‘I don’t, but I don’t know what else to do? We have just met this person whom we don’t know and then you decide to get married to him?’
‘Mummy, Amit has known him for an year now. He is a nice guy. At least better than all those people who rejected me just because I am not as fair or slim.’
I remembered the time when Ma forced her to marry Rohan. She had tricked me and locked me out of the room. I pleaded to her as I looked helplessly from the window of my room.
‘Ma please don’t do this. If she doesn’t want to marry him, please don’t force her.’
Ma looked at me, ‘Keep out of this Shirin’
‘I don’t want to get married Dadi. Please leave me alone. I will walk out of the house if you force me.’
‘Walk out? You will not listen to me? Your Dadi? What a disgrace! Okay I think I should leave this world.’
She took out a bottle.
‘Faith, you live your life. I won’t stop you now.’
She opened the bottle. ‘Dadi! cried Faith.’
‘Don’t come close to me Faith. I will drink this.’
‘Dadi please don’t do this.’
‘Will you marry Rohan? Yes or no?’
‘Okay yes! Drop the bottle.’
‘Really yes?’
‘Yes Dadi,’ Faith replied in abroken voice.
Ma closed the lid of the bottle and kept it back in her bag.
‘Remember you have given your word Faith.’
‘Yes Dadi, I will marry Rohan.’
‘That day I had resolved that Faith will not be coerced into anything ever again. But once again, my mother-in-law and husband had won the battle.’
A stroll into the lost antiquity and a bygone era and a rare festival in Rajasthan
I was eating my lunch in Momasar on my first day, when I almost got the fright of my life. A man dressed like the villain in the once popular serial ‘Chandrakanta’ came and stood next to me. Another one, who was dressed like Charlie Chaplin struck a pose in front of our table. The rest of the people who were eating and watching this little drama clapped their hands as these actors or beherubiya (face changers) as they are known as in the local dialect did a little act of their own.
A couple of days ago, the name Momasar did not mean much to me. I knew it was a big village located in Sridungargarh Tehsil of Bikaner district in Rajasthan but that was all there was to it. However, it wasn’t till Vinod Joshi of the Jaipur Virasat Foundation told me about the two-day long Momasar festival and invited me to be a part of it, that Momasar became an important destination for me.
Except for a small stretch of road which was about five kilometers before our destination, the trip to Momasar from Jaipur was a smooth one, thanks to the excellent highways. We reached Momasar in the night only to discover that the village was a hub of activity. The staying arrangements were made at a simple lodge where all the musicians, dancers, artists were staying. As I made way to my room, I saw musicians playing their instruments in their rooms and interacting with other musicians who had come from different parts of Rajasthan. I decided to talk to them in the morning.
The next morning I made my way to the terrace where people were sitting on the white mattresses and talking to each other. I spied a foreign looking man sitting and drinking a cup of tea. After the initial introduction, I gleaned that his name was Tomas Carrasco and he was a musician from Chile in South America. This flute researcher is making a documentary titled Nomadic Sounds, which is based on different types of wind instruments across the world. He and his friend Moa Edmunds who is also a musician have been travelling to different parts of the world to record these sounds for their documentary. Tomas said, ‘Indians are lucky to have preserved their ancient art and culture through festivals like these. In Chile, we don’t have such a history because the Spaniards who invaded South America destroyed whatever was left of the ancient Inca civilization.’
As we sat talking, many musicians came and said hello to Tomas. Gazi Khan Mananiyar, the well known musician who not only plays the Rajasthani instrument Khartal but also is the original singer of the ‘Nimbooda’ a song which became a hit in the movie ‘Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam’. As I watched these musicians from the east and west interact with each other, I realized they did not need any language. They understood each other perfectly and music was perhaps the unifying force here. Soon, they decided to have an impromptu jam session where each one played his instrument trying to sync with the other.
I went out to check out the current venue of the festival- the Momasar Chaupal, which was a stone’s throw away from the lodge. I went to a stall where I saw different types of colorful wooden boxes painted with figures of gods and goddesses. When I inquired about it from the artist Dwarka Prasad, I learnt it was an ancient art of telling stories by painting different scenes from a story on the wooden boxes called Kavads. The boxes had many panels on which different scenes from the stories especially from Ramayan and Mahabharata were painted and the story teller would unfold these panels as the story would unfold.
The visit to the Momasar Chaupal was almost like a visit to a village fair which are now a rare sight. There was a man walking on the stilts while the well-known magician Lal Bhai was entertaining the onlookers with the old-well known tricks. I saw something shining and made my way towards it. In a small corner of the fair, a man had set up wooden swords, bows and arrows. He explained to me that this was an old traditional form of making toys which had been passed on from generations to generations. This was a revelation because when I used to see these toys being sold by peddlers in the city, I never used to give a thought to the origin of this craft.
In another corner, the puppeteers were entertaining people with their renditions of old Indian folktales. Abhishek Joshi, an artist accomplished in creating Phad paintings had set up a stall too. Here the painting which really caught my attention was not the traditional ones but a painting where he had depicted America and its culture where people were cleaning their own houses and working in their offices. Not very far off, some musicians were playing flutes. When I went to them, they asked me to try playing the flutes which I did and realized it required years of practice. There were others who were enthusiastically trying out the different instruments. Elsewhere, there were weavers who were helping visitors try their hand at the loom. A potter was creating small pots on his wheel while people around him watched entranced.
A performance by Mahipal Nat on the rope was an interesting watch. One rarely gets to see these performances in the cities. People cheered on while he walked on the rope.
As I entered the hall in the chaupal, I heard a different sound of music. I went on to investigate and chanced upon the people from the Kathodi community from the Ambasa village near Udhaipur playing their unique instruments which I had never seen before and they had unique names like thalisar, tapra, pavri, godaliya etc. The music was haunting. I learnt that these instruments were played during the Navratras or the festival of the nine-nights.
As I wandered around the village, I saw people going about their usual business. I asked a couple of shopkeepers about how they felt about the Momasar festival which was in its ninth edition. One of the shopkeepers said the festival helps in preserving the heritage and culture of Rajasthan. The thought was echoed by some students who were going to their school. However, something did not feel right. A conversation with the organizers of the fair revealed that the people of the village stay away from the festival as much as they can and they had to get volunteers from Jaipur to help them with the festival. It was surprising especially because this festival could create livelihoods for the villagers and give them extra income.
There were some teachers and students of architecture from colleges like JECRC and INIFD who had come especially for the lime construction workshops. Kirit Mathur, a professor from INIFD was of the opinion that these kind of festivals are important for students who get exposed to the traditional culture which is now dying a slow death in cities.
The festival was a riot of colors, music and people. The people who attended were enthralled with their discoveries of ancient arts and music. In a world which is increasingly being dominated by fast food, ready-made clothes and toys, larger-than-life movies, festivals like these offer a glimpse into an era where craftsmanship was revered and where people had the time to tell stories to each other through words, music, art and craft. As I bid my adieu to this colorful festival, I realized that though not everything is hunky dory, yet there is a ray of hope as long as our generation next is visiting these festivals. They will surely revere this experience and spread the word.
Shailaza Singh’s article was published in Rashtradoot newspaper’s Arbit Section on October 23, 2019
We have become zombies you and I,
We are victims of information overload.
Our phones beep every time there is some upload,
We grab the phone to see the news,
Just to discover some one’s nose ring has 50 views.
We then start browsing the Facebook in a mindless swoon,
We forget to admire the setting sun or the rising moon.
Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are used to document every cough, every sneeze.
Everything the world must know, our children, our health and our disease.
We don’t eat food, we eat likes for lunch, dinner and breakfast,
I wonder how long will this obsession last.
The barometer of ego keeps fluctuating based on the recent comments,
It’s a pity we cannot make our audience smell our new perfumed scent.
We need validation from strangers for everything we do,
We have to report it whenever we buy something new.
No longer does self esteem matter, no longer do our own achievements matter,
Until we put them up for inspection by serving them on a platter.
Communication is a good thing, but not when your brain starts becoming a parasite,
Just thriving on external stimulus, unable to decide between the wrong and right!
Stop using these as your alter ego to just feed on the comments and the praise,
It is high time we understand this zombiness, this madness, this craze.
You have stars in your eyes. You have finally found the girl of your dreams who will be your partner in all your life’s endeavours. Your family is happy. You talk to your fiance everyday and you have great plans for the future. All is well with the world.
The wedding was simple. You and your family don’t believe in dowry so never asked for anything. You gave your fiance all that she asked for..jewellery , dressed and what not. All is well. Everyone is happy.
You are finally married to the girl of your dreams. She is living with you. No one says anything to her. She wakes up at her own time, does whatever she wants to do and is constantly on the phone with her family. Homesickness happens you tell yourself. She must be missing her parents you think.
She tells you she wants to go home. She tells you that she will be back soon
You agree.
After a week, you get a notice and the police call you. A dowry case you ask? A domestic violence case? I didn’t do anything you say.
The police tells you to come to the station and tell your version. There you meet the girl and his family who are looking at you as if you have done something horrible.
You wonder what happened…and it finally dawns on you..your wife has filed a false domestic violence and 498a and she wants money!
Now your life is literally screwed because your wife has filed the case in her parents place which means you will have to travel up and down or give money..
So do you still want to get married to the girl of your dreams?
Some years back, I met a guy at a party. He and I were covering the same event. We found we had a lot in common. At that times, India had not discovered mobile phones.We did not get a chance to exchange phone numbers. The next day, I was thinking about him and someone tapped on my shoulder. I turned and it was the same guy. He wanted to talk to me. I was getting ready to go out when my boss called me for an urgent meeting. He had left by the time the meeting got over. What if my boss had not called on that day?
‘Because of you we will miss the train! If we miss the train, you will be in big trouble, said Kusum looking at her daughter-in-law Sumati. They had gone to the shrine of Vaishno Devi. Kusum and her son Ramlal had reached Sanjhi Chat before Sumati and her friends. Now, they were on their way to the train station where they had to take the train to Delhi. Sumati was worried. It was a hilly terrain and the driver had said it would take two hours to reach the train station. Her husband Ramlal looked daggers at her. Sumati looked at her friends Rita and Sharbati. They were worried for her. Sumati prayed hard. They reached the station at 5:45 pm. ‘The train would have left by now,’ said Ramlal. He asked a porter passing by. ‘Has the train to Delhi left?’ ‘No sir,’ the porter replied. ‘It will leave in ten minutes.’ Sumati closed her eyes and said, ‘thank you!’
Mr. Greed lived with his friend Ms Possessive in the village of Scarcity. Greed’s mother, Selfish lived a street away from him. Greed kept calling his mother but she never picked up the call or even called back. She knew he wanted her property so she avoided him.
Greed was a collector of almost everything, even rubbish. He had a dog called Envy who did not like anyone and bit anyone who came to meet them.
His house was known for its rotten stench for miles. His girlfriend Possessive did not allow the rubbish truck to come and clean up their place. She hated giving and was scared of her ‘treasures’ being taken away from her. She did not even share her wealth with Greed. Greed’s friends- twin brothers- Obsession and Compulsion too lived with them.
Greed hated his step sister Generosity who was forever helping out people in need. One day Generosity came to his house to meet him. Greed shut her out and refused to meet her. Generosity and her friend Charity waited for hours but Greed did no relent. Possessive asked them to go away and never come back.
Obsession and Compulsion watched Generosity and Charity leave. Despite the fact that they had left and they had seen them go, Obsession and Compulsion checked every corner of the house for any sign of Charity and Generosity.
Soon, people stopped visiting Greed and Possessive. Their house fell into ruins because no one bothered about anything else except their own whims and fancy. Greed’s wealth attracted a gang of robbers who stole Greed’s treasures while he and Possessive were sleeping.
Greed woke up and realized that the robbers had stolen everything. Now that he did not have money, Possessive left him and ran off with Obsession and Compulsion. Generosity and Charity helped Greed to create a new life along with Perseverance.
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