Randhir Khare

Articles in PDF

‘Rock Art’, if one can venture to use such a term, first made its appearance about fifty thousand years ago (according to existing theories). There are in India as many as twenty-two clusters of painted rock shelters. Among them are those in Sheopurkalan, Pachmarhi, Badami, Kota, Raichur, Tekkalkota and Kerala. Generally speaking, the rocks are granite in the south and sandstone in central India, though there may be a few exceptions. The unusual creations in Usgalimal differ from these as they are on hard laterite rock with intense iron content. Apart from this – they are carved and not painted.

————————————————

In ponds, pools, rivers, streams and along the incredible coastline of the Indian peninsular, fishing communities continue their age-old struggle with water – to make it bear fruit. Though each community may have its own social and cultural ethos, a common thread weaves them together into a magnificent tapestry of tradition.

Fishing is perhaps one of the most ancient of human activities on the Indian subcontinent. In streams, pools, rivers, lakes, on shorelines and in the deep sea, people from early hunting and gathering communities caught fish and other water creatures in a variety of different ways. For some, it was only to supplement their diet whilst for others it was an all-encompassing occupation which moulded the very patterns of their lives, beliefs, cultures and community ways.

Read More…Harvesting Silver

———————————————-

Folk musicians from Kutch (in Gujarat) have the odds stacked against them. Not only do most of them belong to marginal communities but they also play instruments that aren’t respected any more.

One of the few surviving music masters is Musa Gulam Jath, a Maldhari or cattle herder who lives on the lip of the Great Rann of Kutch. He plays the Jodia Pawa, a double flute. I remember the first time I heard him play at someone’s residence in Bhuj, the district headquarters of Kutch (in Gujarat).

I was given the rare opportunity to experience the triumph of the creative spirit over the vicissitudes of injustice and misfortune. A musician, powered by his talent and tradition, rising out of the difficulties in his personal life to play music that was inspirational. It was both stimulating and humbling.

Read More…MUSIC FROM THE EDGE

———————————————

In tribal India, stories have always occupied a special space in the life of the individual, the family and the community because they hold within them the collective wisdom and lore of past generations, kept alive by the word and passed on through the oral tradition.

Because of this, they carry the richness of individual and collective awareness, understanding and perception of the world around and the reverence for all living beings. Probably as important as this, is that they seek to explain the environment around, natural and supernatural phenomena and the whole gamut of human existence including the origins of communities, customs and attitudes. In this way, a single story is multi-layered and swollen with cultural symbols.

———————————————

To the uninitiated, Nari Kuravar Gypsies are an uncivilised wild bunch of people who are only familiar with life on the road. They resist change and live in the present with no notion of the future. They don’t want their children to be educated and are suspicious of the settled way of life. Well-meaning social workers will glibly say… “For years now, we have been trying our best. They even refuse to talk our language. This stubbornness hasn’t helped them in the least. It has been to their detriment. They walk around with weapons, steal, cheat, rummage around in garbage bins and in tourist places dupe unsuspecting victims. They just can’t keep still. We have done our best to civilize them but have not succeeded. They just can’t settle down.” This is the usual response of people from settled communities who regard those who are nomadic as unreliable because they don’t ‘belong’ to a specific physical space. And around this perceived notion is woven a myriad misconceptions which are based on rumour and prejudice.

Read more…Beyond Fences - The Nari Kuravar Gypsies in a Time of Change

———————————————

Over the last twenty years Randhir Khare has experienced the mysterious power of the jungles of South Gujarat. There beside the numerous rivers, in the grasslands and forests, in the presence of people from traditional communities and in the sacred spaces, He discovered what it means to belong. These forests were once protected by great Bhil archers who shielded them against invading plunderers. With the coming of British colonial occupation, the Bhils were reduced to poverty and other traditional communities to rootlessness. Today, even the sacred spaces of their mother goddesses are being reduced to rubble as mainstream religions colonise their shrines. But despite the forces of change, the mysterious power of the jungles persists. Here is a n EXCLUSIVE selection from the poet’s unpublished Memory Land, which celebrates this relationship.

Read more…Memory Land - A collection of unpublished poems exclusively in Live Encounters

———————————————

The Katkaris were once hunter gatherers who ranged the Western Ghats foraging for food, hunting and keeping their community values alive. Today, they are outsiders in the lands they once preserved and respected. The rains came. Finally. Wave after wave. Carried by the southwesterlies. Up along the coast, trailing silver sheets from Kerala onwards to the Konkan. The Arabian Sea heaving and rocking in the wind. The rains came. Finally. Turning inwards from the coast, colliding with the Western Ghats, then climbing up and over. Greening the dry craggy hill slopes. Grass, weeds, reeds, bushes, trees, moss…green, green, fluorescent green. Wild flowers flashing orange, yellow, blue, sparkles of red. Time for hunter-gatherers to harvest edible wild roots and shoots from the shrinking jungles and grasslands. Time for promises of survival.

Read more…On the edge of survival

———————————————

This robust caste-cluster once survived and flourished as shepherds, buffalo, cattle and horse keepers and weavers, the pastoralists among them mapping immense and intricate patterns of movement in search of pasturelands. In fact they were even said to have been creators of dynasties and builders of empires. Today that way of life is being challenged. The story of pastoralists goes far back to the time when they moved with their flocks and herds from place to place, driven by the search for fresh pasturelands, guided by the shifting seasons. They shared a symbiotic relationship with their animals and evolved in the process a lore, social and community systems, rites and rituals and an acceptable code of conduct – all of which together contributed to their sense of identity and being. As their very survival depended so necessarily on ‘movement’, all these aspects of their life and living also depended on it. Over the years, their ‘movement’ developed into a definite pattern, forming as it were, a map of migration. So the Gaddis, Gujjars and Botiyas of the high north, the Maldharis and Rabaris of the west, the Todas of the deep south and the numerous other pastoral and semi-pastoral communities that dot the Indian peninsular, have defined over the ages very clear cut movement maps which have been closely related to physical locations.

———————————————-

Every forest in the Indian sub-continent has its own special personality – Shivpuri with its multiple rhythms of tree cover, grassland and water bodies, Bharatpur with its mirroring jheels, Mudhumalai with its dense green and brown, the Sundarbans with its dramatic mangrove world…and others too, the variety is awe-inspiring. However, there is a lesser known, yet equally spectacular, naturescape flourishing in the South of Gujarat – the forests of The Dangs – which offer an unforgettable experience that the patient and strong-hearted can savour if they are willing to put themselves through the power of the encounter. This is because one is faced with an energetic ebullience that verges on the challenging when one enters these forests. Despite the fact that human habitations have their places and spaces within this world and the familiar security of homesteads reassures the visitor, nature here displays her own wildness. In season, the roar of the rivers echoes through the wooded hills, pathways become streams, the green darkness is alive with mysterious creepers, flowers and fruits…bamboo groves and thickets release a horde of insects and reptiles and the very air is laden with presentiment.

Read more…THE DANGS - Sacred Green

———————————————-

In an India that is fast changing, the sacredness of spaces and people who preserve them is shrinking and getting increasingly faded. I have always made it a point to associate with shamans, gunins, baduas and traditional mystics from forgotten India because I believe that they maintain the invisible link with the precious ‘other world’ that quietly persists. Within that world there are powers that have survived time and change. Those who know how to dip into that world as into a pool of clear cool water have managed to refresh and rejuvenate themselves.

———————————————-

The traditional communities living in the Nilgiri Mountains of Tamil Nadu in South India hold the natural environment in which they live in great reverence. The Kotas, Kurumbas, Irulas, Moolukurumbas, Paniyas and other indigenous communities, in their own way, relate intimately to the land on which they live. If you have had the opportunity of travelling in that region, you will probably appreciate the reason why such relationships could have evolved. Nature in those mountains displays a stunning variety and resplendence. There is, even today after all the pillaging of its naturalness, an all-encompassing robustness and mystical power that stimulates the senses when you wander the more undisturbed reaches of the region. You will not be overcome by feelings of aloneness or isolation but instead by the presence of natural forces that defy the senses. In lonely glades, under ancient trees, on desolate mountain slopes, besides gurgling streams flowing between flowering rhododendrons and wherever the hidden forces seem most pronounced, you will come across sacred stones of all shapes and sizes, singularly and in groups, known as cairn, barrow, kist-vaen and cromlech and locally called Phin, Hok-kallu (navel stone), Pongui (gold pit), Sela Kallu and Gattige Kallu (throne or seat stones) Bira Kallu (or hero stones), Pandavaru Mane, Savumane, Azaram and Moriaru Mane. These stones have been placed by people from the early pre-historic times down to possible a few hundred years ago. In places it’s also evident that people from indigenous communities today still add such stones to the landscape. The past and present fusing into a composite sacred whole which pervades the very air you breathe.

————————————————

Randhir Khare is an award winning author of twenty one volumes of non-fiction, fiction, translation and poetry. He is the Executive Editor of Heritage India, the International Culture Journal and Visiting Professor of Literature at Poona College. Recently he was given The Residency Award by The Sahitya Akademi (India’s National Academy of Letters) for his contribution to Indian Literature and has been given the Human Rights Award for his efforts to preserve and celebrate marginal and minority cultures. Recently he was honoured by Rotary Club with their Dronacharya Award for his contribution to education.

www.randhirkhare.in

VIDEOS

2 Responses

Noopur says:

May 22, 2012 at 12:02 pm

Dear Mr. Khare,

I am writing to you on behalf of the Mohile Parikh Center, Mumbai, a not-for-profit organization devoted to the arts. Apart from programs in Visual Arts and Contemporary Culture, we work with children and our focus is education through arts.

I would like to get in touch with you regarding our children’s activities. I came across your work at Junoon:arts at play program. I would be great if you could share your contact details with me so that we could take this dialogue further.

Thanks and regards,
Noopur Desai
Program Executive
Mohile Parikh Center
Mumbai
noopur@mohileparikhcenter.org