GONE DANCING : When Too Many Melas are Hardly Enough

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15^thSeptember 2016



Largisher Mountain, Inner Seraj Valley, Himachal Pradesh



“I searched for God among the Christians and on the Cross and therein I found Him not.
I went into the ancient temples of idolatry; no trace of Him was there.
I entered the mountain cave of Hira and then went as far as Qandhar but God I found not.
With set purpose I fared to the summit of Mount Caucasus and found there only 'anqa's habitation.
Then I directed my search to the Kaaba, the resort of old and young; God was not there even.
Turning to philosophy I inquired about him from ibn Sina but found Him not within his range.
I fared then to the scene of the Prophet's experience of a great divine manifestation only a "two bow-lengths' distance from him" but God was not there even in that exalted court.
Finally, I looked into my own heart and there I saw Him; He was nowhere else.”

“Silence is the language of God, all else is poor translation.”

Jaluluddin Rumi





Some pertinent definitions:

Charas: the name given to a hashish form of cannabis which is handmade in India, Pakistan and Nepal. It is made from the resin of the live cannabis plant and is harvested by lightly rubbing the sticky flower tips of mature plants in full sunshine and then rubbing off the resin from the hands and forming a mass. It is an important cash crop for many small villages.

Beedi : a thin, traditional and very cheap Indian cigarette filled with tobaccoflake and wrapped in a leaf tied with a string at one end. A beedi joint is where the string is carefully removed, the flake mixed with charas, and then the mix re-rolled in the leaf.

Mela:a 'gathering', 'meeting' or 'fair' on the Indian subcontinent and can be religious, commercial, cultural or sport-related. In rural traditions melas or village fairs are of great importance.



Note on my mela obsession:

Yes I know. This blog is again about the religious melas of the Inner Seraj Valley of Kullu District. Sorry, but I just can't escape these amazing events and not be impressed by their colour, intensity, the level of devotion and belief, and the uniqueness (yet sameness) of each one. For reference, here are my previous blog links on melas and religion in the area:



August 2016: Devotion and Keeping up with the Thakurs

https://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/blog-941849.html



May 2015: A Rishi, Three Goats, Four Seasons, and a Full-Half Journey

https://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Himachal-Pradesh/Saraj-Valley/blog-883713.html



October 2013: Filling the Void with God Stuff

https://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Himachal-Pradesh/Kullu/blog-813504.html



September 2013: Empty Sky, Full Event: Bull Fighting in Kullu: no blood, no pain

https://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Himachal-Pradesh/Kullu/blog-806713.html



Background to the whole business of melas in Kullu*:

Kullu, the 'Valley of Gods', a term that could just as well solely derive from the inspirational and sublime natural beauty of the area, has numerous deities (devis, deotas, rishis, nags, jognis). Each village has at least one deity and each family has an ancestral deity. Devotions to these divinities happen with regular frequency at harvests, births, marriages etc. Rituals are both peculiar to each village or cluster of villages (phati) with common underlying shared practice across all, and animal (goat and sheep) sacrifice is common. (This has in recent years brought some tension as animal sacrifice is now outlawed in greater India). Ornate god statues (deotas) with beautifully carved faces of brass, gold and/or silver) embellished with colourful silks, jewellery and flower garlands are mobile and are usually transported on a Rath (palanquin) on the shoulders of men up and down taxing foot paths from village to village and remote temple place to place for melas and special rituals. The religion is a Hindu-Shaman mix and it is the shaman goor (oracle)rather than the hindu brahmin priest who is the 'leading role' and mouthpiece/medium of the deota.

Deities often pay ceremonial visits to each other, attend each other’s festivals, go on pilgrimage, and go for bhotti (a feast at a devotee's personal house where again sheep and/or goats are sacrificed and fed to the guests) on invitation. Deities are often related to another, as brother or sister or mother or friend, and a single major deity can have statues representing them in various places. On the move, the rath is accompanied by bajantari (the deota’s musical band), attendants, followers and carriers of deity’s artifacts; collectively called the haar of the deota.

Rarely a day goes by during the spring, summer and autumn seasons when one cannot hear the distant drumming and flutes and horns of a traveling rath across, down, and up the valley.

Village clusters sharing a single event in a common area (often called a 'tarch' which is a kind of commons grassed area around an open sided temple) consist of up to 20 villages (a phati). A kothi for larger events is a bigger cluster of up to 5 pathis. '

The deota issues judgements, pardons, punishes or blesses, alerts of coming adversity and gives advice, all through his goor. The deota has karkoon (officials) who exist in villages along side the local secular democratic governance system in India called panchayat, and is thus an important part in maintaining civil society. Through his goor and these karkoon, the orders and wishes of the deota are applied and/or enforced.

Rishis were great saints of the Ramayan era of ancient India. Lomash Rishi was the guru (teacher) of the most famous Shringi Rishi (a distinguished expert of the super science of mantras and the ruling deity of Inner Seraj Valley) whose main temple is near Banjar. It was the insulting behaviour to Lomash Rishi by King Dashrath of Ayodhya which led to the King being cursed and not able to have sons. After supplication, Shringi Rishi granted the King sons, one of whom was Ram.



In previous blogs I have mentioned the great sociological and social significance of melas. They have traditionally been the most efficient way for remote village people to meet up.. renew familial and other friendship connections, explore marriage possibilities for their sons and daughters, and develop other economic and social ties. Consider these mountains before roads came to this whole valley (1962); before there was electricity (perhaps around 1970); before there was mobile phones (certainly after around 1995 here); and most significantly before there was Facebook (used by young and old these days in India in a veritable epidemic of behaviour).



A note: much of all this god stuff is carried out and performed by men. It is at least pleasing to see women in attendance at melas and to see them also getting into the dancing with the men once things have warmed up. Women to my view are the backbone of village life and do a lot of the back-breaking field work on top of domestic duties. Men, who do too work hard, often get to go off for days at a time to attend melas. It is what it is.





The Lomash Rishi Mela

And so... the annual event held at full moon of September/October each year at Lagisher mountain top is in honour of Lomash Rishi who abides in the nearby remote mountain village of Dion. This mela is the last of the 'season' of local melas for the next 6 months when the cycle all starts again. I was invited to attend with my good friend who belongs to a large and significant family of Seri village (part of the phati of the area). His father has two wives (still allowed but rare) in two separate houses, and 12 children.



We set out from my friends' cafe on the valley floor at around 9.00 am. But wait.... before we do, a relative drops by and prepares two beedi joints. One is smoked then and the other on the way up to my friends' fathers' house where we will rest a while.



It is now charas rubbing season. This means that many locals are flush with fresh charas they have themselves prepared. This year is going to be different as there has been a huge Police action in the valley whereby fields of ganga (marijuana/ cannabis) has been cut down under a one-off amnesty, with notice that any plants then later found on private property will bring prosecution. It's too hard to believe that this ancient traditional practice can be stopped... and it won't. One immediately suspects that the local charas mafia (Himachal Pradesh and Kullu district in particular probably supplies the bulk of India's and international smuggling supply) has a big hand in all this... including protecting certain growers. In the end the price will go up and they will make the same or less money for less work and bother, plus hold tighter control on the supply and the price they themselves pay.



Its a bright sunny day. It means that at every stop, including my friend's family houses, family members (men, women and sometimes children) are coming in from the fields with dark green/black sticky hands thick with a layer of resin rubbed from the ripe gangaflower heads. This is 'respectable' practice, with no apparent sense of deviancy or illegality. And yet, thanks largely to India wanting to keep in line with largely American pressure, charas and ganga are now illegal across India (despite some noted religious cities still having 'government approved' ganga shops and the practice of making bhang, an intoxicating pulp made from ganga across India and often transformed into a drink, being rife and openly sold and consumed). And this in the face of a growing alcohol abuse problem in all areas, with increased related domestic violence, motor accidents and so on. Oh.. and not to mention the huge amount of government tax garnished from alcohol sales.



Its all a bit of a bad joke... one just imagines the wealth that the state of Himachal Pradesh could officially produce with a well regulated open charas and ganga industry, including the production of hemp cloth. The use of drugs must be as old and Adam and Eve, and drug abuse is never to be encouraged. Yet the 'energy' difference between the use of alcohol and charas at these melas is so different. A month ago (before the charas season) the main drug of use at a local mela just near Largisher was alcohol. The mela was amazing but tarnished by the number of drunken men not able to drink well and behave well. At the Lomash Rishi mela, charas is now again readily available and there is a tradition of no alcohol at Largisher. The mood was simply more tranquil and collegiate... with women's participation in the mela seemingly more evident and 'safe' and wholesome. Observations and opinions only.



Meanwhile, we meet a few friends on the way to the mela working with their herds or in the fields... and again there is a beedi joint stop or two.



My friend like many for this particular mela, is on a whole day fast until around 11 pm when the main first phase of the deota's arrival and dancing will be concluded. However I quickly learn that in this context, 'fast' does not include the restraining from eating kirre, kela, kajoor, or seb (cucumber, banana, dates or apple) and certainly not the consumption of beedi joints.



We finally reach the mela 'tarch' around 5.30 pm. The wooden temple on the narrow ridge is fairly deserted still. Things are not even warming up yet. There are a number of makeshift chai (tea) and parantha (a flat bread stuffed with ...in this case... crushed ganga seeds and potato) and sweet shops just having been set up. I sit with another Siri friend who is the head of that village's karkoon. A lovely man of around my age. And of course beedi joints are being made with regularity now. Across from me also from Siri is a well groomed middle aged man who is very keen to practice his English on me, just as I am keen to practice my Hindi on him. After covering the formalities we enter into a discussion about the nature of god. Finally I ask him his profession. Banjar Police. So here is the contradiction and the compromise of the old and the new. He is seemingly non-chalant in his response to all that is going on just next to and around him. Probably 90%!o(MISSING)f those imbibing beedi joints are his close relatives and elders. And the occasion is religious steeped in tradition. What to do? It's all nuts.



I had been 'warned' by my friend to expect something really special at this mela. It is what makes this mela distinguished and unique (as are all melas in some particular way). We go back down the last steep approach to the mountain ridge and wait... and wait.... By around 7.30 pm people are starting to arrive there .. more and more... And each family has with it a 3 metre torch they have constructed at home from fresh pine splints... bound together by strong grass strands. Soon there are perhaps 100 of these torches being prepared over an open fire (drying out the tip of the torch) and this is only ONE of three villages in the pathi. Siri.. the first to undergo this ritual.. to be followed by two other groups.



Around 9 pm all is all happening. With great fanfare, the deota (Lomash Rishi) is coming up the hill through the forest from the village of Dion. The torches are all quickly lit and lined up in two rows either side of the track. And then.... as the deota approaches (but with the torch group from Dion), the Siri group start marching up the steep slope yelling out verses. It is dark now of course and the effect is electrifying … The verses? Hard to explain or understand. They are crude sexual references as is the tradition. Apparently Lomash Rishi has a 'bad guy' bodyguard/assistant who has to be placated in language he understands. My personal take is that there is a cathartic purification going on.. with the chanting to clear the air together with the crucible of fire. Another theory of course, given it's well known that men naturally start thinking of sex every 11 minutes, is that this is to get it all out of their system so as to create the reverential atmosphere needed for the arriving deota. In any case, everyone is having a great time, and I suspect beedi joints have played their part.



After all three village groups have gone through this fire pageant and come up to the tarch, each in turn almost setting the place ablaze (not really possible as the monsoon has just ended and everything is relatively damp), and danced around the wooden temple, things get a little more settled … dancing continues for some time. I have a dance (I have now learned the 8 step repetitive routine from my recent mela paricipation) and of course this is to the great delight of the locals. Then I decide to get some sleep (it being close to midnight). My friend has brought a tent and a sleeping bag for me... we pitched the tent some distance away up the ridge on arrival, before sunset.



I get about 2 hours decent sleep only to wake to the loud group sitting nearby having a vibrant discussion. I can't complain.. it's not my territory or space. It's their party. I am also feeling a bit cold so I decide to get up for a bit and go and sit by one of the many fires where people are congregating getting some rest, all over the ridge. My friend walks past and says he might go and rest a bit in the tent. An hour later I am ready for bed again.. but the tent is now full. My friend and his friend... sound asleep. And so the rest of my night is spent sitting beside fires... leaning on tree trunks.. getting some rest .. but doing a lot of waiting. It's OK... I have a lot to think about. I do. The full moon is glorious on a clear sky. The dawn in intoxicating with pinks and light hues slipping through the pine needled skyline. All is well.



In the early morning festivities resume with people lining up at the temple to pay homage and receive blessings from the deota . Here the brahmin priest finally has a role. One man mercifully (quickly and cleanly) cuts off the head of a small goat as his special supplication to the deota. But outside on the ground is the main game. The goor (they spend their day lives with their long often dread-locked hair wrapped in a white turban affair) has let his hair down (as they do when performing ceremonial functions) and is sitting in the middle of a tight ring of people keen to be given mustard seeds. If they score an odd number they are granted insight from the goor 'reading' their seeds, into any particular question or issue that they have. If they score an even number then (according to another local friend) they simply throw that lot and go back until they get an odd number. Everyone is a winner.



Now it's time to try and wake my friend. Its 6.30 am. He mutters from inside the tent that he will be ready to leave by 7 am (he needs to get back for some guests coming to his cafe/guest house). We leave by 8 am and take a more direct route down the mountain. It is a gorgeous morning. The forest is inspirational in it's grandeur, it's quiet, the intermittent birdsong. We pass through moss covered cathedrals, fresh waterways, and all the while I am looking back and up up up to where we have come from. We arrive back at the cafe around 9.30 am.



I am left just again amazed at it all. What is it really all about? Many things... many meanings.... Apart from anything, it's another night out in the remote Himalayan foothills. Some have their footy season... some have their mela season. Same same but very different.





*reference:

A brief introduction of the devta (god) system of Kullu:

https://tharahkardu.wordpress.com/2012/07/05/devta-system-in-the-villages-of-kullu-a-brief-introduction/

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Photos

Charas coverd hands after 'rubbing'
Usually done straight from the growing plant (here they have been cut first).

Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

A wonderful life
I'm always eager to read your blogs and get a graduate course in sociology and culture. What an amazing life you have. Thanks for taking us along on these adventures.