The sky burnished in red and gold,

Past and present merge and hold,

There are moments when the breach is healed.

 

Arunima Choudhury 

I'm Krishna the dark-skinned snake-charmer

 This summer during my annual trip in India I went to Shantiniketan, and fulfilled my heart's desire to meet the Bauls of Bengal and record their songs. This was to a great extent possible thanks to Soumya-da, who also kindly put me up in his house, Jorabari. Laxman Das Baul, a lovely person and a fantastic singer and musician, touched me deeply with his renderings. Here's a song I take great pleasure in singing, thanks to him. I've translated the song to the best of my capacities, trying to convey the lilt and rhythm of the Bengali version. And I've uploaded the song on sound cloud for music lovers.

Laxman in his house, tuning his dotara

https://soundcloud.com/arunima-choudhury/amar-nam-kalo-krishno-bede

আমার ঘর বাড়ি নাই , সকল ঘরে বেরাই আমি সাপ ধরি বন জঙ্গলে হ্রদে, আমার নাম কালো কৃষ্ণ বেদে ।।  যত ঘর দেখ সকলি আমার,  সকল ঘরে আমার সমান অধিকার ।  আমি করি সাপের খেলা, দেখে কুলবালা,   গলার মোতিমালা খুলে দেই আমারে ।।   ডোরা, বোড়া, চিতি আর অজগর  কুশল করে ধরি অতি বিষধর।   আমি দেখি সাপের খরা , দিই ধুলোপড়া  তখন কুঁচে পরা সাপ ধরি অবলে ।।  নীলকণ্ঠ বলে শোন বলি রাই,  ওই বেদিয়ার বেসে তোমার কালো কানাই ।  তুমি দুর কর রোষ , হও হে সন্তোষ  তোমার হৃদি ভরা ধন ধর হে হৃদে ।।

I have no house to call my own, Yet I wander from home to home, I catch snakes, in woods forests and lakes, I’m Krishna, the dark-skinned charmer of snakes Every house you see is mine, I have equal rights in every house. The village women seeing me play with snakes, Gift me their pearl necklaces. The most venomous of snakes, I bend to my will . Boa, viper and krait,  I catch with skill.On their raised hoods, I sprinkle some dust. They wilt to the earth, And I hold them with ease. Says the blue throated one “listen o Radha, In the garb of the snake-charmer is your dark Kanhaiya.  Let go of your anger. Be at peace.   Embrace in your heart your heart’s bliss.

Marianne, Bamako's sole taxi-woman

Marianne the sole taxi-woman of Mali

Since yesterday was  international women's day and I read a post by NDTV about the sole woman train driver in India , I thought I'd post something along the line , about a very ordinary -extraordinary  I met in a picnic a couple of Sundays ago. Marianne, a middle - aged French woman got down from her Sanili, a Chinese brand of motorbikes and greeted me. She was dressed in black pants and an orange flower print shirt which had lost one or two buttons, exposing a part of her plump midriff. It wasn't coquetry. She just wasn't bothered. I found this enchanting. Many women, including myself are very particular about the image we present to the public and it is somehow liberating to see a woman who does not particularly care. Marianne and I started speaking and I asked her what she did in Bamako. She replied taxi-driver." I repeated in a voice of rising incredulity, "In Bamako?"

Bamako is a sprawling West African metropolis, a combination of a village and a city, where travelling is an ordeal because of the dust and heat, the snarl of traffic consisting of small Chinese geared bikes, cars, four wheel drives, trucks, all aiming to get to their destination come what may, the lack of road signs, lot of  potted laterite roads which give rise to clouds of dust. There are umpteen accidents everyday. A share -taxi is a good way to go around and I often take them. The drivers are all men, mostly Malians,and some from other parts of West Africa. I always exchange a few sentences of Bambara with them and listen to the ubiquitous radio, broadcasting music (Malians love music), sketches in Bambara which makes them laugh uproariously, football matches and imams intoning verses from the Koran. I admire their skill,  patience, and sheer physical perseverance, boxed up in their taxis which heat up like ovens in the sun, and the incredible way they deliver you to your destination without any visible road sign.  I had never, ever met a woman taxi-driver! And here a white, French woman was telling me very casually that this is what she did in Bamako. 

 "Yes," she replied. Then added , "I used to be a  school teacher when I first came to  Bamako, but I got fed up of going to school and back and thought that driving a taxi would be a good way of getting to know the city and its inhabitants."

I exclaimed, "You must be having an incredible sense of orientation!"

" No she replied , "My sense of direction isn't very good."

"You speak fluently Bambara", I said almost accusingly."

"I picked up a lot while driving the taxi, she replied"

My astonishment, having reached improbable proportions, I asked her very politely, "But how did you manage?"

"Well, in the beginning I always asked the clients if they knew the way to where they wanted to go. Many of them did. They directed me."

“But how did you know what price to charge them? Here everybody bargains for everything!“

“Well, I asked them how much  they usually paid for the trip and they mostly gave me the right answer."

I was flabbergasted and deeply tickled by Marianne's unruffled narrative . She had broken into an exclusively male bastion, in a country where her complexion immediately sets her apart, leaving the cushy job of a teacher to become a taxi-driver, not knowing well either the city, or the language, or the fares,and  she spoke about it with  such tranquillity, as if she was telling me the recipe of a dish she had prepared many times. I didn’t know whether to judge her as utterly foolhardy, or profoundly naive. Whatever it be, it had paid off , if not monetarily, definitely humanely.

By this time a group of people had gathered around us and were following our conversation. One of the picnickers exclaimed, “ But many people must be completely taken aback to come across a woman taxi driver, and that too a tubababu!” (white foreigner in local lingua).

Marianne laughed. We looked at her expectantly like children waiting for a Christmas present.


“Well, one evening some children came and told me that there was a client waiting for a taxi in front of the mosque nearby. It was an old man who had finished his prayers and was waiting to go home. I asked him where he wanted to go. He was completely under shock but blurted out “Badalabugu.”

“Ok, I said, 1,000 CFA. Get in.” (1,000 CFA =  1 euro 25 cents)

“Gnnnah", he grunted in denial.

“750 CFA.”

“Gnnah”

“500 CFA.”

“Gnnah,” he said again.

By then I had understood that he didn’t want to get into a taxi driven by a white woman because 750 CFA was already below the market rate. He had never seen such a thing in his life, and must have thought I was sent by the devil to ensnare him. And for me it had become like a challenge, so I said, “Ok, I’ll drive you to your house for free!”

“Gnnah!” he retorted emphatically, and hurried away, fingering his prayer beads.  

Arunima Choudhury

Terracotta Poems

This summer I went to Shantiniketan in West Bengal, in Birbhum district. On my way a few km away from Shantiniketan  my eyes alighted  upon two gorgeous terracotta Shiva temples, situated side by side in the middle of a cluster of nondescript houses. They took my breath away. I had heard about the terracota temples of Bishnupur, more towards the north-west of Bengal, but to see these masterpieces at almost my doorstep was like receiving an unexpected and delightful gift. Shibu-da, whose taxi we had hired to take us to Shantiniketan, told us that there were terracota temples around Shantiniketan , and that he could take me to visit them if I liked.

And it is thanks to Shibu-da that I could see these temples.  I could not have de niched them on my own , first of all because though I am a Bengali, I moved out from Bengal in my childhood, and secondly because even many Bengalis living in Bengal have not seen  them. They are off the beaten track, in small villages, visited by few outsiders. Shibu-da, a soft spoken, gentle person did not only take me there but also showed me interesting bits of sculpture and filled me in with their history. If you ever go to Shantiniketan and want someone to show you around I would definitely recommend him.

 Now I'm not a historian and my geography is rather poor, but these temples are in a 50 km radius around Shantiniketan. I'm putting them up as a feast for the eye,  and because they transport me to rural Bengal, where these magnificent temples in sleepy little villages, in the middle of a market place, on the roadside, are testimonies of kingdoms which have vanished in the corridors of time.

 

This five pinnacled Lakshmi Janardan temple built in 1846 is in Illambazar. When I saw it there was nobody in sight. It stood in solitary splendour beside the house of a zamindar (landlord), which was a ruin of  crumbling walls, with creepers and aerial roots snaking out from dark,  faceless windows.  

 

 I thought the orange shawl on the priest's shoulder and the orange dome of the temple was worth a photo. And there was this feeling of  timelessness. The temple priest going to worship the deity a hundred ago, fifty years ago, now….

 I almost missed this jewel on the roadside. As you can see it's half hidden by the bushes.  Its walls aren't as ornately sculpted as the other temples I visited. It stood out against the monsoon sky in pure-lined elegance.

 Can you spot my slippers in front of the temple? Yes I was there. It's an exquisite 17th century  Ram temple in Ghusuria    One has to see it from near to see the wealth of sculpted figures and the 

 detailed craftsmanship.   

                                                              

                                       

                         

I wondered who were the artists who had made these panels, and the king who had patronised them? I  looked around and saw a sleepy village, a cowshed a few metres ahead, a woman coaxing a calf to eat rice from her hands, and tried to imagine how the place may have been four centuries ago.

By now you must be getting tired of temples. After all our ancestors were particularly gifted in building them in all shapes and sizes from the north to the south, from the east to the west, and always as in life with the sacred and the profane existing side by side.   I'll just put up some of my favourite shots and let you imagine the backdrop.

Here's a drum player beating the drum for the dancer. Maybe he wants her heart to throb to the beat of his drum.

The musician seems above such worldly concerns. He's composing a song to his deity.

 The king's holding court. Does he have to issue judgement on a matter of great importance, or is he thinking about the gala event he's going to hold in his gardens the next full moon night, where the best dancer and musician will be awarded fifty gold mohurs each? What's that to the left? A dog supplicant?

And finally Krishna as a little child stealing butter, as Varaha Avatar rescuing the earth from the netherworld, and the cowherd of Vrindavan making the hearts of men and women dream to the melodies of  his flute.

             

 Arunima Choudhury