Learning My Role

It has been an extraordinarily full month in Ukhimath Block. I'm actually not writing from Ukhimath (there's no internet there) but have come down to Dehra Dun for a few days to buy warm clothes, since in Ukhimath my size warm clothing isn't availabe. Ukhimath Block, so called because it is really a central bazaar with very small attached town and then dozens of villages close by that all cycle through the Ukhimath bazaar everyday, has a population of approximately 1600, though I'm not sure how many of the nearby villages are included in that figure. It's big and small at the same time, I guess. It is about 6000 feet in elevation, two thirds of the way up the side of a small mountain valley, and looks down onto the Mandakini river and then across the valley at Guptkashi. In the middle background are medium sized little mountains (approx ten thousand feet at the top) and then set at the back and visible on a clear day are the biguns, the ones that are starting to be covered with snow and whose tops are i the 15000-20000 range, which are as the crow flies abou 40-50 kilometers away.

I have, in the space of a month, been catapulted from social obscurity to semi-public figure-tude, by virtue of several key, chance events. Courtesy of a german anthropologist whom I had met in Delhi, I met a couple of local twenty somethings who are part of a folk theatre group that perform scenes from the Mahabharata all over Garwhal, special in a scene called the Cakravyuh, in which Arjuna's son Abhimanyu plays a key role in the defeating of the enemies' super tricky troop formation, because he had overheard his father talking about how to defeat this arrangement while in his mother's womb. Unfortunately for Abhimanyu, his mother went to sleep halfway through and so he learned how to pierce through to the center of the Cakravyuh but not how to escape from it afterward. So, Abhimanyu, the bright eyed 16 year old Pandav, dies at the hands of the Kauravas it is the death of youth and overconfidence, much like that of Icarus. So I went with the troop to, I thought, see the performance (which takes about two and a half hours and has maybe twenty or thirty actors and as many musicians and voices (the dancers lip sync and behind them are voices with microphones), and much to my surprise and consternation ended up playing a small role (non speaking pandit's helper) in front of thousands of villagers, on top of a small mountain, amidst much sound and fury and drumming, much rain having just fallen. I have since come to know that they want me to keep playing this role! But this was just the start.

The biggest event in the Ukhimath calendar is the return of the Madmaheshvar dholi (palanquin containing the mobile form of the deity Madmaheshvar who is a form of Shiva) to Ukhimath to stay for the winter. It is actually much more important for locals than the return of the Kedarnath dholi, much to my surprise. The day before the return of the dholi I was again pressed into performance, this time (as before in full costume-- pictures will be forthcoming at some point) as Nandi (Shiva's animal vehicle, the bull). As Nandi I carried a pole with the deity Bhairav's face on the top of it in the procession escorting a fake dholi modelled on the real one that would come the next day, and as such I was seen by hundreds of locals, and apparently made the local news. I'm noticing that people REALLY seem to get a kick out of dressing me up. That was all in the first two weeks. Then the next day when the Madmaheshvar dholi came for real I walked with it for the day (the last day of a three day journey made on foot from the summer residence of the deity), and witnessed people welcoming the form of Shiva into their midst to which they felt closest, as if a member of their family. Flowers and oranges and wheat sprouts and lotuses were offered, old women sang songs of welcome, and sometimes (overcome by some combination of sadness and relief and perhaps, to distort William James, some kind of intimate Moreness), women would start sobbing. It was intense.

My more daily routine has been tending to involve going down to the Omkareshvar temple (the big temple in Ukhimath) and sitting with various priests and temple associated people, talking about this and that, recording interviews some times, some times not. I"ve made small trips to outlying villages to talk with people that people think I should talk with. I"m starting to have a circle of people who know me and with whom I have long, interesting conversations about Stuff.

There are also many challenges. My Hindi isn't perfect, and while it's getting a lot better I still wish I could just do another year of strict Hindi study. But, ironically, what I need to do even more is get up to speed with Garhwali, which I have started to do but so far haven't had much time for except in the course of conversations. So I'm getting really great access and conversations but don't yet have the linguistic skilll set to be fully competent in the situations in which I find myself. I'm still looking for a research assistant, which is complicated by the fact that all of the smart sensitive types in the area actually have their own gigs. What's been more common are sort of accidental research assistants-- for example about a week ago I went to a village to record some songs that old women sing in garhwali when the deity palanquins come to their village. I walked most of the way there with a friend whose village it was, then he handed me off to an elderly male relative who walked me into town and corraled four old women who ended up, several hours and many chais later, singing for me and giving me numerous blessings that I get married soon. So there's been a lot of that type of thing, and it's getting so that speaking in Hindi feels like a relief from trying to understand garhwali (almost like English used to feel when I was starting Hindi!).

The dream of the intrepid fieldworker is taking a beating. On the one hand I get to sit in the temple, in people's homes, see cthonic snake deities, see cakgravyuh performances (on yet a third occasion I was forced to sing in front of about 60 people). On the other hand I can't sit cross legged for very long without pain, I"m allergic to dust and smoke (which in this region means cigarrette smoke, fire smoke, and almost all kinds of bedding), I try to drink boiled water and try to avoid having to eat massive quantities of rice for fear of constipation, and don't understand a lot of what I hear. So on the one hand I feel extraordinarily lucky to be hear and to be doing what I'm doing, on the other hand I wonder whether I'm competent to stay the course and find it very difficult to handle being important and honored, which happens to me a lot. And lots of what happens here is centered around marriage and family, which given my current "status" tears at me a little.

My current plan is to stay in Ukhimath throug the end of december and then go down to Delhi and Pune for about a month and a half for some necessary library work, then be back up in UKhimath by mid-February (before Shivaratri), then stay in Ukhimath until the Kedarnath pilgrimage season starts (April- May, approx).

I'l end with an anecdote. I've just a few days ago come from visiting a friend at his natal village during a wedding of one of his relatives. Before leaving we were sitting and chewing the fat, so to speak, and I said hey, what was that roaring sound this morning and yesterday morning at about 4:00 am? He said oh, that was me. WHenever I'm at home our family deity Narsimh (the man-lion avatar of Vishnu) usually comes inside of me early in the morning. No matter where at home you are? I asked. He said, Yep, whether I'm in bed or doing puja, wherever, around 4 am he comes inside of me, but only when I'm at my natal home. Then we continued on to talk about how really in the mornings I should just bathe with cold water, since its healthier.

I hope this finds all of you well, and do write.

feet on the ground

Arriving thus far has been a whirlwind. Coming into Delhi I was a bit surprised at just how normal and un-un-familiar every thing has been. Talking to people and getting around the city has been no problem, though I must say I very quickly tired of cris-crossing the city in an autorickshaw everyday for registrations and meetings. Hopefully I'll be better sorted for my next visit there in January. I guess the big news so far is that I'm changing before my very own eyes into someone who is really living and working here, as opposed to someone who is here as student/traveller. I now have friends I want to visit in Delhi, Varanasi, Jaipur, Pune, Mumbai, and Madras. I have a mental list of places I'd like to get to in Delhi and Uttaranchal. My meeting with my contact at the Indira Gandhi Centre for the Arts saw me transformed from an erswhile graduate student to a "junior fellow" being introduced to several notable Indian scholars and talking about when I might give a talk at the center. After finding out third hand about a major conference on ritual happening in Delhi, I finally had the opportunity to introduce myself to the foremost western authority on the area in which my research is located (Garwhal), and through him met a German anthropologist who has been working for years in exactly the area in which one of my research sites is located (Ukhimath). At her invitation, I met her in Dehra Dun (having arrived in Mussoorie the day before) because a group with whom she was working was giving a performance at this year's Uttaranchal Heritage festival. She then introduced me to the members of this group, most of whom live near or in Ukhimath. So even before I arrive in Ukhimath I can happily look forward to numerous friendly contacts.

Now I'm in Mussoorie, a hill station that was the one of the first places I ever stayed in India. I'm catching up to myself a bit at the moment and doing some language work, enjoying reunions with several teachers whom I've not seen in six years or so. One of them has greatly improved his ping pong skills and handed me my you know what today in our first rematch. Being here is also existentially useful as it gives me an opportunity to remember myself as I was six years ago here in India, before starting my phd and before my time in Israel. I was definitely better at ping pong then.

Under the heading of special things that have happened so far three come immediately to mind. At the Uttaranchal Heritage Festival I spent some time just hanging out and waiting for things to get under way. During that time, an artist created a rangoli (a design created on the ground using color chalk that employs geometric and sometimes figurative elements) on the ground between two sets of bleachers found on the grounds of the festival (Ambedkar Stadium in Dehra Dun -- somewhat ironic that the Hindu rangoli was placed directly beneath the name Ambedkar, who is famous for championing those Indians most often victimized by the established Hindu social system...). This rangoli (identified as an Omkar rangoli from Pune) was an image of the Hindu god Ganesha, elegantly situated inside a canopy which was itself situated inside an oval. Watching the rangoli come to life was quite magical, as was watching the crowd that gathered in fascination as the artist worked. Children were entranced, and many women (who are usually the rangoli makers) were clearly touched by a combination of seasoned appreciation (as experienced rangoli makers themselves) and nostalgia for the times when many more people used to create them. The roughness and brightness of the powdered colors was powerful to me in a way that a manufactured image would have trouble being. I felt lucky to be there.

The second special thing that happened was that last night I was walking along the pedestrian mall at Mussoorie (which is a bit of a tourist trap) and one man kept looking at me and began to beckon. Since this often happens and is usually a sign of incipient pressure to buy something, I started to show annoyance when he said hey, don't you remember me? I interviewed you in Kedarnath a year and a half ago for my documentary on the Char Dham! He was right. Two Mays ago, I made a preliminary visit to Kedarnath for about a week, and had consented to an interview on the condition that I speak only in Hindi, which was fine with him. So he remembers me, and I'm going to meet with him sometime in the next week or two and get his advice about my research -- he appears a compendium of knowledge about sacred places in Garhwal so it should be a good meeting.

Finally, on the bus on the Delhi Meerut road, I saw through the window a shop called Time and Space Repairs. Kant would have packed up and gone home.

So things are off to a good start, though I do feel a bit lonely at times.

departures and definitions

I'm about to go to India again, this time to do my dissertation research. During my last trip I sent out periodic updates via mass e-mail, but this time I've decided to go with a blog. Now my dad is the only one in the family without one! It is, I suppose, a little odd that it is only when I go out of the country that I make a concerted effort to be in touch with everyone in my life. One does the best one can. So hello to everyone, and please forgive me for not being in better touch. I'll try to do better.

So, India, dissertation research, etc... I think for the moment I'm going to give the compressed version. In the past year I've passed my general examinations (I'm doing a Phd in religious studies at Emory University) and successfully defended my dissertation proposal. I'll be heading to India in a couple of weeks for approximately a year and a half, to do research on Hindu pilgrimage place in the Indian Himalayas (in the Indian state of Uttaranchal) called Kedarnath. You can google Kedarnath and there is a fair bit of information on it, so I'll restrain myself from saying a great deal about it now. I'll content myself for the moment with explaining the blogging handle I've given myself, Kedaraprakasha, since it is a little mini commentary on both the subject of my research and myself. I was given my name (Luke), as many of you may know, because my artist parents named me for something very important in their lives and works, namely light, hence Luke (from the Latin, lux). Light is a name that translates seamlessly into both many Indian languages (Prakash is a common name for a boy, as Jyoti is for a girl) and into Hebrew (I could have easily become an Uri during my time in Israel). I've always resisted changing my name, however, because I think it important to keep the name my parents gave me. However, here in the blogger imaginaire I've changed my name. So starting from the right and working to the left (that's how Sanskrit compounds work), there are two parts: Kedara and Prakasha. Prakasha means light, as I said. Kedara means something like a clump of marshy, clumpy wet soil. Kedarnath (shortened from Kedaranatha), literally means something like the lord of the clump of wet soil, and as a name and descriptor of the Hindu god Shiva it very closely reflects the terrain in and around the place of Kedarnath itself. So, Kedaraprakasha could mean something like the light [that is in] the clumpy wet dirt lump, or (more freely rendered), Luke--in/of-Kedarnath.