated upon thin matrasses on the floor. You needed to take your shoes off and deliver them to the shoe-keepers. This worked well for softly sitting down in a lotus position, or lying down and slumbering. Finally, no standing up to do at a festival with good music. Only downside was that there was a faint socky and footy smell in the air though.
Day 1, 28th
Ustad Ali Ahmed Khan & Party (Ustad is like the title of Maestro in the west)
bah, we arrived late as we spent too much time in the internet cafe, writing the previous post, so we missed him playing. I really wanted to hear his Shehnai (double reed flute) improvisations. We did see him though, backstage that is. We heard from the other press folks that it was amazing. yay.
Shri Sabri Khan & Family
2 fella's -father and son- where duelling each other on the Sarangi goatskin violin with a Santoor (zither/cimbalum) on the background. It sounded quite nice but it only really got going after 45 minutes when the improvisations went fluent and the tempo of the raga's became faster and heavier. It did sound a little bit clean and on the safe side compared to Sarangi playing of the Langa's in Rajasthan that is played in a rougher and more melodical manner. It's Indian classical music after all, which is always more safe than the Indian village folk music.
Pandit K. Upendra Bhatt (Pandit indicates the master level of a skilled Indian musician)
Bhatt is famous for his vocal quality, we read. The raga's he performed were done in a very deep voice which he could also raise and twinge to get that extra special quality in Hindi singing. He was accompanied by harmonium, tabla and tambura and it went well as the focus was still more on his voice than the instruments. He had a good grasp on us and his voice soothed our minds with spiritual hymns.
Shri Nishat Khan (Shri is the term for Mister btw)
Nishar Khan is a special case, being one of the young generation he likes to experiment more with other world styles and has taken bits and pieces from contemporary jazz, rock and flamenco into his playing style. He took a looooong time tuning up his Sitar, which was quite annoying. It began a bit slow and with average repetitive sitar melodies where the rhythm was walking at a slow pace. He was showing off quite a lot too, with every quick turnover looking at the audience with bubbly eyes to get a reaction. So people clapped and gave him too much respect for flimsy play. -You'll never find this kinda show-off behavior with fingerpick guitarists, who are equally a skilled, but ok-. Finally after meddling 1 hour of his 2 hour show, the pace pick up and by wonder, he started to play good! Inspired as he suddenly was, he mixed classical Indian raga's with flamenco and fierce roughly played segments and he reached the height that was promised in the booklet. In the end I must admit that he was really good, but that says more about his second hour than his total performance.
side note:
-He wouldn't be the last one either to annoy us with tuning, as a lot of artists took their time too easy to tune all strings. This caused 30 minutes of twiddling around and a lot of uninspired beginnings to their raga's so that half of their performances were uninteresting. We simply wondered why they just couldn't tune up backstage or in their hotel room (the same mandir as us) instead of letting people lose time.....-
It was around 2 o'clock at night around this time and still an artist to come. wow!
Ustad Mubarak Ali
Last performance was a singer from Pakistan, Ustad Mubarak Ali as he was added to the bill last-minute and traveled from nearby Pakistan just the day after the Bhutto assassination. He did some talking beforehand in foreigners Hindi, but no words about the political situation. I guess in this part of the world one is not so easy to denounce a political system as western artists sometimes like to say about their own governments or leaders. His vocal style was way more different than Bhatt's style as Mubarak Ali sounded more raspy and closer to the Arab style of singing, making it a very interesting and spicy contrast to the general style of the night. It were still raga's that he sung, but the twist he gave on them made them sound more Sufi than Indian. He held our attention for the first 4 long raga's and after that it dwindled a little bit and repeated the same vocal style until there was no more new qualities to discover. It was about 4am by then, so I left to get sleep. After that he did pick up again and took a faster pitch, as we could hear from our room.
Day 2, 29th
For half of the afternoon we were busy walking around the streets of Jalandhar, eating a 20cent breakfast with nice massala and veggies, buying a whole stack of old cassette tapes of Punjabi folk, Sikh temple music and Pakistani pop. And basicly getting a lot of stares from locals. Jalandhar isn't touristy at all since there isn't anything of interest to visit for the average wanderer, so you quickly find yourself surrounded by people who want to get to know you. Though the city is ugly, the locals are quite nice folks. Much different from the bawdy and more direct Rajasthani's. Punjabi's like to introduce themselves in a more delicate way, not just the men but on several occasions even flirting teenage girls, with or without their mothers came up talking to us. The people also like taking photographs of us, putting their flustered baby in our hands, or posing with random groups of youngsters. It's kinda like being a sort of famous person without the heckling, but just the nice chat. We've figured out that the Punjabi's are more easy to unlock than the Rajasthani's and they open themselves all too eagerly to you, explaining you their problems our what's on their mind. They're chattyboxes by heart! Even their accent indicates a level of soundwaves that bounce up and down, giving it a charming blabbering ring. Also their looks are diverse. You have the Sikh people who have a more pale skin color that gives them a near Arabic/Persian look. Or the people with light skin color and blue/greenish eyes from the old northern tribes. Or those with a darker skin color and pointy noses, with ancestry from the old Sindh/Indus area (Pakistan) across the border. Since this region has been flooded so many times with different invaders like the Persians, Pathans, Mughuls who mixed with the local Vedic and Aryan population, the result is a vast pallet of mixed genes. Also here there are quite a number of people who have a certain skin disease -or rather a deflection- than turns them pale, near to white. White like someone from Iceland or the UK, or white as an albino. Michael Jackson even springs to mind. Sometimes their skin still has some patches of darker pigment, but sometimes not and paleness rules their lack of skin color. In India all these mixed looks are an interesting feat of numerous multicultural societies since the dawn of the continent.
We took a lot of photographs during our walk and while traffic was congested, all the folks on cycle riksha's were only to happy to pose. We've added those to the photo's in the Jalandhar folder. -and some below-
Back to the festival.
Ajay Singh
He had won last year's youth competition in the percussion category and we saw a bit of him before we went into town. His ruffling style on the tabla was amazing for such a young person in his early twenties and he ventured into more experimental rhythms than the traditional ones. We later talked to him and learned that he lives in the UK and is trying to land his career in Europe. He's surely on his way.
Shri Tejendra Narayan Mazumdar
This Indian musician also hailed from the UK and played the Rudra Veena, a traditional instrument that is the ancient ancestor of the Sitar. Its sounds are more delicate and softly plucked. You probably will have heard the Veena as background music if you've eaten in an Indian restaurant as it sounds as the typical instrument for spiritual tones. Not many musicians play this instrument anymore and we found it interesting that an Indian immigrant from the UK would keep this tradition alive while people in the native country don't do so much anymore. Perhaps old traditions die hard abroad in cultural exile, while they are easy to perish within the place of origin where culture evolves as societies also do. Mazumdar's set was quite nice, but as the Veena goes, it's such a delicate sound that it can quickly get overhauled by a rash tabla (or its high levels from the sounddesk) and so it happened. It's a pity, as the music was far more fitting and soothing without tabla. During dinner I would liked to speak to Mazumdar about above topic on transmigrated traditions, or at least his view on it. But I didn't, food took away the attention.
Pandit Rajan Mishra & Pandit Sajan Misra
Both folks from the east of the country on the Benares (Varanasi) - Kolkata (Calcutta) line where most classical artists live or come from. As we were eating, we heard bits and pieces of their set. They both played the Sitar and sung raga's. We can't remember much memorable from it all. Blame it on the class food.
Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma
Sharma was the star of the night we suddenly realized as people rushed him into the backstage area with a whole battery of press and fans on his tail. He sat down, looking bewildered from all the hustle, while we were eating across him. He's from Jammu the state north of Punjab and below Kashmir and he is a quirky pale fellow with a nearly grey haired afro. Maarten said he looked like dutch cabaretier Wim Sonnevelt. he plays the Santoor, the zither from Kashmir and he's the best master at it. He also took 30 or more minutes to tune up and appeared to be a sulky character on stage. His raga's began a bit dull again but halfway it picked up and he was off his virtual ways. We didn't stay for the full show and went for some *early* sleep at 3am.
Day 3, 30th
Ustad Maqbool Hussain Khan
As we woke up quite late, we didn't see him play but could hear him on the PA announcers from across the road where we had our breakfast. His vocals were amazing and with a deep tone he sang beautiful raga hymns that trembled with vigor. In between we also spent some time in the media room doing internet stuff, like writing letters to family and -ahem- the invisible editor ;)
Shri Kartik Kumar & Niladri Kumar
Father and son Kumar both play the Sitar and dueled each other with fast and layering melodies. It was a special contest and in the last 30 minutes they brought it to amazing heights when they started playing the Sitar roughly, as if bringing classical metal noise, wow! Also here the son was more on the experimental side, which was a perfect and matching contrast to the tidier tones of his father. Some more western influences where to be heard from N. Kumar junior and flamenco, fingerpick blues and rock riffs were to be heard. One of the more memorable performances of the festival for sure.
Smt. Savita Devi
Devi is a vocalist from Benares from a family line of musicians. As her mother was a famous vocal raga singer, she followed into her footsteps. Her voice was a bit on the high side, with the crack one someone that is in her middle old age. It was nice for 2 songs, but her voice wasn't our thing. A younger Indian fellow said it resembled the singing of a crow. Sure other people enjoyed her instead.
Ustad Tari Khan (Pakistan)
yes the famous Tari Khan, coming all the way from California where he runs his classy tabla school (like Zakhir Hussain). His skill is said to be equal to Zakhir Hussain, or no, perhaps already better as Tari Khan is younger and bound touch higher skies than his Indian counterpart. He started straight off with steady ruffling and steady tapping that continued for nearly 2 hours. Wow, exhilarating! It was like acoustic mathematics brought alive in sound and everyone held their breath, clapping loudly with every turnover and completion of his vocational calculation that he poeticly sung into the mic (that went like: ba ba ki bi ba, tak tak, ra sa ra bi do bi do etc., read more about that in the raga wikipedia piece). He was giving many a percussionist a run for their money, not to mention him easily outdoing the likes of Autechre or Squarepusher by merely the touch of 2 hands. "Why copy and paste rhythms in electronic music" he perhaps was speaking through his acoustic skills. Another fun bit was that he was drowning out the sound of talking people in the audience by providing a backfeed ring with a certain tap on the side of the tabla! How's that for controlling your audience in playful tones. Such class! Maarten was mesmerized by it all and we found ourselves lucky to have witnessed this display of beat divinity.
After the show, the whole press circus and fans followed him backstage so that the armed guards couldn't stop people anymore. Guns are just fashion, not an item to use thankfully. We followed the circus, trying to get a quick interview with Tari on camera. We had the luck of skin color and our faux press credentials that we got into the small room where Tari was. Just as Maarten was about to shake his hand and to ask a few question, his rucksack stuck to the light switch and turned it off, giving the people in the room a quick scare for no reason and rushing out haha. And *poof* when the lights switched back on, gone Tari was, out of the door aww! We did speak to the fellow who was accompanying him on the harmonium (which was unnecessary really), who in fact was a tabla master himself. He spoke about the mathematical quality of Tari's music, it being totally uneven, calculated straight from his head by pure improvisation and not put in quartered rhythms that you otherwise find in western or any style of percussion in pop music. Even this master admitted that Tari could not be followed by the best, so his gleaming manic smile and sweaty dripping on the stage next to Tari explained a lot suddenly :)
Pandit Bhola Nath Mishra
Nath Mishra was the closing act of the festival and promised to be a good raga vocalist which he made to be fully true, if not more. His voice had the deep droney quality that is fit for raga's but he could bend his voice in such a lush and livid manner that the raga's more sounded like spiritual folk songs. I was captured by his sound and melancholic melodies that went on an on as a parting song without end. An end had to come and the people of the organization assembled in front of the stage to throw heaps of orange bud flowers onto Mishra and the band, thereby spreading a sweet scent into the cold winter air.
The festival was over and we can only say to have been happy to be there. It also celebrated its 132nd edition, hats off! It therefore can rightfully calls itself the oldest and longest festival of Indian classical music. And all that for free, as no one has to pay entry because all the funding comes from donations and sponsors in the shape of rich individuals or corporate companies. All that without any promotional spam or annoying billboards to advertise, except for only a *thank you* board naming all the persons/entities who have given funds. Compared to all our more or less corporate festivals back home that prick out your eyes with brand names or commercial propaganda slander, this was a fresh and hassle free experience. Plus the organization didn't make you feel like cattle. Should you be a secret lover of Indian classical music, this is the festival you once must have attended.
Ok, enough about all that. In between we also did a lot of filming and recording in search of the Punjabi culture. In the next 2 weeks we'll return to Jalandhar as through some people in the Harballabh organization we can get help in recording Punjabi folk or special styles limited to Punjab. Jalandhar houses one of India's most renowned art institutions, which includes music ofcourse and more! The daughter of one of the organizers is a famous raga singer nowadays, so let's see what might come from that.
At the last night of the festival we also met Seema from Ludhiana, a widow who was all by herself at the festival, a combination of facts that otherwise condemn a woman to solitude and social restrains through traditional rules. Not Seema, as she explained herself to be an active person who has the permission from her deceased husband's family (with whom she and her daughter still live) to be as free as she wants to be. She is part of a theater group that touches social issues that play in India and has just finished doing a film on an AIDS awareness in India. Unlike the west, India still has a long way to travel as the knowledge about the AIDS virus is below par in the general opinion. *No AIDS = Know AIDS* is the rhyming slogan given to the campaign. Although of Hindu faith, Seema would normally be against contraception and safe sex by Hindu tradition, but she actually thinks open minded of the issue by also believing in the freedom of one's choice. Only that people should make conscious decisions and take appropriate protection if one should have pre-marital intercourse. She invited us so we will go to Ludhiana next week and record the theater on these issues. She might also be able to help us with local Punjabi folk musicians, so we'll see what will happen. Open books are a good thing here :)
New Year. Yes. We didn't do much. Hours before the clock stroke 12 we were sitting at a roadside bar, next to the big interstate highway overhead passage. Nice gritty and polluted setting. We had met Andy from Manchester at the festival who was here on his own. Andy is living in India for 8 years already, in a small village between the peaks of the northern state of Uttarakhand (or as Uttaranchal), where the first high slopes of the Himalaya loom. Andy before ran music shows in the UK and was acquainted with the Manchester and Birmingham indie scene until he packed his stuff to live a more free life in India in his own justified and self-made way. Nice to meet a person like that who knows the same people from your own network, making it another fun twist of fate. So us three ended up drinking at the roadside bar, where they served alcohol which is rare. In Punjab, alcohol is to be found aplenty, you normally can only buy and take home. We hadn't touched much alcohol since leaving Europe, but new year called for some relaxation. They had fine red Indian wine from the Maharashtra area, so it was a blessing. Indians by the way, can not hold their liquor. Really. After a few drinks they already are past their limit and get elastic legs, queasy bellies that need emptying or unintelligent waffling. It doesn't complement their soft characters at all and Andy told us that they can easily get aggressive after a few shots. The owner of the makeshift cafe and liquor store came for a talk and Maarten spotted a pistol tucked under his belt. He just asked what the gun was for and so on. Normal chatter. The owner explained about having gotten a permit from local police as he needs to protect his store. God knows from what. He then proceeded to entertain us all of the sudden by wanting to shoot the gun as an ode to us. Ermmmm ok... Maarten got the camera ready to film and so he shot his bullet, into the concrete of the interstate wall. Or so we think. That's not you average end to 2007, but it was ours. We took some cans of black imitation Guinness stout with us and went to the plot of land where Andy was camping out with his car, amidst a dark industrial area with patches of ground around. As Andy's town is cut off by snow till late this month, he is traveling around and sleeping in his car. With a matrass and even an internet connection built into his 1950 taxi car! Not bad at all. We talked, listened to music and nearly missed the new year passing by. Just some distant firework rockets, some people shouting in joy. Minutes later all was silent again on our side of the city. We could hear the thumping of beat music in the distance, but had no need for it. Instead we were listening to 70's Krautrock, Ivor Cutler and Bert Jansch. Not bad. Much better than the radio advertised *Latin Salsa Party in Hotel Maya, Jalandhar*, though that would have been funnier to film perhaps as a quaint experience of imported music. So the night went, guitar strummings and openings of cans while Andy spoke about how snow leopards had already killed 4 of his dogs. Snow leopards that also snatch small children of the town if they go out for a pee on the edge of the woods at dawn.
By 5.30 am we heard Big Ben striking through the airwaves of BBC Radio 4 on the internet. Some western sounds are more fun when you're far away remote from them. We got a bicycle riksha ride to our Mandir early in the morning, the very fresh morning as the nights here aren't too far from many European climates.
That was Jalandhar and yesterday we made our way to Amritsar, the holy place of the Golden Temple of the Sikhs.
Before at Jalandhar station we had been playing with 3 homeless boys for a while, giving them some banana's. They even threw their money coins at us, which we playfully threw away only for them to come back and wanting us to throw it further. It were funny boys, little rascals who seemed to like our unbiased contact and just wanted to play to undo their day, while the Indian people around us didn't like their presence so much. Big deal.
Our train ride of 1 hour took 5 hours. Delays and broken down trains in the middle of nowhere. Such is India.
Upon arrival at the temple, the goldenness beamed towards us and we decided to stay in the Gurudwara of the temple (the hotel for Sikh pilgrims), the Guru Ram Das place as recommend by a Punjabi couple from Amritsar. The entry was guarded by long bearded Sikhs armed with big spears, how great is that!
The rooms there are for free, though they rely on the base that you give a donation when you leave. And to add to it, there's even lukewarm water here! Which most Indian budget hotels do not even offer. There were already a lot of people asleep on their matrasses on the marble courtyard floor. Whole families, elderly couples, the impoverished and more, hundreds. That we got a room to shush our own spoiled habits are in stark contrast to the chilly air and cold floor that the pilgrims sleep on. Perhaps that's part of the true pilgrimage, though we haven't found out.
After that we went to see all of the temple complex and had to deliver our shoes as you need to before entering. Walking barefoot in winter time and ice cold marble isn't the most fun, but our feet got used to feeling numb. We also had to cover our heads with a scarf, so I made a turban out of my blanket shawl that made me look as a mushroomed Rajasthani nomad rather than a Sikh ;) Again we posed with the Indian and Sikh tourists before their camera's, "such fun time with the Indians" as Maarten likes to utter with joy ;)
Alike the sleeping, the food is also for free in the form of a donation. We took a metal thali plate with the pilgrims and sat in lotus positions in long line. As beggars we looked from down up to the food distributing Sikhs walking around with kettles and pots full of chappati bread, sour pickles and yellow dal lentils, holding up our hands as if proclaiming "spare some food please sir!" We ate ourselves full bellied, dropping dal sauce allover us.
On the belief of the Sikhs, it is a peculiar one as it really meddles between Islam and Hinduism, with slightly leaning more on the Islamic side through ways of dressing, praying (on knees, head touching ground) and the way how holy scriptures are being read by Sikh priests. Also the way how all accommodation and food is basically for free for those who have nothing is a genuine social gesture that is not easily to be found in the general world religions. I wouldn't say that the Sikhs are philanthropies by definition as they don't do good deeds to clear their own conscience. The Sikh community strongly believes in the virtue of work and in sharing the burden of it by voluntary shifts so everyone has to chip in.
On Bhutto and Pakistan. We won't be going to Pakistan since everyone is advising us to stay in India and also many of the western consulates and embassies have closed down so that we couldn't count on their help either (well, can we ever unless we pay through the nose?). But it's just way too unstable in Pakistan now. About Bhutto's death; the Musharraf government has released a statement that she died of fracturing her skull by banging her head against the roof from the bomb blast. No mention of any bullet wounds. That while all other reports and eyewitnesses accounts say that she was hit twice by shots in her neck and chest. Now her 19 year old son will lead the party. Imagine that, a 19 year old leading the most profiled key country in the Islamic world that both the Arabs and US are trying to pull apart, fighting for scraps of faith and oil pipe connections. Back to ancient times where rulers were always young. This time hopefully more wise than fierce. At what age did Alexander the Great pass through Pakistan, ravaging it all?
In the next days we will cover Amritsar, explore the Sikh temple music (which starts at 6am by the way) and go to the Pakistani border at Attari.
I'm off, have been sitting for 4 hours in the smell of paint now and I feel bubbles of hallucination prickling my mind, yowwwww.
Ok, some best photo's below. some Rajasthan (Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Barnawa, Deshnok), some Jalandhar
indeed so
honesty is the best
old Rajasthani instrument collection at Rupayan Sansthan
Malaram, the morchang player
Santa claus in Jodhpur, woah!
smoke in the hole
what the...
Jodhpurian moustache
cheeky wild street kids
blind old woman getting hair brushed
with Japanese oud playing friend
Jaisalmer fort
rawwwkstar!
posing females
family from our teacher Rampal in Jaisalmer
says it all
The Langa Khan's in Barnawa
with Mehruddin, the patriarch (white turban) and Nijam (black jacket)
Barnawa sand road
red beard!
at deshnok, rat temple
slurrrrp up!
wall poster at Bikaner. husbands, don't beat your wife!
inside the tent at Harballabh
theme park Devi Talab, yeah!
Maarten's tailor
bicycle riksha man. He waved to us on our last day
true stencil art!
shop board
ch-ching money decoration!
the garbage collecting gypsies of Jalandhar
Jalandhar, what fame the city holds? Well, the manufacturing of sports articles and fashion like Adidas and Reebok. Hence a lot of the guys walk in sweaters or track suits of said brands. Oh, and wikipedia tells us that Apache Indian originally hails from Jalandhar. Wow, boom shak-a-lak it is. :)
We were at the Harballabh festival for 3 days, the main days that the Indian classical masters would perform their intricate styles of improvisation and themed raga's. The festival was set in the Devi Talab temple where we also cheaply stayed in the Mandir of the temple (a Mandir is a sort of holy hotel for pilgrims on temple grounds). Very handy for us, as we just had to walk up 2 stairs to be at peace in our rooms after every festival night.
The temple complex was quite a surreal place because it also was a holy entertainment park where many locals and Punjabi's come looking for blessings, like a small Disneyland -or Efteling- of some sorts, but then hindu inspired! One *attraction* was a grotto that had a big lion mouthed entrence in which faithfull kids and adults could walk into knee deep water and make a blessing at a Shiva shrine. Allover the park there were big plastic or stone statues of Hindu gods and holy animals, made colorful to attract the children's attention.
We sort of got a press accreditation by request and the organization arranged the room cheaply for us. sweet! But we didn't get press cards or anything, rather our skin color seemed to be enough so that every festival person including the armed guards with AK47's, let us into the backstage and vip buffet area. Yup, again free buffet food of high class quality. We're almost getting a bit spoiled from it you might think heh ;)
We weren't just there to freeload, but really for the 3 days of live music by a whole lineup of famous classical Indian musicians, mostly from Northern India.
I only know a little bit about raga's and what specific rhythms they consist of in building up their improvisation, but by far not enough to give it a decent review. Plus, that would be too academic and not fun to read if you have no clue what raga's are or how Indian classical music sounds like. The simple approach it is, so here it goes. Reviews!
oh yeah, It all took place in a big white tent and everyone was seated upon thin matrasses on the floor. You needed to take your shoes off and deliver them to the shoe-keepers. This worked well for softly sitting down in a lotus position, or lying down and slumbering. Finally, no standing up to do at a festival with good music. Only downside was that there was a faint socky and footy smell in the air though.
Day 1, 28th
Ustad Ali Ahmed Khan & Party (Ustad is like the title of Maestro in the west)
bah, we arrived late as we spent too much time in the internet cafe, writing the previous post, so we missed him playing. I really wanted to hear his Shehnai (double reed flute) improvisations. We did see him though, backstage that is. We heard from the other press folks that it was amazing. yay.
Shri Sabri Khan & Family
2 fella's -father and son- where duelling each other on the Sarangi goatskin violin with a Santoor (zither/cimbalum) on the background. It sounded quite nice but it only really got going after 45 minutes when the improvisations went fluent and the tempo of the raga's became faster and heavier. It did sound a little bit clean and on the safe side compared to Sarangi playing of the Langa's in Rajasthan that is played in a rougher and more melodical manner. It's Indian classical music after all, which is always more safe than the Indian village folk music.
Pandit K. Upendra Bhatt (Pandit indicates the master level of a skilled Indian musician)
Bhatt is famous for his vocal quality, we read. The raga's he performed were done in a very deep voice which he could also raise and twinge to get that extra special quality in Hindi singing. He was accompanied by harmonium, tabla and tambura and it went well as the focus was still more on his voice than the instruments. He had a good grasp on us and his voice soothed our minds with spiritual hymns.
Shri Nishat Khan (Shri is the term for Mister btw)
Nishar Khan is a special case, being one of the young generation he likes to experiment more with other world styles and has taken bits and pieces from contemporary jazz, rock and flamenco into his playing style. He took a looooong time tuning up his Sitar, which was quite annoying. It began a bit slow and with average repetitive sitar melodies where the rhythm was walking at a slow pace. He was showing off quite a lot too, with every quick turnover looking at the audience with bubbly eyes to get a reaction. So people clapped and gave him too much respect for flimsy play. -You'll never find this kinda show-off behavior with fingerpick guitarists, who are equally a skilled, but ok-. Finally after meddling 1 hour of his 2 hour show, the pace pick up and by wonder, he started to play good! Inspired as he suddenly was, he mixed classical Indian raga's with flamenco and fierce roughly played segments and he reached the height that was promised in the booklet. In the end I must admit that he was really good, but that says more about his second hour than his total performance.
side note:
-He wouldn't be the last one either to annoy us with tuning, as a lot of artists took their time too easy to tune all strings. This caused 30 minutes of twiddling around and a lot of uninspired beginnings to their raga's so that half of their performances were uninteresting. We simply wondered why they just couldn't tune up backstage or in their hotel room (the same mandir as us) instead of letting people lose time.....-
It was around 2 o'clock at night around this time and still an artist to come. wow!
Ustad Mubarak Ali
Last performance was a singer from Pakistan, Ustad Mubarak Ali as he was added to the bill last-minute and traveled from nearby Pakistan just the day after the Bhutto assassination. He did some talking beforehand in foreigners Hindi, but no words about the political situation. I guess in this part of the world one is not so easy to denounce a political system as western artists sometimes like to say about their own governments or leaders. His vocal style was way more different than Bhatt's style as Mubarak Ali sounded more raspy and closer to the Arab style of singing, making it a very interesting and spicy contrast to the general style of the night. It were still raga's that he sung, but the twist he gave on them made them sound more Sufi than Indian. He held our attention for the first 4 long raga's and after that it dwindled a little bit and repeated the same vocal style until there was no more new qualities to discover. It was about 4am by then, so I left to get sleep. After that he did pick up again and took a faster pitch, as we could hear from our room.
Day 2, 29th
For half of the afternoon we were busy walking around the streets of Jalandhar, eating a 20cent breakfast with nice massala and veggies, buying a whole stack of old cassette tapes of Punjabi folk, Sikh temple music and Pakistani pop. And basicly getting a lot of stares from locals. Jalandhar isn't touristy at all since there isn't anything of interest to visit for the average wanderer, so you quickly find yourself surrounded by people who want to get to know you. Though the city is ugly, the locals are quite nice folks. Much different from the bawdy and more direct Rajasthani's. Punjabi's like to introduce themselves in a more delicate way, not just the men but on several occasions even flirting teenage girls, with or without their mothers came up talking to us. The people also like taking photographs of us, putting their flustered baby in our hands, or posing with random groups of youngsters. It's kinda like being a sort of famous person without the heckling, but just the nice chat. We've figured out that the Punjabi's are more easy to unlock than the Rajasthani's and they open themselves all too eagerly to you, explaining you their problems our what's on their mind. They're chattyboxes by heart! Even their accent indicates a level of soundwaves that bounce up and down, giving it a charming blabbering ring. Also their looks are diverse. You have the Sikh people who have a more pale skin color that gives them a near Arabic/Persian look. Or the people with light skin color and blue/greenish eyes from the old northern tribes. Or those with a darker skin color and pointy noses, with ancestry from the old Sindh/Indus area (Pakistan) across the border. Since this region has been flooded so many times with different invaders like the Persians, Pathans, Mughuls who mixed with the local Vedic and Aryan population, the result is a vast pallet of mixed genes. Also here there are quite a number of people who have a certain skin disease -or rather a deflection- than turns them pale, near to white. White like someone from Iceland or the UK, or white as an albino. Michael Jackson even springs to mind. Sometimes their skin still has some patches of darker pigment, but sometimes not and paleness rules their lack of skin color. In India all these mixed looks are an interesting feat of numerous multicultural societies since the dawn of the continent.
We took a lot of photographs during our walk and while traffic was congested, all the folks on cycle riksha's were only to happy to pose. We've added those to the photo's in the Jalandhar folder. -and some below-
Back to the festival.
Ajay Singh
He had won last year's youth competition in the percussion category and we saw a bit of him before we went into town. His ruffling style on the tabla was amazing for such a young person in his early twenties and he ventured into more experimental rhythms than the traditional ones. We later talked to him and learned that he lives in the UK and is trying to land his career in Europe. He's surely on his way.
Shri Tejendra Narayan Mazumdar
This Indian musician also hailed from the UK and played the Rudra Veena, a traditional instrument that is the ancient ancestor of the Sitar. Its sounds are more delicate and softly plucked. You probably will have heard the Veena as background music if you've eaten in an Indian restaurant as it sounds as the typical instrument for spiritual tones. Not many musicians play this instrument anymore and we found it interesting that an Indian immigrant from the UK would keep this tradition alive while people in the native country don't do so much anymore. Perhaps old traditions die hard abroad in cultural exile, while they are easy to perish within the place of origin where culture evolves as societies also do. Mazumdar's set was quite nice, but as the Veena goes, it's such a delicate sound that it can quickly get overhauled by a rash tabla (or its high levels from the sounddesk) and so it happened. It's a pity, as the music was far more fitting and soothing without tabla. During dinner I would liked to speak to Mazumdar about above topic on transmigrated traditions, or at least his view on it. But I didn't, food took away the attention.
Pandit Rajan Mishra & Pandit Sajan Misra
Both folks from the east of the country on the Benares (Varanasi) - Kolkata (Calcutta) line where most classical artists live or come from. As we were eating, we heard bits and pieces of their set. They both played the Sitar and sung raga's. We can't remember much memorable from it all. Blame it on the class food.
Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma
Sharma was the star of the night we suddenly realized as people rushed him into the backstage area with a whole battery of press and fans on his tail. He sat down, looking bewildered from all the hustle, while we were eating across him. He's from Jammu the state north of Punjab and below Kashmir and he is a quirky pale fellow with a nearly grey haired afro. Maarten said he looked like dutch cabaretier Wim Sonnevelt. he plays the Santoor, the zither from Kashmir and he's the best master at it. He also took 30 or more minutes to tune up and appeared to be a sulky character on stage. His raga's began a bit dull again but halfway it picked up and he was off his virtual ways. We didn't stay for the full show and went for some *early* sleep at 3am.
Day 3, 30th
Ustad Maqbool Hussain Khan
As we woke up quite late, we didn't see him play but could hear him on the PA announcers from across the road where we had our breakfast. His vocals were amazing and with a deep tone he sang beautiful raga hymns that trembled with vigor. In between we also spent some time in the media room doing internet stuff, like writing letters to family and -ahem- the invisible editor ;)
Shri Kartik Kumar & Niladri Kumar
Father and son Kumar both play the Sitar and dueled each other with fast and layering melodies. It was a special contest and in the last 30 minutes they brought it to amazing heights when they started playing the Sitar roughly, as if bringing classical metal noise, wow! Also here the son was more on the experimental side, which was a perfect and matching contrast to the tidier tones of his father. Some more western influences where to be heard from N. Kumar junior and flamenco, fingerpick blues and rock riffs were to be heard. One of the more memorable performances of the festival for sure.
Smt. Savita Devi
Devi is a vocalist from Benares from a family line of musicians. As her mother was a famous vocal raga singer, she followed into her footsteps. Her voice was a bit on the high side, with the crack one someone that is in her middle old age. It was nice for 2 songs, but her voice wasn't our thing. A younger Indian fellow said it resembled the singing of a crow. Sure other people enjoyed her instead.
Ustad Tari Khan (Pakistan)
yes the famous Tari Khan, coming all the way from California where he runs his classy tabla school (like Zakhir Hussain). His skill is said to be equal to Zakhir Hussain, or no, perhaps already better as Tari Khan is younger and bound touch higher skies than his Indian counterpart. He started straight off with steady ruffling and steady tapping that continued for nearly 2 hours. Wow, exhilarating! It was like acoustic mathematics brought alive in sound and everyone held their breath, clapping loudly with every turnover and completion of his vocational calculation that he poeticly sung into the mic (that went like: ba ba ki bi ba, tak tak, ra sa ra bi do bi do etc., read more about that in the raga wikipedia piece). He was giving many a percussionist a run for their money, not to mention him easily outdoing the likes of Autechre or Squarepusher by merely the touch of 2 hands. "Why copy and paste rhythms in electronic music" he perhaps was speaking through his acoustic skills. Another fun bit was that he was drowning out the sound of talking people in the audience by providing a backfeed ring with a certain tap on the side of the tabla! How's that for controlling your audience in playful tones. Such class! Maarten was mesmerized by it all and we found ourselves lucky to have witnessed this display of beat divinity.
After the show, the whole press circus and fans followed him backstage so that the armed guards couldn't stop people anymore. Guns are just fashion, not an item to use thankfully. We followed the circus, trying to get a quick interview with Tari on camera. We had the luck of skin color and our faux press credentials that we got into the small room where Tari was. Just as Maarten was about to shake his hand and to ask a few question, his rucksack stuck to the light switch and turned it off, giving the people in the room a quick scare for no reason and rushing out haha. And *poof* when the lights switched back on, gone Tari was, out of the door aww! We did speak to the fellow who was accompanying him on the harmonium (which was unnecessary really), who in fact was a tabla master himself. He spoke about the mathematical quality of Tari's music, it being totally uneven, calculated straight from his head by pure improvisation and not put in quartered rhythms that you otherwise find in western or any style of percussion in pop music. Even this master admitted that Tari could not be followed by the best, so his gleaming manic smile and sweaty dripping on the stage next to Tari explained a lot suddenly :)
Pandit Bhola Nath Mishra
Nath Mishra was the closing act of the festival and promised to be a good raga vocalist which he made to be fully true, if not more. His voice had the deep droney quality that is fit for raga's but he could bend his voice in such a lush and livid manner that the raga's more sounded like spiritual folk songs. I was captured by his sound and melancholic melodies that went on an on as a parting song without end. An end had to come and the people of the organization assembled in front of the stage to throw heaps of orange bud flowers onto Mishra and the band, thereby spreading a sweet scent into the cold winter air.
The festival was over and we can only say to have been happy to be there. It also celebrated its 132nd edition, hats off! It therefore can rightfully calls itself the oldest and longest festival of Indian classical music. And all that for free, as no one has to pay entry because all the funding comes from donations and sponsors in the shape of rich individuals or corporate companies. All that without any promotional spam or annoying billboards to advertise, except for only a *thank you* board naming all the persons/entities who have given funds. Compared to all our more or less corporate festivals back home that prick out your eyes with brand names or commercial propaganda slander, this was a fresh and hassle free experience. Plus the organization didn't make you feel like cattle. Should you be a secret lover of Indian classical music, this is the festival you once must have attended.
Ok, enough about all that. In between we also did a lot of filming and recording in search of the Punjabi culture. In the next 2 weeks we'll return to Jalandhar as through some people in the Harballabh organization we can get help in recording Punjabi folk or special styles limited to Punjab. Jalandhar houses one of India's most renowned art institutions, which includes music ofcourse and more! The daughter of one of the organizers is a famous raga singer nowadays, so let's see what might come from that.
At the last night of the festival we also met Seema from Ludhiana, a widow who was all by herself at the festival, a combination of facts that otherwise condemn a woman to solitude and social restrains through traditional rules. Not Seema, as she explained herself to be an active person who has the permission from her deceased husband's family (with whom she and her daughter still live) to be as free as she wants to be. She is part of a theater group that touches social issues that play in India and has just finished doing a film on an AIDS awareness in India. Unlike the west, India still has a long way to travel as the knowledge about the AIDS virus is below par in the general opinion. *No AIDS = Know AIDS* is the rhyming slogan given to the campaign. Although of Hindu faith, Seema would normally be against contraception and safe sex by Hindu tradition, but she actually thinks open minded of the issue by also believing in the freedom of one's choice. Only that people should make conscious decisions and take appropriate protection if one should have pre-marital intercourse. She invited us so we will go to Ludhiana next week and record the theater on these issues. She might also be able to help us with local Punjabi folk musicians, so we'll see what will happen. Open books are a good thing here :)
New Year. Yes. We didn't do much. Hours before the clock stroke 12 we were sitting at a roadside bar, next to the big interstate highway overhead passage. Nice gritty and polluted setting. We had met Andy from Manchester at the festival who was here on his own. Andy is living in India for 8 years already, in a small village between the peaks of the northern state of Uttarakhand (or as Uttaranchal), where the first high slopes of the Himalaya loom. Andy before ran music shows in the UK and was acquainted with the Manchester and Birmingham indie scene until he packed his stuff to live a more free life in India in his own justified and self-made way. Nice to meet a person like that who knows the same people from your own network, making it another fun twist of fate. So us three ended up drinking at the roadside bar, where they served alcohol which is rare. In Punjab, alcohol is to be found aplenty, you normally can only buy and take home. We hadn't touched much alcohol since leaving Europe, but new year called for some relaxation. They had fine red Indian wine from the Maharashtra area, so it was a blessing. Indians by the way, can not hold their liquor. Really. After a few drinks they already are past their limit and get elastic legs, queasy bellies that need emptying or unintelligent waffling. It doesn't complement their soft characters at all and Andy told us that they can easily get aggressive after a few shots. The owner of the makeshift cafe and liquor store came for a talk and Maarten spotted a pistol tucked under his belt. He just asked what the gun was for and so on. Normal chatter. The owner explained about having gotten a permit from local police as he needs to protect his store. God knows from what. He then proceeded to entertain us all of the sudden by wanting to shoot the gun as an ode to us. Ermmmm ok... Maarten got the camera ready to film and so he shot his bullet, into the concrete of the interstate wall. Or so we think. That's not you average end to 2007, but it was ours. We took some cans of black imitation Guinness stout with us and went to the plot of land where Andy was camping out with his car, amidst a dark industrial area with patches of ground around. As Andy's town is cut off by snow till late this month, he is traveling around and sleeping in his car. With a matrass and even an internet connection built into his 1950 taxi car! Not bad at all. We talked, listened to music and nearly missed the new year passing by. Just some distant firework rockets, some people shouting in joy. Minutes later all was silent again on our side of the city. We could hear the thumping of beat music in the distance, but had no need for it. Instead we were listening to 70's Krautrock, Ivor Cutler and Bert Jansch. Not bad. Much better than the radio advertised *Latin Salsa Party in Hotel Maya, Jalandhar*, though that would have been funnier to film perhaps as a quaint experience of imported music. So the night went, guitar strummings and openings of cans while Andy spoke about how snow leopards had already killed 4 of his dogs. Snow leopards that also snatch small children of the town if they go out for a pee on the edge of the woods at dawn.
By 5.30 am we heard Big Ben striking through the airwaves of BBC Radio 4 on the internet. Some western sounds are more fun when you're far away remote from them. We got a bicycle riksha ride to our Mandir early in the morning, the very fresh morning as the nights here aren't too far from many European climates.
That was Jalandhar and yesterday we made our way to Amritsar, the holy place of the Golden Temple of the Sikhs.
Before at Jalandhar station we had been playing with 3 homeless boys for a while, giving them some banana's. They even threw their money coins at us, which we playfully threw away only for them to come back and wanting us to throw it further. It were funny boys, little rascals who seemed to like our unbiased contact and just wanted to play to undo their day, while the Indian people around us didn't like their presence so much. Big deal.
Our train ride of 1 hour took 5 hours. Delays and broken down trains in the middle of nowhere. Such is India.
Upon arrival at the temple, the goldenness beamed towards us and we decided to stay in the Gurudwara of the temple (the hotel for Sikh pilgrims), the Guru Ram Das place as recommend by a Punjabi couple from Amritsar. The entry was guarded by long bearded Sikhs armed with big spears, how great is that!
The rooms there are for free, though they rely on the base that you give a donation when you leave. And to add to it, there's even lukewarm water here! Which most Indian budget hotels do not even offer. There were already a lot of people asleep on their matrasses on the marble courtyard floor. Whole families, elderly couples, the impoverished and more, hundreds. That we got a room to shush our own spoiled habits are in stark contrast to the chilly air and cold floor that the pilgrims sleep on. Perhaps that's part of the true pilgrimage, though we haven't found out.
After that we went to see all of the temple complex and had to deliver our shoes as you need to before entering. Walking barefoot in winter time and ice cold marble isn't the most fun, but our feet got used to feeling numb. We also had to cover our heads with a scarf, so I made a turban out of my blanket shawl that made me look as a mushroomed Rajasthani nomad rather than a Sikh ;) Again we posed with the Indian and Sikh tourists before their camera's, "such fun time with the Indians" as Maarten likes to utter with joy ;)
Alike the sleeping, the food is also for free in the form of a donation. We took a metal thali plate with the pilgrims and sat in lotus positions in long line. As beggars we looked from down up to the food distributing Sikhs walking around with kettles and pots full of chappati bread, sour pickles and yellow dal lentils, holding up our hands as if proclaiming "spare some food please sir!" We ate ourselves full bellied, dropping dal sauce allover us.
On the belief of the Sikhs, it is a peculiar one as it really meddles between Islam and Hinduism, with slightly leaning more on the Islamic side through ways of dressing, praying (on knees, head touching ground) and the way how holy scriptures are being read by Sikh priests. Also the way how all accommodation and food is basically for free for those who have nothing is a genuine social gesture that is not easily to be found in the general world religions. I wouldn't say that the Sikhs are philanthropies by definition as they don't do good deeds to clear their own conscience. The Sikh community strongly believes in the virtue of work and in sharing the burden of it by voluntary shifts so everyone has to chip in.
On Bhutto and Pakistan. We won't be going to Pakistan since everyone is advising us to stay in India and also many of the western consulates and embassies have closed down so that we couldn't count on their help either (well, can we ever unless we pay through the nose?). But it's just way too unstable in Pakistan now. About Bhutto's death; the Musharraf government has released a statement that she died of fracturing her skull by banging her head against the roof from the bomb blast. No mention of any bullet wounds. That while all other reports and eyewitnesses accounts say that she was hit twice by shots in her neck and chest. Now her 19 year old son will lead the party. Imagine that, a 19 year old leading the most profiled key country in the Islamic world that both the Arabs and US are trying to pull apart, fighting for scraps of faith and oil pipe connections. Back to ancient times where rulers were always young. This time hopefully more wise than fierce. At what age did Alexander the Great pass through Pakistan, ravaging it all?
In the next days we will cover Amritsar, explore the Sikh temple music (which starts at 6am by the way) and go to the Pakistani border at Attari.
I'm off, have been sitting for 4 hours in the smell of paint now and I feel bubbles of hallucination prickling my mind, yowwwww.
Ok, some best photo's below. some Rajasthan (Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Barnawa, Deshnok), some Jalandhar
indeed so
honesty is the best
old Rajasthani instrument collection at Rupayan Sansthan
Malaram, the morchang player
Santa claus in Jodhpur, woah!
smoke in the hole
what the...
Jodhpurian moustache
cheeky wild street kids
blind old woman getting hair brushed
with Japanese oud playing friend
Jaisalmer fort
rawwwkstar!
posing females
family from our teacher Rampal in Jaisalmer
says it all
The Langa Khan's in Barnawa
with Mehruddin, the patriarch (white turban) and Nijam (black jacket)
Barnawa sand road
red beard!
at deshnok, rat temple
slurrrrp up!
wall poster at Bikaner. husbands, don't beat your wife!
inside the tent at Harballabh
theme park Devi Talab, yeah!
Maarten's tailor
bicycle riksha man. He waved to us on our last day
true stencil art!
shop board
ch-ching money decoration!
the garbage collecting gypsies of Jalandhar
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Jaisalmer Lohars, xmas with the Langa's and Bikaner rats and the assassination of Bhutto
Long read ahead, in 5 days a lot happens.
Jaisalmer was a real goat town, goats everywhere. And not to forget cows ofcourse.
Our idea during our short Jaisalmer stay was to travel with a group of musicians into the desert 40 km’s further, where they would be playing for tourists who were on camel safari. Since we were not going to do a camel safari this time it was better to get the real thing done by driving with musicians in a jeep, seeing them prepare their performance, playing and returning back with them. And we managed that by paying them for putting up with us. The ride was pretty bumpy and the scenery soon turned sandy and desolate with sparse houses next to the road, which made us stare out of the open backside of the jeep. We were 12 people crammed sardine style into one jeep topped with their instruments, because they normally travel with *just*10 people per jeep. Guess who those 2 extra persons were, hah. When we got to Khuri we saw the impressive sand dunes rising nearby, an amazing sight. Khuri is a little village from which camel safari’s leave or pass through for the obvious reason and we were a bit disappointed to learn that the musicians wouldn’t play on those dunes but in a open aired courtyard of a hotel instead. Bah. As they prepared, Maarten filmed the views and their -female- dress-up, I strolled around talking to some locals and kids and ended up at the only grocery shop in town with kids in tow to buy them some chocolate. Neither me or Maarten easily buy candy for groups of kids, as playing the white sugardaddy (or sugarmommy such as the many female tourists like to play) serves no sincere purpose or example at all to the locals nor the kids except that the foreigner feels redeemed for his/her compassion. The local adults even get annoyed with this dandy habit that some tourists carry out and we can understand that. I mean, it’s not like these kids need sweets, but anyway I fell prey to their sugary wishes and returning them with sweets. A bigger crowd of kids had gathered and still running in from everywhere, pushing the kids away that I had original intended to give the sweets. After giving a few choc drops in the chaos I gave up and donated the rest of the sweets to a local old man who could control the hand-out much better than I could.
Back at the courtyard, the tourist were pouring in and taking their seats. No western tourists though, but eastern tourists from India even, as they all came from Kolkata region (Calcutta). We saw the men dress up as female Kabeliya dancers in matching dresses. We knew that there would be Kabeliya dancers, so we naturally expected women…but as no women were in our jeep we already started wondering, even after the guys who were to dress up, gave us some hints. Needless to say, even as males taking up the female act they danced amazingly well and felline. At some point one of the dancers did a special spiral dance which made him turn around the whole courtyard on his knees while the dress covered and touched the ground. The music was ok, but they played just the touristy songs that we know all too well, like the folk snobs we seem to have become now –ho ho-. It did get very funny at the end when one of the dancers came to our spot and dragged me (oh no!) off my chair to dance with him in front of all the tourists, who ofcourse were laughing heartily. But it also broke the ice for the Kolkata people and they soon were all dancing around me. Yup, Indian people and dancing, always a good combination! One older guy was pretty drunk and loud and another old guy had bizarre moves as well as the kids who went mental in spastic kicking moves. Well, Maarten and his camera couldn’t be happier and through his camera he escaped to dance with Kolkata men like I had to endure, though fun it was. Ah well. Added to that, the best male dancer of our musicians asked me if I wanted to spend the night with him.
I don’t think men have ever offered themselves so much to us as here, but that would be a another bunch of stories that ended with jolly *nahi’s*. That being said, the times that fathers have tried to marry their prime teenage or adult daughters off to us have also been numerous.
We were supposed to leave Jaisalmer the next morning and when we got out with our bags we noticed it was grey skies all around and raining softly, here at the outskirts of the desert! While walking to the bus station just opposite the road of our hotel, we bumped into Neire -how could it be such coincidence-, who was chatting away to some Lohar folks at the side of the road. Neither of us knew that we would be in Jaisalmer at the same time, especially since Neire had already been here and it was rather funny after we had posted his pictures on the blog days before –which he also didn’t know-. He came back to buy some morchang mouth harps from a skilled Lohar metal worker and musician. We followed him to the Lohar quarter nearby, which is the area where also all the other folk musicians live from several castes.
We actually wanted to get to Barnawa, the remote village of the Langa musicians, so we quickly called them to check if they were expecting us. It was a stroke of good luck that they rather wanted us to come the next day as we were only too happy to stay with the Lohar musicians and Neire and hear some music. The father of the house introduced himself kindly as Mohan Lal Lohar. I’ve heard his name before, but I can’t put my finger on it from where….from the net, readings on rajasthani music or unlicensed compilation cd’s? who knows. He was very open about being recorded by us and gave a lot of his time without any hidden agenda behind it. We were sitting in the courtyard while his family sat with us, the goats walked on the roof and the rain was sparsely dripping on us. Mohan played several morchang pieces for us and then brought all his different sets of flutes out, from algoza’s (double flutes) to murli’s (snakecharmer flute). It sounded amazing and we sat quietly listening to him as he kept on playing and giving explanations to the songs and instruments. As he is a Lohar metal worker, he gilds morchangs himself and he showed us a whole variety of them. How could we not buy some? Beautiful handcrafted instruments with good sound and at a good price to support his family. As he understood our musical interest, he also made us listen to a cassette of his group in which he and his cousin play in. Such rough folk sound! Upon the first tones it sounded like a bizarre mash of Nass el Ghiwane or Tinariwen’s Northern African Gnawa sound mashed with recorded roughness equal to the feedback of Konono No.1 or any semi-distorted group. It had a Rajasthani coating ofcourse, but unlike the other Rajasthani folk musi. The nature of these songs -or rather chants- was more repetitive, with simple recurring melodies and ongoing chants to a near trancelike state. Wow, flustered. We will record a session with Mohan and his group in February to see if we can take it further for them, perhaps a proper release? Later in the afternoon we visited Thokmey again, a kind Tibetan person who we met a few days before in his shop in the Jaisalmer fort. We had bought a few Tibetan metal singing bowls and he gently explained us how to use them in sound and for relaxation. Metal rimmed stroking drones as lush soundscapes that do the body and mind good. Hmmm healthy soundscapes. We also talked about Thokmey about Tibet, as we might go to Tibet in March if time allows. After meditating together in his cosy small room in silent darkness we said goodbye, perhaps to see him again in the near future.
We took an early morning bus towards Jodhpur as to get to the town of Barnawa Jagir we had to get off at Shergarh, in the middle of nowhere 100 km's before Jodhpur. We attracted a lot of stares and gazing children in Shergar. A local told me that in the past year only 2 whites had come through Shergarh. On the phone Mehruddin Khan had promised to pick us up, though his tiny knowledge of English and our equally tiny Hindi made it a difficult talk. We just had to hope that he would come, or him perhaps hoping that we would be waiting in Shergarh so that he didn't need to take a jeep 30 km's for nothing. Mehruddin did arrive and we were taken to the village, this time really driving on sand roads only and past empty spaces with just bush and small trees decorating the dry hills. Small brick or mud huts with straw roofs clustered together into village circles where people lived in rural conditions without electricity. Most were tending their livestock of goats and cows and some had little acres to grow vegetables. We stopped in one of those small villages as Khan wanted to inspect the construction of a well. He later told us that he is financing the building of several wells in 8 or so villages in this region. This way and in the next dasys we quickly learned that he holds a certain authority as a sort of tribal chief or mayor in this remote region and therefore he makes the noble effort in bettering conditions for the locals. Either through his own musical earnings or from retaining contacts with local district authorities.
Upon arrival in his home village Barnawa Jagir, it seemed as if the whole village flooded to come and see us. At least all the young children, which must have been 100 or so, not even counting the ones that were working at that moment. Again the flustered looks and curiosity steered their behavior to swamp us with jeers, touches and questions. Overflow of attention went on and when we could rest a bit in Khan's house -the biggest and only concrete house of the village-, we got swamped by his family and close friends. We didn't mind and enjoyed it, but it takes up a lot of your energy. That we also learned in these 2 days. ;) So, this was the early evening of christmas night, 24th. The house was split up in different parts, where one part was for cooking, the rooms of his sons, the room of his wife, while his own room in which we stayed, stood loose from the rest. Hah, he even had satelite dish tv installed and over 50 channels. Imagine, it's kinda bizarre you find yourself in a very remote part of the state, dry and desert-like, where not many people even have electricity or decent houses as we know it back home, and there we were...watching some kitsch Bollywood action movie on tv with the whole family. At some point when zapping, we saw a glimpse of the match between Manchester Utd and Everton, far away in cold and wet winterish England, yet here in dry and warm spheres. Funny that.
We ate a glorious meal of vegetables, omelet and chappati bread and we went to bed early enough, exhausted from the travel and absorbed attention. The next day Mehruddin had the idea to take us to a remote Kabeliya village in the Barmer district near Balotra and to record female songs and dances of people that did not perform for tourists but for their patrons only. In this case, we think that Mehruddin was acting the role of patron, so that he could demand them to play for us. We did have to hire a jeep and pay the Kabeliya women, which was normal so we agreed on a fee, more than we had in mind for our low budget but a chance not to miss either. Another ride in desert and remote parts, 70 km's and there we were on top of a small sandhill where a small Kabeliya village with similar straw roofed huts existed, without electricity. This village whose name we didn't catch, was the home of the Nath people, a subcaste within the Kabeliya caste who are known for their combined female singing style. Also here the attention of the whole village was caught by our sight and all kids circled around us, though some were more scared as they probably had never seen a white person in the flesh. Even many of the women were looking amazed at our skin features, Maarten's height, blue eyes, lanky blond curls and eyebrow piercing, trying to touch or study them. We had to wait several hours as the women didn't hasten to prepare and our jeep had to pick up another singer in a bigger village. Their best female singer was struck by malaria, but she still would perform for us. Whether that was because of the lure of promised money or Mehruddin's demand, we didn't find out. In the meantime we played shabby cricket with the kids, throwing balls and while Maarten was taking a nap on the rubber band beds, I got several babies pushed into my arms to hold. Some babies got frightened by my unusual looks, while the mothers laughed at my effort to shush. When all was ready, 3 women of various ages (from young adults to the middle aged woman with malaria) started singing lines that sometimes supported each other in range or entwined into polyphonic singing. Amazing voices and they sung songs that we did not hear before, mostly those songs that they sing in the village and for special occasions. In some songs, 1 or 2 of the women or another girl started dancing in a very small circle, turning around and swaying without losing her direction nor pace.
At the end of the afternoon we were finished. Many people in the village asked us for money, but how can you help so many families at once without discriminating other families? We hope that at least our fee will benefit many of them as it normally goes in such villages, we were told. The for them high fee had a good justification in means of their skills and circumstances and our ability to give.
When we returned, we got a mighty good dinner of wholegrain badi breads and pieces of mutton (goat) put in front of us. Yeah we are vegetarians, so what to do?
Maarten more than me, as I still eat fish and sometimes meat on special occasions. To refuse would be impolite and as it was christmas day, well, it surely was somewhat special to eat the mutton, so we did and it tasted great -blush blush-. Not that we cared about the sake of a christmas dinner. The Khan's did neither, as they are Islamic according to the Muhammadan tradition that many Rajasthani nomad castes follow.
In the evening as well as the next morning we recorded sessions with Mehruddin and his brother Nijam. Mehruddin's session consisted of the Surandi and Sarangi, along Dholak, a hollow jug or pot and Khartals for percussion. We were very tired, still from the visit at the Nath village so after Mehruddin's session we fell asleep quickly. Nijam's session the next morning was done by the Algoza double flute and also with Dholak. Both sessions were very good as it straight away proved the high professional level of the brothers in Rajasthani and Langa music. Playing several international tours or have albums released on world music labels isn't a simple thing to do. We had to leave after Nijam's session, as we had to get to more north on our way to Punjab. But before all that, we had to agree on a price to pay to Mehruddin as patriarch of the Khan family. We had already told him about our low budget, despite us being from Europe or thinking that we surely had a financial back-up in the form of payed work if we recorded his sessions and staying at his house. Fair enough. In the end the demanded fee was *a lot* higher than he first made us believe so we felt genuinely disappointed after these 2 magnificent days.
It was a pity that he didn't make it clear to us from the start what his expectations were and what costs would be added. Maybe it was also our fault for not taking initiative earlier either. In the end we paid a hefty sum, something we would have never paid if we had known before. But just as with the Nath we now feel good about it, as we know that Mehruddin will distribute most of this money for the families and towns and not just to his own chest. Also the experience counts a lot for us and we are happy to have been, seen and done all this in Barnawa Jagir.
Mehruddin took us by jeep to Jodhpur and all last/tiny financial squabbles were solved with some advice of Kuldeep of Rupayan Sansthan institute. We don't blame Mehruddin, since that is the way it went and we parted without further anger.
Jodhpur is such a bizarre city with quirky locals, we don't know why but except of the good people of Rupayan who have helped us a great deal, we otherwise encountered a lot of social stumble blocks with locals, who either could or would not help us for the most simple things or make it difficult without reason. Kinda funny really. Not to mention the amount of people who walked around with a jink from their legs, we lost count.
We got to Bikaner in the middle of the night on a very slowwww train from Jodhpur.
In Bikaner there isn't much to do, so the only thing of importance to us what to visit Deshnok, where the Karna Mati temple was. The temple famous for being filled with rats, oh yes! Holy rats, as legend says that the goddess Karni Mata brought all the dead storytellers back to life in the shape of rats. You have to enter without shoes. Me on bare feet, Maarten still with socks. We had expected rooms filled to the roof with rats as your mind would quickly revel about, but the amount of rats was a little disillusionment as the rats weren't that numerous. And despite their are being fed fresh milk, grains and sweets every day, you would think they would look healthy. Wrong, as a lot of them had scabs from fighting, scruffy bodies and sometimes missing an eye or two or having swollen body parts. Yum. We fed some rats from our hands with sweets we bought, but it wasn't any more special than what Maarten had done night before at Jodhpur station. Which was jumping down on the rails in between the fat station sewer rats and feeding them cookies. It was fun though to see the rats running around fairly relaxed in broad daylight and by running over people's feet and thus scaring the obvious folks who feared them (mostly women, western tourists and others). Next to us someone -a female tourist- had stepped on a young rat by accident, so it bled to death by the head, yuck. Temple law says that anyone who harms/kills a rat in the temple has to pay a fine of the rat's weight in gold. No temple persons were around at that moment, luckily for the crusher.
So, that was the rat temple, short lived fun. Maarten filmed some scenes and we left. We finally got some things repaired in Bikaner as we both had technical problems with our battery packs and other stuff which limited us for the last week or so.
All done, so we could take the sleep night train to Jalandhar, Punjab, where we are now since this afternoon! On a sleeper night train of 12 hours long, enough time to snooze. Such change of scenery and people already! Lots of lush green fields filled with corn, grains and vegetables (almost looking like western Belgium or northern France) which is in stark contrast to the dry yellow lands of Rajasthan of the past 2 months. Also the people here speak with different accents and wear the sikh turbans.
This morning when we passed Firozpur, we were just a few kilometers away from the Pakistan border cut off by the river Sutlej. We are supposed to go to Pakistan Punjab next week, but as you might have heard about the sudden chaos in Pakistan with the assassination of supposed female president Benazir Bhutto, we don't know now if we can get in or even get a visa. Or if it's safe for us to go....hmmm. We have only heard good stories about Pakistan from other travelers so far, so it's hard to say really.
More about that tomorrow. Now we're off to the Shree Baba Harballabh Sangeet Sammelan festival of Punjabi and classical music for the next 3 days, on a press accreditation!
Oh yeah, for pictures, look to the right hand side in the link bar as Maarten has made a nifty photoviewer some weeks ago where we are uploading all photo's according to the places we've been. We'll limit the amount of photo's in the posts from now on as it takes a lot of time for us loading them up and for you loading the blog.
...our next project in Punjab about to kick off!
Jaisalmer was a real goat town, goats everywhere. And not to forget cows ofcourse.
Our idea during our short Jaisalmer stay was to travel with a group of musicians into the desert 40 km’s further, where they would be playing for tourists who were on camel safari. Since we were not going to do a camel safari this time it was better to get the real thing done by driving with musicians in a jeep, seeing them prepare their performance, playing and returning back with them. And we managed that by paying them for putting up with us. The ride was pretty bumpy and the scenery soon turned sandy and desolate with sparse houses next to the road, which made us stare out of the open backside of the jeep. We were 12 people crammed sardine style into one jeep topped with their instruments, because they normally travel with *just*10 people per jeep. Guess who those 2 extra persons were, hah. When we got to Khuri we saw the impressive sand dunes rising nearby, an amazing sight. Khuri is a little village from which camel safari’s leave or pass through for the obvious reason and we were a bit disappointed to learn that the musicians wouldn’t play on those dunes but in a open aired courtyard of a hotel instead. Bah. As they prepared, Maarten filmed the views and their -female- dress-up, I strolled around talking to some locals and kids and ended up at the only grocery shop in town with kids in tow to buy them some chocolate. Neither me or Maarten easily buy candy for groups of kids, as playing the white sugardaddy (or sugarmommy such as the many female tourists like to play) serves no sincere purpose or example at all to the locals nor the kids except that the foreigner feels redeemed for his/her compassion. The local adults even get annoyed with this dandy habit that some tourists carry out and we can understand that. I mean, it’s not like these kids need sweets, but anyway I fell prey to their sugary wishes and returning them with sweets. A bigger crowd of kids had gathered and still running in from everywhere, pushing the kids away that I had original intended to give the sweets. After giving a few choc drops in the chaos I gave up and donated the rest of the sweets to a local old man who could control the hand-out much better than I could.
Back at the courtyard, the tourist were pouring in and taking their seats. No western tourists though, but eastern tourists from India even, as they all came from Kolkata region (Calcutta). We saw the men dress up as female Kabeliya dancers in matching dresses. We knew that there would be Kabeliya dancers, so we naturally expected women…but as no women were in our jeep we already started wondering, even after the guys who were to dress up, gave us some hints. Needless to say, even as males taking up the female act they danced amazingly well and felline. At some point one of the dancers did a special spiral dance which made him turn around the whole courtyard on his knees while the dress covered and touched the ground. The music was ok, but they played just the touristy songs that we know all too well, like the folk snobs we seem to have become now –ho ho-. It did get very funny at the end when one of the dancers came to our spot and dragged me (oh no!) off my chair to dance with him in front of all the tourists, who ofcourse were laughing heartily. But it also broke the ice for the Kolkata people and they soon were all dancing around me. Yup, Indian people and dancing, always a good combination! One older guy was pretty drunk and loud and another old guy had bizarre moves as well as the kids who went mental in spastic kicking moves. Well, Maarten and his camera couldn’t be happier and through his camera he escaped to dance with Kolkata men like I had to endure, though fun it was. Ah well. Added to that, the best male dancer of our musicians asked me if I wanted to spend the night with him.
I don’t think men have ever offered themselves so much to us as here, but that would be a another bunch of stories that ended with jolly *nahi’s*. That being said, the times that fathers have tried to marry their prime teenage or adult daughters off to us have also been numerous.
We were supposed to leave Jaisalmer the next morning and when we got out with our bags we noticed it was grey skies all around and raining softly, here at the outskirts of the desert! While walking to the bus station just opposite the road of our hotel, we bumped into Neire -how could it be such coincidence-, who was chatting away to some Lohar folks at the side of the road. Neither of us knew that we would be in Jaisalmer at the same time, especially since Neire had already been here and it was rather funny after we had posted his pictures on the blog days before –which he also didn’t know-. He came back to buy some morchang mouth harps from a skilled Lohar metal worker and musician. We followed him to the Lohar quarter nearby, which is the area where also all the other folk musicians live from several castes.
We actually wanted to get to Barnawa, the remote village of the Langa musicians, so we quickly called them to check if they were expecting us. It was a stroke of good luck that they rather wanted us to come the next day as we were only too happy to stay with the Lohar musicians and Neire and hear some music. The father of the house introduced himself kindly as Mohan Lal Lohar. I’ve heard his name before, but I can’t put my finger on it from where….from the net, readings on rajasthani music or unlicensed compilation cd’s? who knows. He was very open about being recorded by us and gave a lot of his time without any hidden agenda behind it. We were sitting in the courtyard while his family sat with us, the goats walked on the roof and the rain was sparsely dripping on us. Mohan played several morchang pieces for us and then brought all his different sets of flutes out, from algoza’s (double flutes) to murli’s (snakecharmer flute). It sounded amazing and we sat quietly listening to him as he kept on playing and giving explanations to the songs and instruments. As he is a Lohar metal worker, he gilds morchangs himself and he showed us a whole variety of them. How could we not buy some? Beautiful handcrafted instruments with good sound and at a good price to support his family. As he understood our musical interest, he also made us listen to a cassette of his group in which he and his cousin play in. Such rough folk sound! Upon the first tones it sounded like a bizarre mash of Nass el Ghiwane or Tinariwen’s Northern African Gnawa sound mashed with recorded roughness equal to the feedback of Konono No.1 or any semi-distorted group. It had a Rajasthani coating ofcourse, but unlike the other Rajasthani folk musi. The nature of these songs -or rather chants- was more repetitive, with simple recurring melodies and ongoing chants to a near trancelike state. Wow, flustered. We will record a session with Mohan and his group in February to see if we can take it further for them, perhaps a proper release? Later in the afternoon we visited Thokmey again, a kind Tibetan person who we met a few days before in his shop in the Jaisalmer fort. We had bought a few Tibetan metal singing bowls and he gently explained us how to use them in sound and for relaxation. Metal rimmed stroking drones as lush soundscapes that do the body and mind good. Hmmm healthy soundscapes. We also talked about Thokmey about Tibet, as we might go to Tibet in March if time allows. After meditating together in his cosy small room in silent darkness we said goodbye, perhaps to see him again in the near future.
We took an early morning bus towards Jodhpur as to get to the town of Barnawa Jagir we had to get off at Shergarh, in the middle of nowhere 100 km's before Jodhpur. We attracted a lot of stares and gazing children in Shergar. A local told me that in the past year only 2 whites had come through Shergarh. On the phone Mehruddin Khan had promised to pick us up, though his tiny knowledge of English and our equally tiny Hindi made it a difficult talk. We just had to hope that he would come, or him perhaps hoping that we would be waiting in Shergarh so that he didn't need to take a jeep 30 km's for nothing. Mehruddin did arrive and we were taken to the village, this time really driving on sand roads only and past empty spaces with just bush and small trees decorating the dry hills. Small brick or mud huts with straw roofs clustered together into village circles where people lived in rural conditions without electricity. Most were tending their livestock of goats and cows and some had little acres to grow vegetables. We stopped in one of those small villages as Khan wanted to inspect the construction of a well. He later told us that he is financing the building of several wells in 8 or so villages in this region. This way and in the next dasys we quickly learned that he holds a certain authority as a sort of tribal chief or mayor in this remote region and therefore he makes the noble effort in bettering conditions for the locals. Either through his own musical earnings or from retaining contacts with local district authorities.
Upon arrival in his home village Barnawa Jagir, it seemed as if the whole village flooded to come and see us. At least all the young children, which must have been 100 or so, not even counting the ones that were working at that moment. Again the flustered looks and curiosity steered their behavior to swamp us with jeers, touches and questions. Overflow of attention went on and when we could rest a bit in Khan's house -the biggest and only concrete house of the village-, we got swamped by his family and close friends. We didn't mind and enjoyed it, but it takes up a lot of your energy. That we also learned in these 2 days. ;) So, this was the early evening of christmas night, 24th. The house was split up in different parts, where one part was for cooking, the rooms of his sons, the room of his wife, while his own room in which we stayed, stood loose from the rest. Hah, he even had satelite dish tv installed and over 50 channels. Imagine, it's kinda bizarre you find yourself in a very remote part of the state, dry and desert-like, where not many people even have electricity or decent houses as we know it back home, and there we were...watching some kitsch Bollywood action movie on tv with the whole family. At some point when zapping, we saw a glimpse of the match between Manchester Utd and Everton, far away in cold and wet winterish England, yet here in dry and warm spheres. Funny that.
We ate a glorious meal of vegetables, omelet and chappati bread and we went to bed early enough, exhausted from the travel and absorbed attention. The next day Mehruddin had the idea to take us to a remote Kabeliya village in the Barmer district near Balotra and to record female songs and dances of people that did not perform for tourists but for their patrons only. In this case, we think that Mehruddin was acting the role of patron, so that he could demand them to play for us. We did have to hire a jeep and pay the Kabeliya women, which was normal so we agreed on a fee, more than we had in mind for our low budget but a chance not to miss either. Another ride in desert and remote parts, 70 km's and there we were on top of a small sandhill where a small Kabeliya village with similar straw roofed huts existed, without electricity. This village whose name we didn't catch, was the home of the Nath people, a subcaste within the Kabeliya caste who are known for their combined female singing style. Also here the attention of the whole village was caught by our sight and all kids circled around us, though some were more scared as they probably had never seen a white person in the flesh. Even many of the women were looking amazed at our skin features, Maarten's height, blue eyes, lanky blond curls and eyebrow piercing, trying to touch or study them. We had to wait several hours as the women didn't hasten to prepare and our jeep had to pick up another singer in a bigger village. Their best female singer was struck by malaria, but she still would perform for us. Whether that was because of the lure of promised money or Mehruddin's demand, we didn't find out. In the meantime we played shabby cricket with the kids, throwing balls and while Maarten was taking a nap on the rubber band beds, I got several babies pushed into my arms to hold. Some babies got frightened by my unusual looks, while the mothers laughed at my effort to shush. When all was ready, 3 women of various ages (from young adults to the middle aged woman with malaria) started singing lines that sometimes supported each other in range or entwined into polyphonic singing. Amazing voices and they sung songs that we did not hear before, mostly those songs that they sing in the village and for special occasions. In some songs, 1 or 2 of the women or another girl started dancing in a very small circle, turning around and swaying without losing her direction nor pace.
At the end of the afternoon we were finished. Many people in the village asked us for money, but how can you help so many families at once without discriminating other families? We hope that at least our fee will benefit many of them as it normally goes in such villages, we were told. The for them high fee had a good justification in means of their skills and circumstances and our ability to give.
When we returned, we got a mighty good dinner of wholegrain badi breads and pieces of mutton (goat) put in front of us. Yeah we are vegetarians, so what to do?
Maarten more than me, as I still eat fish and sometimes meat on special occasions. To refuse would be impolite and as it was christmas day, well, it surely was somewhat special to eat the mutton, so we did and it tasted great -blush blush-. Not that we cared about the sake of a christmas dinner. The Khan's did neither, as they are Islamic according to the Muhammadan tradition that many Rajasthani nomad castes follow.
In the evening as well as the next morning we recorded sessions with Mehruddin and his brother Nijam. Mehruddin's session consisted of the Surandi and Sarangi, along Dholak, a hollow jug or pot and Khartals for percussion. We were very tired, still from the visit at the Nath village so after Mehruddin's session we fell asleep quickly. Nijam's session the next morning was done by the Algoza double flute and also with Dholak. Both sessions were very good as it straight away proved the high professional level of the brothers in Rajasthani and Langa music. Playing several international tours or have albums released on world music labels isn't a simple thing to do. We had to leave after Nijam's session, as we had to get to more north on our way to Punjab. But before all that, we had to agree on a price to pay to Mehruddin as patriarch of the Khan family. We had already told him about our low budget, despite us being from Europe or thinking that we surely had a financial back-up in the form of payed work if we recorded his sessions and staying at his house. Fair enough. In the end the demanded fee was *a lot* higher than he first made us believe so we felt genuinely disappointed after these 2 magnificent days.
It was a pity that he didn't make it clear to us from the start what his expectations were and what costs would be added. Maybe it was also our fault for not taking initiative earlier either. In the end we paid a hefty sum, something we would have never paid if we had known before. But just as with the Nath we now feel good about it, as we know that Mehruddin will distribute most of this money for the families and towns and not just to his own chest. Also the experience counts a lot for us and we are happy to have been, seen and done all this in Barnawa Jagir.
Mehruddin took us by jeep to Jodhpur and all last/tiny financial squabbles were solved with some advice of Kuldeep of Rupayan Sansthan institute. We don't blame Mehruddin, since that is the way it went and we parted without further anger.
Jodhpur is such a bizarre city with quirky locals, we don't know why but except of the good people of Rupayan who have helped us a great deal, we otherwise encountered a lot of social stumble blocks with locals, who either could or would not help us for the most simple things or make it difficult without reason. Kinda funny really. Not to mention the amount of people who walked around with a jink from their legs, we lost count.
We got to Bikaner in the middle of the night on a very slowwww train from Jodhpur.
In Bikaner there isn't much to do, so the only thing of importance to us what to visit Deshnok, where the Karna Mati temple was. The temple famous for being filled with rats, oh yes! Holy rats, as legend says that the goddess Karni Mata brought all the dead storytellers back to life in the shape of rats. You have to enter without shoes. Me on bare feet, Maarten still with socks. We had expected rooms filled to the roof with rats as your mind would quickly revel about, but the amount of rats was a little disillusionment as the rats weren't that numerous. And despite their are being fed fresh milk, grains and sweets every day, you would think they would look healthy. Wrong, as a lot of them had scabs from fighting, scruffy bodies and sometimes missing an eye or two or having swollen body parts. Yum. We fed some rats from our hands with sweets we bought, but it wasn't any more special than what Maarten had done night before at Jodhpur station. Which was jumping down on the rails in between the fat station sewer rats and feeding them cookies. It was fun though to see the rats running around fairly relaxed in broad daylight and by running over people's feet and thus scaring the obvious folks who feared them (mostly women, western tourists and others). Next to us someone -a female tourist- had stepped on a young rat by accident, so it bled to death by the head, yuck. Temple law says that anyone who harms/kills a rat in the temple has to pay a fine of the rat's weight in gold. No temple persons were around at that moment, luckily for the crusher.
So, that was the rat temple, short lived fun. Maarten filmed some scenes and we left. We finally got some things repaired in Bikaner as we both had technical problems with our battery packs and other stuff which limited us for the last week or so.
All done, so we could take the sleep night train to Jalandhar, Punjab, where we are now since this afternoon! On a sleeper night train of 12 hours long, enough time to snooze. Such change of scenery and people already! Lots of lush green fields filled with corn, grains and vegetables (almost looking like western Belgium or northern France) which is in stark contrast to the dry yellow lands of Rajasthan of the past 2 months. Also the people here speak with different accents and wear the sikh turbans.
This morning when we passed Firozpur, we were just a few kilometers away from the Pakistan border cut off by the river Sutlej. We are supposed to go to Pakistan Punjab next week, but as you might have heard about the sudden chaos in Pakistan with the assassination of supposed female president Benazir Bhutto, we don't know now if we can get in or even get a visa. Or if it's safe for us to go....hmmm. We have only heard good stories about Pakistan from other travelers so far, so it's hard to say really.
More about that tomorrow. Now we're off to the Shree Baba Harballabh Sangeet Sammelan festival of Punjabi and classical music for the next 3 days, on a press accreditation!
Oh yeah, for pictures, look to the right hand side in the link bar as Maarten has made a nifty photoviewer some weeks ago where we are uploading all photo's according to the places we've been. We'll limit the amount of photo's in the posts from now on as it takes a lot of time for us loading them up and for you loading the blog.
...our next project in Punjab about to kick off!
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Pushkar round-up, straight from the desert
Now in Jaisalmer, surrounded by the desert. The bus ride was pretty nice and we even saw some sand dunes. The desert here however doesn't have much sand dunes as you normally would expect. The landscape is quite flat, with sandy and rocky ground where low vegetation grows in the shape of various bushes and small trees. Desert shrub. We arrived in the evening but can see the fort that is lit up in yellow light. It looks nice enough, more pictureque and cute as it lacks the impressive size and exterior of all the other forts in Bundi, Chittor and Jodhpur. We probably won't stay long here and it all depends whether we can find musicians tomorrow. The visit to Barnawa in a few days is way more promising and it feels like we're duly filling our time here. We might get surprised....
Since we have done most of our recordings in/around Pushkar and during the mela throughout November, why not a quick round-up of things visual and some audio clips?
Side road tattooing at the mela, squatted on the ground, with a pen attached to a little battery accu that gave sparks. Just alcohol was put on the arm and no change of needle. Why sterilize huh? All the customers were kids, the youngest ones being two 12 year-old girls. Whom by the way already had faded tattoos from last year and back to get them done over. Hardcore.
The broader folk dance programme of the mela had some amazing dances from the states of Orissa, Haryana, Maharastra, Madya Pradesh and Gujarat. The dance of the sea people from Gujarat stood out by a mile through the tribal drum sounds and the heavy African feel that it breathed in every way. It was said that the dance was 750 years old and from a Gujarati tribe that migrated from inland to the sea -which perhaps excludes that this tribe could have come from Africa, if one has doubts- We still wonder though.... Check out this clip!
Some audio clips from the mela, taken at the dance programme and the Rajasthani folk prgramme.
Gujarati dance with sticks, where males and females were dancing around each other, hitting their sticks together in different patterns.
Gujarati stick dance (excerpt)
Haryana dance, which is a sort of Punjabi dance. Haryana shares the same culture as Punjab except that they speak Hindi as the only difference.
Haryana dance (excerpt)
Maharastra dance, the state of the cities Mumbai and Pune, which was very vivid with a lot of costumed dancers dressed up as warriors, lions and tigers. The polyphonic beats are pretty special as it sounds like an effect from a sampler, but it was all played on acoustic instruments.
Maharastra costume dance (excerpt)
The Desert Symphony. An orchestra that was made out of many different Rajasthani musicians from the west of the state of the Jaisalmer and Barmer districts. It began with an amazing thrift of morchang (jew's harp) that sounded like acoustic acid!
Desert Symphony, morchang intro (excerpt)
During the mela we met Neire, a mad and sincerely nice fellow Belgian from the west of Flandria (Diksmui' jong!), travelling alone. He had just come from several months hopping around in Pakistan (some good stories about the northwest region) and at the mela and Jaisalmer he made excellent photo's that he liked to share with us..and likewise with you all below! Other eyes scour for different beauty.
Ok, we'll have some radio silence for a week now, -and not really thinking about christmas, that is-
ek~ Gypsykids
do~ Making spicey chutney
tin~ Going for the camera
chaar~ Musulman takin it chanti
paanch~ Never to small for a Biri
cheh~ Inbetween the raves
saat~ Hup met 't hooi
aat~ Ooooh
nau, Morchangplayer from Jaiselmer busstation.
das, Traditionnel Indian shitting @ sunset!
Since we have done most of our recordings in/around Pushkar and during the mela throughout November, why not a quick round-up of things visual and some audio clips?
Side road tattooing at the mela, squatted on the ground, with a pen attached to a little battery accu that gave sparks. Just alcohol was put on the arm and no change of needle. Why sterilize huh? All the customers were kids, the youngest ones being two 12 year-old girls. Whom by the way already had faded tattoos from last year and back to get them done over. Hardcore.
The broader folk dance programme of the mela had some amazing dances from the states of Orissa, Haryana, Maharastra, Madya Pradesh and Gujarat. The dance of the sea people from Gujarat stood out by a mile through the tribal drum sounds and the heavy African feel that it breathed in every way. It was said that the dance was 750 years old and from a Gujarati tribe that migrated from inland to the sea -which perhaps excludes that this tribe could have come from Africa, if one has doubts- We still wonder though.... Check out this clip!
Some audio clips from the mela, taken at the dance programme and the Rajasthani folk prgramme.
Gujarati dance with sticks, where males and females were dancing around each other, hitting their sticks together in different patterns.
Gujarati stick dance (excerpt)
Haryana dance, which is a sort of Punjabi dance. Haryana shares the same culture as Punjab except that they speak Hindi as the only difference.
Haryana dance (excerpt)
Maharastra dance, the state of the cities Mumbai and Pune, which was very vivid with a lot of costumed dancers dressed up as warriors, lions and tigers. The polyphonic beats are pretty special as it sounds like an effect from a sampler, but it was all played on acoustic instruments.
Maharastra costume dance (excerpt)
The Desert Symphony. An orchestra that was made out of many different Rajasthani musicians from the west of the state of the Jaisalmer and Barmer districts. It began with an amazing thrift of morchang (jew's harp) that sounded like acoustic acid!
Desert Symphony, morchang intro (excerpt)
During the mela we met Neire, a mad and sincerely nice fellow Belgian from the west of Flandria (Diksmui' jong!), travelling alone. He had just come from several months hopping around in Pakistan (some good stories about the northwest region) and at the mela and Jaisalmer he made excellent photo's that he liked to share with us..and likewise with you all below! Other eyes scour for different beauty.
Ok, we'll have some radio silence for a week now, -and not really thinking about christmas, that is-
ek~ Gypsykids
do~ Making spicey chutney
tin~ Going for the camera
chaar~ Musulman takin it chanti
paanch~ Never to small for a Biri
cheh~ Inbetween the raves
saat~ Hup met 't hooi
aat~ Ooooh
nau, Morchangplayer from Jaiselmer busstation.
das, Traditionnel Indian shitting @ sunset!
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