Famous Pashmina of Kashmir finally gets patent under the Geographical Indications (GI) Act. A GI patent gives exclusive rights over a label to a specified product produced in a specified geographical region.
The patent came after an agreement among Kashmir Handmade Pashmina Promotion Trust (KHPPT), Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), Crafts Development Institute (CDI) and the Tahafuz, a society of diverse Kashmiri handicraft artisans – on September 12 actively brokered by the Union Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh.
In a longer run, in addition to checking the sale of fake Pashmina, this is a step towards giving Pashmina from the valley an international edge over the Pashmina from POK.
Pakistan wants to share GI on Pashmina with India. But Kashmiri traders want them first to give proof of quality as Pashmina from valley is widely believed to be the finest. These traders from Kashmir do not want brand Pashmina to suffer in long run by sharing the GI with pakistan.
Further links and read:
More on Pashmina Wars going on between Pakistan and India.
For me the best part of the movie was listing its two Kashmiri folk songs.
The song are Ha Faqeero and Mastaan Mastaan (Lyrics by A.G. Madhosh and Fazil Kashmiri respectively)
The songs are sung by veteran kashmiri singer Gulzar Ganai and the music is by renowned percussionist Taufique Qureshi. Not so incidentally, brother of Tabla maestro Ustad Zakir Husain, Taufique Qureshi is also of kashmiri origin. There are times in song when you can listen to his personal touch to these songs. Also, the recording is top notch.
This must be a first when authentic Kashmiri music has been used in a mainstream Indian film.
And for that credit must go to Santosh Sivan.
“Tracing connection between mythology and science, Governor Lt. General (Retd) S K Sinha today said that the latter cannot totally ignore the former.
Inaugurating an international workshop on physics and analysis of hot and dense matter at University of Jammu this morning, the Governor while referring to mythological belief said that emergence of the Himalayas from the ocean. Scientists were today studying the Big Bang concept which led to the creation of the universe. They may find an element of commonality between their scientific findings and some mythological beliefs. He said that Homer’s Idiyad describing the Trojan War used to be dismissed as mythology and poetic fantasy till recent archaeological excavations have established the historicity of that war, which over centuries had got embellished with mythology.”
Governor (he was not yet ex) was inaugurating a workshop on ‘A Large Ion Collider Experiment’ (ALICE)’.
Indian teams are contributing to two of the experiment in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) Experiments that aims to re- create conditions that existed immediately (in a billionth of a second sense) after the Big bang. These two experiments are CMS experiment and ALICE . Starting on 10 September 2008, it is the single biggest experiment conducted in the world since NASA’s mission to space.
The team from Jammu University worked for ALICE under Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre Kolkata.
Photon Multiplicity Detector (PMD) for the LHC to be used in ALICE was built by Indian experts and the team from Jammu contributed to its creation.
Back to the (ex) Governor. I think it would have been understandable had he been quoting Frijof Capra. It would have been a nice ruse to talk about Amarnath.
But, taking about Homer’s Iliad (Idiyad?) at a physics workshop! He sure was a curious fellow and it’s a funny world.
Anyway, here is a little funny something to see:
Google search results for Big Bang India
and Google search results for Big Bang Pakistan
The biggest analysis of Indian genes has not been able to get a clear answer on whether there is any genetic foundation behind caste or religion.
After analysing 75 genes from 1,871 individuals belonging to 55 caste, tribe and religious groups for the last three years, the Indian Genome Variation Consortium could not identify definitive genetic links to these groups.
The same is true with religious groups. The research shows Kashmiri Pandits and Kashmiri Muslims are genetically close and both share genetic similarities with Dravidians.
Read the complete report at Deccan Herald (26th April, 2008)
Came across the trailer of Tahaan on youtube at IDreamProduction channel
Have a peek at what the movie promises:
Yes the voice-over is irritating. Too HBOish!
(They removed this trailer. Guess the voice over was really over the top)
Here is the new trailer:
Here is one more with a better use of the soundtrack:
Since the movie is still not out in the theaters (it will be in October), I am going to pontificate about the 2 minute trailer. And here I go:
The little boy commanding his donkey in Kashmiri to Pakh! Pakh! (Walk! Walk!) is a fine linguistic experiment.
The background score just in the mid of the trailer is authentic Kashmiri music and absolutely stunning at that. These are the fast beats of Chakkri. The music is set by Taufiq Qureshi, son of Ustad Alla rakha, younger bother of Zakir Hussain and a person of Kashmiri origin. The soundtrack sounds brilliant.
Apart from all this, the thing that really took me with surprise me was: a simple dialogue uttered by a Kashmiri
Ye Ga’da ab tumhara nahi raha Jao yaha se
How do I know it’s a Kashmiri voice? Notice the tone of the voice and the way hindi word Gadha is pronounced as Ga’da by the character. This pronunciation is characteristically Kashmiri. It may seem a trifle little matter. A trifle matter of tongue. But…
Here is a little note taken by Godfrey Thomas Vigne, an English travelers who visited Kashmir in 1835. In his book Travels in Kashmir he wrote:
The languages now spoken, which are derived from the original and pure Sanscrit, are denominated Pracrit. The Italian is a Pracrit of Latin. The Hindu, Gujerati, Tirhutya, Bengali dialects, and others, are Pracrits. The language of Kashmir is a Pracrit. The Kashmirians, says Abu Fuzl, have a language of their own. I was told on good authority, that out of one hundred Kashmiri words, twenty -five will be found to be Sanscrit, or a Pracrit, forty Persian, fifteen Hindustani, and ten will be Arabic ; some few are also Tibetian. There is an uncouth rusticity about the Kashmirian pronunciation which is almost sufficient, at least I thought so, to betray the language as a patois, even to a person who did not understand it. The Sikhs, their lords and masters, are well aware of their erroneous pronunciation, and have a standing order against the admission of any Kashmirian as a recruit, on account of their almost proverbial timidity ; and if a man present himself for enlistment, and is suspected of being a Kashmirian, he will be told to utter some word, such as Ghora (a horse), which, if he be of the valley, he will pronounce broadly Ghoura or Ghura, and be thus detected.
-0-
And now my close friends would certainly understand why sometimes I sound funny, why Gaurav becomes Ghaourav and why Sau Rupay becomes Saoo Rupaye.
The Persian word sqay means ‘knowledge of war’. According to the legend, thousands of years ago, Kashmir’s King Dharyadev trained his fighters in this defensive art form.
The modern form of sqay was introduced in Kashmir by one Nazeer Ahmed Mir. Now sqay is practised in 20 Indian States. The swift movements and defensive steps of sqay are similar to those of kalaripayattu of Kerala.
kalaripayattuJust like in kalaripayattu, sqay employs weapons such as swords and shields. “Tora’, the sqay sword is made of bamboo with leather cover. Burgula, the shield is made of leather. Besides Sqay combines elements of Karate and Taekwondo. A wide range of combat methods such as blows, kicks, punches, locks and chops are used in sqay.
It has four kinds of competitions — Loba (fighting), Khawankay (Katta), Mathol (power breaking) and Aerosqay
-0-
Like most people I had never heard about this martial art from Kashmir. It came as a complete surprise to me.
The info. here is from an article published in The Hindu Read more about it at The Hindu
Everytime the light goes off, people come out on the street to protest. They are protesting for land in Amarnath. On the phone I was told that Electricity meters of houses have been damaged by the protesters. I asked is the protesters are damaging the meters of their own house. In jest, I was informed: first they go out and destroy meter of others, and then they go home and destroy their own meter. Only a few years ago, Jammu was a meter less town. Electricity – the city did have some time in between 8-10 hour power cuts, voltage – if you torched a live wire intentionally, on good days it could tickle you to go into a voluntary spasm and break a smile on your face. Every house was and still is run by giant privately owned transformers. Step up – Step down is a ritual to be performed every hour or so for 24 hours, everyday, every night, every month and every year.
This electricity was almost free. Then the local administration stringent on the subject of electricity meters. On my last visit to the city, June 2008, my uncle told me now the electricity almost never goes, except of course when its our vari . And even the hours of vari are now normal – only 2 to 3 hrs. I was there for more than two weeks and the light did go off unscheduled. I was told: Bad Luck!
Actually now that I remember, there were meters earlier also but only now they are being taken seriously.
I guess the city never took them meters kindly.
Now every time the light goes off, with nothing better to do, people go out protesting for land.
-0-
Those who remember history, or those who remember Freedom at Midnight by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins, or better still, those who remember Salman Rushdie’s Shalimar the Clown, will of course remember that the the story of Kashmir problem starts in 1947 with the burning of Mahoora Power House and plunging of valley into darkness.
-0-
I was told that the Gujjars are being asked to leave Jammu. Where will they go? They have always lived in Jammu. They are told: Go back to the Valley.
Back at Jammu, my grandmother is worried. She is worried because there is a talk in that town:
All the trouble in city, all this violence over Amarnath issue, has its origin in Pandits of Kashmir. These Pandits carried their scourge with them to Jammu.
Somewhere hidden along with that brass Khos, pandit sneaked in the scourge.
My grandmother is worried that we would be thrown out of Jammu.
