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Remembering Early Childhood Fun Activities That Filled Our Hearts With Joy.
Of
Chak Mak
Paper Bag Blow out
Stamping Fish Bladder
Hard Whispering of “Kana-Mana –Tuu” into a Friends Ear
Exploding the Tiny Reel Crackers (Taas) in Kangri pot (by friction)
Haah Taas (Crackers that would burst by percussion)
This weekend I am trying to recollect some very tiney childhood time passe that would stir us up during our early toon days (1970s) at Alikadal. The beauty of these fun activities was not only in their frugality but also with
timing and the light taste of naughtiness (punch) associated with them. Extreme short duration of these eventful things (sometime as small as 100 micro second) never mattered to us, it would always send us into a ocean of fun or laughter .
CHAK-MAK
During our Toon days, our search for pieces of marble stones and pebbles was a never ending one. The incentive for search was this magical pair of stone that would cause a larger spark when rubbed together. Often these experiments would be conducted during night and sometimes under the Phiran. Greater the size of emanating spark , larger was the quantum of cheer on one’s face. I don’t remember indulging into any competition for one upmanship , but surely we would share our stones with our fellows for them to have fun as well.
PAPER BAG BLOW SOUND
I today feel proud that our toon days were spent in frugality, (please don’t read it as poverty). At least we didn’t spend it in damaging the nature. Today we have plastic bags that may be spoiling our immediate environment but
childhood all we had was handcrafted paper bags ,be it kandur (bakery shop) or the small groceries (buhur) all goodies were packed into small samosa’s, or some time into more expensive Paper bags.
The Fart:- we would collect the paper bags , take them to school , blow air into them and twisting the mouth of the paper sack we would smash with hand; the sound of the released air would cheer us up. Fun at no cost to parental exchequer.
Today who would believe our words if we make a comment like having derived fun from Kitchen waste. But true to each of us , whenever parents would “dress” the Fish, they would sympathetically keep the fish bladders2 for our Fun. Great pleasure to burst we never cared why the fish would have them. As per our knowledgeable feeling the fish was bestowed with these floatation devices to lend us some moments of pleasure , Typical mode of bursting these would be to place them on a flat stone and stamping with sleeper, but occasionally with hands as well. The sound of the escaping air would give us the pleasure to run the next mile effortlessly.
KANA- MANA- TU,REEL TAAS IN KANGRI POT & HAAH TAAS :
I leave it for all of to recollect these childhood memos, and share with me. I am sure most of us must be remembering these silly actions and look forward to receiving your feelings in a write up form. Do write back on
arunjalalli@gmail.com
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I do remember playing ‘Kana-Mana-tu’. I wanted to do a photo post about it. I believe my nani introduced me to the game and not in a very subtle way. It was fun.
Dr, Frank Graham of U.N.O knew how to score in baseball. He did not know the Indo-Pakistan football game with its peculiar rules. The learned doctor returned with a swollen bottom. Delhi, Sept. 12, 1951
For this cartoon by an unnamed artist in FilmIndia dated October 1951. (Thanks to Memsaab Greta!)
[Updated this old rant of mine (don’t even recall what triggered it, first posted here ) with the posters of a little known called ‘Kashmir Hamara Hai’ from FilmIndia Magazine dated October 1951. (Thanks to Hindi filmbuff Memsaab Greta !)]
Movies like Roja and Yahaan mean nothing to Kashmiris. One can say that the target audience of these movies is different. Roja must have made sense to this targeted audience and Yahaan (shot beautifully!) must have made a bit more sense. But, to me they don’t make sense. Let us look at some selected usual suspects.
Vidhu Vinod Chopra, for all his love of Kashmir and for all his childhood spent in Kashmir (he was born in Kashmir) and as a step towards the ‘right’ direction (remember it was released in the year 2000), made MISSION KASHMIR. One fails to understand how could he make a movie like that and still feel good about himself. He could feel good because that is how the things work in India; we only make filmy blinded righteous Nationalist movies. Our movies just like our mythologies are supposed to have a moral. A conflict has to become a myth. The Hero has to save the nation. Heroine has to sing and dance deep in side dingy caves in front of hundred bearded ‘extra’ men who carry plastic guns in hand and sticky grins on their faces, all this while the heroine tries to seduce Osama and make him forget about Nuking India.
On this relative scale, Vidhu Vinod Chopra must certainly be rating himself highly. But, didn’t his movie have the same elements. A Super Villain (Jackie Shroff playing Hilal Kohistani) who whispers evil words into the innocent ears of an angry and confused young boy, while the boy is carrying the injured Villain on his shoulders, asking him to wage Jihad. While the scene is very symbolic, it again presents a belief that is very common —The Pakistani Islamic Warmonger befooling the ‘innocent but angry’ Kashmiri in the name of religion and making him carryout their dirty tasks. Only this time the idea presented is in symbols in a scene that reminds one of Vikram Vetal (a radio show that at one time was very popular in Kashmir). The idea itself is not new. This idea is the accepted average limit to which a common Indian is willing to naturalize the Kashmir conflict. Besides this, the movie has The Super Army man, the Super Mother, the Super villainous plot (I must say that Kargil conflict was also a super villainous plot. At times Kahsmir does go into Super mode) and everything else that could be Super.
Isn’t he the maker of the film An Encounter with Faces that was nominated for an Oscar in the short, non-fiction film category in 1979. Couldn’t he make a different movie about Kashmir? Why is Iranian filmmaker Majid Majidi doing a film about Kashmiri Children called Kashmir Afloat, while the Indian filmmakers are sitting on their golden ass, brooding over what all-great Intellectual filmmakers brood about things like, “Is a heroine of size 36D going to help my film, about street children, get more money on the opening day or should I take a frail newcomer and show her (yet!) plum ass in a dramatic slow motion! ”
But, then things do improve with time or rather the scene does evolves.
Remember the religion less movie Jab Jab Phool Khile. How can anyone make a movie like that? Shashi Kapoor is a Boatsman who loves Nanda, a women from mainland India. Anybody making a movie about Kashmir should have known that the Boatsmen in Kashmir are Muslims of a separate tribe who claim ascendance right to the Prophet Noah, the supposed builder of the greatest boat ever built.
Is religion a problem in the movie? No, religion is one big yarn and India is a one big happy family.
Yahaan(2005) at least gave religion to its main characters. Although I must say that the character of Adaa (played by Minissha Lamba) must have grown up living in a Nutshell just like Thumbelina to have fallen in love with a Hindu Army Man. She must have walked out of her Nutshell one day and stepped straight into the movie. And just like Shakespeare’s Miranda, fallen for the first man that her eyes ever fell upon. One big yarn…the height of things…a tall tale. In Kashmir, a true film buff would call it “Afarwat kiss’hi !” (Possible origin of word: Afarwat mountain in Kashmir), a term used for tall tales that people tell once in a while.
Mani Ratnam’s Roja at least had a screaming wife who cries that she doesn’t care about the Nation, just give her the missing husband. Of course, then the preaching starts and the happy end.
Roja was made in 1992, just years after the trouble in Kashmir started (1989). Maybe, it was too much to ask from the director. One would have had to be foolishly brave to have said something substantial at that time. Try to say something meaningful and then let it be used as propaganda by the other side. Only movies made during the conflict/war are propaganda movies, Nationalistic movies, and patriotic movies. The conflict has to end so that people can make something out of it…begin to analyze what happened… what passed. We need Distance in time and space. However, one can always cash in on the conflict and make a filmy movie about the conflict giving no thought to the actual subjects. Make it entertaining, appealing, alluring, sleek, demonizing, anglicizing, Nationalizing or downright vulgarizing the life of people caught in the conflict.
We are poor people; we do not have enough silver space for all the conflicts to compete for the screen time. While Kashmir suffers from wrongful depiction on the Screen, I guess other places like North Easter India (with its own set of problems) suffers from almost no depiction in the mainstream Bollywood Cinema. Again, the usual suspect Mani Ratnam tried his hand at it with Dilse (1998), managing to create just a great song n dance sequence atop a slow moving train and some memorable music thanks to A. R Rahman ( Bulleh Shah went pop that year and a whole new breed of people can to know of him).
Maybe, it’s too much to ask of main steam movies and their makers. However, even these movies mean something… must mean something. Someone from North East has fewer or maybe no Jab Jab Phool Khile to trash. Don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad.
Shahtoosh (also written Shatush) – a Persian word meaning “Pleasure of Kings” – was the name given to a specific kind of shawl, which was woven with the down hair of the Chiru or Tibetan Antelope, by the weavers of Kashmir. These shawls were originally very few and it took very skilled artisans to weave the delicate hair (which measured between 9 and 11 micrometres). These factors made Shahtoosh shawls very precious. Shahtoosh are so fine that an average size shawl can be passed through a wedding ring.
Few people have ever heard of an antelope known as the Chiru,or the Tibetan Antelope (Pantholops hodgsonii), yet it produces shahtoosh, a wool far more valuable than gold. This statuesque animal is native to treeless steppe above 5,000 meters in Chinese Tibet and adjacent northwest India. Its extremely lightweight, delicate wool has traditionally been woven into shawls and sold in a limited trade in Tibet and Kashmir, India. Within the past few decades, however, a growing market has developed in major cities in India, Nepal, several western countries and Japan.
The former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir (July 2, 1984 to March 6, 1986), G.M. Shah (88), died January 6, 2009. Ghulam Mohammad Shah joined his father-in-law Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah’s party National Confrence in 1944.
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.
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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
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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
Earlier cross posted here at my other blog
—————————————————— Santosh Sivan’s latest film Tahaan: A boy with a grenade will tell the fable of an eight-year-old Kashmiri boy named Tahaan and his struggle to reclaim his pet donkey poignantly named – Birbal. The film stars mainstream actors like Rahul Bose, Anupam Kher and Rahul Khanna; while Purav Bhandare, a boy from Mumbai plays the young protagonist of the movie. The film (earlier tentatively named Dastaan) shot in Kashmir last December, in certain sense marks the return of Indian filmmaker to the subject and the locale of Kashmir. Of course, Santosh Sivan is not new to the subject of Kashmir, remember, he was the cinematographer for Mani Ratnam’s critically acclaimed Roja. Roja may not the kind of movie that I would like to see on the subject of Kashmir but considering that it was made in 1992, a period that marked the peak of militancy in Kashmir – it certainly was a brave attempt at the divisive subject by one of India’s best film director.
In a previous post of mine, I wrote about the subject of remoteness and most obvious trashiness of Indian films made on the subject of Kashmir; in case of Tahaan, a cynical me is itching to scream:
There are no donkeys in Kashmir! Why a Mumbai boy! Why a title like “a boy with a grenade”! What about the Hindi diction!
And after watching the movie, I am sure I could come up with at least hundred more rants. Maybe, I will! I am sure I will have reasons. But, maybe I won’t go up that nutty track.
The Reason:
Somewhere at the back of my mind, I know that Santosh Sivan isn’t new to the genre of Children’s film. I am glad that he has made a children’s film based in Kashmir instead of trying something else (remember his Ashoka. Now, Forget it!). The last children’s film from India that I really liked was Halo (1996) and it made by Santosh Sivan, and I was a child when I saw it so naturally: a good judge of the matter. Set in Bombay (which had recently been renamed Mumbai), the subject of the film was simple: A little girl on discovering that her God sent puppy (that she aptly names – Halo) is missing, gangs up with her neighborhood friends and launches a little search; the film reaches a touching climax when she finds the missing pup and realizes that someone else needs that pup more than she does. Halo is rightly among the best picks from Indian Cinema on and for Children. Santosh Sivan’s next film Malli (1998) told the story of a young girl’s search for a magical blue pill. Now with Tahaan, Sivan again turns his camera toward the domain of children, a domain whose myriad yet simple hues he has the ability to capture well. Children’s film are simple. Or are they!
The world of Children’s film is a precious little paradise that is continuously shrinking and may soon be seen only through CGI.
Invariable, children’s films tend to be about things that children love, lose, and then try to get back. Invariable, in these films – at least when they are not about out and out fantasy: a magic coat, a magic conch, a pari, a supernatural friend from space(no not jaadu but Raghuvir Yadav as Trishanku)etc.– a child’s world is centered around: a street pup, a chicken, a croc, an elephant, a goat, a monkey, a parrot, a pony and now – a donkey. Now, Tahaan isn’t the first Children’s film set in Kashmir, the first Indian Children’s film set in Kashmir was 1983 film Kashmira. Incidentally, this film too had a four-legged star: a pony. Made at a time when peace prevailed in Kashmir, this film told the tale of a parentless and destitute young girl named Kashmira who makes a living thanks to her dear pony named Kesari. Kashmira remembers her parents by the trees that they had planted in their lifetime. When young Mohan, whose father is a tree-felling contractor, meets Kashmira, inspired and sorry for his father’s profession – he too starts liking trees and plants a tree in the name of her dead mother. The film, directed by Sukhdev Ahluwalia renowned for his Punjabi flicks, starred many local Kashmiri actors and Mohanlal Aima – the original composer of the now famous Kashmiri song Bumbro Bumbro – gave his music to the film. Incidentally, this film too belonged to a four legged actor – the film in its climax sees Keseri chase and capture a Jewel thief.
Didn’t I say, ‘There are no donkeys in Kashmir!’
Every Kashmiri knows that.
Apparently, during the shooting of Tahaan in Kashmir, Santosh Sivan also came to realize that Kashmir is rather more abundant in mules. He wanted two donkeys for shooting the film and they were nowhere to be found; providentially, after much search and with some local assistance, he did manage to find his star donkeys who also had the right attitude for starring in films. Indian Express tells the fascinating story of the making of Tahaan. In the same article it is written that [the story of the film is not] the usual concoction of violence and politics.
Knowing Santosh Sivan – what can a viewer expect from the film?
Expect great cinematography – Kashmir and Sivan both at their best. That beautiful snow song from Roja was never shot in Kashmir, those were not the ‘hasi waadhiya’ of Kashmir and that militant hideout of a village with its strange stony pathways, again certainly wasn’t Kashmir. Now that Sivan has finally managed to take his camera to Kashmir, it would certainly be something special.
What else is there to look forward to in this children’s film.
In the words of Santosh Sivan:
“When I looked through my camera, it was strange, unsettling. There was no violence while we were shooting but I could feel that strange mist of conflict. Kashmir’s beauty looked wounded […]’’
For those who remember Halo well(it did win Best Children’s Film Award at the 1996 National Film Festival), the film wasn’t simply a tale of a girl and her lost pup, the shadow of 1993 Bombay riots was always looming subtly in background. In Tahaan, the child’s father is shown to be ‘missing’, missing people is a grim fact of Kashmir, the outcome of now almost 19 year long ‘recent’ Kashmir conflict. In one of the promotional stills released from the film, one can see women and children including Tahaan carrying the placards having the name of the ‘missing’. Something tells me it is not going to be a simple tale of a boy looking for his donkey, it would be tale of a boy with a grenade looking for his lost donkey.
For once, the cynical me can take a long hike in the beautiful mountains of Kashmir.
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Some more news on films on Kashmir:
Last year there was talk of Iranian film maestro Majid Majidi making a UTV produced film on Kashmir called Kashmir Afloat. One report said that the film was named ‘Flood-Stricken Kashmir’ and another report said that it was going to be a documentary about boatman of Kashmir. Don’t know where it is heading.
Sudhir Mishra produced Foot Soldier is being shot in Kashmir and may or may not be a children’s film.
Critically acclaimed film director Vishal Bharadwaj is another from the dwindling tribe of great filmmaker who continue to make films for children even after experiencing success elsewhere. This seems to be a bit of a tradition in India: great film makers making Children’s film, some of the names of yore that can be recounted are: Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, Shyam Benegal, M.S. Sathyu and Satyen Bose. Names of Vishal Bharadwaj and Santosh Sivan will indeed find great company in that list.
Vishal Bharadwaj’s Makdee(2002), that told the story of a gritty young girl who takes on the might of a ‘witch’, was entertaining enough to count grown-ups among its spellbound audience. More recently, Vishal Bharadwaj’s Blue Umbrella (based on a children’s story by Ruskin Bond) told the story of a young girl growing up in some village in Himachal who acquires a marvelous blue umbrella that soon becomes the subject of envy of a conniving shopkeeper (played out brilliantly by Pankaj Kapur); when the umbrella disappears, she sets to find the thief who stole her dear umbrella.
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Children’s films do tend to be about lost and found. I remember a film – whose name and details now escape me – that I saw many-many years ago on Doordarshan (the patron saint of Children’s Cinema and good Indian films of yore). The film was set in some village in the hills of northern India (or maybe it was a Nepali film) and told the story of a boy who finds some priceless gems that were long buried in his farmland and undertakes a perilous journey out to city to try and sell them for his family. It was something like that, rest I forget.
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In Kashmiri:
A Khar is a donkey
A Khachru is a mule
And both of them are used as surname.
A Khar’kal is an idiot
This of course is of used as a surname.
A surname Kher still draws a smirk from a Kashmiri because he knows that the surname is actually Khar. Over the centuries, Kashmiris have perfected the coveted art of converting nicknames into surnames. It isn’t without reason that a Kashmiri Dhar family on relocating to a canal near Allahabad got the family name Nehru. A Kashmiri surname can tells many stories to discerning ears. Most of the times these surnames were nothing but the outcome of extensive jovial (maybe, not always) verbal fencing exercised thorough indulgent name-calling that could be inflicted on a person on account of: his profession, or his great grand father’s profession, his hair, or his lack of hair, or may just dandruff infested hair, his dietary habits, or just his favorite vegetable dish, his village, his district, or maybe the stinky pond next to his house. According to the moral of a famous Kashmiri fable: no matter what you do with the mulberry tree going in your yard – whether you cut it down, bury the stump or dig out the stump – people will always find a new moniker for you; there was no escaping it, and in the end you just accept the new name.
My uncle, my mamaji, somehow read all this and when we met, he said, “What it this nonsense that you am spreading about no donkeys in Kashmir. Yes, donkeys were not common in Kashmir but I have seen many in my days while I was working in Anantnag.”
Movies like Roja and Yahaan mean nothing to Kashmiris. One can say that the target audience of these movies is different. Roja must have made sense to this targeted audience and Yahaan (shot beautifully!) must have made a bit more sense. But, to me they don’t make sense. Let us look at some selected usual suspects.
