Lesson in acceptance.

Jamnagar in the 1960's up to the 1980's when I left was mainly a vegetarian town.  It is a dry state, that we all know, thanks to Gandhiji.   Non-vegetarian food is not openly available.  Bread shops do not sport rows of eggs for sale.  Chicken is not available at any corner shop with a freezer.

Tandoori murgas on spits, hung out to marinade, is such a common sight in Delhi.  They amazed me when I looked at them when I started living in Delhi.

An acquaintance, a fellow Punjabi, ran a poultry farm.  Once in a while, on a Sunday, he would kill a tender goat and the meat would be distributed amongst the Punjabis in Jamnagar.  There was one restaurant, run by a Sikh, that served mutton on its menu.

I liked the mutton prepared by my aunt.  It was perfectly flavored and not too heavy with spices.  Where we lived, the aroma of cooking mutton spread and announced itself to our vegetarian neighbors.

I played with a couple of girls in our neighborhood that were close to my age.  We would get together every evening and play something, hide and seek, Stapu, play with a ball just run around.

I remember the day one of my playing companions asked me, distaste writ large over her face, "You eat meat, don't you?"  I quailed as I nodded.  The girl made noises of disgust.  At that moment, my other friend,  Malvika, said to her, "Don't do that.  It is food for her. Don't disrespect food."

That, right then, was the biggest example I got in acceptance.  I know what it is to be sidelined.  I grew up in a Hindu-majority State.  

In Jamnagar, Sikhs were mostly admired.  But there were some who felt weirded out by the turbans and long hair men sported.

There were people who hissed at me because I looked like a foreigner with my light skin and brown hair.

I know how important it is to be accepted for what you are.  I thank you Malvika for standing up to me then.  It was a lesson I have treasured all my life.

Holi

After I left Gujarat and settled in Punjab, one of the first things to strike me, when Holi rolled around, was the lack of any kind of prolonged celebration.  Holi was celebrated for just about half a day, with people dousing each other with colors and bathing by noon.  By afternoon, everyone had lunched and napped.  That was the end of the Holi, with only some wet colored splashes on the roads to remind you of what had just happened, all that faded within a few days with passing cars and layers of dust.  There was no sign of the other Holi, the one that spawned this celebration that springs from the legend of Hrinyakashyap, Holika and Bhakt Prahlad.

According to the legend, Hrinyakashyap did great penance to Lord Vishnu and was granted a boon wherein no one could kill him, neither a man nor an animal; he could not be killed during the day, or the night.  This boon made him arrogant, and he asked everyone to pray to him instead of Lord Vishnu.  His own son, Prahlad, refused to pray to him.  Because of this, Hrinyakashyap tried to get him killed, but each time Vishnu saved him.  Hrinyakashpap had a sister Holika, who was granted a boon to protect her from fire.  She offered to help her brother out by sitting on a burning bonfire with her nephew in her lap.  However, with Vishnu’s intervention, the fire burned Holika and spared Prahlad. That is when Vishnu took on the avatar of Narsimha, half man and half animal, and sprang out of a pillar to kill Hrinyakashyap at twilight, when it was neither day nor night.  The grateful people took to celebrating Holi by burning a great bonfire of wood on the full moon day of Phagun.

Our little community, consisting of a cluster of houses around a large open courtyard, and some families living in an adjoining building also organized a bonfire each year. It often fell to us children to arrange for the wood and dung cakes for the bonfire.  There was a big group of us, 3 girls and 4-5 boys.  We had to make dung cakes, pick up wood, go around gathering wheat for the Prasad.  We had to plan for this weeks in advance.  The boys looked around old construction sites for bits of abandoned wood, picked up old ladders and bits of wood that were rotting in people's backyards and broke them into pieces.  They looked for dried branches that had fallen off trees.  Some wood was also purchased by the older men arranging the bonfire.  The girls got around to gathering cow-dung.  That was not hard, because there were lots of stray cows in Jamnagar, all of them obligingly providing us with fresh dung.  We patted out the cow-dung mixed with hay in various shapes, round ones, leaf shaped one, triangles.  There were large cakes and smaller ones.  We even made dung cakes with holes in the middle, rather like a doughnut, for a dung necklace to be hung around Holika’s neck.  These were laid out on the roof to dry and carefully gathered up again once they were thoroughly dry.  We needed a huge mound of these, and I remember spending many afternoons doing this on the roof of my friends house

On the D-day, a shallow hole was dug in the compound where the bonfire was to be set up. It was about 3 feet wide and two feet deep. On one side of this hole a small niche was dug out.  This is where a clay pot containing water, wheat and sugar was to be stowed.  This was symbolic of Prahlad, the one that survived.  The wheat and sugar for the pot was to be contributed by the all the houses lining the compound of our site, just a handful per house.  The boiled wheat would be dug out next day and distributed again as Prasad.  I remember a very high bonfire being built, with wood and dung-cakes.  It was surely four of five feet high. A makeshift image of Holika was created with wood, with rope and dung necklaces around her neck.  The bonfire was lit at night and the flames reached high as we fell back and danced and watched.

On the night of the Holi, we were to stay awake all night and keep an eye on the fire.  The weather is quite nippy during Holi in Punjab, but in Jamnagar it is warm.  We passed the night talking and playing antakshri till dawn.  This is when the Prasad was dug out, and we took our share of it and went home.

This was the day of the Holi as most people know it, to be celebrated with colors.  We returned after breakfast with our packets of gulal, pichkari and color bombs.  It was a point of honor to allow yourself to be colored till you were black, and not give in to an urge to cry.   The children could be distinguished only by their gleaming teeth. We were not allowed to wander far where ‘rough’ Holi was being played, with ashes, cow dung and dunking people into tanks full of colored water.  We were happy to run around with our pichkari filled with colored water, hands packed with gulal, spraying groups of other reveling children, and being sprayed by them in turn.  I returned at noon, and allowed my cousin to bathe me.  It was painful to be scrubbed till I was raw, with my cousin muttering a string of curses to the other girls for having colored her little sister so ruthlessly.

Festivals all over the world celebrate something good, the birth of a messiah, victory of good over evil, a change in seasons that is the harbinger of prosperity.  It is good to participate in them, but also important to know WHAT we are celebrating, so as to appreciate it more.

Sounds of Jamnagar

There are times when I wish I knew how to sketch.  There are all these images in my mind that are crystal clear, and I wish I could reproduce them in a sort of a photograph.  If I knew how to sketch I would place all those beloved images on paper for posterity, that is, if posterity cares about the images in my head.  I guess I have to make do with writing about my memories from time to time, to keep them alive for me at least.

I want to write about the sounds of Jamnagar.  Last night I posted a Gujarati song on Facebook, and it brought back the memories of several songs that floated around in that little town.  In our house, it was strictly hindi film music, but outside, on the transistors fitted into the little shops that lined the roads of Jamnagar, it was Gujarati film songs, bhajans and of course garba songs.

The first song I am about to post is from the film Mehndi Rang Lagyo filled with bollywood stars like Rajendra Kumar and Usha Kiran.  The movie was a super-duper hit.  I love the songs of this film and this one primarily :




The song talks about mehndi that was sown in the fields of Mandva (Rajasthan), and came to Gujarat to colour the hands of pretty maidens.   Lata's voice adapts itself effortlessly to the Gujarati, and you don't feel it is being sung by a non-Gujarati.

Khamma Khamma mara Nandji na Lal is a song from Krishna Leela when he cavorted with Gopi's.  Here, a Gopi hears the sound of Krishna's flute and in its thrall, she leaves whatever she is doing to follow him.



Ame Maiyyara re gokud gaam na is probably the song I love most. Although the theme of the song is same as above, a song about being in thrall of Kanhiyya's murli, except it is sung by the cowherds of Gokul.  This is the song that brings back the memories of Jamnagar most to me.



** In case the embedded video does not work, a link to the song is provided under its name.  Do listen to the songs till the end, esp. Ame Maiyyara re.

My house in Jamnagar

This is the house I grew up in.  It is a part of an ancient building which has been built over to some extent now.  Such building are a dime a dozen in the old part of Jamnagar.  I lived there, approximately from 1961 to 1979 with an absence of nearly 3 years when I went to live with my parents in Bangalore from 1971 to 1973.  At that time everyone I knew lived in similar houses, all aged at least 50 years. 

The house was, I presume, one of those grand havelis that was constructed in a closed rectangle. Three walls of the rectangle were a series of rooms built in double storey with a verandah in front. The south wall had two huge gates, one on the right side and one on the left.  Between the two gates stood at least four err.. Latrines.. Sorry, there is no other word to describe them. The center of the haveli was a large courtyard.  The haveli belonged to two brothers and the younger brother lived with his large family on the right side.  The left portion that belonged to the elder brother was let out.  He lived in another house close by.  Some part of it was let out to my uncle in times when there was less commercialism and a lot of love between people.  The landlord had called my aunt his sister and had decreed that their family could live there as long as they liked at a rent of, I don't remember exactly, but something ridiculous like Rs.35/-.  The wing we lived in, the left corner, was accessible from both the courtyard side and the other side that overlooked the main road.

As I said the house was built in a series of rooms that lined the courtyard.  There was a small room in the back say about 8'x8' and large 12'x8' room in the front.  We lived in a set of 4 such rooms, so a total of 8 rooms.  A small gallery, used as a passage, separated one set of 4 rooms from the other.  The first 4 rooms were our primary living area.  There was a living cum dining room, and the smaller room in the back was used as a kitchen.  This was the hub of the family, this is where we all hung out.  My aunt's bed was in this room, and the dining table, and the sewing machine, and the dressing table, and most of our things.  The other 'set' was connected to these rooms from inside too. The smaller back room was our bathroom, used only for bathing.  As we had no running water, large drums stood here filled with water.  The front room was where we had a proper drawing room, lined with a sofa set, bookshelves, wall hangings and  a divan.  This was where guests were entertained. My school books and clothes were stacked in a covered alcove in the walls (which were two to each room) in this room.  This is where I sat most times, reading a book, clinging to the transistor.

The other two sets that were ours were a little apart from the main living set, and were kept locked if not in use.  The rooms were given names, my uncle's rooms, with his bed in the front was called 'Papaji's room'.  As this room was supposed to be the most secure as it belonged to the head of the family, it contained all our precious stuff.  Our safe stood in the smaller room at the back, which contained all the jewelry of the family.  It had all the mattresses, clothes and such stuff.  The last set of rooms was called ..Duh.. 'last room'. This was the bachelor hang-out.  It belonged primarily to the male cousins and my brother.  The inner room was the food store.  It had our stock of wheat, onions, masalas, and daals. It had shelves that were stacked with large canisters of these things.  Right next to this was a flight of stairs that led to the main road.  This was our main exit and entry point. 

In the mid 70s, with 3 eldest cousins married off, there were still 5 of us, my 3 cousins, my brother and me. Now you would think, that living in such a house, so open, and with doors opening everywhere, anyone could come and go as they pleased.  Alas, our elders were wily and very alert to our movements.  In a time where there were no cell phones and no GPS, some older person would always be savvy as to our whereabouts.  In the dead of the night, our steps would ring out loud and we had to hold our breath and tiptoe, if we were sneaking out somewhere. A click of the key turning in the lock was a dead giveaway and so was a creak of the stairs. But why did we need to sneak about?  Those were conservative times, and children were not allowed to run about as they pleased.  A visit to a friend's house needed to be monitored, visits to the movies were severely restricted and sanctioned sparingly.  Our family has always been high spirited and for us, walls were meant to be scaled, not meant to hem us in.  Hence we would be as good as we could when we were under scrutiny, and break out when we were not.  Of course, the height of our rule breaking was to go see a late night show, so it was more or less harmless fun.

 

I find a smile creeping up on my face when I think of those golden days, where we were cosseted by a family that had lots of members around and enough fun that was to be had.  I spent at least two hours each evening visiting my best friend's house with was barely half a kilometer from mine.  My uncle was a doctor who ran his own dispensary.  He shut his shop at 8 PM every evening.   I had to take permission from my older cousin for a visit, but the standing primary rule was always, “Be back before Papaji comes home”.  I would often start from my friends house a few seconds before 8 PM and run all the way back, race up the stairs, break into the drawing room, sit on the little sofa on the far left of the room, and open my school books.  When Papaji walked in, a few seconds after 8 PM, he would find the house in order.  Everything neat, the younger kids at their homework, the food cooked, the transistor switched off, everyone looking quiet and meek.  Any cousin who broke the protocol was scolded by my uncle, much to the merriment of the rest.  Being the youngest, I could not afford to jeer openly, because I could get a whack from anyone who was even a bit senior from me.

Now that I am a parent, I know it was not possible to control such a large family unless the head of the family was firm and undeviating.  And frankly, things were so much more fun when they were a little hard to come by.  All those movies we saw, all our little rendezvous had a flavor of adventure that heightened our pleasure.

The Jamnagar Gurudwara

View Gurudwara in a larger map

This here is the Google map location of the gurdwara in Jamnagar.  My uncle Santokh Singh Suri was one of its founders.  It was aimed at providing a place to pray for the growing Sikh community in Jamnagar.  Santokh Singh Suri was the personal physician of Jam Saheb, whose generosity helped lay the foundation stone of the gurudwara here.

Of course, all this happened before I was born.  Circumstances in my life made my uncle and aunt my guardians, hence my childhood was spent in this amazing little town.  I will be writing about it often, as it has shaped me and my thoughts.  Often, as I sit around doing some work, I am suddenly seized by some memory of a day gone long past, something trivial, like walking down a road or appearing for an exam.  But the memory is so real, I feel like I am re-living that moment.  It is to put these memories down on record that I will be doing a series of sketches like this one.

My uncle and aunt were a devout couple.  All the various gurupurab's (birthdays of the Guru's) were celebrated with gusto.  As were the Shahidi Diwas (martyrdom days).   On these occasions we would donate some mah ki daal (black lentils) for the langer (community lunch).  We would all sit around and clean the mah ki daal scruplously.   Baiji (my Aunt) would wake up at 4 in the morning and go to the Gurudwara to do service. I would throw a tantrum until I was allowed to go along.  In the gurudwara we would help make rotis.  We would sit around a large 4 foot long tava with a roaring fire under it.  Women would crowd around and roll out thick rotis that another lot of women would roast expertly on the hot tava.  Another big bunch of men and women would gather around the kitchen cutting up mounds of cauliflower and peeling and dicing potatoes.  The job of cooking was under the expert hands of a gentleman we knew as our mamaji (maternal uncle).  He was not a relation, but in that sparse close knit Sikh community, everyone was an uncle, it would have been rude to call them our 'acquaintance'.

As the afternoon of Gurupurab rolled around, at the completion of prayers with Ardas, the carpets would be rolled away and thin runner carpets spread out instead to create long aisles.  People would sit on them and be served all the food prepared since early morning on leaf plates.  Boys and young men would walk down the aisles doling out daal, aaloo-gobhi sabzi and 'parshadas' as the roti's prepared in Gurudwara were called.  I can swear I have never ever tasted food so tasty ever in my life.  It was full of the taste of simple living and love that existed between people in those days.

Although the Gurudwara was open for prayers all days, Sundays were special.  Come Sunday, and we were all hustled into the car and driven to the Gurdwara for prayers.  The ceremony probably took 3-4 hours.  We sat on durries on the ground in front of babaji's beed.  The sanctum was appropriately decorated with flowers and colourful silk spreads.  There were sparkly buntings on the ceiling. Sobha Singh's portraits of the Guru's adorned the walls.  Lovely glass chandeliers, a personal gift from the Jam Saheb, hung from the ceiling.  I would often get restive, and sneak out to get a toffee from the shop outside, not that I was hungry or anything, it just was nice to run around with other kids.  Soon, the paath would be over, and it would be time for ardaas.  That was the time we were all required to be in our place.  Head bowed, I repeated 'Sat sri Akal' everytime the granthi said 'Jo Bole So Nihal'.  From the corner of my eye, I could see the assistant granthi making his way to the big paraant of the crowning glory of the day - the Kada Parshad.

My mouth would water in anticipation as, the Ardaas over, we would sit and await our turn to be served the glorious dollop of Parshad.  It was oily sweet and hot.  It was like the perfect end to my visit to the Gurudwara.  I am not particularly religious, but a visit to the gurudwara, always ending with a bit of parshad, makes me feel secure, as if I am back in the arms of my parents.