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Kyoho Arwell Chukh Chakaan
“ The energy that actually shapes the world springs from emotions — racial pride, leader-worship, religious belief, love of war — which liberal intellectuals mechanically write off as anachronisms, and which they have usually destroyed so completely in themselves as to have lost all power of action.“- Wells, Hitler and the World State, Orwell.
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tsogh to nail
Student of University of Madras. Preparations for exams (working hard, they tie hair to nail in wall to prevent falling into sleep) |
From V.M. Doroshevich’s 1905 book ‘East and War’ (Востокъ и война).
And I thought my father was kidding me when he used to suggest that I ought get a tsogh and then tie it to a nail, ‘like your ancestors’, to keep awake while trying to study at night.
Politics of Information
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Last week, thanks to my super vanity – a habit of self-googling, I realize ‘Fish‘ got posted to some newspaper called kashmirmonitor [kashmirmonitor.org/krkashmirmonitor/08232011-ND-strange-tales-from-tulamula-10326.aspx]. Although my name as the author is there next to the miss-titled story, ‘Strange Tales from Tulamula’, no one wrote to me asking ‘Hey, nice stuff, can we use it?’, No, it just got posted, filled up a space. Served what purpose? No clue. What monkey business! And what harbingers of new social change.
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Two nights ago, I run into more monkey business. I was going through comments section of various articles on Kashmir Current Affairs. My sorry excuse for this despicable exercise is that inspite of all my genuine efforts, I still regularly fail at entirely burying myself in Past, and sometime I too get tempted to get in touch with Present whose commentary offers us the LOLs of future. So I was digging comments. And I ended up the gallery of vintage photographs collected from “various sources” set up by an online newspaper called ‘kashmirdispatch’ [kashmirdispatch.com/gallery.html]. Yes, among other stuff ( some new even for me, sourced from who knows where) I saw Vintage photographs of Kashmir that I have been posting for more than two years now, with notes on dates, places, photographers and sources. That’s more than 60 post with more than And I saw stuff that Man Mohan Munshi Ji posted on this blog from his personal collection, like The paperwallas just post it on their website as part of a gallery without any adjoining description. The exercise serves what purpose?
When I started posting, I could have easily put a big ‘Search Kashmir’ logo on all of them. But that would not have served the purpose of their existence. The fact that these photographs were shot by someone long ago, and that they were used in detailed narratives about an exotic foreign land written mostly by men (and in some cases by women) seemingly burning with a strange zeal for information, and the fact that these photographers were mostly always duly acknowledged, that these photographs were preserved for years, and only now scanned for free by billion dollar companies, that part of the story of these photographs tells us just as much about the politics of information as the manner in which we the ‘subjects’ now use or misuse these information. And right now I think we, in this part of the impoverished world, still don’t get it.
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On one hand I have newspaperwallas who just Monitor and Dispatch and on other hand I have people who are kind enough to drop in a line before even posting stuff to their Facebook Walls. For people who use this blog, please feel to use use whatever you want but…try to give credit where it is due. If this post leaves you confused enjoy this video by Nina Paley.
do the pahada
At Shalimar, 2008 |
It came back to me a couple of years ago while watching a sequence from Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s Iranian film ‘Gabbeh’ (1996). The poetic sequence involved an elderly teacher singing a lesson to his young pupils [video link]. I remembered the way my grandmother sang table of two to me when I was a kid. It’s rustic nature never failed to delight me. In many futile attempts I tried to capture it. Could manage only a few delightful multiplications. I asked my grandmother but she too recalled it only in parts. Last night I again gave it another shot but instead ended up getting distracted by ‘Do Ekam Do Do Duni Chaar’ song from Dil Deke Dekho (1959) [video link]. But it also made me finally go for closure. This morning I called up my grandmother and over a long call, finally managed to compile the table. It was a fun exercise, which started after I failed to explain her my interest in something so trivial, in fact I am now somewhat in-famous in the family for my trivial interests, nevertheless, ever the Dadi, she agreed to entertain me one more time with her table song. From the voice in the background, I knew this time she had help, her son and daughter were filling in the blanks (only that my father was adding his own mock ribald version into it,only adding to the confusing). At time she ran so fast with the flow that I had to stop her so that I could follow, and then she would again start from the beginning, with each stop and re-rendering the song kept changing. In any case, I think I now have an acceptable version. Little rhyme, no reason. First line is what could pass off as ‘Hindustani’ but the second line, the auxiliary for memory, is in Kashmiri. And it goes like this:
do e kaya do
Padow Ladkow
do duna char
Batt’e Lejj Phayaar (Or Maj’e Dyutnay Mar)
[2 2 za 4]
[Stir the Rice Bowl (or Mother beat you)]
do tiya che
Vothu Batt’e Khe
[2 3 za 6]
[Get up and eat rice]
do chukay aath
Hyer par paath
[2 4 za 8]
[Read a bit louder (Read upstairs (?))]
do panjay dus
Hooyn Kheynay nas
[2 5 za 10]
[Dog ate your nose] (Laugh.Recall point.)
do che barah
Mol chui Praran
[2 6 za 12]
[Father is waiting]
do satay chowdhah
nikkan kori maedaan
[2 7 za 14]
[You kid just shit]
do ahthay solah
mol chui bolan
[2 8 za 16]
[Father is talking]
do navay athara
mol chui laran
[2 9 za 18]
[Father is giving a run]
do dahya bees
ungjan kad tees
[2 10 za 20]
[crack your knuckles]
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I thank my grandmother for teaching me how to spell धन्यवाद्.
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Trath
Lightning. Gurgaon. 18/5/11 |
tsaalun chu vzmala ta trattay
Tsaalun chu mandinyan gattakaar
Tsaalun chu paan-panun kaddun grattay
Heyti maali santuush vaati paanay.
Patience to endure lightning and thunder,
Patience to face darkness at noon,
Patience to go through a grinding-mill —
Be patient whatever befalls, doubting not
that He will surely come to you.
~Lal Ded (via KOA)
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Life is like a road which is difficult, full of trials, sorrows, pains but if u fall, just stand up straight, b confident & say “Trath Yath Sadki”.
– A Kashmiri SMS
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Lightning. Gurgaon. 4/2/13 |
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DumOlu
‘What the hell is this? You call this Kashmiri Dam Aloo. You know I am a Kashmiri. You call this Dam Aloo. What a joke! What’s this green thing in it! I tell you my friends – it is a fake. You guys should stick to Innovating on Chinese. Puff…Cashmeri Daamalooo. It’s an atrocity perpetrated on simple and gullible. You will probably go into shock if you see and taste the real thing. It’s a fiery beast. And not your beast of burden served in a plate. I protest.’
‘Bai’ja Bhai! Tu Kashmiri Pulao Kha lay!’
‘So you want to know what I think about this Pulao. This piece of…’
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Tasted some fine Dumolu after what seems to be ages. There was a havan-gathering at the local community temple back in Jammu. Some of the Olus made their way to me.
4 miles speed per hour, 1958
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‘This man is ordered to walk in front of you to enforce 4 miles speed per hour.’ In 1958 I came across a road bridge somewhere near Jammu & Kashmir – Himachal Pradesh border where speed limit was enforced by a man walking in front of any vehicle crossing the bridge. |
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Koshur British Rhymes
I saw a glimpse of it in Aldous Huxley’s description of year 1925-26 Kashmir in his book Jesting Pilate (1948). He heard ‘Dum-dum, BONG; diddy-dum, BONG’. He wasn’t the first British person to hear it. Much much earlier, around 1835, another Brit, G.T. Vigne heard in it an old comic song. He thought he was hearing ‘Kitty Clover’. I managed to re-create (unfaithfully) the old song from his notes and some software. But I failed to see a patter until I read about it in introduction to ‘Kashmiri Lyrics’ (first published in 1945) by J.L. Kaul:
There is indeed a “nursery rhyme thrill”, a certain Hickery-Dickery-Dock patter of rhythm, which anyone can hear (as Aldous Huxley heard it) any time, of day, in the streets of Kashmir with which a group of coolies enliven the heavy loads they carry collectively. Several Englishman have told me that they can catch and appreciate the lilt of a Kashmiri song (say), a boatman’s chant more easily than they can do elsewhere in India. here is what Mary Hallowes caught of the tune of a chant sung by boatmen punting up their cargo boats “Khocu” in the Jhelum. [published at the time in The Illustrated Weekly of India]
“Swift the current,dark the night,
(Ya-illa,la-illa)
Stars above our guide and light
(Kraliar,baliar!…)
All together on the rope,
(Ya Pir-Dust Gir)
In our sinews lies our hope
Khaliko,Malik-ko!…”