Figureheads

Was surprised to see Maratha looking figureheads in the Mystic Seaport museum among mostly European Ladies some more dramatic, some realistic. 

This one did not have a name or origin except the sparse description of it being 'exotic'. To me it looks very much like a Marathi/Maratha saint. The beads he is wearing reminds me of Varakari tradition and the scroll in his hand says that he is mostly not a warrior. 

This figurehead is identified as 'Asia'. It was carved by an Indian artisan for H.M.S. India, launched in Bombay in 1824. The description below says "The turbaned figure is an impressive symbol of India's economic and social importance in the British Empire."

Indian subcontinent as seen through an American merchant's eyes

I was surprised and elated to see a map of India when visiting the John Brown House Museum in Providence. The map is actually of Asia next to another framed map of America with western part uncharted.

John Brown was a merchant and ship builder. He was active in the China trade during 1760s -80s. The map looked like it was well used. You can see the paper worn out and with creases in spite of it being displayed flat in a glass frame at present.

I was quite excited to see the old names/spellings of the familiar land masses of the Indian subcontinent. If you see the larger version of the above map you can clearly see the northern part named as 'The Empire of the Great Mogul'. On the west of that is Empire of Persia and to the east is Empire of china. There are many kingdoms marked so are ports, major inland cities, rivers, and mountains.

The tale of two Indias

I saw this PBS documentary today. On the website the description is as follows:

'The World Before Her' is a tale of two Indias: In one, a small-town girl competes in the Miss India pageant. In the other, a militant woman leads a fundamentalist Hindu camp for girls.

Lot to digest, for example - Choosing two girls from these specific circumstances and not others to contrast, especially since the struggle between tradition and modernity was a thread throughout. The visual of the girl sitting at the beach facing the Mumbai skyline juxtaposed with silhouettes of mountains and temple spires on the left shows this thread of presentation to come. As the documentary progressed, it was very interesting to see assumptions made about what is 'modern' when it comes to women in India. What is considered freeing, enabling and how it is shown as one or the other rather than a complex mix in both the paths these girls chose. 

I want to go back and watch it again to see how certain views, values, visuals were highlighted or played down. 

A lot there to process and comment but before I write a coherent review I just wanted to share the documentary itself. 

Collecting Deities

Yesterday we stumbled on a flee market outside YMCA on Hope street. There was such a wide collection of household items, vases, planters, clothes, decorative items and what not. Some of it Indian - beautiful dupattas (scarves), cloth pieces used as table mats, beads. The most exciting however was this idol of Shiva. I have seen Ganesha, Buddha, and sometimes Krishna but this Shiva was the first one I saw in US outside of an Indian home or Indian reference. 

The idol in abhay mudra is well made with eyes painted beautifully expressing benevolence. Nandi on one side, Shivalinga on the other, damaru on the trident. 

The lady manning the booth had various Ganesha idols, a bull that looked more like Nandi than the bull outside New York stock exchange. It seems her friend collected deities and these were some of her finds on a trip to India. 

Siddis on the Indian Subcontinent

I found on Facebook the link for the online exhibition named African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean World on the New York Public Library's (NYPL) website. The exhibition is curated and hosted by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black History.

I have talked once in a while with my friends from South Africa about the people of African origin on the Indian subcontinent. I knew of them as Habashis who lived in Gujarat. I know that they came to India first as traders and seamen. However, I did not know anything about them beyond their existence. Habashis or the Abyssinians came to India from Ethiopia (Abyssinia). The exhibit mentions the port of Barygasa (modern day Bharuch, Gujarat) that was considered to be an Ethiopian town because of the east African traders who had settled there. So that is where my story of Africans in Gujarat came from I guess. I also knew of Siddis of Janjira but had not really thought of them as people from Africa.

The online exhibit put a lot of people and events I knew in perspective of the flow of people between different continents. This experience was similar to how things I already knew clicked in place when I was reading the book Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh. I knew of the opium wars in China, the famines in Bengal, the British in Calcutta, history of Parsis in Bombay and so on but all of it clicked together in terms of actual people who moved between different places at that time and how happenings in one affected people in other far away places.

I could identify some of the historical happenings and names but did not know their African origin. For example, Ibn Batutta is a well known name for the record of his travels during 1300 A.D. in India, but I had not thought of his origins. He was a Moroccan. Malik Ambar, the formidable general during the Nizamshahi rule in the Deccan. I know of him but now I can place him in the overall migration, and movement of people from Ethiopia, to Arabia, to India as slaves, seamen, ivory traders. See the map of movement of people here.

The most surprising find was of the group of Habashi slaves from Goa when it was under Portuguese rule who ran away to Karanataka in free India. I had no awareness of these events. When we were growing up I heard stories of how my grandfather sneaked in and out of Goa during the Portuguese rule to see his relatives and friends and visit the temple of the family goddess. I never heard the story of the Habashis though. Now it is too late to ask him about them.

The online exhibition has a lot of images, paintings and photos - past and present that make this discovery interesting and more human than just reading the text.

The Schomburg Center also has an ongoing exhibition of images and artifacts open till July 6, 2013. Here is the information about it in case you are in NYC and are interested.



PS: Africa felt like a far away land when I was in India. I think I understand Africa (especially east Africa) differently now after coming to US in terms of where it is geographically in relation to the Indian subcontinent and how it is connected from land and sea.  Conncections that I did not clearly see before. I wonder if physically being on another continent changes the way you look at the world geographically. Or does the awareness come from the multi-national crowd and subjects I am exposed to in New York City and in Teachers College. 

India portrayed in Indian restaurants

We were visiting Rasoi, one of the Indian restaurants in Providence, with our friends from South Africa (via NYC). We have been frequenting Rasoi for their Sunday brunch. They have the best Indian food I have tasted in a while. They also have huge photos from India as decoration on their walls. I was pleasantly surprised and excited this time to see photos that seemed like they were taken in Maharashtra. On closer inspection I found a note about the exact location. Mandai!!! Who knew I would sit next to photos of women making garlands and a man selling onions taken in Mandai of all the places. For the people who do not get the reference, Mandai in Pune, my home town, is a marketplace bang in the middle of the old city. Well that description doesn't do justice to what Mandai and the whole experience of going to Mandai is all about.

These photos reminded me of other surprising visuals used for decorations in other restaurants.

The following two paintings are from a restaurant in Niagara falls, US. The paintings portray the Peshvas based in Pune, one of the important players on the political scene locally in Maharashtra in 18th century and possibly on the subcontinent during the reign of Bajirav Peshva in the first half of the 18th century. The romantic story of Bajirav and Mastani the courtesan is well know in Maharashtra. The other painting was that of the Shanivarvada, the fortified palace of the Peshvas in Pune. You can see only a part of it behind me in the second photo. I was quite surprised to see the Peshvas as visual representation of Indian. Even in India, many of the people outside Maharashtra do not know of the Maratha and Peshva history as the history books focus more on the dynasties based in Delhi and the Rajputs of the North western region.

The other painting that caught my eye and made me chuckle is in another restaurant in Providence - Not Just Snacks. The painting has all the symbols of 'exotic India' bringing together different pieces of place and time in an unusual collage - elephant, peacock, Tajmahal, coconut, palm, and mango trees,  a boy flying kite, a singer (Meerabai??) with a string instrument who is from some bygone era, and people who look like they are from northern India on the banks of a river (Ganga??) Oh and I forgot the deer mesmerized by the song Meerabai is playing/singing.  Mountains behind the Tajmahal, the river plains in the middle and I am assuming desert behind Meerabai.