All posts filed under: Oral Stories from Rural India

Lore of the Light: A Brief History of Nine Planets in India- ४

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It was a short journey and my first to Ujjain in Central India. The city of time itself. I was almost strolling when on the ghats of Shipra river I met a sage sitting alone but not alone. He looked strangely wild and attractive, focused. He was arranging his stones, picking them carefully as if they were beings and putting them in an unusual order, only after looking for many a seconds towards the sky. Curious, i had many questions to ask. And i did. This conversation was recorded thus and is presented like every story must. Also read: Turiya and Ramakrishna: Who are you? Q. What is your name?A. Narayan. Waah, Narayan! okay Narayan, Listen carefully. I will start from the start. Vedas, India’s four ancient sacred book-length accumulations of living wisdom. The oldest literature in the history of mankind. Since the last standardisation of the vedas, dozens of centuries ago, these hymns have been flawlessly preserved, syllable for syllable and word for word, by their priestly keepers. The hymns of the vedas were …

Life Of Verrier Elwin: Past and the Present Of the Tribal Cultures In Central India: A Photo-ethnographic Essay

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Elwin’s research work in India took place at a critical period leading up to the Indian Independence from British rule. Verrier Elwin first met Mahatma Gandhi in 1928 at his ashram in Ahmedabad, where he had gone to represent the Christa Seva Sangh at the International Fellowship of Religions. Gandhi’s philosophy of satyagrah  as non-violent resistance against the colonial rule had a strong impact on Elwin and he were drawn into the national movement for Independence. However, as he became more deeply involved in the welfare of the community that he lived with, in central India, he began to question the relevance of Gandhi’s severe views on prohibition, celibacy and vegetarianism for that environment. In his autobiography he wrote. “long letter from Mahatma Gandhi urging me to perform daily yagna or sacrifice, of spinning; as no one here for hundreds of miles has ever seen a spinning wheel, decide not to, but suggest rice pudding as a daily sacrifice instead. Elwin’s personal reassertion of loyalty and identity was unequivocal. At a time when most of …

Leaves from a Jungle: The Life of Verrier Elwin living with the Gonds in Central India – I/II

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My co-travellers here on the Road to Nara, must already know and have experienced by now how much there is to absorb in India that is Bharat. Every state works like an organ. Each region in contrast to the other in food, language yet somehow bonded by sense and tradition. In my brief career as a traveller, I have desired not just to travel as much, but also to learn, research and document life of other travellers who once walked and measured this nation in a different light, time and dimension. The ones who somehow recorded the flow that once was; those happenings which can only be dreamt of today but can never again be touched. Also Read: How Jyoti Bhatt inspired the new age Travellers and Documentarians with his life? I was an NCC(National Cadet Corps, youth wing of Indian Armed Forces) Cadet during my university years and had a brief opportunity to rigorously walk throughout the Central Indian State of India, Madhya Pradesh for over a month. During one such walk on a …

Days in the Hidden Valley of Mandal and a Small trek to Ma Anusuyadevi Temple : A Photographic Essay- III

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While studying culture and ancient practises in the Higher Himalayas.Continuing from Pandava Forest and the Brahma Kamal : The Nights of Change in the Himalayas and Finding Brahma Kamal : On a Rainy night from Delhi to Chamoli : ँ : Sumanto was waiting by the roadside, in front of the fisheries department. It was late in the night, very late by the mountain ways of life. Yet the most relieving part was that i wasn’t alone. With me was the last government bus, which i had to run after, in Rudraprayag to catch it. Had it not been that moment, i wouldn’t be making it even in my 30th hour of leaving New Delhi. It was cold. It was heavy. The restrain of the night, one which arrives after many days of rain. The climatic depression could still be felt. I could hear the droplets dropping off the leaves as I could hear myself heaving. The bus stopped. I bid byes to the driver, the conductor as i had been the only one riding …

Welcome To Heaven: Stories From the Line Of Control that May Enlighten The World– VII/Final

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On the Great Himalayan Road Journey to Baltistan, today is the showdown, the final journey continuing from Call of the Now- I Life and nothing more- II Road will tell you- III Remember me with a Lotus- IV The Gun Mountains and other Gods- V The Wait of Baltistan- VI : ँ : — It was more difficult to reach here than i had thought. To an extent I was only one night away from leaving it all and going back home. A whole day had gone in repairing Tyre and servicing this vehicle in Diskit, the same valley that hosted gypsies once, ancient travellers, porters coming from Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan carrying opium and other magic potions to the cold desert of Hunder; a stop that they still talk about as the Silk road. This was the ancient Silk route, and from here you either go up to Mongolia or find your way to the Tibetan plateau into China. I took to Baltistan. “And had Turtuk not pulled me in this one time, I may …

The Road will Tell you- III/VII

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It rains as i write this, mad heart, be brave. Continuation from Call of the Now and Life and Nothing More, for the Great Himalayan Teachers Reunion. After the longest day on the road, rewinding the moments from behind the steering wheel I for a moment realised how life is so much like driving! And driving a car is not so much different from driving a body, as a medium, tool to achieve our means. If we know where we have to go then even without using any GPS or stopping many a times to ask we reach our destination, straight and fast without taking any extra time. Like knowing what to do in life; how to do it, which road to take, when to put brakes, when to accelerate or overtake from a slow moving vehicle aka friends; a road will tell you. When to give body or car a rest, a refreshing wash are some similarities that feel like life and can even show a larger picture if one tries to see from …

Man’s Search for Meaning

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When I returned to Ishbar that night, Shiban seemed speechless. But Dr Kaul looked at him with satisfaction giving an expression like “then he has seen.” And soon the moment came to explain to him what he had seen. We sat around fire, while waiting for the food to arrive. Open your ears, said Dr Kaul and he began speaking like reciting an over practised hymn. “The men in the east, he said, are trees; those in the south are flocks of animals; those in the west are wild plants. Last, those in the north like ourselves, who cried out while they ate other men, were the waters. When the collective sound of chewing filled the air, he started explaining about eating. The act of eating is a violence that causes what is living, in its many forms, to disappear. Whether grass, plants, trees, animals, or human beings, the process is the same. There is always a fire that devours and a substance that is devoured. This violence, bringing misery and torment, will one day …

A Magical Walk to Bijli Mahadev and Mystical Manali Stories

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Lets start from where we ended. For twenty-seven nights, I was the only one living in a wooden balcony that hung facing the jungle on a whole mountain. The red moon that I saw on the forehead of a mother in the village down, i saw a similar one on my lover. But her eyes were set against the only window the first night. Pink walls. She told me she wants to scream. Now! I said. She smiled. Fire. She kept looking in my eyes and started screaming. I closed my mouth. And opened my eyes. It was winters. It was cold. And you know when it is winters and when it is cold how heavy the rains hit. It confuses the heart. It was sunny next day. Pluto arrived. Nara, let’s go meet the man who sneezes forty times. He does that once daily. We left our two limping dogs behind. It was a beautiful walk. We reached. We sat outside Daulat Ram’s home in his garden on uncomfortable plastic chairs. An old brown …

The buffalo Doctor

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Father was speaking after a long time. He sat in front of me. His eyes were kind of sad but when he spoke, they spoke of a nostalgia that had come after years of living in a city. He is a village man. Once one of our water buffalo had fallen sick, he started narrating, “she had stopped eating. It was felt that we needed to call the veterinary immediately. He was five miles away. Being the youngest probably, I was asked to go to the village and get him along fast. I left and as soon and as fast i could, i got him on my cycle. He immediately saw her and prepared the local medicine. It was on the burner. He asked me to give buffalo the medicine once it gets back to a normal temperature. For animals there used to come funnels. One can put that in their mouth to let the liquid medicine pass. We tried to place it in her mouth but she refused and after some struggle, suddenly she …