Syncretic Diwali on Jummah
Here’s a passage that gives representation to the syncretic culture that is seen in India. This is from chapter 3 'Anandi-Mohini - The jock-strap of a fleeing thief' of Gouri Dange's novel “The Counsel of Strangers“, whose Hyderabad launch I had attended at Crossword on 16-Oct-2010.
When we grew up a little and ‘grew far too many tongues’, as Ajji would say dourly, we would twist angrily out of the offending adult’s way with a “Don’t take it out on me, ok?” Or sometimes my brother Aniruddha would even mutter stuff under his breath. Which would have our father yelling in Marathi from the other room: “Putt-puttu nakos; putt-puttoys kay?” Which made Aniruddha smirk and say “Not putt-putting, saying my shlokas, Abba.” And my father would shout back the Marathi equivalent of “Ya right, I believe you”.
We called our parents Ammi and Abba. No, we weren’t Muslims, but we were growing up at a time when it wasn’t a crime, just nice curiosity, to have Muslim elements in your life - like calling parents Ammi and Abba, or an uncle walking with an Adaab arz hai, or getting a big dekh of biryani and calling friends over for Eid, but serving beer along with it all, and maybe shrikhand instead of sheer-khurma.
Things were easy and interchangeable then, and no, this not romanticizing the past in some nostalgic glow of national integration. It really was that way in Bombay of the 70s.
Out of the book and into my real life. Last Friday morning, I dropped off my kids at my in-laws place. If you had come with me you would have been quickly served with the Telugu festival traditional dish boorelu. I really enjoy eating those jaggery and chana dal stuffings.
Back to my house, I finished the Jummah prayers at the mosque in my street in the afternoon, and then went back with my wife to my in-laws’ place in the evening. We burnt fire crackers with full vigour, what a blast we had. A couple of crackers of this year were first time for us and are worth mentioning.
The first one is the Swastik wheel.
Here in Andhra Pradesh you would burn the “bhoo chakralu”, wheels that rotate on the ground when lighted. However, the Swastik wheel once lighted rotated four times stopping briefly between the rounds. Light-rotate-stop-rotate-stop-rotate-stop-rotate-over. That’s the Swastik wheel firecracker.
The second one, the butterfly fire cracker was interesting and amusing. We didn’t know how it would burn, or explode or what it would do. And indeed it did different things. One butterfly would buzz and hover a few feet and fall down. Another butterfly would just fly away fast. Yet another would explode.
Rayyan burnt most of them and enjoyed the butterfly so much that I started calling him the butterfly specialist as the evening drew to a close.
We started at 7:45 pm and ended at 10:45 pm with the 1,000 ladi.
Boorelu-jummah prayers-firecrackers. Syncretic culture may have died for the character Anandi-Mohini but had she come to life and met me at home last Friday, between the boorelu and fire crackers, I would have softly said to her: Yes, it’s a Muslim household.