Tag: Lal Ded

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Lal Ded’s Shaitan Shiva

A wall art I came across in Kochi, Kerala.
Artist(right): Jameel
February, 2013

March, 2013

Chitralekha Zutshi in her book ‘Languages of Belonging: Islam, Regional Identity, and the Making of Kashmir’ (2004) tried to approach the question of Kashmiri identity by interpreting its language. An interesting approach for which she used some hitherto unavailable poem manuscripts.

A particular passage made me curious:

The reason Lal Ded’s poetry is so essential for votaries of Kashmiriyat is self-evident from an examination of her verses. These are suffused with a sense of the fluidity of religious boundaries, and this has been interpreted as a manifestation of the Kashmiri ethos of tolerance. In the following verse, for instance, she seems unable to decide between
being a follower of Allah or of Shiva:  

I said la illah il Allah
I destroyed my Self in it
I left my own entity and caught him who is all-encompassing
Lalla then found God
I went to look for Shiva
I saw Shiva and Shaitan (devil) together
Then I saw the devil on the stage
I was surprised at that moment
I adore Shiva and Shiva’s house
When I die, what then?

The book gives the source of the poem as: Hafiz Mohammad Inayatullah, Lalla Arifa barzabane Kashmiri [Lalla Arifa in Kashmiri] (Lahore: Din Mohammad Electric Press, undated), 14-15.

Although the author presents those intriguing lines (albeit without original ) and its alluring imagery as a product of Lal Ded’s inner dilemma at choosing one among Allah or Shiva, the text in fact begs another line of enquiry.

Romila Thapar in her classic work ‘Early India: From the Origins to Ad 1300’  makes a piquant observation: “A fundamental sanity in Indian civilization has been due to an absence of Satan.” Keeping that obvious and basic theological fact in mind, the question is: How could Lal Ded even imagine Shaitan/ Devil/Satan in 14 century A.D. when Islam was only arriving in Kashmir? When its language was still incomprehensible to most people. If she imagined Devil, what did she see? What could be the iconography of Kashmiri Devil? Borrowed from Islamic iconography? Remembering that Kashmiri, as it is now spoken, only bloomed with Lal Ded’s utterings, what word could she have originally used for Shaitan? Somehow, it is all difficult to imagine. Can these be lines be even be attributed to Lal Ded?
There is another way to look at Lal Ded or rather looking at words of Lal Ded: looking at how its listeners consumed them. The saying of Lal Ded come from a oral tradition, they reached to us in written form much later. They were written in an age when the iconography and vocabulary of Shaitan was totally comprehensible for the writer and for the reader. In that age, a lot of oral bits got attributed to either Lal Ded or to Nund Rishi. A lot was appended and a lot deducted based on who was documenting. A time when Ded became Arifa for some readers. And in these evolving texts the reader can now looks for manifestation of the evolving Kashmiri ethos. The reader can observe a synthesis of texts, theologies and cultures, a synthesis spread over centuries and not beginning at a particular icon.

[update: June 2016. As suspected. The lines are of later date.]

The lines “Lal be drayas Shavas garaan, shav ti shiatan wuchum ek hi shay” in fact come from poet Samad Mir (1894-1959) singing “Praraan Praraan Tarawati” which starts with a dialogue from Lal Ded.

Listen the rendition of Tarawati by Ghulam Ahmed Sofi here [1:30]

Lines occur as:

Lal bo draaya Shiv gaar.ney,
Shiv te Shaitan wuchum aksey shai
[subsequent lines vary from Inayatullah lines]
balki shaitain pyeth me yem baras
tan lal chas haeraan



I went to look for Shiva
I saw Shiva and Devil together
I believed in devil
I am still surprised.

Update: 5th Feb 2017

Samad Mir’s grandson clarified using the manuscript of the song that the lines are not by Samad Mir. It’s just that the singer is starting the song, as usual is the case in Kashmir, with a few lines from Lal Ded.

Update: 15th Feb 2017

The lines “Lal be drayas Shavas garaan” are remembered by pandits by too. In the pandit rendition the first two lines are:

Lal bo draaya Shiv gaar.ney,
wuchum Shiv te Shakti akey shai,
Shakti wuchum paeth sahas’raras,
Maa’raan ga’yas ta’mey gra’ye;
Bo paer Shivas te tasen dis garas,
Bo lall ma’ras mye karyam kyah
I went to look for Shiva
I saw Shiva and Shakti together
Shakti seated in matted crown of Shiva’s head
I was surprised at that moment
I adore Shiva and Shiva’s house
If I die, so what?

The lines are given “Voice of Experience: Lall Vaakh of Lal Ded” (1999) by B.N. Sopory. Quoted in “Lal Ded: revisited” (2014) by J. L. Bhat. These lines are closest to the lines quoted in “Lalla Arifa barzabane Kashmiri”

So, it seems there are three variation of this Kashmiri saying.

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Unrelated post: Kashmiriyat in Codex

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Akus Bakus Ad


video link

Imagine walking into a bank about your existing account and the guy behind the counter asking you questions like: Tell me who that guy in the corner is? Do you know who I am? Now, tell me who are you?

A kashmiri would probably run out of the bank saying, ‘ye bank hasa gov dheg’he dyun layak.’

Akus Bakus/Okus Bakus is a non-sensical childrens’ ditty that most Kashmiri Pandit children of a certain era grew up on, and probably still do, playing a certain little game in group with their fingers. Most words don’t mean anything. But these words evolved from hukus bukus telli wann che kus (Who’s he? Who am I? Now, tell me who are you?) by Lal Ded, the great poet-saint of 14th century Kashmir, who can rightly be credited for giving birth to modern Kashmiri language.

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I don’t know the number in the state but I think the big shots waking up to the emerging tier-2 market at the borders. Kashmir is suddenly the in thing. Some ads from recent years certainly point to this.

I think the first one was the Tata Nano Ad from 2010 that had definitive Kashmiri music with Rabaab and all. video link

Then there was Visa Ad from earlier this year with the definitive Kashmiri talking in Hindi Ad. The accent was made mainstream (or maybe parallel stream) decades ago by M.K. Raina and K.K. Raina.

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And now some native ads

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Kashmiriyat in Codex

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was Kashmir. This was beginning with God and the duty of every faithful monk would be to repeat every day with chanting humility the one never-changing event whose incontrovertible truth can be asserted. But we see now through a glass darkly, and the truth, before it is revealed to all, face to face, we see in fragments (alas, how illegible) in the error of the world, so we must spell out its faithful signals even when they seem obscure to us and as if amalgamated with a will wholly bent on evil.


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Aassi aiys ta asi aasav
  Aassi dur kur patu-vath
Shivas sari na zyon ta marun
  Ravus sori na atu-gath!


We did live in the past and we will be in future also:
From ancient times to the present, we have activated
          this world.
Just as the sun rises and sets, as a matter of routine,
The immanent Shiva will never be relieved of birth and
        death!


~ Lal Ded


That Lalla of Padmanpore,
who had drunk the fill of divine nectar;
She was undoubtedly an avatar of ours.
O God! grant me the same spritual power.


~ Nund Reshi


Mohammad-radiates light all around
Pujari lost his wits,
While offering flowers,
Iswara showered rain,
Come, let us blow the Shankh
around Sankara.
Mohammad-radiates light all around.


~ Ahad Zarger


What do we accomplish?
by coming and going,
From one Janama (birth) to another?
I think nothing.
the way out is
‘So-ham-Soo’ (I am thou).
Explore, Brahma, Vishnu, Maheshwara,
They are all-pervading, the manifest.
Shall thou bear the reality?
When it dawns upon thou?


~Shah Ghafoor


Shastras, I have explored,
I- the Rahim Sahib, am wearing around,
A Shastra myself,
For Shastra is the crown of believers.


~ Rahim Sahib


Dew radiates brightness all around,
Atma (Soul) cannot get out of transmigration,
Siva, O Shah Qalandar, resembles none.


~ Shah Qalandar


Like a yogi I postured myself
In the solitude of vana (jungle),
And reduced my sharer (body) to ashes,
In the process of Prana-Abhyas


~ Asad Parray


Rig Veda, Yajer Veda, Sam Veda, Athar Veda
My revered guru (teacher) endowed me
With these four Vedas,
And gave upto me,
Apparels of a yogi and gyana


~ Shamas Faqir


Kur Batus Peth Zoo Fida Qudoos Gojwari,
Az Timai Kathe Yaad Paeyu Waen;
Reach Sirij Kakan Mussalman Gobrae Greinz,
Dil Tithai Paet Mila naeyu Pana Waen


“It is for a Bata (Kashmiri Pandit) that Abdul Qudoos Gojwari laid his life; today you (Hindus and Muslims) should remember these events for togetherness. And it was Rajkak (birbal Dhar’s son) who treated Muslims as his own children; today, you should seek union of hearts as you had done then.”


~ Mahjoor


Kiyaah kara paanchan dahan ta kahan
Yim yath leji wokshun kareth gai
Yikiwoti samahan akisey rai lamahan
Kovi maali ravihey khan gaav


(What can I do with these fives, tens and elevens?
Who spoiled the broth?
I wish they would unite
And would not be lost in wilderness)


~Shiekh Nooruddin Noorani


Gani kar paanis awlaadas
Hani hani maaz traav deryaavas
Patciye man panun kerzzen nihaar
Kaafar sapdith korum Iqraar


Cut into pieces your own child;
And throw his flesh in the river
If you like it, have it as breakfast.
I became an infidel to mould myself to become a 
faithful of God


~ Abdul Ahad Zargar


Thatha chha ashqini tsanji tehrunuey
ratci ratci matci maaz khuon ye lo
Pannuy khoon gatchi tresi kani chonuyey
Suy gatci tcaangi zaalunyey lo
Pannuy khoon gatci tresi kani chonuyey
Suy gatci tcaagni zaalunyey lo
tami key gaashi gatci yaar praznunyey
Ratci ratci matci maaz khuonye lo


(It is not easy to face a onslaught of love,
You shall have to eat your own flesh,
And drink your blood to quench your thirst,
And burn it to light a lamp;
You can then recognize you’re beloved
under the shine of that light,
First, eat up flesh from your wrist)


~ Momin Sahib


Kaafer-e-Ishqam musalamaani maraa darkaar neist
Har rag-e-jaan taar gashta haajab-e-zunnaar neist


(I am infidel of love; I don’t need to be a Muslim,
Each vein of my body has turned into a sacred thread- (of Hindus))


~ Amir Khusro


Soch Kraal karaan tas paiwandi
Yes assi dilas safaai
Chalith paanas dium diun gatsi randa
Khudawanda illahi


(Soch kral is a friend of pure ones
Who have a crystal clear heart?
Sharpen your self and make it shine;
The Almighty God is there to watch.)


~ Sochh Kraal


Akh tsi ta bey ba ganzar mabaa
Habaa yi chuy gumaanay
Yath faani saraayi diun chhuy shabaa
Ath manz mo dim dukhaanay
Pato ho marun az yaa sabaa
Habaa yi chuy gumaanay


(Don’t count yourself and myself
All this is a dream and nothing else.
In this mortal world, do spend one night
But don’t set up a shop in it
You shall have to die today or tomorrow
All this is nothing but a dream)


~ Sochh Kraal


Maal-odaulath chhuna rozaanay
Donway bewafa goy gumaan
Waataan koni chukh be zaanay
Wolo yuri yaari janaanay


(Wealth and affluence do not last longer,
Both are unfaithful, mind it.
Why don’t you delve deep into this point?
Come to me, O my beloved! )


~ Rahman Dar




Seerat traavith sooratas mozum
Doulatas sapdaan daas
Thazray thazray oosus
Azlan diutnam wodoluyey


(I gave up nobility and embraced beauty
I became a slave of wealth.
I was like a kind on top,
but my fate pulled me down)


~ Shamas Fakir


Anem soi, wawum soi
Lajem soi pane saai 


~ Kashmiri saying


Panun raeth pansei math


~ Kashmiri saying


Bulbul Na yeh, Wasiyat Ahbab Bool Jayen
Ganga ke Badle Mere Jehlum Mein Mein Phool; Hayen


~ Kashyap Bandhu


“May be it is the bone and blood of the very ancient Dravid (whatever goes with it) civilization which has survived as the ethinic/culture core and around which the present edifice has been built in collaboration with the Aryans, the Ionian Greek, the Konkan Brahmans, the gypsies and the Central Asians”


~ Akhter Mohi-ud-Din 


“You are for Kashmir, that you live for Kashmir, do well for Kashmir, and love everything of Kashmir”.


~ Mirza Arif


‘Speak of! people of Kashmir speak
O, kashmir thou art a thing of beauty
And a thing of beauty is a joy for ever
keats cheats himself when he believes and says so
Arif tells him to listen to a beloved’s woe 
tyranny for you, O! Dishonored land
You are  a charm for the one that has the upper hand’


~ Mirza Arif


“O Nila, the words of the sage will be effective for one Caturyuga. After that you will live in the company of men only. Here the Pisacas will always become weak…Prajapati is called Ka, and Kasyapa is also Prajapati. Built by him this country will be called Kashmira”


~ Nilmat Purana


The first Rishi was the prophet Muhammad;
The second in order was Hazrat Uways;
The third Rishi was Zulka Rishi
The fourth in order was Hazrat Pilas;
The fifth was Rum Rishi
The sixth in order was Hazrat Miran
The seventh (me) is miscalled a Rishi
Do I deserve to be called a Rishi? What is my name?


~ Nund Reshi


Shiv Chaai thali thali wochaan
Mau Zaan Huind tu Musalmaan
Toruk Hai Chookh Paan praznan
Soi Chaai Shiv seet Zaan


(Siva abides in all that is, everywhere
Then do not discriminate between a Hindu and a Musalman
If thou art wise, know thyself
That is true knowledge of the Lord)


I renounced fraud, untruth, deceit,
I taught my mind to see the one in all my fellow-men,
How could I then discriminate between man and man?
And not accept the food offered by brother.


The idol is but stone,
The temple is but stone,
From top to bottom all is stone.


He does not need the kusa grass, nor sesame seed,
Flowers and water He does not need,
He who, in honest faith, accept his Guru’s word,
On Siva meditates constantly,
He, full of joy, from action freed, will not be born again.


It covers your shame,
Saves you from cold,
Its food and drink,
Mere water and grass,
Who counselled you, O Brahmin?
To slaughter a living sheep as a sacrifice,
Unto a lifeless stone


The thoughtless read the holy books
As parrots, in their cage, recite Ram, Ram,
Their reading is like churning water,
Fruitless effort, ridiculous conceit


When can I beak the bonds of Shame?
When I am indifferent to jibes and jeers
When can I discard the robs of dignity?
When desires cease to nag my mind


The Guru (Sayyid Husain Simnani, or so we are told, not a mention of Sidha Mol)
gave me only one word;
Enter into thyself from the outer world;
the guru’s precept came to me as God’s word;
That’s why i started dancing nude.


In life I sought neither wealth nor power;
Nor ran after pleasures of sense;
Moderate in food and drink, i lived a controlled life;
And love my God.


Whether they killed a large sheep or a small one,
Lalla had her round stone (as her usual fare.)


Whatever I uttered with my tongue became a Mantra


I burnt the foulness of my soul;
I slew my heart, its passions all;
I spread my garments, hem and sat;
Just there, on a bended knees,
In utter surrender unto Him;
My fame as Lalla spread afar.


~ Lal Ded 


Passion for God set fire to all she had,
and from her heart raised clouds of smoke,
Having had a draught of adh-e-alat,
Intoxicated and drunk with joy was she,
One cup of this God-intoxicating drink,
Shatters reason into bits,
A little drowsiness from from it is heavier than
Intoxication from a hundred jars of wine.


~ Nund Rishi quoted by Suhrawardiyya Sufi Baba Dawud Mishkati*




Adam is the progenitor of the human race,
The Mother Eve has the same primordiality,
(So) from where have the ‘low-castes’ descended?
How can a ‘high born’ deride his own ancestry?


One who harps proudly upon one’s caste?
Is bereft of reason and wisdom,
Here the good alone can claim noble descent;
In the Hereafter ‘caste’ will be extinct,
Were you to imbibe the essence of Islam?
Then no one would be purer than you.


(By) displaying the caste in the world,
What will thou gain?
Into dust will turn the bones,
When the earth envelopes the body:
To utter disgrace will he come?
Who, forgetting himself, jeers at others


Among the brothers of the same parents
Why did you create a barrier?
Muslims and Hindus are one
When will God be kind to His servants?


~ Sheikh Noor-ud-Din


The three alphabets -Sha-Ra-Ka, are in fact the etymological representation of the three alphhabets – Ka-Sha-Ra or Kasheer


~ Professor Fida Hassnain


O, King! I hail from the land far away;
Where there is no truth and evil knows no limit.
I appeared in the Maleecha country, and I suffered at
 their hands.
I am known as Ishvara Putram (the Son of God)
Born of Kanya-Garban, the virgin
I teach love, truth and purity of heart,
I ask human beings to serve the lord.
The lord God is in the centre of the Sun, and the elements.
And God and the Sun are forever,
Bliss giving Lord being always in my heart,
My name has been established Isha-Mase


~ Bhavishya-Maha-Purana, 115 A.D.


‘During this period, Hazrat Yuzu Asaph, having come from the Holy Land to the Holy Valley, proclaimed his ministery. He devoted his days and nights in prayers, and having attained the highest status in spiritual hierarchy, declared himself as the Prophet sent to Kashmiris. I have seen in a work of Hindus that this Prophet was really Hazrat Isa, the Spirit of God, who had assumed the name of Yuzu-Asaph in Kashmir.’


~ Kashmiri historian, Mullah Nadri


‘I would like to see whole colonies of English artist, men of science and literature and divines, proceeding to Cashmer’


~ Joseph Wolff in Mission to Bokhara (1832)


When Kashmiris are prosperous, traitors are devastated
When Dhars are prosperous, Kashmiris get devastated


~a Kashmiri proverb


“There is one God
But with hundred names!”


“We belong to the same parents:
Then why this difference


Let Hindus and Muslims (together)
Worship God alone


~Nund Reshi




The mess we inherited. There are some select snippets from a collection of essays titled ‘Kashmiriyat through the ages’, edited and compiled by Professor Fida Mohammad Hassanain (who it seems spent an inordinate duration of his life trying to prove Jesus was in Kashmir and even talked to the famous charioteer of UFO gods, Erich von Däniken ) from various articles published over last decade or so by various people for various platforms. It arrived as  a gift to me from its Srinagar based publishers Gulshan Books.


An elder cousin caught me reading this book and paused at the name of the editor. 


‘He used to be our neighbour in Chanapora. We didn’t know he was a writer till the day his daughter-in-law got kidnapped.’


In 1991 Nahida Imtiaz, daughter of Saifuddin Soz was kidnapped by militants. Her release was secured in exchange for some other militants. My cousins tells me Nahida was Fida Mohammad Hassanain’s daughter-in-law.


None of it makes sense. Not at this late-hour. Not in this place. To call everything by its true name and the trouble to be reminded that everything is double.


“We must treat our lives as we treat our writings, put them in accord, give harmony to the middle, the end, and the beginning. In order to do this, we must make many erasures.”


~ Joseph Joubert, the French writer who spent all his life preparing to write a book but never published anything while alive. 


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*Baba Dawud Mishkati and Abdul’l-Wahhab say that while the Shaikh and his brothers were once trying to break into a house. Lalla, who happened to be there, cried to Nurru’d-Din: “What will you get from this house? Go to a big house (i.e. God). you will get something there.” On hearing this Nuru’d-Din, who was thirty years old at the time, immediatley left his brothers and dug out a cave at the village of Kaimuh. Here for many years he performed his austere penances, withdrawing entirely from the life that surrounded him.


~Biographical encyclopedia of Sufis By N. Hanif


Baba Dawud Mishkati was a follower of Suhrawardiyya Baba Nasibuddin Ghazi of Bijbehara. In his ‘Asrar-ul-Abrar’, written around 1654 AD, and acknowledged as the first work to mention Lal Ded, Baba Dawud Mishkati mentions that word Rishi is derived from the Persian word raish or rish meaning the feathers or wings of a bird. 


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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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Lal Ded Hospital

 
A hoarding for Lal Ded

Saw it on the way to Gulmarg. Lal Ded maternity Hospital is at Raj Bagh. This hoarding was probably for a State hospital….maybe Jhelum Valley Medical College and Hospital, Bemina. Like many, I was born at Lal Ded maternity Hospital.

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a rope of untwisted thread, home, Lal Ded

Ami pana so’dras nAvi ches lamAn
Kati bozi Day myon meyti diyi tAr
Ameyn tAkeyn poniy zan shemAn
Zuv chum bramAn gara gatshaha.

With a rope of untwisted thread am I towing a boat upon the ocean.
Where will my God hear? Will He carry even me over?
Like water in goblets of unbaked clay, do I slowly wast away.
My souls is in a dizzy whirl. Fain would I reach my home.

Lalla-Vakyani Or the Wise Sayings of Lal-Ded – A Mystic Poetess of Ancient …  By Sir George Grierson  (1920)

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I was told Kashmiri Muslims attribute this saying to Lal Ded’s contemporary Nund Reshi – the founder of Reshi cult of Kashmir.

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Kashmiri Proverbs borne of Chinar Tree

These proverbs and their meaning have been  taken from the remarkable book ‘A Dictionary of Kashmiri Proverbs and Sayings’ by James Hinton Knowles (1885).

1.

Kentsan rani chhai shihij buni, nerav nebar shukul [Shuhul] karav.
kentsan rani chhai bar peth huni, nerav nebar tah zang kheyiwo.
kentsan rani chhai adal tah wadal; kentsan rani chhai zadal tshai.

Some have wives like a shady chinar, let us go under it and cool ourselves.
Some have wives like the bitch at the door, let us go and get our legs bitten.
Some have wives always in confusion, and some have wives like bad thatch upon the roof.

– Lal Ded

Salman Rushdie used the first line from this proverb in Salimar the Clown but didn’t trace the line’s orgin to Lal Ded.*

2.

Panah san kheyih buni tah jits san kheyih huni

He will eat the chinar tree- leaves and all, and he will eat the dog with the skin.

A regular cannibal, not satisfied with enough.

3.

Preyaghuch buni nah thadan nah lokan nah badan.

The chinar of preyag neither become taller, nor shorter, nor bigger.

A poor sickly child, who does not grow or become fat.

An explanation about the Chinar tree of prayag that can be found in the book:

This chinar tree is in the middle of a little island just big enough to pitch your tent on, in the midst of the Jhelum river by the village Shadipur. The Hindus have consecrated the place, and a Brahman is to be seen twice every day paddling himself along in a little boat to the spot, to worship and to make his offerings.

This chinar tree at Shadipur  is believed to be the (sangam) confluence of rivers Indus (Sind) and Jhelum (Vitasta) and is called `Prayag’ by Kashmiri pandits – alluding to Prayag that is Allahabad where Yamuna and Ganga meet up. Kashmiri Pandits used to immerse the ashes and remains of their dead at this spot.

[More about Chinar and Kashmir here ]
[Image on left: The Chinar tree at Shadipore in a photograph by Fred Bremner. 1905 ]
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*The poets wrote that a good wife was like a shady boonyi tree, a beautiful chinar – kenchen renye chai shihiji boonyi – but in the comman parlance the imagery was different. The word for the entrance to a house was braand; stone was kany. for comical reasons the two words were sometimes used, joined together, to refer to one’s beloved bride: braand-kany, “the gate of stone.” Let’s just hope, Shalimar the clown thought but did not say, that the stones don’t come smashig down on our heads.

 – Salman Rushdie trying to work linguistic acrobatics in Shalimar the Clown. Although a deft performer of the art, his text here seems to stay flat on trampoline, or so it may seem to a Kashmiri reader. The jump from ‘Boonyi’ to ‘Braand’ to “the gate of stone” seems disjoint.

A newly wed women was often referred to as Braand-kany. The imagery it is supposed to invoke is that the woman is the base of the house and the family. A Braand-Kany actually consists of a small stone stairway that leads to the entrance of the house. If the stones in this stairway were too loose, ill-fitted or just too slippers, often, passage to the inside of the house could become quite hazardous for the visitors. And the visitors were to remeber this house for its bad Braand-kany, a bad reflection on its inmates.

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Kandur Waan / Kashmiri Bakery / Naan Wai

And we carried our bread and bakery with us.

These Hindu bakehouses, usually operating from rented shop spaces near localities with sizable population of Kashmiri Pandits, are mostly run by Hindus of Kistawar.

Often near the oven, you can find a sketch of a pooch-bellied woman, Lal Ded. Pooch belly a cover for her nakedness.

Kashmiris tell a strange story in which this woman dived into a burning oven of a Kandur on seeing a ‘man’.  Some say it wasn’t like that. Nonsense! Bring the baker to the witness stand.

Don but such apparel as will cause the cold to flee.
Eat but so much food as will cause hunger to cease.
O Mind! devote thyself to discernment of the Self and of the Supreme,
And recognize thy body as but food for forest crows.

– Lal Ded

Another bakery at night.

All breads, and kashmiris have variety of breads, have shrunk in size. Lavaasa now come in size of Girda and size of Girda is inching towards kulcha. And all of them seem to have too much baking soda.


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Types of Kashmiri folk Songs

[…] but a folk song is born differently from a formal poem.Poets create in order to express themselves, to say what it is that makes them unique. In the folk song, one does not stand out from others but joins with them. […] It was passed from generation to generation, and everyone who sang it added something new to it. Every song had many creators, and all of them modestly disappeared behind their creation. No folk song existed purely for its own sake. It had a function. […] all (songs) were part of a collective rite in which song had its established place.

– lines from Milan Kunder’s The Joke

This is true of folk songs everywhere in the world. These songs had specific functions, significance and meaning for folks who sang them. Yet, Folk songs remain essential to Kashmiri way of life. The way in which these songs are being sung has changed. Folk songs still exist but you can now hear them on VCD/DVD produced especially for mass consumption. Naturally, purist sneer and they wonder: what happened to the genuine kashmiri folk songs? But, most people are happy knowing that these songs still exist and are sung, and hope that maybe the ‘scene’ is better in rural areas.

Here is a list detailing most of the types of Kashmiri folk Songs:

  • Love songs or Lol-gevun : Lyrics( known in Kashmiri as lol , the word for ‘love’) written by the beloved last queen of Kashmir, Habba Khatoon are famous in this category
  • Dance or Ruf songs: groups of girls or women stand in rows, facing each other, women in each row interlink their arms around each other’s waist, moving forward and backward, they sing these songs.
  • Pastoral songs: there are two type of such song, one sung by Kashmiris and the other by Gujjars (a separate ethnic group ) in their own dialect.
  • Spring songs or sont gevun: Songs celebrating the coming of spring season.
  • Wedding songs Wanwun: Common to both Kashmiri Muslims and Pandits, but Muslim songs have more Persian words while Pandit songs have Sanskrit vocabulary and some Vedic chants. Some of the best songs are sung on the night of the henna known as Maenzraath. Among others there are songs from the folktale about the legendary lovers, Himal and Nagiray.
  • Opera songs or Baand Jashan: songs performed by the traveling band of folk theater (Bhand pather) artists known as Bhand. Salman Rushdie gave them a new literally life in his novel Shalimar The Clown.
  • Dancer’s songs (Bach nagma Jashan): Usually meant for occasions like marriage or other big festivity. A particular band of musician performs these songs accompanied by a lithesome (at times, effeminate) boy/man who dances comically attired like a woman. To listen to a real beautiful dancing girl hafiz-nagama would have to be arranged.
  • Ballads (called bath or Kath, meaning ‘stories’ and literally in kashmiri meaning ‘talk’): A particular variety of satarical ballads is popularly known as laddi shah. A man stirs the iron rings strung on an iron rod and makes witty comments on the social issues. A common refrain from the songs started with line: Laddi Shah, Laddi Shah draar’kin pyow,  pya’waane pya’waane ha’patan khyow( Laddi Shah, Laddi Shah! fell off the window! And a Grizzly bit him just as he fell!)
  • Sacred Thread ceremony songs (Yagnopavit gevun) for Kashmiri Pandits again have more vedic chantings. In an almost equivalent ceremony for Kashmiri Muslims, there are separate songs for the circumcision ceremony.
  • There are also Cradle songs, lullaby (lala’vun) and ditties for children( most popular Kashmiri ditty: Bishte Bishte Braryo, khot’kho wan). An interesting thing to note is that with the passage of time the mystical poem hukus bukus telli wann che kus (Who’s he? Who are you? Now, tell me who am I?) by Lal Ded, the great poet-saint of Kashmir, morphed into a popular nonsensical childrens’ ditty Akus Bakus Telivan Chakus.
  • Dirge or Van: recited in chorus by women of the family after the death of an old persons.
  • Then there are folk songs that depend on the occupation of the person singing them. There are songs of seed-sowers, harvesters and laborers doing their daily hard work. There are songs for workers involved in creating delicate embroidery weavers and makers of exquisite Kashmiri Ka’leens, creators of papier-mache. There are songs sung by saffron reapers (usually women), shepherds, village belles fetching water (some of Habba Khatoon’s lol songs are popular in this category). In Kashmir farm work like grinding, spinning yarn and stacking paddy are performed by women, unlike many other places in the India subcontinent, they also do sowing and harvesting, and they sing different song while doing these physically daunting tasks. Some of these are songs about the waters of Jhelum, songs of saffron fields of Pampore and song about Chinar.

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My other post on Kashmiri Music:

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The list is based on the excellent work titled Folklore of Kashmir (1945) by Somnath Dhar.
It can be found in the Encyclopaedia of Kashmir by Suresh K Sharma, Shiri Ram Bakshi.

Do read: An article on Bhand Pather by M K. Raina, one of India’s best-known theater actors and directors)

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