A strange wedding song, 1877

Kashmiri Dancing Girl
by V. C. Prinsep

An extract from Imperial India; an artist’s journals’ (1879) by V. C. Prinsep, who visited Kashmir around 1877.

One evening I went to a wedding. I was not allowed to join in the ceremony, but viewed the proceedings from an upper window. Seven days the tomasha had lasted, and day and night were women howling congratulatory verses to the bridegroom who sat feasting with his intimates the while. On a certain day rings are put into the bride’s ears and nose; on another her hands are marked with henna, and so on. She lived in a house hard by, where the happy man was allowed to see her for a short time each day, being conducted to and fro with mush ceremony and many torches stinking and reeking, as I found to my cost. I have taken down many of the distiches sung on the occasion, and am trying to get them translated, when, if they are worth it, I will add them to my diary. The continued howling of the women becomes very irksome after a time, and although the sight was curious, I was glad to get away after a couple of hours. The bride was nine years old.
The following is a translation of the songs sung at a Kashmirree wedding [by Major Henderson, C.S.I., the political officer in Kashmir]: –
Mother of the Bridegroom to the Bridegroom.
Urge on thy steed in every direction.
I will prepare thy seat in the garden pavilion:
On thy right the Koran, on thy left the necklace.
Thou art worthy to be called Lalla Gopal!

The Lalla Gopal in the verse needed some explanation. A note in the book adds, ‘Lalla Gopal, one of the names of Krishna, who was supposed to have been the type of loveliness. Curious, this, when sung by a Mohammedan!’
Prinsep further explains:

The song is a good picture of the manners of the country, and the way that the Moslem and hindoo customs have acted on each other. Whilst at Sreenugger I have painted two or three nautch girls, and it was through them that I got to this wedding, as they were amongst the singers. now these girls, like most nautch girls in India, were all Moslemehs, yet had they all the caste feeling of Hindoo. Of moral sentiment they were entirely innocent, but they would never permit any one to drink out of their cup or smoke from their hookah, and they always went about these two utensils, for smoke and tea are the two things necessary to a Kashmiree. So in this song a Kashmiree Moslem is made to say “beautiful as Krishna.”

There is another interesting line given in that song:

Singing women to the Bride and Bridegroom.
The parrot of Lahore and the Mainah of Kashmir!
How did you both become mutually acquainted?

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Update August 4, 2017

Two readers (Indu Kilam and Sushma Kaul) at FB managed to recall Kashmiri lyrics for a similar sounding song. 


Gare hai drayus bazaar kune yae, 
wati samkheum bab papune yao, 
dachin kene thovnam koran parvunei, 
khover kene thovnam shama dazuevoneu
lut lut hutamas auush traviniye, 
dapunam kuri ye chu tchaluniye

here shama is lamp.

Bhawan, 1877

Bhawan [Mattan] by V. C. Prinsep. 1877.
From ‘Imperial India; an artist’s journals’ (1879)

“The modern Martand, or Bawan, is over the edge of the plateau at another source of the Jhelum, which, having escaped the eye of the garden-making Jehanghire, has been turned by the pious Hindoo through two sacred tanks, and is now a holy shrine. The tanks are full of fish, a kind of tench, I should think, which it is the duty of the pilgrim to keep well fed with baked Indian corn. It is delightful to see the shoals of these dark green fish in the brilliant azure of the water. I made a sketch of the place from one corner, where squats each day an aged and very holy man, before whom the pilgrims come in flocks to prostrate themselves till their foreheads touch the ground. Unlike most holy men, this one is clean, and is moreover a very superior person, for seeing me surrounded and inconvenienced by fakirs, he sent his own servant to clear them away. I painted him into my sketch as an acknowledgement, and when I had finished made my lowest salaam. The old gentleman, being probably absorbed in a contemplation of the Deity, did not respond; or are piety and good manners incompatible?”

popular views of the Jummoo and Kashmir territories, 1877

From ‘The northern barrier of India: A popular account of the Jummoo and Kashmir territories’ (1877) by Frederic Drew.

K2,28,265 feet; as seen from Turmik

A Dogra Soldier

Akhnoor Fort, on the Chenab

City of Srinagar. From a photograph by Francis Frith

Dards.  Photograph by Francis Frith

Dogra Fort at Skardu

Gilgit Fort in 1870

Glacier Near Sonamarg

Kangri

Kashmiri Boatmen. Photograph by Francis Frith

Kashmiri Brahmans.  Cloth sellers. Photograph by Francis Frith.
More about it here

Mosque of Shah Hamadan, Srinagar.
With view of the Kali Temple (?)

Note on the image from Man Mohan Munshi Ji:
Nanga Parbat (also known as Diamir by people of Astore and Chilas etc).
 It is apparently drawn with a
camera lucida.
The ridges in the foreground are of Tragbal and Kanzarwan

View approaching Baltal

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