At The Edge

Hero travels to a place called "Naag gram", Snake Village, to research on snake venom that will save life of millions. He drives through a road that looks like poplar avenue of Baramula in Kashmir to arrive at a valley populated by a tribe of snake worshipers. Soon after arrival, forgetting all about research, Hero falls in love with a woman who is training to be a Naag Dasi, a woman who claims to be 'daughter of Naag Devta' and a 'Vish Kanya' whose mere touch can kill a man. And yet there are feelings of anti-animism budding in her heart, she doesn't understand a god that offers poison.  Love booms. Noorjahan sings. Father goes - Babu, Naag Dasi say prem karna paap hai . Violence erupts. Noorjahan sings. Lovers try to run-away. Get caught. Father goes - Shalaka ko Beti say Zyada Dharam pyara hai . Hero gets bitten by a snake. Heroine sings and dances to an idol of Snake god to save her love. God obliges, takes back the venom. In comes ...

A couple of illustrations from 'Indian pictures, drawn with pen and pencil' (1881) by William Urwick (1826-1905). -0-

Came across these in Kashmiri Almanac, Vijeshwar Panchang . -0- A Plate from Mrs. S. C. Belnos's 'Sundhya' (1851). (via: columbia.edu, more , still more hand signs ) -0-

Hi T-Rrex carrying a baby Kangaroo fighting a white tiger thingy, at Marble House  The stuff sold at state run Marble House at Baluganj, Agra, is made by inmates of the state prison. Besides carving stuff out of marbles and stones, they make beautiful saris made of Bamboo Silk and Banana Silk in colors (I was told)  and patterns approved by a doctor. -0-

On a gate of a temple near Gurgaon's HUDA city center. -0-

Came across a bunch of interesting rare Hindu images over at the Life Magazine archive [ Link ]. A group of engraving caught my interest. As these images came with bare minimum information (simply tagged 'REL ORIE Hindu GODS'), it took me quite some time to figure out  that the fascinating images were in fact engraving (from 1722) by French artist Bernard Picart (b Paris, 11 June 1673; d Amsterdam, 8 May 1733) as appearing in William Hurd's 'Religious Rites & Ceremonies of All Nations (Vol. 3, 1780)'. Picart never left Europe, most of these engravings were based on accounts of various travelers and the sculptures that they brought with them. Ixora/Siva/Mahadev Shiv. Brahma. Ganesh. Scene at a Hindu temple Hindu Trinity or Trimurti Ten Incarnations of Vishnu A collection of engraving devoted to each incarnation: In addition to the images of these gods we have this intriguing image of sea-warfare of Marathas. -0- Previously: Hindu Dieti...

I first came across him in the 'god cabinet' of a dear old grand aunt of mine. I must have been seven, we were in Kashmir. I was transfixed by that exuberant crop of hair. I became a regular at her prayer sessions. She remains a devotee. I remain in awe of moss hair. -0- For rationalist thoughts on the 80s phenomena of funky godmen watch Amitabh Bachchan in Prakash Mehra's Jaadugar (1989).

Somewhere in Ghaziabad, around 20 Km from Delhi. 2011.

March 12, 2011 Came across an interesting article in today's HT. 'The national body' by Gopalkrishna Gandhi [ HT link ]offers his musing and anecdotes on the whole popular business of Bharat Mata's Body - Kashmir is the crown head, Delhi is the heart, then there is pancreas, liver, so on, left, right, down, lower, there are some unmentionable but nevertheless important parts, so on and so forth.  You get the idea - the national body. Gopalkrishna Gandh devotes quite a few lines to the crown, Kashmir, as the article was triggered by the fact that someone had asked him to 'chief guest' an event about great treasures and antiques of Kashmir. The event was to be called 'Crown of India'. The print version of this article carries an inset image of 'Bharat Mata' [ image ] famously drawn by Abanindranath Tagore in 1905. Towards the end of the article Gopalkrishna Gandhi writes a bit about the beauty of Abanindranath Tagore's...

I recently went through Wendy Doniger's The Hindus: An Alternative History . It's supposed to be an interesting book, among the sea of old Hindu stories, you will find old names like Sudhir Kakar, Ashis Nandy and Dean Koontz. Yeah, even Dean Koontz. But that somehow wasn't intersting enough for me. Instead, one of the most interesting 'Hindu' story that I came aross in recent times was narrated to me by a Marwari friend of mine. This friend of mine traces his family origins to a village called Behel in Rajasthan. In this village they have a god known simply as Malasi . It's the god of bladder control. Mothers pray to it to for their bed wetting kids and old men pray to it for a quick fix of their enlarged prostate. This rare god is represented, appropriately enough, by any simple stone.

video link From Nastik (1983), the Boy - Raju Shrestha, who grew up to be Amitabh Bachchan in almost every second film . The Mother - Nirupa Roy in a rare 'Showdown with God' scene from Badle Ki Aag (1982). The scene may well be cut from CDs and DVDs, couldn't find it in the versions available online, but found it thanks to Zee Cinema's obsession with showing some real Bollywood first thing in the morning. The Man - Amitabh Bachchan in the famous ' Aaj khush toh bahut hoge tum ' scene from Deewar (1975).

At moments like these I wish to thank my Hindi teacher. .

Came across this curious flyer recently. Television. Actors. Godmen. Lasers. Too good.

  Durga. Luminous like the moon is her face, and a sight of it charms away many a woe. Her hair hangs like Shivji's serpents; her eyes are the envy of both the lotus and the gazelle. Her brows are in the manner of a bow; her lashes like the arrows. She has the waist of a lion and marches with the majesty of a royal tusker. She abides on the mountain-top; none can resist the splendor of her charms. She holds a sword in her hand and rides a lion; Flaming like gold is her presence. In another hand she carries a bow of war. The fish are shamed by her restless energy; The lotus and the gazelle by the softness of her eyes; The parrots by her nose; The pigeons by her neck; The cuckoo by her voice; The pomegranate by the pearly row of her teeth. Touching the person of the goddess, The moonbeams have become more lustrous. - lines from Var Sri Bhagauti Ji Ki (popularly named Chandi-di-Var ) written by tenth Guru of Sikhs, warrior-poet, Guru Gobind Singh.  This tran...

    I look out the window, and there they are. Every time I call up my Internet provider about dead connection, they always start with the line, 'Sir, it's the squirrels. Your area has just too many of them. They eat all the wires.' Actually, more often, the field people of rival Internet providers cut off each others wires. They say the Indian Palm Squirrel actually earned its stripes. Squirrel got the lines when Lord Rama stroked its back for kind services rendered while building the bridge to Lanka.   A 'Ramayan' Poster picked off the streets. Sita feeding wild berries to squirrel while living in Banvas, dwelling in a forest. In that Golden era even squirrels were a bit fairer.

And I thought I would never see them all covered. But here she is all dressed up and ready to kill.   The Goddess Kāli -  found it in 'The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India' by R.V. Russell,  Vol. IV. 1916. [ at Project Gutenberg ]. The accompanying passage dealing with infamous 'Thugs of India and Kali Worship' and offered an interesting 'India: A Religious Assimilation Story': Kāli or Bhawāni was the principal deity of the Thugs, as of most of the criminal and lower castes; and those who were Muhammadans got over the difficulty of her being a Hindu goddess by pretending that Fātima, the daughter of the Prophet, was an incarnation of her. In former times they held that the goddess was accustomed to relieve them of the trouble of destroying the dead bodies by devouring them herself; but in order that they might not see her doing this she had strictly enjoined on them never to look back on leaving the site of a murder. On one occasion a novic...

In which Mickey Mouse drove his steam boat up the Ganges and arrived at the big green gate of Haridwar. After his many splendid adventures (including the oft-told one in which Mickey ji stole the lower jaw of a great demon named A sura and the one, often narrated to young children, in which he carried his injured Indian elephant friend on the back), many years late, good natives, as a mark of respect, inducted his image (taken from a private picnic album) in their great galley of great gods. -0- Didn't I say Haridwar is like Disneyland !

'Light of India, A Conflagration of Indian Matchbox Art' by Warren Dotz (2007), has more than 300 vintage matchbox labels from India, some of them dating back to the turn of the century. I was browsing through a preview of this colorful book at Google book and here are some of the images that I liked: I was particularly fascinated by this image of 'Flying Rani'. The book lists it as  Kamdhenu or the divine 'Wish fulfilling  Cow'. I was fascinated because the iconography of this seemingly Hindu image is quite similar to the South-Asian iconography of Burraq , celestial horse-like creature of Muslim lore that carried Prophet Muhammad to paradise. While one has the body of a flying cow and other has the body of a flying horse, both have the face of a beautiful woman. Image of Burraq(right) via: alif-india.com About the image used in the cover of the book: the scene probably depicts the Vaishnav tale about the tug of war between elephant Gajendra an...

Hang in there Brahma  ji! O, you have a white swan! My friend here has a black Thunderbird. On weekends you can't easily get out of Rishikesh. The Traffic is terrible. The Jam starts just as one leaves Rishikesh and you are out of it only when driving well past Haridwar. That means eat fumes for five hours. Once we were inside the city, to avoid the traffic, my friend drove the bike down the by-lanes of the city. Took these photographs using his fancy Sony Ericsson Mobile while we got stuck on a road right next to a fancy temple that can offer to send the devotee back to the stony great Sat Yug .  Blow Horn Please!  O yes! Also always remember to buy those long lasting Alkaline batteries well before you even pick the travel destination because once there, the destination will always sell you genuine, same priced 'Made-in-China' stuff that won't even power up a fancy 'Made-in-China' pocket radio. That makes me feel really good about myself.   Grea...

A local god from Jammu region of the state Jammu & Kashmir.