Maharashtra - Yayati: A Universal Story?

In my quest to find the most popular book in the Marathi literary tradition, I came across Yayati: A Classic Tale of Lust by VS Khandekar who was born in Sangli district, in the very south of the state.  Like many great writers, Khandekar started out as a school teacher, before turning his hand to writing.  He wrote 16 novels in total, as well as numerous short stories and essays.  In 1974, he became the first Marathi writer to receive the Jnanpith award, one of India's most prestigious literary accolades, for his re-interpretation of Yayati, a story which appears in India's most ancient texts. 

King Yayati's story is told in the first part of the Mahabharata, the Adi Parva or 'Book of the beginning'.  It also appears in the Bhagavata Purana, one of Hinduism's important devotional texts. I must admit that it surprised me, at first, that the most famous novel in the Marathi language would be a re-telling of an ancient text, rather than a modern-story set in the 20th century, but I recognise that there is an art in re-telling ancient stories and some of the world's greatest writers, especially someone like William Shakespeare, made a career out of re-interpreting those key stories that explain all the complexities of human existence.

Marathi-language version of Yayati

Although I was reading the novel in translation, I could tell that Khandekar's Yayati was beautifully written - very clearly and aesthetically presenting the relationship between Yayati and Devayani, his wife, as well as his less official relationship with the fallen princess, Sharmishtha.  The bottom line is that Yayati and Sharmishtha should have been together but, due to Yayati's bad decision-making in his youth, he married the wrong woman. 

Both Yayati and Sharmishtha came from the same caste, the kshatriya or warrior caste, whereas Devayani was a brahmin and the daughter of a very powerful maharishi or yogi.

Devayani comes across as a spiteful and manipulating woman, whereas Sharmishtha is shown to be innocent and pure of heart.  Sharmishtha is the hero of Yayati's story, despite the fact that she sleeps with a married man and bears him a bastard son, who will one day have a claim to Yayati's throne.  I have to say that, although Sharmishtha comes out of the Hindu tradition as a very sympathetic character, I'm not sure she would have fared so well in a Western/Christian story!

Actually, despite being Yayati's legal wife, Devayani is depicted as the one who is in the wrong.  There are certain moral messages in the story, related to Devayani's behaviour.  I would summarise these in the following way:

Emperor Yayati from 19th century illustration

1. Cross-caste relationships can only ever end in unhappiness.  Recognition of one's dharma is a constant theme in Hinduism.

2. Women shouldn't arrange their own marriages - Devayani doesn't hang about and is very direct with Yayati, practically forcing him to marry her.

3. Women should keep their men sexually satisfied.  Although she's initially attracted to Yayati, Devayani finds his sexual needs repulsive and refuses to sleep with him, after they have conceived their son.  She also objects to his drinking and having a good time and they end up in a really unhappy relationship, hating each other. 

I don't blame Yayati for his behaviour - Devayani made his life a misery - but I find these morals difficult to believe in, as a modern reader and a non-Hindu. 

Whilst I enjoyed Khandekar's interpretation of the story, I would love to see a more radical rendering of Yayati's Classic Tale of Lust - setting it in a modern context.  Although the story is thousands of years old, the themes still resonate with a modern audience - unhappy marriage, lack of sexual fulfillment, making the wrong choices when you're too young to know otherwise.  I'd definitely recommend Khandekar's novel - it's very easy to read and the story contains some eternal truths that make it relevant to readers across different cultures and centuries of human experience.

I found an interesting re-telling of Yayati online and I'm posting the following YouTube video, so you can hear this story for yourself:



Cross-referencing

As I'm into my fifth year of blogging, I find that I'm slowly building up blocks of knowledge and (hopefully) accumulating an understanding of the world based on research that resonates across similar themes in different cultures. 

I first researched the sacred texts of Hinduism when I was blogging about Rajasthan back in June 2010.  I touched on William Shakespeare and the idea of 'universal stories' when I was blogging about Veneto in February 2011.  I also explored the universality of 'fairy tales' when I was blogging about Urals Federal District in December 2010.  If you're interested in reading more about these topics, feel free to click on the links connected to the place name to find out more.

Image credits:

The image of the book cover is from Marathi-language version of the book.

The illustration of Emperor Yayati is from P. Shungoonny Menon's A History of Travancore from the Earliest Times (1878).  This image is in the public domain and you can see more information at the image page on Wikipedia. 

Maharashtra - What ever happened to Bombay?

When I was born, in 1975, the map of the world looked a little bit different than it does today.  European colonialism was on its deathbed and most parts of Asia, Africa and the Americas had managed to gain independence and establish their own colours on a world map that had previously been British Empire pink.

I was born into a world where Zaire, Malagasy, Kampuchea, Upper Volta and Rhodesia were countries.  I grew up with the names Leningrad, Bombay and Peking firmly planted in my mental geography!

But the map of the world is continually changing - whether it's the addition of new countries, like South Sudan, or the renaming of cities, from Saigon, in the year of my birth to the more recent changes, such as St Petersburg, Mumbai and Beijing.  I guess the older one gets, the more confusing the map of the world becomes and some habits (like calling St Petersburg, Leningrad or Mumbai, Bombay) are hard to break!

Map of Hindoostan from 1831

So why do countries decide to change their names, or the names of their major cities?  Well, I guess it's a natural process of redefining your national identity.  For many ex-colonies, like India, name-changing is an opportunity to reclaim cultural identity.  India seems to have gone through a wave of name-changes in the last 20 years - some of the main ones being Bombay to Mumbai (1995), Madras to Chennai (1996), Calcutta to Kolkata (2001) and Bangalore to Bengaluru (2007).

I wonder how much the growth of nationalism, especially Hindu nationalist parties like the Marathi Shiv Sena party, have influenced this recent tendency to change the names of Indian cities.   Whilst Kolkata and Bengaluru seem to be more accurate spellings of the names of these cities, I was surprised to find out that Mumbai is not simply a 're-spelling' of Bombay, but is a name with its own significance, from the Koli goddess Mumba and the Marathi word Aai, which means 'mother'.

In other countries, like China and Korea, redefining the way their languages are romanised (ie. written in the Latin alphabet) has resulted in name changes that sometimes seem quite different to speakers of European languages.  Particularly in China, where many of the romanised names were originally based on Cantonese rather than Mandarin, the resulting changes meant that Peking became Beijing and Canton became Guangzhou.  It's interesting to note that the names haven't actually changed in Chinese, but are a result of the adoption of the pinyin system of writing Chinese by other, predominantly European languages. 

Map of France in Hindi

Countries in the ex-Soviet world have seen many name changes in the past century.  After the Russian revolution, many cities such as Petrograd, Yekaterinburg and Tver - were renamed after heroes of the revolution, Leningrad, Sverdlovsk and Kalinin - only to regain their former names after the death of Stalin or the collapse of communism.  Likewise, Tsaritsyn named in honour of the Tsars was renamed Stalingrad (1925) and then Volgograd (1961).  Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan was once called Frunze, Tajikistan's capital Dushanbe spent more than 30 years with the official name Stalinabad.

So is all this name-changing really worth it, especially if the purpose is to establish political supremacy or nationalism?  Perhaps the most controversial name where I come from is Derry or Londonderry, Northern Ireland's second biggest city.  I grew up calling it Derry and I still find it hard to think of Londonderry as a place that exists anywhere outside my adult experience of geopolitics.  It's a contentious name and, like Bombay, Calcutta or Madras, symbolises British rule for a population that is dissenting or independent.

Free Derry corner by Paolo Trabattoni

It's interesting to think about who has the right to decide a city's name.  Logic would say that it should be the people who live in the city who decide what it's called - in which case, I'd imagine Derry/Londonderry would end up being just 'Derry' - but what about others who have a relationship with the city?  The administrators in Belfast, Beijing or New Delhi?  As with the adoption of pinyin by European mapmakers, people in other countries/places also somehow have a right to decide what they will call the cities in other parts of the world and how they will spell these names in their own languages. 

Personally I think it's important for names to change - although I grew up with Bombay, Peking and Leningrad, I recognise the symbolic nature of city name-changing and see this as an important process in countries that are going through political and cultural change.  How the rest of the world reacts is another matter.  I'd imagine most of us have a very personal mental map of the world which captures our understanding of geography in a way that no paper or digital map ever could. 

It'll be interesting to see how the world continues to change as this blog ages (there have already been some small changes to the world map since I started in 2009).  Perhaps I'm blogging about places that will cease to exist - what will the countries and cities of the future be called?  I can't wait to find out!

Image credits:

The first two images are from Wikimedia commons and are in the public domain.

The image of Free Derry corner was taken by Italian photographer Paolo Trabattoni who is a graphic designer.  You can see more of Paolo's work on his Flickr photostream or on his website.  Thanks Paolo for sharing this image with us using the Creative commons license. 

Maharashtra - Another India

For my next learning journey, I've decided to learn about Maharashtra, India's second most-populated state.  If Maharashtra was an independent country, it would be 12th largest in the world, in terms of population.  With 112 million people, it's just behind Mexico and Japan.  In terms of land area, Maharashtra is a bit smaller than Poland and a bit bigger than Arizona.  Maharashtra came into existence on the 1st of May 1960 and is a successor of the Bombay Presidency (which also included the state of Gujarat).

It isn't my first time to blog about India.  Back in May-July 2010, I did a series of blog posts on Rajasthan.  Unlike Rajasthan, which I still haven't managed to visit - I have actually been to Maharashtra, having spent Christmas there in 2002.  Spending Christmas in India was quite an experience and I still remember eating cold slices of turkey with cranberry sauce, as I sat sweating in an Irish bar in the Colaba district of Mumbai.

As well as spending a few days in Mumbai, I also visited Pune, as my travelling companion was interested to find out more about the Osho ashram (which turned out to be a great disappointment).  I had the best cup of tea ever in Pune - I can almost still taste it - very milky and full of ginger.

Gateway to India by Swami Stream

After Pune, I travelled alone to Kolhapur, Maharashtra's sixth largest city, as I wanted to experience a slice of everyday Indian life - this time I wasn't disappointed.  I met my first ever Hindu fundamentalist in Kolhapur, who poked me in the chest and asked me what I was doing there (at least I figured that was what he was saying, as I don't speak Marathi!).

I also remember an incredibly attentive waiter in Kolhapur, who insisted on standing beside me through the entire meal, so he could chop up my bits of food.  I was half-expecting him to start feeding me, or eat the meal himself!

As I've started researching and reading about India's history, I can't help thinking about Maharashtra as another India. It's probably the biggest Indian regional culture which is outside the dominant Hindi mainstream.  Mumbai is the largest city in India and held an important role during the time of the British Raj - yet Maharashtra doesn't dominate the history of India.  It would seem that India's history happened in the northern states - Delhi, Punjab and, after the British arrived, Kolkata. 

I find it ironic that, despite the fact that only 12% of the state's population speaks Hindi (69% speak the state language, Marathi) - Maharashtra is the home of Bollywood, the factory for Hindi culture and dreams.  It'll be interesting to get to the heart of this cultural divide and learn about Maharashtra and Marathi people, culture and language.

Shri Ganesha by Swami Stream

I've always been attracted to the Hindu god Ganesha or Ganapati and he's particularly popular in Maharashtra.  As well as being the mid-winter solstice, today is also the beginning of Pancha Ganapati, a five-day festival in honour of Ganesha - surely an auspicious day to start blogging about Maharashtra?

The festival seems to be most popular with people of Indian descent who live in other parts of the world, especially in nominally Christian countries, like the United States, where Christmas is almost universally celebrated.  I guess Pancha Ganapati gives ex-pat Hindus a chance to celebrate family, harmony and devotion at the same time as their Christian neighbours? 

I found the following video on YouTube which explains the tradition of Pancha Ganapati - enjoy! 




Image credits:

The picture of the Gateway to India - one of Mumbai's most iconic buildings - was taken by Flickr member Swami Stream a.k.a. Swaminathan, who is from Pune in Maharashtra, as was the picture of Shri Ganesha.  You can see more of Swaminathan's photos on his photo stream, or on his website. 

Rajasthan - क्या आप हिंदी बोलते हैं?

It would surprise most people to know that a mere 41% of Indians speak Hindi as a first language. In a country as big as India, it's proved impossible to impose Hindi as a lingua franca amongst its 1 billion plus population and, ironically, English is most often used as the language of communication across India's language divide.

There are currently 22 'official' languages in India. Official in inverted commas, because the Indian government prefers to use the term 'Languages of the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution'! I've noticed that the word 'schedule' is incredibly popular in India, especially when referring to things outside the Hindu mainstream!

Most of the scheduled languages, eg Bengali, Marathi and Gujarati, have millions of speakers. Other more recent additions, such as Bodo and Dogri, number their speakers in hundreds of thousands, rather than millions. Apart from the scheduled languages, there are approximately another 150 non-scheduled languages spoken in India. The Rajasthani language, which is spoken by an estimated 36 million people in India, is recognised at a regional level, but isn't one of the 22 national languages. I get the impression that the linguistic proximity of Rajasthani to Hindi has led to it being considered more of a dialect of Hindi, rather than a language in its own right, although this perception seems to be changing.

In my last blogpost I referred to the north/south divide in India between the Mughal/Sanskrit and the Dravidian/Tamil cultures. This divide is also borne out in the distribution of language families in India, with the northern part being Indo-European and the southern part Dravidian (about one third of India's population).

I remember travelling through India, passing linguistic boundaries from Delhi (Hindi/Urdu) to Bombay (Marathi) to Mysore/Bangalore (Kannada, a major Dravidian language and the administrative language of Karnataka). Not knowing any Indian language, I barely perceived the linguistic changes. Except when it came to the scripts, which became noticeably rounded, as I moved further south.

When I lived in Thailand, I learned to read and write in the Thai script, which belongs to the Brahmic 'alphabets' that originated in the Indian subcontinent. Due to the way these languages are written down, it's more accurate to describe them as abugidas, or alphasyllabic scripts. The main difference between an alphabet and an abugida is that an alphabet has separate letters for each consonant and vowel, whereas an abugida prioritises consonants and is written in a syllabic way. There is often a default vowel (like the Hindi schwa or 'eh' sound) which can be changed into other vowel sounds (eg Hindi 'oo' and 'ee') by adding diacritics, or marks below or above the main consonant.

The Brahmic or Indic scripts are the biggest group of abugida scripts, however this type of script does exist elsewhere in the world, notably in Ethiopia, Canada and even the ancient Irish Ogham script is deemed to be abugida - the name abugida comes from the first four sounds of the Ethiopian language Ge'ez. Learning to read/write in Thai meant looking at the writing system in a completely different way and actually made a lot of sense and was easier to learn than you might think.  It's also nowhere near as difficult as learning to read a logogram system, like the one used for Chinese.

Hindi is instantly recognisable by the straight line which runs across the top of each word, conveniently separating them. Thai was harder in this respect, as Thai sentences look like one big jumble of words with no spaces in between - kindoflikeifenglishwaswrittenlikethis!

In the south of India, the straight line disappears and the script becomes more cursive, apparantly related to the fact that early Dravidian scripts were first written on coconut shells, hence the difficulty of using straight lines. I'll never forget trying to catch a bus at Kohlapur station, finding myself surrounded by a bewildering array of signs in Marathi, any one of which could have been my intended destination of Mysore. I can't describe how powerless I felt, finding myself unexpectedly (and temporarily) illiterate. 

क्या मतलब मैं क्या जानते हो?

Image credits:

The image of the Kannada alphabet is from Wikimedia Commons and is in the public domain. 

The image of 'aum' written in different Brahmic scripts is by flickuser tdietmut a.k.a. Dietmut Teijgeman-Hansen, originally from Hamburg, but now living in Rotterdam.  Thanks Dietmut for sharing this image with us through the Creative Commons License.