Dilip Simeon's blog

Back in the 14th century, Sant Soyarabai was writing and  singing  abhangs about Vitthal, her god whom she could not visit in a temple because of her Dalit identity. Her abhangs were not just proclamations of her predilections towards god, they were also lessons in understanding caste hierarchy and the pain that was caused by untouchability and Brahminical systems. S Anand, co-founder of Delhi-based publishing house Navayana and author, came across Soyarabai through T he Ant Who Swallowed the Sun , a book by musician Neela Bhagwat and author Jerry Pinto, which translates and explains  poetry  by 10 women saints of Maharashtra from the Bhakti movement.  Kiti kiti bolu deva, kiti Karu aata heva  (O god how much more do I plead The jealousy I must bear till you heed)  Anand uses Jaijaivanti, a raga from Guru Granth Sahab that’s mostly represented as a combination of joy and sorrow, to convey this abhang, which talks of a god who does not care for her, but...

NB : An excellent review of an excellent book. Purushottam Agrawal has done us a public service. DS Kabir, the famous religious poet of Varanasi, lived from roughly 1440 CE to 1518 CE. He first became well-known outside of India in 1915 when Rabindranath Tagore published an English translation of 100 songs, or bhajans, att­ri­buted to Kabir. Tagore’s translation was based on a collection prepared by the scholar Kshitimohan Sen from various sources. More recent academic studies of Kabir essentially begin with the analysis of his religious ideas made by P D Barthwal and Hazari Prasad Dwivedi in the 1930s and the 1940s. These studies helped initiate a search for old manuscripts containing collections of Kabir’s songs ( pad  or  shabda ) and couplets ( sakhi ) in early Hindi, with the idea that these texts were more likely to be compositions by the historical Kabir, or at least gave a better idea of ideas ass­oci­ated with Kabir.  Kabir, Kabir: The Life ...

There is a saying in the Marathi language: “बामणा घरी लिहिणं, कुणब्या घरी दाणं आणि मांगा-महारा घरी गाणं.” A Brahmin’s house has the alphabet, a Kunbi’s house has grains, and Mang-Mahar homes have music. In the traditional village set-up, the Mang community played halgi , the Gondhali played sambal , Dhangars were masters of dhol , and Mahars played ektari . The culture of knowledge, farming, art and music was segregated by caste. Moreover, for many of the castes deemed ‘untouchable’, singing and performing music were vital means of sustenance. Facing oppression and discrimination for centuries, Dalits have preserved their history, bravery, pain, happiness and philosophy in the form of jatyavarchi ovi (grindmill songs or poems), oral stories, songs and folk music. Before Dr. Ambedkar’s rise to prominence on the national stage, the Mahar people played ektari to Kabir’s dohas , and sang bhakti songs for Vitthal and bhajans worshipping god... https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/articles/shahir...

What can an interfaith love story from an India in another time teach us today? That, in order to get married, it is enough to be in love; that families might not only not object but welcome such a union; that far from being a hurdle to this type of marriage, the state can actually be an enabler. If all of these seem self-evident, consider the quickness and frequency with which the term “love jihad” is invoked in the context of interfaith romances today. Consider also the speed with which states around the country are passing laws that - in effect, if not in actual words - render interfaith marriages impossible.  And then consider the marriage at the heart of Seema Chishti’s Sumitra and Anees: Tales and Recipes from a Khichdi Family, where a man and woman - despite the gulf of religion and culture between them- chose to spend the rest of their lives together.... https://indianexpress.com/article/books-and-literature/seema-chishti-new-book-sumitra-and-anees-tales-and-recipes-from-...

Ram, the crown prince of Ayodhya, was born in Chaitra, the first month in the lunar Hindu new year. Ever since, chaiti songs have Ram’s name woven into them. His mother’s lament still resounds all over the Indo-Gangetic plains in popular chaitis: “Kin more Awadh ujaari ho, bilkhain Kaushalya/ Ram bina mori sooni Ayodhya, / Kou samujhavat naahin … (Queen Kaushalya cries, ‘Who has ruined my Ayodhya and banished my Ram?/Why is no one trying to talk sense?’)” After being banished to the forest for 14 years, Ram’s life begins to correspond to the life cycles of most epic heroes, from Odysseus to Beowulf to Gandhi. The young hero goes on a long journey to alien lands to defeat a monster or wild beast. He kills the demon, rescues a captive lady, and is rewarded with a throne. But now he must rule over near-strangers, constantly squabbling among themselves and gossiping about him. Ram created a Ram Rajya as Gandhi created independent India — at great personal cost. Finally, he handed his thr...

काशी विश्वनाथ मंदिर के महंत ने मोदी, योगी पर लगाया बड़ा आरोप, सुनकर रह जाएंगे हैरान!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29cV_cz7RIk पंकज श्रीवास्तव से टकराई रिपोर्टर, फिर जो हुआ वो खुद देख लीजिए हमसे ऐसे जुड़ें - FORUM4: http://forum4.co.in/ यूट्यूब लिंक: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCN5y... इंस्टाग्राम: https://www.instagram.com/forum4_news/ ट्विटर: https://twitter.com/Forum413?s=09 और फेसबुक: https://www.facebook.com/forum4.news/ (लगातार खबरों के अपडेट पाने व मनोरंजन के लिए और सोशल मीडिया पर जुड़ने के लिए लिंक पर जाकर Follow व Subscribe करें) आप हमें खबरों की जानकारी भी दे सकते हैं। कोई रिपोर्ट भेज भी सकते हैं। इसके लिए आप 18forum4@gmail.com पर ईमेल से संपर्क कर सकते हैं।

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Here’s a Christmas entry. The Mughal dynasty, originating in what is now Uzbekistan, ruled India from 1526 until the 18th century, though the dynasty continued under British rule until 1857. Some of the members of the royal family were remarkably open-minded about religion, being a Muslim minority in a sea of Hindus and members of other religions. Indeed, most people in the Mughal bureaucracy were Hindus, and the Rajput Hindu cavalry was a key element of its military. It was not so much a Muslim empire, though Muslim rulers were at the top of it, as a multicultural one. The ruler Akbar (r. 1556-1605), a contemporary of Queen Elizabeth I, invited to his court holy men from the Muslim, Christian, Hindu and Zoroastrian communities where they held dialogues on the truth. When Akbar conquered Gujarat, he encountered Portuguese Christians based at the colony of Goa, and invited some Jesuits to his court. At one point he commissioned them to write a Persian ac...

The bhajan had a very familiar tune but the words and the off-key singing made it difficult to recognise at first. Then it came like a flash — the tune was that of “Allah, yeh ada kaisi hai in haseenon mein, roothe pal men na mane mahinon men,” a song from the forgettable 1968 Dharmendra-Sharmila Tagore starrer, Mere Hamdam Mere Dost. The film and its songs, written by Majrooh Sultanpuri and composed by Laxmikant-Pyarelal, had been a huge hit. The bhajan was being sung in the temple which I pass during my morning and evening walk. At the time of my walks, the temple is usually empty except for the priests. And yet, I hear a lone voice singing bhajans set to film songs. The harmonium playing seems to be tolerable, but the singing is not anything to write home about. The singer, Pandit Vinod Tiwari is one of the priests in the temple. Apparently, he learnt to play the harmonium in Ayodhya where he got his religious education. He sings religiously in the morning and evening. When I asked ...

On the Christmas afternoon of 2006, Nao visited me again, accompanied by his son and, to my surprise, volunteered to narrate a new story of Juro, the headhunter. I shelved my linguistic work and sat down with my notebook. He instructed me, to my amusement, to switch on the recorder. He wanted in return a gift of a mobile phone. I promised to present him one and I kept my promise. The story of Juro was a bonanza for me, as I had never expected to hear anything after the story of Phertajido. This is one of the stories, where cannibalism was very evident. While narrating the story, he tried to establish the similarity between Juro and the Hindu goddess, Kali, for my understanding, when I asked how a woman could eat human flesh… https://scroll.in/article/1000057/saving-a-language-this-book-brings-together-10-rare-stories-and-46-songs-of-the-great-andamanese

He was the star of my favourite film, Madhumati (1958). It was the first film shot in the Kumaon hills near our town of Nainital. For a few weeks, all of us in school strained our ears, above the teachers’ unending lessons, to hear the song, Aaja re pardesi, reverberating down in the valley, where the film was being shot. All day, the haunting music rippled and resonated around us. The film was sold out in the local Laxmi Theatres as soon as it was released, and its songs became synonymous with our town — to us at least. Young men took to lurching with a  Dilip Kumar  gait, with sweaters tied around their necks. Our old retainer muttered angrily, “Bhoot lag gaya sabko Dilip Kumar ka! (Everyone’s been bitten by the Dilip Kumar bug!)”... https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/goodbye-dilip-kumar-creator-of-our-first-dreams-of-love-7394053/

Poet, folklorist, orator, teacher, legislator, administrator and co-founder of the Dalit movement in Karnataka, Siddalingaiah ’s many-layered engagement with the life of the state defies easy characterisation. Indispensable for a historian of contemporary morality in Karnataka, Siddalingaiah’s work is an elaboration of a rich vision of humanism. His debut book of poetry, Holey-Maadigara Haadu (The Song of the Holeyas and Maadigas, 1975) expressed the suffering of Dalits with a fury and imagery hitherto unknown in modern Kannada poetry.  Due to an early attraction to the class analyses of Marxism, his poetic focus though was not solely fixed on the Dalit experience. The famous poem from his debut anthology, Nanna Janagalu (My People), for instance, articulated the experience of several kinds of toiling labourers without referring to their community identities…. https://www.deccanherald.com/ opinion/the-humanism-of- siddalingaiah-1004625.html Two excerpts from Avataragulu ‘Avat...

An excerpt from Kabir, Kabir: The Life and Work of the Early Modern Poet-Philosopher - by Purushottam Agrawal.    Why were Kabir’s detractors “forced” to escalate matters up to the sultan? Mostly because they were smarting from having failed so miserably to check his influence themselves. Kabir’s fame was sky- rocketing, despite his obvious lack of interest in self-publicity. He still got a lot of “good press” as news spread of his willingness to confront the most powerful community leaders, his ability to resist temptation and his refusal to back down in the face of threats to his life. He had an aura, and his opponents’ obvious frustrations only added to its glow. Anantdas tells us that, “Kabir tried to keep away from his fame, like a demure, young woman hides her baby bump.” But people thronged around him day in and day out. He was left with hardly any moments to himself, hardly any of the privacy and solitude he craved to be able to reflect and to be in “dialogue with h...

NB : Once in a while, very rarely, something appears in the media that reminds me of Goa, where my mother was born, in village Saligaon, in 1924. And which reminds me of my Goan heritage. My thanks to the author for a sprinkle of  sossegado in this troubled world! Dilip    Lucy Aunty, as Lucy Fernandes was known and will be known forever, fed thousands of students at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. I was one of them. Besides students, her food was popular among the Goan community in that city.  Why wouldn’t it be, given that she cooked the best Goan food? From rice curry to fish fry, doce de grão to perard – there wasn’t a single Goan delicacy she did not serve to the denizens of Baroda. Christmas perhaps was the busiest time for her, with several Goan families depending on her culinary skills to keep traditions alive. Her food united a community and gave the community an identity. I do not doubt that Lucy Aunty was synonymous with the Goan community. S...

The government’s willingness to hold the Kumbh Mela in the middle of the worst health emergency in a hundred years and its unwillingness to curtail it despite a tsunami of second wave Covid infections raise an interesting question. Is Narendra Modi a rational actor on his own terms? Rational, here, doesn’t mean ‘secular’ or ‘progressive’. The question is simply this: if we allow for Modi’s majoritarianism, are his policy choices based on good information and best practice? Do they try to maximize the greatest good of the greatest number, once the welfare of minorities is subtracted? The Kumbh Mela raises this question starkly because by the end of 2020, when the  akharas  began to lobby for an off-year Kumbh, its potential as a super-spreader event was obvious. But Modi’s Central government and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s government in Uttarakhand chose to facilitate an unrestricted gathering of hundreds of thousands of people, risking a public health catastrophe that could e...

As an American living in India, I often find myself confused about what to say or think in these sorts of situations. I can recognize that Rihanna probably has no context for the farmers' protests, other than what she's read online. Shit--I've spent half my life in India, and I'm still not as politically savvy as I'd like to be. Regardless, I have to say: it's difficult for foreigners to publicly offer any opinion on India other than "omg ur clothes are so pretty :D" without being accused of trying to defame the nation. People usually don't react negatively to what I say - in person - because I speak fluent Hindi and clearly have some basis for my opinions. (the internet is a different story--if my first experience with Indian people had been Indian people online, I'd never have come in the first place. No offense to Reddit).  Nevertheless, it's still incredibly common for people to try turning things around by saying, "Well, in   your...

At the foundation stone-laying ceremony for the country’s new Parliament building, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared that in a vibrant democracy like India, there was room for differences, but not disconnect. This is a welcome acknowledgement of the Argumentative Indian who loves debate, who is curious about the world around them and is open to ideas, no matter where they may come from. This is because India is a truly crossroads culture, its present determined by a long history of engagement with other races and cultures. This engagement may well have taken place through invasions, migrations, trade or evangelical missions, but these have led to a remarkably diverse and plural society blessed with an innate cosmopolitanism. There is no homogeneity among its people, neither of race nor religion, neither of language nor traditions. It is the shared historical experience, a mutual enrichment of cultures and an affinity born out of a deep attachment to the idea of India that underlie ...

Diwali, also known as the festival of lights, is one of the most widely celebrated festivals of the Indian subcontinent. Diwali, as celebrated in various parts of the country today, has regional variations and is often adapted to the traditions of the respective communities. For instance, Brahmanical Diwali celebration offers homage mainly to Goddess Lakshmi; however, in Jaina Diwali, though worship of wealth has an important place, its celebration originated in relation to Mahavira’s entering  nirvana  (enlightenment).  The celebration of Diwali in India goes back centuries. It finds mention in some of the oldest religious texts such as the Puranas. The texts differ on the dates on which Diwali is to be celebrated and mention different rituals in different cultural contexts; though many of the old practices are no longer followed, some have survived the test of time… https://www.sahapedia.org/diwali-various-shades-festival-lights

Anna MM Vetticad, a journalist and author, noted the irony of the BJP positioning itself as a champion of justice for Rajput. “The BJP and its supporters had viciously attacked the actor’s films in his lifetime for promoting Hindu-Muslim amity and for featuring Hindu-Muslim romances, at one point turning their wrath on Sushant himself when he publicly condemned extremism from the powerful Rajput community to which he belongs,” said Vetticad. “In the din surrounding Sushant’s death, political opportunists have sought to erase this inconvenient aspect of his legacy while they appropriate him for their own ends.”... NB : This sordid drama exemplifies the ruthlessness of our ruling power, and the spinelessness of India's police and media. It is a crying shame that the lust for power among certain ruling politicians combined with the (presumed)  appetite for lynching and media trials is driving people into a frenzied hatred for a helpless young woman. Maybe it will end after the Bihar e...

NB:  The only issue I have with P.B. Mehta's otherwise excellent analysis is with the word theology . Mehta is correct in saying that communal politics is not about theology, but why do such politics appear to be about religion at all? We need seriously to consider the concept of civil religion, something I previously discussed in a comment on  Bangladesh .   Hindutva is a version of State Shinto, the official state religion that was floated in Meiji-era Japan as a means of promoting ideological homogeneity. In my view, just as Islam as state religion failed to hold Pakistan together, Hindutva will fail as an imposed state religion in India.  However, the most crucial factor we must now address is the ideological justification of violence - the common ground of all extremist politics. The singular reason the Sangh Parivar hates Gandhi (a hatred shared by extremists of left-wing or caste-oriented persuasion) is his avowal of ahimsa. I have addressed this matte...