Letters between Manto and Gandhi: A Conversation in Fiction

For my assignment on Gandhi,  I have recreated a fictional conversation between Manto and Gandhi through letters. Both Manto and Gandhi did not favour the idea of partition and had a very peaceful outlook to life. However, while one wrote sordid tales of human behaviour the other advocated complete celibacy. It is this that they discuss the concept of celibacy. While Manto mocks Gandhi in his own subtle way, Gandhi tries to explain his idea of Brahmacharya which is what is the outcome of this exercise; simplifying and concisely describing Gandhi's view on sexuality. The sources used for this include Gandhi's collected works available online and an article from FirstPost by Aakar Patel.

31 Laxmi Mansions, Hall Road, Lahore
16 December 1947

Dear Bapu,

Hope this letter finds you in the best of your health and spirits, which I assume your strict regime, good diet and teetotalism offer you already. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same about myself. As a lowly drunkard often found in the streets, I can feel my liver beg for forgiveness while in the process of giving up slowly. But I digress. This is no letter to tell you of my bodily woes.
I don’t know if I can rightfully call you Bapu, since you no longer belong to my country but then again, I have never been one to go by constructs. Don’t worry. The next time onwards I shall address you as Uncle. I have gained a certain degree of infamy with my other letters addressed to this one powerful uncle.

I have long since thought of writing to you, often as a plea of help to stop the bloody slicing away of our country into two but then I thought one insignificant letter would not have made a difference. Jinnah sahib had made up his mind to deprive this insignificant writer of his cup of good liquor, so be it. Pardon me for my insolence, but this letter one is about an idea of yours that I disagree with. Now do not get me wrong, I have thought about it enough and now have come to the conclusion that it must be because I am incapable of understanding how a man as great as yours works. You are one who has shaken the root of the empire in a simple lungi and stick. I have been walking around in more clothes with my pen and stories but never had an impact. Once again, I think it was the alcohol. Have you read Mirza Ghalib sahib? He puts it most aptly when he says,

Yehmasail-e-tasawwuf, yehterabayaanGhalib,

Tujhe hum walisamajhte, jonabaadakhwaarhota.

(Aah these matters of philosophy, and your description of them,

Oh Ghalib, we would have thought you a prophet had you not been a drunkard)

Before I begin, I must tell you that I wholeheartedly agree with your philosophy of primacy of truth. Through his work this poor chap Manto tries really hard to put the true misery of life into words, however the world is harsh on SaadatHasan for it. Like you, I fight a satyagraha every day.
However, there is one point on which you and I diverge. The other day, I came across this comment by you and pondered over what it could mean. You say that ‘the modern girl loves to be Juliet to half a dozen Romeos. She loves adventure and to attract attention.’You said to young boys that, “When you walk in the bazaar, keep your gaze down. Wear a hood so that your eyes don’t light upon the faces of young girls. Thus you’ll hold on to your virtue.”
To me this is all very funny. I couldn’t believe that a man great as you could have said such a thing! I am sure your hold on India is intact but alas, I think this attempt was as much a failure as that of the Congress to impose prohibition in Bombay. Since I can take it no more, I think I should be the one to break to you that the horny nature of Indian men remains intact.
But imagine if this censor had worked!

We would have seen our young men walk around the streets with hoods on their heads and with their gazes lowered. There would have been chaos in traffic. Accidents every day caused by this. And the victims would all be men. Hood on head, eyes down, directly in the path of cars coming at them. With young girls, ungazed at, walking about here and there. Horns being sounded even louder than they are now. The hospitals would soon be filled up with wounded young men. And there too the poor fellows would presumably be hooded so as to not accidentally catch sight of the young nurses. It would have made life immensely boring. Passions, like still water, would not stir. All excitement would come to an end if men were physically stopped from engaging women. There would be no spark that's produced between two strangers. The intoxication of youth would sober up. The world all around would turn serious and grim. Faces would become longer. Their glow would vanish. Deprived of an essential motivation, men would turn sluggish. We would also destroy our culture of poetry and literature. All this and I would be put out of a job I do not even have yet!
 

While I think you are being unfair on poor writers like me I would really want to know what this brahmacharya business is all about? From what little I know of it, it sounds so completely disagreeable that I would want to know more of it.

I do not know how much you know of me, but people have often called me the greatest short story writer of India. Of course now I belong to Pakistan; this partition has greatly reduced my claim to fame. However, I must inform you in advance that I am often regarded a pornographic writer and although the courts have charged me five times for obscenity, I have never been convicted. In Pakistan, so far, I have been tried only once but then, my new country is still young. If your faith in the justice system lies assured, then I know you will reply to this lowly creature.
Pardon me if I have hurt your sentiments in any way because of my brash curiosity. I look forward to your response.

With utmost respect,
Sadat Hasan Manto
Once Greatest Short Story Writer of India
Resident of Pakistan

Sabarmati Ashram

30 December 1947

Dear Sadat,

You are quite frank and I liked your letter for the clear enunciation of your views.

Brahmacharya is a mental condition. It means control in thought, word and action, of all the senses at all times and in all places. The outward behavior of a man is at once the sign and proof of the inner state. He who has killed the sexual urge in him will never be guilty of it in any shape or form. However attractive a woman may be, her attraction will produce no effect on the man without the urge. The same rule applies to woman.

It is the way of life that leads us to Brahma (God). It includes full control over the process of reproduction. The control must be in thought, word and deed. If the thought is not under control, the other two have no value. There is a saying in Hindustani: "He whose heart is pure has the all-purifying waters of the Ganga in his house." For one whose thought is under control the other is mere child's play.

I have heard enough of your stories about the despicable condition of humanity during partition and elsewise. I see you choose to write about a certain type of suffering. A large part of the miseries of today can be avoided if we look at the relations between the sexes in a healthy and pure light, and regard ourselves as trustees for the moral welfare of the future generations. You, of all people, would know this. I have heard of unspeakable things in those stories of yours and am certain that if your characters followed brahmacharya, the women and children would not have seen that plight.

Brahamchraya means control of all the organs of sense. He who attempts to control only one organ, and allows all the others free play is bound to find his effort futile. To hear suggestive stories with the ears, to see suggestive sights with the eyes, to taste stimulating food with the tongue, to touch exciting things with the hands, and at the same time to expect to control the only remaining organ, is like putting one's hands in the fire and expecting to escape being hurt.

The Brahmachari of my conception will be healthy and will easily live long. He will not even suffer from so much as a headache. Mental and physical work will not cause fatigue. He is ever bright, never slothful. Outward neatness will be an exact reflection of the inner.

In contrast to what you say, I feel that a life without Brahmacharya would be insipid and animal-like. The brute by nature knows to self-restraint. Man is man because he is capable of, and only in so far as he exercises, self-restraint. What formerly appeared to me to be extravagant praise of Brahmacharya in our religious books seems now, with increasing clearness every day, to be absolutely proper and founded on experience.

I urge you to read more about this, wherever you can and practice it in your life. You will soon see a sea of change in your behavior and life.  I am Bapu or uncle, whatever you heart desires to call me. I shall pray for you and your country;our neighbors. My greatest regards to our friends across the border.

Love,
Bapu

31 Laxmi Mansions, Hall Road, Lahore

11 January 1948

Dear Uncle,

Pardon me for this abrupt start but the after effects of the last letter were quite shocking. Like you suggested, I tried to read more about brahmacharya. Eventually, I read little but spoke to many. And what horrid tales I hear!  Is not this complete brahmacharya that you speak of something you practice yourself?

Pardon my sinful ears, but I overheard one too many talking about you and your experimentation with brahmacharya. Tauba! At first I could not hear them speak such vile things about such a pure man like you! Sleeping with your grand-nephew’s wife naked at night! Never I said, and tried to shut them up. I think your detailed response in the last letter has created a bond between us and honoring that, I tried to stop the filthy talk. It must be one of the Pakistani ploys for defamation. Do you know what they talk of you here? In the spirit of upholding satya, I thought it my duty to inform you of untruths they speak.

I told them that the brahmacharya Mahatma refuses to hear suggestive stories with ears and see suggestive things with sight! What makes you think he would sleep next to a naked pulsating mound of female flesh, let alone bathe withthem.Do you not know, I say, that brahmacharyas cannot let any sense be aroused? How can you say that Bapu’s grand-niece massaged his naked body from time to time? Do you not know that by virtue of being Bapu he is the father and mother to all and such things need not be spoken against such a pure bond?

I think the vile demon of nationalism has possessed them. You think if I spoke such filth of Qaid-e-Azam I would be alive today in Pakistan; a country still without a constitution. But I think I understand their saying this of a father of the enemy nation. After all, are not all our insults directed at family; our poor mothers and sisters bear the brunt of every curse we cuss.

Do not worry Mahatma, Bapu. I know you are wise enough to know that activities may be sensual but not explicitly sexual. So what if there is no penetration, you have taught them all to practice complete brahmacharya of all senses. For a while you had me, this staunch opponent of all things celibate, convinced too. When you said that this practice rids you of ailments, I seriously debated it in my head. You know, my head has been constantly throbbing for a while and to cure it I thought I’d give it a try but thankfully my friend bought me a new bottle of imported liquor which did the trick.  Thanks to his mercy,I didn’t have to go on the hard path of brahmacharya.

I suggest you don’t worry too much now. These moralists of Pakistan target me too. Had I not told you about the 5 cases of obscenity on me? By the grace of God, there is a 6^th one now. I can tell people looking at me now wish I weren’t born to talk about the pornography that they live. This seems quite unfair to both of us. Why don’t you teach me how you deal with this and in turn, I will fight for your cause?

While I am sure you have other, much more important things to deal with, I beg you to spare some time for this cross border son of yours. Till then you must not worry. Your cause is being well fought in the land of Pakistan by this crusader of yours. I may not agree with your ideas, but like I said, you are my Indian father now. I will not let you be shamed and will stop every tongue that speaks filth of you through ahmisa. You are no pervert and every one in Pakistan shall know this!

I await your response with more eagerness.

Your Pakistani Son/Nephew,

Manto 

31 Laxmi Mansions, Hall Road, Lahore

15 January 1948

Dear Bapu,

It has been a long while and yet I haven’t yet received a reply from you for my previous letter. Being hopeful, I shall blame it on the Indian Postal System, who in an inane bout of patriotism have not allowed my communication to reach you. How could they let a Pakistani son steal away any bit of your time. Anyhow, I am glad it did not reach you. I had said some things in haste that might have been slightly uncalled for in light of recent findings. Do forgive me and disregard all that if you ever get the letter.

My pundit brother Nehru-ji also seems to have similar disagreements with you as mine. I hear, he too, calls your brahmacharya abnormal and experimental. I hear a lot more stories now, most of which I can tell are true. I am now angry because I had been fighting for you like a fool without knowing the truth. Nehru-ji says that your experimentation with brahmacharya can lead to frustration, inhibition, neurosis and all manner of physical and nervous ills. I do not know whom to believe! One a Kashmiri brother and the other, my Indian father!

Anyway, I hear you tell people that one who conserves his semen acquires unfailing power? I have a bone to pick with you here then. You know what a bloody massacre the partition was and how it was an unnecessary exercise.  I’m sure you have conserved enough vital fluid over these years. Why, then, did vital fluid not keep India united? Baapuji if it had, today we would be one country and not two and I’d still be the greatest short story writer in India and an undisputed son of yours. I am very disappointed that despite knowing this secret of power, you didn’t exercise it.

I am discontent with your ideas, yet I will continue to fight for you. At least you have spared me a thought. My government hasn’t done that too. I shall await hearing back from you because being an optimist; I still hope you will dispel some of the stories I hear about you.

Your Son,

Manto

Sabarmati Ashram
24th January 1948

Dear Manto,

I have your letter. I apologize for not having responded since there has been a lot going on and I haven’t had the time to read my mail.  Despite all your disagreements with me, I address you as a friend, a son, and that is no formality. I own no foes. My business in life has been for the past 33 years to enlist the friendship of the whole of humanity by befriending mankind, irrespective of race, colour or creed.

  

The last time I wrote to you, I had left out certain important parts of my philosophy which I think you need to understand and will answer the questions you pose to me.

I will explain why brahmacharya is necessary in marriage, why conserving the vital fluid is important and why I engage in my little project of experimentation with brahmacharya.

I have practiced brahmacharya for over thirty years with considerable success though living in the midst of activities. After the decision to lead the life of a brahmachari, there was little change in my outward practice, except with my wife. For me the observance of even bodily brahmacharya has been full of difficulties. Today I may that I feel myself fairly safe, but I have yet to achieve complete mastery over thought, which is so essential. Not that the will or effort is lacking, but it is yet a problem to me where from undesirable thoughts spring their insidious invasions.

Human society is a ceaseless growth, an un foldment in terms of spirituality. If so, it must be based on ever-increasing restraint upon the demands of the flesh. Thus, marriage must be considered to be a sacrament imposing discipline upon the partners, restricting them to the physical union only among themselves and for the purpose only of procreation when both the partners desire and the prepared for it. The vital fluid you speak of has the potentiality of creating human beings. Is it strange then that one who is able completely to conserve and sublimate this, will have immeasurable creative strength! Imagine the potency of such sublimation, one drop of which has the potentiality of bringing into being a human life?

My brahmacharya was not derived from books. I evolved my own rules for my guidance and that of those who, at my invitation, had joined me in the experiment. If I have not followed the prescribed restrictions, much less have I accepted the description found even in religious literature of woman as the source of all evil and temptations. Owing as I do all the good there may be in me to my mother, I have looked upon woman, never as an object for satisfaction of sexual desire, but always with the veneration due to my own mother. Man is the tempter and aggressor. It is not woman whose touch defiles man, but he is often himself too impure to touch her. I am experimenting. I have never claimed to have been a perfect brahmachari of my definition. I have not acquired that control over my thoughts that I need for my researches in non–violence is to be contagious and infectious, I must acquire greater control over my thoughts.

I am glad you are fighting my cause and do consider you like my own son, but to address each of your questions is difficult as I am an old man. I sincerely hope you find the answers you are looking for in this humble letter of mine.

Yours truly,

Bapu

Othello and غالب: A soliloquy

For a paper on Shakespere I recreated Othello's last speech using Ghalib's poetry. The deviation from the plot here is that he kills himself without knowing the truth about Desdemona and Cassio; in his sorrow, he wants her back. At the end,  it is still unclear if he thinks Desdemona innocent or not. Along with verses in Urdu, I have also put in parts of the text from Othello. These parts are in English and Italicized; the changes in voice in these are in regular font. Its quite fun.

I am a moor; I was always the Moor.

My story bears no audience, yet I still narrate it once more to lament over how I was tricked. Happiness is a mirage; a distant dream in the hot desert of sorrows. Just when you think you’ve reached the green, oasis of joy, the blistering heat snatches it away from you. Such is life. Such are the times. How can one love and live, at the same time?

Bas ki dushwar hai har kaam ka aasaan hona,

Aadmi ko bhi mayasar nahi insaan hona

(Although it's difficult for every task to be easy,

Even for a man, it's not easy to become humane)

My tale is one of deception and how this wicked, treacherous world makes it so hard for man to be human. I loved; I loved and I lost. I lost because of treachery; no I lost because of my own jealousy. Or was it treachery? My mind deceived me; tricked me the bastard. Could she ever do what they say? They said she cheated her father of twenty years. Could she cast aside our sacred vows that easily?

Jee dhondhta hai phir wohi fursat ke, raat din;

Bethien rahien tasavur-janan kiye hue

(My soul still seeks those nights and days of leisure,

When we would idle away, picturing the beloved in our head)

Desdemona and I used to lie on grassy slopes, looking up at the sky while I enticed her with my tales of travels far away. I could see her cringe at every mention of an adversity and see her fair, lovely face light up at the mention of conquests. I could guide her eyes to go from wide, smiling surprise to misty empathy in seconds. She lived vicariously through me. I was the Marco Polo and she my Kublai and for her I painted the invisible cities; their people, their mysteries; their stories. For me, I took delight in changing contours of her beautiful face and knowing I was in charge of her emotions, even if it were for just those few hours.

Manzar ek bulandi par aur hum bana sakte

Arsh se idhar hoga kaas ki makaan apna

(We would have been able to make a viewing-site on an excellent height;

If only our house were on this side of the sky)

It seems so long ago that the night breeze rushed past our faces as I caressed her lovely hair and told her of my dreams for us; for us to go beyond this world and soar the skies with happiness. We were to settle in Cyprus, you know; move to the beautiful city of Cyprus and have a new home. She wanted to see the marvels of the East I had I’d so often told her about; the painters with their paraphernalia, the Chinese traders with their reams of silk, the buzz of this port city where the East and West came together.

Tere wade par jiye hum toh ye jaan jhooth jana,

Ki khushi se mar na jaate, agar itbaar hota

(If we lived on your promise, then know this-- we knew [it to be] false,

For would we not have died of happiness, if we had had trust (in it)?)

When she told me she wanted to marry me, did I not bring forth crowds to cheer at our wedding? Did I not do all but part the Red Sea for that vow of fidelity from you?

Did I not once tell you that if it were now to die, 'Twere now to be most happy? Why then did that damned handkerchief make its way into someone else’s bed?

Why then could you not promise me serenity? This tinkering seed of doubt that Iago has sown in my head is still not uprooted. I can feel it grow its parasitic tentacles deep into me. I know it shall be the death of me. You were too good to be true.

Mohabbat mein nahi hai farq jeene aur marne ka,

Usi ko dekh kar jeete hain kis kaafir pe dam nikle

(In love, there's no difference of living and dying

Having seen only her, we live-that infidel over whom we breathe our last)

Now, I sit here; the dagger in my hand raised to my chest over the body of my beloved. The wife I choked to death with my own hands. Reality goes by you at unfathomable speed sometimes. How could I let this happen? My Desdemona; my beautiful Desdemona. I was misled. Will my tears wake her up?

That whiter skin of hers than snow now lay lifeless before me, and my beloved, there is no way I can again thy former light restore. It wasn’t Iago; it was me who did this to her. Tis true that her love left me in a trance; morning and night would go just looking for the beloved. Oh, you beautiful, my lady fair of face.

Was I wrong to love this Venetian; this kaafir of mine? They didn’t want me, I was the treacherous moor who had entered into their city and now stolen their girl from amidst them. In their eyes, I was the other. Truth be told, I still do not know if she was faithless or I. At the end, which one of us emerges the infidel?

Zikr us pari wash ka aur phir bayan apna

Ban gaya rakeeb aakhir tha raazdaan apna

(The mention of that Fairy-faced one; and then-- my description

He who was my confidant, became my rival; finally)

I be damned, I should have never professed of my love to her so publicly. Oh who wouldn’t be jealous; who wouldn’t want her. That must have been it. He wanted her. I described her beauty; her fair skin, her rosy lips, her dark eyes. It was me. I let her slip through my hands. That is the cause and that is the reason; Cassio and Iago, both wanted her. It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul.

Dard e dil likhunkab tak jaon un ko dikhlaon,

Unglian figaar apni khaama khooncha apna

(How long would I write the pain of the heart? I might go and show to her

My wounded fingers, my blood-dripping reed-pen)

I cannot but write about us; this epic of ours breaks my heart as I pen it down. Do you not see the blood flow down my hands; trickle down the paper leaving beads? But our tale needs to be told. A tale of how I, like the base Judean, threw a pearl away richer than all my tribe.

Qaid-e-hayat o ranj o gham Asal mein dono ek hain,

maut se pehle aadmi gham se najaat payen kyun

(The prison of life, and the bondage of grief-- in essence both are one,

Before death, why would a person find release from grief?)

I killed my own wife for her infidelity. I killed my own wife on the pretext of what a possible adversary told me. From here on, I will either live life knowing I killed my unfaithful wife, or my one true love; neither of which will justify the agony this act brings with it. This life is not meant to be lived happy. I loved and I lost. I think it is time I free myself from these miserable shackles of human existence.

Hue mar ke hum jo ruswa hue kyun na gark e darya,

Na kahin janazah uthta na kahin mazaar hota

(If disgrace after death was to be my fate, I should have met my end by drowning,

It would have spared me a funeral and no headstone would have marked my grave)

But Alas! Even the decision of death seems to have taken its revenge on me. Fate, you tricky bastard; I see the sly game you played there. Oh how I wish I escape the misery of a funeral. I wish to have plunged into the rivers and drowned. With a strong wave, I’d have been forgotten. No processions to glorify me; no whispers to malign. But they must know that, I loved not wisely, but too well. Not easily jealous, but being wrought, perplexed in the extreme.

But Oh, my soul’s joy! I once told you that if after every tempest come such calms, may the winds blow till they have wakened death. I crave the tempest and the calm after now, let me come to you and let us now be together.

Come, Desdemona, Once more, we’ll meet at Cyprus

Kashmir: An Imagined Community asserting its Identity through Language and Cricket

When I first read Benedict Anderson’s concept of an imagined community, it blew me away but its sheer simplicity. I had often been at conflict with my nationality. Being a Kashmiri, I belong to a minority that can ideologically choose to pledge its loyalties to one of two nations. The first of these nations is the sovereign, socialist, democratic, Republic of India; my identity on paper. The other-and I’d finally found a rationale for it- an imagined political community based on an ethno-nationalist conception called Kashmir.
“Nationality or nationalism are cultural artifacts of a particular kind. To understand them properly we need to consider carefully how they have come into historical being, in what ways their meanings have changed over time, and why, today , they command such profound emotional legitimacy.”
I write this piece to examine the sentiment behind the feeling of nationalism that is so inherent, in every Kashmiri. I will try to sketch, taking two instances from popular culture, how an ordinary Kashmiri individual asserts his defiance against the state of India.  One must be careful while defining an ordinary Kashmiri and my subset here, is the average Kashmiri Muslim. I have taken the liberty to exclude significant chunks of Sikh, Pandit and Christian population and taken into account only the majority.
The concept of a nation state of Kashmir can be put into context with Anderson’s definition of an imagined community,
“It is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow members meet them or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion.”
Kashmir has always been a conflicted territory and so I will try to briefly sum up the history of the conflict.  As a princely state with majority Muslim population and geographic accessibility to both India and Pakistan, the Maharaja was to ideally accede to Pakistan. After much delay and an infiltration by guerellias from the NWFP, the Maharaja acceded to India for protection. The accession was accepted with the promise of a plebiscite, which 66 years hence, is much awaited. Today, a half of what we remember sketching out as Jammu and Kashmir on India’s political map is actually occupied by India.  

To pacify the conflict, a certain degree of political autonomy under the Indian state was awarded to Jammu and Kashmir. Few know that as a special state, till 1965 Kashmir had its own Prime Minister. Article 370 gives the state not only a separate constitution but also prevents non-Kashmiri’s from buying land in Kashmir. A political identity is thus well defined in the minds of Kashmiri’s. It stems both from a sense of dispute in the ownership of the land and India’s need for pacifying it through a certain degree of exclusivist political autonomy.
A defined political identity, a strong alienation from their perception of the state of India on the basis of ethnicity and a strong resentment that stems from the feeling of being an ‘occupied’ territory gives rise to the sentiment of nationalism. Kashmiri’s have never identified on an ethnic basis with India or Indians. Regular human rights violations and the draconian law of AFSPA have further strengthened the sense of a repressed communion. Kashmiris still think that the rightful claim to the land was that of Pakistan. In light of the practical failure of the state of Pakistan, its gradual descent into anarchy has changed quite a few minds. What will never change is the resentment towards India.  Kashmiris now believe in an ethno-nationalistic conception of a nation and they assert it in tiny, almost subliminal ways.
The state language of Kashmir is Urdu. What people speak in Kashmir, like anywhere else in India, is essentially a mixture of Hindi and Urdu. While Ghalib called it Rekhta, it is now popularly known as Hindustani. The insistence to define it as Urdu and not Hindi like the rest of the country asserts yet another aspect of identity. Kashmir is the only state with Urdu as its official language; the only state with a non native language as its official one.
Urdu has little place in Kashmiri culture outside the religious context. As an ethnicity we ought to speak Kashmiri. Yet under Indian accession this language, is how we state our individuality. Over the years with its slow demise, Urdu has reduced to an identity symbol for Indian Muslims. If you happen to be lucky enough to know it, you would be amongst the few who can actually follow the plot in Dastangoi or a few plays in Delhi.
It is not incidental that Urdu, which happens to be the state language of Pakistan, is yet another medium of identification with the nation state of Pakistan. Kashmiri’s, through their music, television and now the internet, culturally identify more with Pakistan than they do with India. This, again, is a strong assertion of identity.
Kashmiris seek to disconnect linguistically and their assertion is stronger than that of a Manipuri who speaks a different language. An ordinary Kashmiri speaks the same Hindustani any Indian does, but as opposed to them he chooses to call it Urdu over Hindi.
This is not the only form of passive, subconscious defiance. Cricket has always been a passion in the subcontinent; the economy halts when India and Pakistan play. In Kashmir, the streets are deserted, shops shut and the economy stunted temporarily because fates are being decided by Gods chosen representatives running around on a grassy pitch.
 For an average, apolitical person, the only way he can display his patriotism is through sports and in India cricket is the national binding religion. Few in Kashmir support the Indian cricket team everyone else in the nation cheers for. In the early 90’s most supported Pakistan; quite a few still do. The majority however, have one simple rule. They will support whoever plays against India. The West Indies team gathers Kashmiri support in a match against India; a country whose islands most of them would not be able to spot given a map. As the frequent local notebooks with Imran Khan plastered over the cover all my childhood reminded me, life was different from the ideals of the national anthem I was taught in school. Kashmiris resent India and they defy it through whatever little symbolic actions they can.

Anderson says,
 “Every successful revolution has defined itself in a national terms and in so doing has grounded itself firmly in a territorial and social space inherited from the prerevolutionary past.”
The revolution that every stone-pelter in Kashmir seeks gets real when you strive towards an ideal; the ideal being a nation state of Kashmir. As Anderson says, ‘people kill and die for these limited imaginations’ and we see it hold true every day. A ‘deep horizontal comradeship’ going beyond limitations of age, class and caste is created and it is the only reason why everyone from little school going boys to PhD. candidates come out and protest.
Jammu and Kashmir Board of School Education decides the curriculum of the best, most prestigious schools in the valley post Class 8. When I reached that stage, I was excited that it included curriculum specific to the state. Sadly, the information never went beyond the types of soil or names of districts in Kashmir. There was never a word on history. The history you learn is in your homes or off the streets.

I often joke about the Republic of Kashmir with friends of mine but if I were to seek absolute solidarity with the concept I would know that it is this ideal which the streets seek through their cries; it is in the light of this ideal that the streets still resonate with the ubiquitous, hum kya chahte, aazaadi.

Traam: A Photo Essay

Kashmiri Copperware, more popularly known as Traam, was amazingly enough a beautiful part of household tradition and an integral part of a bridal trousseau. Even today though locked up, gathering a fine layer of dust well out of use unless on occasions of matrimony or similar celebrations, they are just a kaalai (tin plating) away from splendour. The fancier ones of these are decorated with intricate carvings. With their Chinar patterns and delicate lattice, these too are very inherently Kashmiri. 

Here I have photographed four such utensils leaving out the popular Samovar and Traem.

Kyenz

A rice bowl; traditionally the women are known to eat in the kyenz. The one in the photograph also jingles happily when shaken.

Toor

Another rice bowl, the toor is what the males of the household eat their meal in.

Tash Naer

Graceful and intricately carved with patterns, this tash naer is a set of two utensils. Its beauty is not befitting of its purpose of a handwash. Traditionally, the meal is eaten with hands and the Naer, which is the water container is used to pour water while the person cleans up in the Tasht or the Basin.

Isband Soz:

Known to dispel evil spirits, the isband soz is an ancient incense burner used to burn sweet smelling wild seeds. Burning isband is a wedding tradition and isband zaalun a common synonym for ringing wedding bells. 

In Pursuit of Music: Qissa Doam

In continuation to the last piece, I found bits of information on the Jews Harp, the Gopichand and Tumbakh Naer; enough to string up a few hundred words. 

I’d gone to the store looking for the Jews harp; an instrument I first discovered while hearing Ali Sethi’s rendition of a ghazal by Faiz. Although I cannot comment on his writing, not having had the chance to read him, his voice made me want to ask for his hand in marriage. In the background Chugge Khan accompanies him on the Morsing. A lovely instrument; this mouth harp and produces a trippy, twang of a sound you might associate with the backdrop in qawallis. It won't take you more than a day to learn how to pluck it and with a good sense of rhythm you'll easily get the hang of it.

The unique sound , so characteristically folk, got me curious of it origins so i went and looked it up; a plunge into cultural history transcending borders. This simple plaything of a harp turns out to be one of the oldest musical instruments to have existed. Over centuries it has made appearances in many cultures, crossing continents with its sheer simplicity.  You may it call it Morsing, Changu, Khomus or by any of the thousand other names that exist for it across the world, but the essence of this instruments mind boggling popularity binds you. History engulfs you while playing this tiny piece of iron which, from China in the third century BC spread to the Middle East and eventually Europe becoming an inherent part of their culture. In India, you find its presence in traditional Carnatic and Sindhi music.

On my last visit to the store, fidgeting around I happened to pick up this elongated single stringed bamboo instrument. Pluck it and the sound brings back visuals of mythology shows on Doordarshan. The Ektara or Gopichand, has long been associated with minstrels and is played by plucking the string and changing the pitch by pressing the neck together. A distinctive trance like sound, every bend of the body produces a sound quite different from the last, and you make music just by using your ear and instinct. Very popular in Bengali, Punjabi and Sindhi folk music, the sound of this is still associated with devotion and wandering bards. This simple, unsophisticated, rural folk instrument is now gaining a global appeal. Mix it with the Morsing for your own tribal dubstep.


In Paharganj I tried finding one of the first instruments I was acquainted with; the Kashmiri wedding drum called Tumbakh Naer. This, together with the Noat, is played by the women in the backdrop of Kashmiri wedding music, Wanvun.  Although I couldn't find it, I found the djembe. A fairly popular African goblet drum, it is very similar to the Persian Tonbak or the Kashmiri Tombakhnaer. Though very distinct in the sounds they produce their similarity is striking. The Tonbak is the main percussion instrument in Persian Music. In Kashmir the tonbak is called Tombakh Naar and is fairly similar except it is made of red clay instead of wood. History suggests, like influences in art and architecture, the tumbankh near might have come to Kashmir from Central Asia where too, it is played by the women folk. 

The noat is arguably the most plebeian of musical instruments. An ordinary earthen or brass pot, it is typically used to store water and easily converted into the most basic of percussion instruments. It is similar to earthenware being used as instruments in other parts of India; the Matki in Rajasthan and Ghatam in South India. This coincidence, like many others,  must be a consequence of travels down winding paths of a journey of musical influence.

Music thrives on this influence. It is not born out of nothingness, nor does it live long enough in its originality. It is phenomenal how each of these instruments weaves into itself, a story. Each has a story that speaks of traditions crossing cultures, interspersing beautifully on their way and creating a niche in a different ethnic universe, far away. 

You must check out:

Pictorial World Map of Jews Harp’s Across the World:

http://www.silk-road.com/images/vol2num2/large/sr4p52map1.jpg

Ali Sethi Singing:

http://vimeo.com/9037190

Dan Moi on the Gopichand: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIC4ONM547I

Folk Instruments of Kashmir:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZioEOytIPk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM5RMAuxQyo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pbhSrOBi-0

In Pursuit of Music: Qissa Awwal

 in the hopes that someday i will learn music, i pick up instruments that excite me and play them for a few weeks before giving up. to make something of this whole exercise, i decided to write about them in a series. this is the first part.

As you walk into the shady by lanes of Paharganj, amidst the row of shops with people sporting thick, put-on accents, selling paraphernalia they think might appeal to tourists on pot, you notice how the city transforms here. There is constant hustle and bustle of people carrying rucksacks; backpacking like you always thought you would one day. There are stalls selling artifacts you would like to buy except you're horribly unsure of the quality and the bargaining it would entail; and then there is that occasional shady hotel. The likes you see being rented out on an hourly basis in Hindi movies, tactfully guised as a Hotel Decent. All in all a lovely place I'd like to restrict my visits to, to twice in a lifetime. The second time probably just to get cheap thrills looking at the movie posters outside the once grand, Imperial Theater. This time there was a ridiculously busty Indian woman with bleached hair posing as, ‘Mere Pati ki Girlfriend’.
Magical place, really.

What probably goes unnoticed in this trippy setting is a foot wide passage opposite Sam’s Café; a staircase fit to be any claustrophobic's nightmare, leads up to this happy little hovel called the Indian Music House.

In here, a hundred instruments are crammed into a ten foot space. They hang from the walls; they're lined against the boundaries; an occasional banjo or a flute looms over your head as you climb the staircase. You find some in boxes, others are out of sight but ask the man in charge for it and he’ll pull it right out.

There is something about this place that invites you to dedicate your life to the beautiful art of music. Every sitar beckons you to flirt with the strings; the tablas want your hands tapping them. You pick up a banjo and think to yourself, 'This won’t be too tough to learn, will it?' I'm not joking when I say this place inspires hope. It stimulates beautiful visuals of you playing a lovely tune, sitting at the edge of a river dangling your legs over it.

Coming back to reality, this is also probably the only place in Delhi you will find a Rabab within a sane budget. This beautiful Afghani string instrument finds it origins in Central Asia. The National Instrument of Afghanistan, the Rabab I was looking for is popularly known as the Kabuli rabab; a three singed lute carved out of a single piece of wood. Unlike its Iranian counterpart, you pluck the Kabuli rabab for it to make that deep, stirring sound that is vaguely reminiscent of childhood for me. The Rabab has three strings, usually made of nylon and around 12 sympathetic strings. These are attached to the long slender curved body, even the tuning pegs of which are so beautiful you'd buy it just to decorate your room; an excuse I often give for not knowing how to play it.

Although it has been around a long time, the Rabab is virually extinct in India. Still an important folk instrument in Afghanistan and Kashmir, it slowly ran out of popular culture making way for instruments that emerged through its influence. It is widely believed to be the predecessor for the Sarod and Sarangi.

The story Rabab is fascinating. A product of cultural intermingling showcasing the strong influence of Central Asian traditions in Kashmiri culture, the Rabab finds its way into Sikhism as well. Bhai Mardana, Guru Nanak’s companion is depicted in artworks as a Rabab player. Legend has it that the Seni Rabab (found in India, named after Tansen) originally had five strings. Bhai Mardana and Guru Nanak, together added the sixth.

In Kashmiri music, the instrument plays a very significant role being widely used in wedding music as well as an accompaniment to Sufiana Kalaam.  The rich, thick sound of the Rabab, has been adopted into popular folk music by really talented trio Yasir and Jawad who bring a delightful pushto influence to their music. They started with a cover and now have two more beautiful folk songs to their credit.

While on the hunt for a rabab, I started playing around with some other instruments. Even childish things like the egg shakers look so exciting in this place. It's a new world in there. And the man who owns the music store certainly knows his stuff. Ask him to demonstrate and he’ll play you tunes on a Jews harp with as much ease as blowing into a didjeridoo, a five foot long Australian wooden trumpet. Impressive, really. I might add this to my list of prospective careers.

(continued)

You must check out:

For Kashmir Music with Rabab as an accompaniment:
http://funkar.org/

Yasir and Jawad:
http://www.reverbnation.com/yasirjawad/songs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4UvnzIjMyo

Scroll down this link to see mindblowing pictures of a Rabab being carved out:
http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/topic/48564/Afghani-Rabab-Construction#.UR8YHKWLCTw

More:
http://onaiza.tumblr.com/image/22120435110

CBS

 when i wrote this as the editorial for the college magazine (where of course it was appropriately censored for any negative sounding word against the college) i never thought i'd re read it. today i miss the damned place.

A few months from now as we’ll walk back into this dusty compound beautifully camouflaged as a Boys’ government school building, it will have a strange feeling of being alien to us. Unknown faces of the new batch of first years will nervously dart their eyes around, trying, desperately, to pick up tips to fit in or try and be horribly loud to attract attention. Second years will strut around the campus like they run it. Third years, with their blissful sense of realization that all deadlines can be pushed and no task is worth worrying for, will go lazily albeit wistfully about their daily work.
This is CBS.
Where everyone knew everyone.

Today if someone asks me about my college experience, I’ll tell them that the gates shut at 9 am sharp leaving half the college panting and begging the guard to let them in. I’ll also tell them how we are only slightly different from the school they’ll pass out of. The legend of how every passing truck shakes the foundations of the building ever so slightly and the mysterious urinals in the girls washroom shall also be narrated to them. Yet, in this hopeless setting comes to you the wonderful realization of who you really are. It is in this Jhilmil wonderland that we transform, being a different person every year to finally being someone we are at peace with. 

The best thing about CBS was always its people. There is no one here you cannot talk to. There are cliques, there is a slightly more than acceptable number of societies and a little too many BlackBerrys littered around the campus, but what never dies is the chatter.
Self-glorifying as this may sound, but with us ends an era. With us end the dreaded mid-sems, five subjects a semester and, much to the chagrin of teachers, the old course. We can only hope that the fresh batches live up to us, clicking as many pictures and outdoing each other with as many events. 

As we bid farewell, let us make a few promises to ourselves, write letters to our future selves, dream a little more and most importantly try not get stuck in the inevitable rut of mediocrity. 

Nahin tera nasheman ,qasr-e-sultani ki gumbad par,
Tu shaheen hai, basera kar, pahadon ki chattanon par. 
~Iqbal
(You don’t have to make your nest on the dome of Queen’s palace, 
Oh Eagle, you are royal, choose to reside on the peaks of mountains.)