That Time Of the Year ....Part I.

  

Sigh ! .......Why would anyone begin a piece with a sigh ? That is just me letting out the longing/nostalgia for times gone by and for a much loved place .

I am writing this blog at the end of September , on Mahalaya -the first day of the 10 days of worship of the goddess Durga .

Ranchi , a town in the state of Jharkhand in east India,in the erstwhile state of Bihar . The time and place from when and where this nostalgia bubbles up every now and then .

Bihar was known to be a poor underdeveloped lawless land but rich in minerals. But for us folks living in the " colony" , a term for a township , was bliss .

It was a small town then, not the bustling capital of the new state of Jharkhand as it is now . Enough of the description of the ex-town and present city . 

To move on, what is THAT time of the year that I am talking about ? The time when the leaves start to turn yellow and fall off trees , the time when when there is a slight  ( depending on ones' tolerance for cold weather) chill in the air , a mellowness and a general atmosphere of festivities .

End of September ,October and November , which heralded the arrival of 10 days of " puja vacation" in schools. A source of obvious delight , involving running around in playgrounds or within the boundaries of the apartments in the colony and long sessions of other forms of play. Kids are pretty innovative in devising different ways to keep themselves amused and occupied .

That was the time when the -one of twice in a year - buying of new clothes happened . This was because , during this period, fresh stock of latest designs came in from the nearby metropolis of Calcutta for the puja season .How much ever I try, I am unable to call it Kolkata.

The buying of clothes was a major event , and people had their preferences for shops from which to buy . The patrons of these shops had a personal bond with each shop and its owners , exchanging family news etc with them . In return for this patronage and warmth ,the option of buy now pay later , or pay in installments was provided .

I speak of a time when the country was still a closed economy and PSU( public sector undertaking , for the uninformed) folks had modest salaries and the colony comprised mostly of the great Indian middle  class .

Yes , I am talking about the period starting from Mahalaya ( the first day of  Durga puja ) , extending to the Chatth puja ( a festival very important and sacred to the people belonging to the states of Bihar, Jharkhand and eastern Uttar Pradesh) . Mahalaya started at 4:30 am  with AIR ( All India Radio) playing the 'Ya Devi Sarvabhuteshu'-the Chandipath chant in the inimitable voice of Krishna Chandra Bhadra ( who has long since passed) . Durga puja wouldn't have been complete without this chant in this particular gentleman's voice, no one else would do . 

During our stay in the colony , Durga Puja ( or navaratri in the south of India) involved pandal hopping , gorging on edibles being sold near the pandals and being an audience for the drum players

( called dhaakis) and participants in the dance ( called dhunuchi naach) performed with  smoking fragrant coals in a mud receptacle ( called dhoop in the north and sambrani in the south)

The sound and rhythm of the special drums ( dhaaks) , brings a smile to my face even now  and I can hear it loud and clear and smell the dhoop . This leads me to look for dhaaki performances on the internet whenever nostalgia strikes. On a side note, dhaakis are specialists in their art and usually are habitants of villages surrounding Ranchi or from the rural regions of the neighbouring state of West Bengal. It is said that they play better and in a frenzied state only when some alcohol has been

ingested. The beats of the dhaak are no doubt trance inducing.

Everyone seemed to be happy for no particular reason 😊😊 . I can still smell the air , clean, fresh , cool.

Dear reader, I absolutely need to let out another sigh here ...you will probably need to put up with my sighs that I am prone to releasing  every now and then.

The human brain seems to have unlimited gigabytes of memory to be able to store a lifetime of memories, smells, tastes, emotions and the associated contexts, a memory bank which can be recovered without any back up storage . You see, the Creator/Maker aka God, had a good idea of all this wayyyyyyyy before the human species got around to inventing the computer.

Coming back to the nostalgia . Day 1 was when the constructions of the 'pandals' , the big palace like  structures ( made of bamboo and cloth) ,started .This was to be the temporary abode and makeshift temple for  the visiting goddess and her brood .  Different associations collected 'chanda' i.e donations from the households in the area and that is what was used for the celebrations . The pandals in every area had a different theme  and there was quite some competition to be the biggest, best and more most beautiful pandal. It is believed that the goddess comes down to her parents' place with her kids for a visit and departs, 10 days later, to her marital home up above . 

That is the background, now coming back to my particular reminiscences.  After we moved out of the colony to another area(outside the colony),the location of the puja pandal in this area was bang in front of our apartment.  The sound of the bamboo being unloaded from a truck heralded the beginning of the puja . That sound was music to our ears. Our bedroom window had a front bench view of the location of the puja in our area . We had a peek every now and then to check on the progress of the pandal being constructed . The construction, beautification etc went on for four to five days in readiness of the goddess's arrival.

The sixth day of the puja or 'shasti' as it is called, was when the goddess and her kids were brought into the pandal with their faces covered . An elder of the area ( which was another small colony), took a basket with the weaponry of the goddess and her offspring, and carried it on his head ,followed by the strapping lads of the area, who were part of the puja organising committee, around the colony, symbolically requesting the visiting deities to protect the residents from all evil . 

In the pandal,the designated priest then began the worship in the evening of this day with the chanting of hymns and mantras and handed over each deity their choice of weapons . The faces of the deities were uncovered to loud chants of ' hail the goddess' . People then brought forward their offerings to the deities .

Here I should mention the deities , Durga , the mother goddess , round faced with beautiful eyes and thick curly black hair , worshipped as ' mahishasura mardini' or killer of the demon Mahishasura . The idol is in that act of killing , with the goddess( seated on her lion) killing the  ferocious looking  demon and his buffalo who are placed at her feet . For some reason, the demon is sometimes green in colour .Then the offspring , Ganesha ( the elephant headed lord of auspicious beginnings ), Lakshmi
 ( goddess of wealth), Saraswati (goddess of learning and knowledge),Karthik ( Subramanyam in the south ) the god of war . 

While the worship continued from day 6 to day 10 , outside than pandal all manner of things, from helium filled balloons( called gas balloons by us folks), flutes ,sweets and savouries were on sale . People turned out in the best attire to fully enjoy the festivities . The air was filled with the smell of the dhoop, the flowers,and sundry perfumes of the people visiting .

Bengalis, to whom the festival is native to and means the world to,  had a new dress for each of the days to visit the pandals . This was also a time for mass socializing. There was music in the cacophony .

(I am now dreamy eyed) ...sigh !!!!! ( don't say I didn't warn you ,dear reader..).

The worship was carried out in the mornings and the evenings and the crowds were at their maximum during these times . The worship reached its frenzy during the 'aarti' or the waving of lighted lamps in front of the deities. 

The eighth and ninth days , called 'ashtami' and 'navami' respectively , were when the star of the event was served . The 'khichuri ' in culinary parlance and ' ashtami /navami bhog' in religious parlance . 'Bhog' is a collective term for the edible offerings made to the Gods . This was a delectable mix of rice , lentils and loads of vegetables cooked in spices ( no onions ,no garlic) . The only frown worthy element in this being the brinjal/egg plant/ aubergine in the bhog . The purple or green vegetable and myself have had serious difference of opinion since I was a child . The bhog was mouth watering nonetheless .
Believe me, I can taste it right now though  I am typing this from thousands of kilometers away.

Day 10 was when the last worship was carried out and the Goddess and her  kids were ready to go back to their home in the clouds . The atmosphere changed from one of joyous celebration to 
gloom .Before the deities departed, something called 'sindoor khela' took place . The married women in the area came to the pandal with flowers and vermilion. The vermilion was liberally applied to Goddess Durga and then on each other as good wishes for a happy and long married
( 'suhaagan/sumangali /married state of a woman) life. The deities were then taken out in a procession and immersed in a nearby water body ( I know, not at all environment friendly) . 

Day 10 was also a day when tall , fireworks filled, effigies of the demon king Ravana , his brother Kumbhakarana and his son Meghnad were burnt . We usually stood on our terrance , a particular corner of the terrace rather, to see this spectacle . The burning was done by actors dressed up as Lord Ram and his brother Lakshman . All these gentlemen, as all of India knows ,are characters in the epic Ramayana. Day 10 is also called Dussehra. 

That finished the festivities , for the moment at least. This was followed by Diwali , Lakshmi puja, Kali puja, Chatth. All of that for another blog .....Part II.
The above described pooja, is celebrated in an entirely different way in the south if India, more on that coming up in Part III..... perhaps...

The above festivals which followed, were a part of autumn , part of our culture and part of our childhood, a time of no worries, no responsibilities and the like , the greatest worry being the unfinished homework..

That is why I said , it is again THAT time of the year .....Sigh......!!!!!

The Wedding Circus....

Marriage / Shaadi / Vyah / Lagan / Kalyaanam ...... words which are sources of happiness and misery at the same time .....

Here, I am expressing views in the Indian context only,since that is what I have seen and in later life have experienced .

My views are about the marriage market and the entire circus surrounding it . The ominous beginning looms when one turns 21-22 for women and 26-27 for men .
Here, I use the words women and men purposely , simply because in India , it is not men and women who marry but boys and girls , irrespective of their age and this I find weird as hell.

I have heard my extended family say that after a 25 years of age , no one wants the "girl" . That age was set up as the- use by date- of the girl . I was aghast and enraged , are you talking about paneer/cottage cheese -which has an expiry date- or your own child ? I was about to retort when I was met by  my mother's animated eyes,effectively asking me to not bother and shut my gob.

The standard operating procedure is as below :

+ Son / daughter attains "marriageable age" and word is spread (not literally though)to the locality , sundry relatives etc of the entry of the said son/ daughter into the marriage market. Parents are under lot of societal pressure to do this. All this word spreading is by casual conversation, some strategically placed information and the like .

+ "Alliances" start coming in, mostly by word of mouth or the matrimonial websites one has enrolled on ( the criteria for an ideal bride or groom , the associated jargon and definitions, are material enough for another post 😀) and from families of prospective brides and grooms.
These are then put through some rigorous processing ie finding out through well informed hidden sources the general worthiness of the family ( social standing, wealth, pedigree , any family scandals etc etc) . It is not unheard of to hire  a private detective for this kind of research. This is followed by the matching of the infamous horoscopes.
Here I should mention, that in most families, there is an aunt or an uncle or some similar relation who is a seasoned and incorrigible matchmaker . It is as if they cannot see someone "eligible" being single and commence a partner search(with or without the consent of the party for whom this blessed task is being undertaken) with great enthusiasm as if their life depended on it .

+ If step 2 turns out to be satisfactory , the next step is for the families to meet and for the "boy" to "see" the "girl" , which is for the 2 families to discuss the terms of marriage , time , date any "other" requirements ( in other terms , dowry).
This business of "seeing" a girl often made me wonder if this was a marriage being arranged
( negotiated would be a better word) or a horse being put on sale to be examined by the prospective buyer .

This is also an occasion for the possible future couple to exchange a few shy sentences on the basis of which their being soul mates is confirmed. In more recent times, this has changed into a family approved coffee/dinner date to "know each other better" .

 I have put  a lot of the above in quotes because this is the jargon which is in use in the circus .

This is the normal procedure , but there is a build up to it .

In India that is Bharat , marriage is seen as one of the big milestones of life .
If you haven't married or have married very late ( as per deadlines previously mentioned) , there IS something WRONG with you.

Also we have two kinds of marriages , arranged marriages ( as above) or love marriages . This, to me, sounds funny as if there is no love in arranged marriages .

 I was  once told that arranged and love marriages are essentially the same thing just the order of events is different .
Arranged marriage= marriage then love
Love marriage= love then marriage

And now there is the arranged love marriage, ie falling in love, convincing the parents and marrying with their blessings , win win for all . The circus cannot be escaped though.

The reasons for having to absolutely marry are :
+ Else you will be alone in later life (makes a bit of sense)
+We are getting old, would like to see you "settled" . Settle is a code word for getting people married in India . As if they would be unsettled otherwise !
+Before we die, we would like to see you have children. ( as far as I know, there is no such qualification of having to become a grandparent, in order to die....but well....)
+People are starting to ask when you will get married

But all of this is not so simple for the people involved .....neither is it so hunky dory .

I recently asked my best friend who had married late ( by Indian standards. Please refer to line 4 for guidance on appropriate age of marriage of each of the genders) and had had an arranged marriage, if she had had to face any pressure during the ripe- for -marriage age ( line 4 above) and the age she actually got married. (apologies for making her sound like a fruit , ripeness and all)

She gave me a reply . This question popped into my head , one, because recently I have had a long discussion with another good friend, younger to me, who was going through this circus and was having a tough time dealing with his society pressurized, conservative, caste obsessed parents ,and two, looking back I myself had gone through quite some bovine excreta during my time in the circus.

To elaborate , my immediate family is a fairly liberal one when it comes to such things . I had no pressure to marry at the socially decided age and folks were fine with my wanting to marry later .The look out started at 24 or so but not really seriously . However, by about 26 things started to heat up. Exchanging horoscopes , looking up "alliances" on matrimonial sites on the internet etc .
Yours truly being the choosy , picky one ,her obsessive compulsory self absolutely needed to be actively part of this investigation and not surprisingly did not really approve of the cases.
Of the ones I did, the horoscope did not match or I was found to be too short or fat to be suitable for the "boy" . Once , my father was so hopping mad ,when told that I was too short , that he told the people "she is 26, as far as I know, I cannot pull and stretch her so that she becomes taller, so please leave" .
Then there is the extended family( aforesaid aunts and uncles) who brought "cases" . The problem with this was that they brought forward"cases" where the "boy" was brought up within the state I belong and had a different world view whereas  I had been brought up in  very cosmopolitan surroundings with a very different worldview altogether. In other words, my world and their world were as different as water and oil . I said no to these cases and that caused offence and insult to the relatives who had suggested these cases . One is then branded vain, proud, shrewish kind of a female in the familial and social circles . This business of being branded is female specific , a male may say no to as many "cases" that he wants to and remains label free. That said ,for both genders, there is a genuine pressure to get married , within social boundaries and with the person parents pick
for you ,else you are black sheep. For women, the pressure is a bit more.

Falling in love was and in large parts of India is still a taboo . If you do , you will me made to understand by a few close ones , the drama starts when you don't understand . The "morally bankrupt" west is usually blamed for such ideas of wanting to fall in love or choose your partner in life .
Strange that people considered eligible for and trusted with choosing their own governments are not considered eligible for and trusted to have the sense to choose their life partners.

I fell in love for the first time only to be introduced to the ugly face of caste and orthodoxy . The concerned male did not have the balls to stand up for someone he loved and preferred to give in to the caste and orthodoxy narrative, so I bid bye bye with pleasure .


This was about 13 years ago. But now , listening to my friend's woes, it feels like though things have changed, they have remained the same , education and exposure ( apparent exposure) not withstanding .

There is still this obsession with caste , as if people belonging to other communities are not human . They are spoken of in hushed tones as if they were ...ummm..... I don't know what .

On the matter of falling in love ,one of my cousins , a woman, sorry girl, fell in love and announced it to her parents .  What broke my heart was the way they made her feel as if she had done something to bring shame to the family, with the mother sounding depressed and apologetic about it as if a great tragedy had befallen them . Goes without saying, the alleged love interest belonged to another caste . Another interesting part of this caste equation is that folks are ok with upward caste movement but not downward . So if it is moving up for one side, it is inevitably moving down for the other , hence a conflict .

God forbid if you :
+ Say that you will marry only when you feel ready or will not marry at all
+Marry a person of your choosing

If you do any of the above , you will be faced with sentences like ,
+did we have you to see this day ( is din ko dekhne ke liye tumhe paida kiya tha ) , we brought you up , did so much for you
+people have been having arranged marriages within their castes for so long without any problems, what is so special about you
+only once you get married can your younger sibling get married. If you marry outside of your
caste ,it will be a scandal and then your younger sibling will have difficulty in finding "good alliances" and so on and so forth

In certain parts of India as we see in the newspapers , this obsession with caste translates into

murders ,which now have their own nomenclature - honour killings.

Even in educated, so called modern homes, the family often cuts off all connection with women and men who choose to go ahead and marry people of their choosing .Social isolation follows, a deliberate silence.

It is saying as if we have lived in this society and this all that is there is to the world . There is this refusal to acknowledge that there is a whole wide world outside with different types of people who are in no way inferior or superior to one's own caste or social system, different opinions , thoughts, ways of life etc . In short, it is a frog in a well mentality with no intentions of coming out of the well.
Also some are all for being liberal ,makes for great conversation and display of being an evolved soul, when it comes to others, but go back to being their socially bound orthodox selves when it comes to one's own interests .

Another thing in this context, is this fixation with living within the unsaid rules of your surrounding society , bothering about what will the society say/think if you go off the beaten track ( herd
mentality , to give it a name) etc . This also makes such people give the people around them the right to interfere in their life's decisions( unsolicited advice galore) , which courses to study, who to marry when to marry , when to have children , how many children to have etc .

The children part is enough content for another rant of a post ...😉

It is not all one sided though . "Boys" and " girls" are often fine with going through this circus because the decision is taken by the family and later if the marriage doesn't work out , the family can be held responsible .

There are , in percentage terms, few who want to take their own decisions are ready to take responsibility if it doesn't work out as planned .

In both cases, if it doesn't work out, it is a miscalculation  . But thing is, if I miscalculate and suffer for it later ( love marriage), I deserve it , fair enough ,but why on earth should I suffer for some one else's miscalculation (arranged marriage).
If it was a love marriage and goes wrong family and society say that it was one's fault for marrying outside social norms.
If it was an arranged marriage and doesn't work out it is FATE and its cousin DESTINY 😠.

The worrisome part is even the new generation (though it is changing in pockets ) does not stand up to take responsibility of their lives . I speak of the masses , not the relatively small percentage of the well educated, evolved liberals . I know , I know , the word liberal seems to have become almost an abuse in these recent times.

It is not to say that anything traditional is bad , but not bothering to adopt the good part of the old ways of the world and discarding the bad parts, is what is bad .

Enough said .....feels much lighter 😁😁. Till the next rant ..... cya !!!

To begin with...

Unconsciously ,this writer seems to have collected ,seen and read works and conversations of people she connects  to... on some level... can’t really describe what or why..

These are Pankaj Tripathi , Ravish Kumar, Saurabh Dwivedi, Neelesh Misra. All small town Bihar and UP folks. The region is finally getting its due .
The below has been written out of yours truly's sheer incapacity to control the overflowing admiration for these talented folks...

Reasons for the connection: their roots ... the humility....their language and its nuances. This writer thinks of herself as having Bihari roots.... and identifies as such......as traitor like as it may seem to the Palakkadan roots. All of them work in the hindi media/ arts.... ,mind you ,not the mish mash ugly language which passes for hindi, widely spoken in the country ( even by native hindi speakers), but pure literary hindi and urdu .The choice of words and the intonation is music to the ears, this writer’s ears that is.

Another thing is that all of them are intellectuals in a certain way in their own field not the garden variety either. Their background , views resonate with this writer and she finds herself smiling and nodding in agreement very often. Few, by their own admission, are on the uncomfortable side, when it comes to the queen’s language and are acutely aware of and unapologetic about it.
Helps that all are good looking in this writer’s eyes. 

All of them have one foot in Mumbai or Delhi and another in the place of their origin... something like an NRI but on the national level. This writer similarly feels that she has one foot in the english language another in the hindi of the  north north east and a ghost third foot in a jumble of other indian languages and one foreign language.


Add Manoj Bajpai to the lot, but he seems to have become a bit bombayized..and that seems to have taken the rawness out of the man,  though he still has the ability to slip into bhojpuri effortlessly every now and then. Ashutosh Rana qualifies though, in the crystal clear hindi part, but is not as earthy, in the writer’s humblest opinion.

Pankaj Tripathi’s choice of words is so magical and the glitter in his eyes when describing something .... and the added philosophy...( for ex. Jab naav na ho na ho pul, nadi main tairna khud ba khud aa jaata hai ie when one doesn't have a boat or a bridge, one automatically learns to swim ).

Ravish Kumar , well, is so full of satire that half the time one wonders if he is saying things in all seriousness or indulging in poker faced humour.

These are the people who use words like 'kapaar' for the head and 'dibri' for a lantern like thing . Been so long that the writer has heard these kind of words. Along the same lines, wonder if a cockroach is still called a 'telchatta' , poor soul ( the cockroach that is) . The writer could never discover why it was so called . But I digress...

Saurabh Dwivedi is so crisp, clear and sharp in his news delivery , in lovely clean hindi . That is complimented by his sharper dress sense .

Was listening to the storytelling of Neelesh Misra, pure gold. With his narration in the background , the scene of the story unfolds in one’s head.

Sigh! Fancy rediscovering a language and a narrative about 20 years after having moved away from it and ironically writing about all of that in english.
All the above are what makes this writer want to formally write, but then , the question is ... what to write about...

To add on the side....good looks , small town roots , humility , living in two parallel worlds etc brings to mind another celebrity. Diljit Dosanjh, punjabi middle class roots, loads of talent , feet on the ground kind of person inspite of the global fame and the bling..
That smile, that soft spoken demeanour , that voice and that nose.... are something to kill for...

That is a story for another day... 😊