Pinning everything

 

VIII

I’d spend more consciously, much less profligate

with time, deep dive into each day, every night

to bring up their treasures, feel their sheen and weight

in my hands and heart, against the watertight

tautness of existence. I’d spend less time on

making a home of walls, an address of roads

and cities, instead make a home of my own

within my ribs and skin and veins. Slightly odd

to be frugal with time and building when there’s

more of it. Nine would mean more time to value,

each like your ring, never mind the gems or rare

metals, just the shape of the vow and the true

worth of timelessness. Each one vermilion red

grace smeared in my hair, love shined on my forehead.

.

IX

And every single day I’m given, I’d pin

more of my heart, and other parts, on my sleeve

nothing much of the fabric would show, more skin

more raw flesh, more wounds, blemishes. I might leave

off sleeves altogether, on bare arms pin them

instead. Or maybe like stacked bangles I’d wear

them on my upper arms as northern women

do, they’d jingle, make themselves known everywhere.

Or like lace up espadrilles, strong sinews nine

times around, years winding up from my ankles

halfway to my knees. With all the extra time

you might just get better at straps and bangles.

But whatever - on sleeves, straps, bangle or shoe

I might pin in nine lifetimes, I’ll pin for you.

These are the last two of the series of nine and they conclude the posts for February. 

~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~

Traditionally, marital jewellery is a huge thing in Indian culture. Not just jewellery, colours and cosmetics also. What a married woman should or shouldn't wear has been specified and prescribed and hotly debated. Not just married women, what any woman can or should wear is up for discussion by all and sundry at the drop of a hat. Anyway, let's keep that for another time,

A married Bengali woman is supposed to wear vermilion in her hair part - first put there by her groom as a part of the wedding rituals, and also as a 'bindi' or 'teep' on her forehead. The colour red is associated strongly with auspiciousness and married ladies, widows aren't supposed to wear it. 

Then there's the loha, an iron bangle worn on the left forearm, slipped on the bride's wrist by her MIL as she enters the new family. There are the conch shell and coral bangles one of each worn on either side. Apart from that, it is frowned upon to leave ears, wrists and neck 'bare' for a married woman. 

Other communities have other marital symbols - some have special necklaces called mangalsutra (lit auspicious thread) or thali which the groom fastens round the bride's neck during the wedding ceremony and which she's never supposed to take off again in her husband's lifetime. Others have special kinds of bangles and so on. If anyone ever asks why, these are all worn to ensure the good health and long life of the husband. Taking them off jeopardises the whole lot. 

In short, a Hindu married woman wears her marital status like a beacon, useful no doubt in a traditional patriarchal society where it's important to be able to tell which women are 'taken' and which not.

On the other hand, the bride in a Hindu ceremony does not put a single thing on the groom, not even a tilak. Some gift of gold is made to the groom traditionally by the bride's father. Some men choose to wear them, some do not - as per individual taste. But men are not required to wear a single item, not a ring nor a dot nor a distinctive hairstyle or beard, to show they are married. You couldn't tell an Indian married man by looking at him - 2000 years ago and also now. 

It has always seemed a tad unequal to me, not to mention the cumbersomeness, the sheer monotony of having to wear a ton of jewellery day in day out. Fine if you want to, many women wear them as a marker of identity - these traditions go back solid unbroken for some 3-4 millennia, so that weight can be an anchor for some, something that pegs their place proudly in the world - I totally get that. I admire and value that long history. But I was never a fan personally. I know quite a few women who followed all the conventions and wore everything they were required to, yet were widowed heartbreakingly early.  So much for the bangles and bindis ensuring good health and long marriage. 

Live and let live, love and let love. Wear whatever the heck you want if that's your own choice, don't be blackmailed into wearing a bangle or a chain because of social bullying. Or conversely, give up wearing anything because of it. 

N is for...Nourhanne... and... Nasri... and... Nomads...

is for

Nourhanne

is a singer from Lebanon, with Min Zaman, a pop number:  

Welcome back everyone after the big weekend, hope you have had a great time relaxing or catching up, and those celebrating Easter have had a great and fulfilling Easter Sunday. My weekend sped by before I had time to draw breath, this whole A-Z is flashing past at a break neck speed somehow. Anyways…

N is also for Assalah Nasri, a Syrian singer based out of Egypt, whose music leans towards traditional Arabic. She has been granted Bahraini nationality after she performed here in Bahrain for the National Day celebrations. Here is one of her shorter songs. (Traditional Arabic songs are long!)

Nomads

The very word ‘Arab’ is etymologically rooted in words like passer-by, nomad, moving around in the various Semitic languages. Think of an Arab and the image that floats into mind is a man in a chequered headgear riding a camel over miles of inhospitable dunes.

Jebeliya Bedouin and camels.  At the foot of Jebel Moussa, Mt
Moses, the mountain of the Decalogue. St Catherine, Egypt.

Arabia had been completely underplayed in the story of human migrations out of Africa…we’re transforming the prehistory of Arabia. ~ Michael Petraglia, Director, Paleodesert Project. 

There is now evidence that Arabia was the first stop when Man initially migrated out of Africa.  Several archaeological sites in Oman, Saudi Arabia and UAE have been identified. And some dated to more than 100,000 years.

Geneticists have shown that the modern human family tree began to branch out 60,000 years ago. I’m not questioning when it happened, but where. I suggest the great modern human expansion to the rest of the world was launched from Arabia rather than Africa. ~ Jeffrey Rose, Director, Dhofar Archaeological Project. 

Arabia wasn’t always a desert, it was once a lush, green land with flowing rivers - archeological evidence shows that hippos, elephants, big cats roamed across a savannah like terrain in what is now a formidably arid desert. 

The taxation of caravans and transport of goods 
and people were historical occupations.  Bedouin 
man. Wadi Rum. Jordan.  

So, if that’s the case it automatically begs the question – why didn’t the hunting-gathering populations that came out of Africa stay put in Arabia? What made the Arabs wander? Why were they nomads? 

The answer to that lies in the nature of Arabian climate change. It happened in cycles over many years, alternating between aridity and lushness. And these cycles of life-sustaining greenery and barrenness must be responsible for nomadism in the Arabian peninsula - when things got tough, the tough tribes broke camp and got going. 

Traditionally, Bedouins have raised goats and sheep in addition
to camels. A Bedouin flock crossing somewhere in Sinai. Egypt. 

The nomads in Arablands, generally known as Bedouins (from Bedu in Arabic) range from Oman in the south to Syria in the north, and from Egypt to Morocco in North Africa.  Camel, sheep and goat herding were their livelihood traditionally, and remains important even today.  Over the years, most Bedouins have been settled into purpose–built villages. Many of them work as guides or in other capacities in the tourism sector.

In most countries of the Middle East, they have no title to the lands, only the right to use.  The governments see the land traditionally used by the Bedouins as state property to be developed for the tourism sector, as for example in Egypt.  Predictably this has meant their lands shrinking and a resulting spike in unemployment, poverty and crime.

Bedouin guide in the White Desert, Egypt.
Many Bedouins are now settled in villages in
the desert and serve as tour guides.

They have their own laws and social customs and settle their disputes without recourse to the courts. It was considered completely inappropriate for Bedouins to marry ‘city-dwellers’ from outside the tribes, but it’s no longer unheard of, even if unacceptable.

A Bedouin woman's wealth is in her jewellery, traditionally made of silver and given when she gets married. Some of the designs have been handed down unchanged for thousands of years. However, individual antique pieces are rare, because once a woman dies, her jewellery is not handed down, that's considered unlucky - a bride must have new jewellery custom-made for her - so the dead lady's stuff is resold to the silversmiths who promptly melt it down.



Did you know - Lotfia el Nadi, an Egyptian, was the first female Arab pilot, she received her aviation licence in 1933 at the age of 25 and was the second woman to fly an aircraft solo after Amelia Earhart. The two women were friends and correspondents.

Posted for the A-Z Challenge 2017 

Right there on the threshold! - For Gagan Preet and Kagaz

The heart full, and the words came paper-thin,

the sky outside was a stretched night’s parchment skin -

a tent over the earth and a silver gap

through which a pale moon poked a finger in.

She came by in that moonlight and her anklet

made no music, it gave away no secret;

that curve of heel and that flash of movement

once seen quite impossible to forget.

One heartbeat on the path, and then no more;

no trace was left on paved road or floor.

He ran out in the moonlight but no signs,

no footprints showed the way to her door.

Pale silver lay the path, beyond nothing,

the moon fluttered like a broken bird wing.

He walked home slowly. There beside his threshold,

a red tassel had fallen from her earring.

Continuing with the theme of love and the Eastern fixed form rubai, this poem goes out today for Gagan Preet Singh who is 21, a young graduate from Delhi University, a professional photographer and an entrepreneur, wow! Quite a few feathers in his cap at such a young age.

Gagan Preet won himself a blog post here in a contest, the second winner to do so, and he wanted this prize dedicated to his new start-up ‘Kagaz’.  Kagaz is a brand of lovingly crafted hand-made jewellery.  And jewellery and Gagan Preet’s name (Gagan means ‘sky’, and Preet is ‘love’ – a love for the sky) are the prompts for this poem.  I Know! Too much to be a coincidence, right? Both the winners connected to ‘love’ and coming at a time and season when love is in the air and on my mind more than usual! :)

I hope Gagan Preet enjoys reading the poem as much as I have enjoyed writing it.  Wishing him and Kagaz every success! May what you are looking for be found right beside your threshold :) It’s been absolutely amazing writing for both the winners (read the other poem here).

This unique contest was part of a pay-it-forward initiative at Buzzaria, my heartfelt thanks to the team there for this opportunity to participate.

~~~

A word here also about the A-Z Blogging Challenge which starts tomorrow and runs throughout April. All month long I will be posting the works of great poets and my own poems in response to them, every day except for Sundays.  There will be giveaways for the top commenters after the month is over, so do check back and make your opinions heard. 

The way grandmothers go out

I remember her at every wedding, birth, death,

ritually marked with gold, and sandal and tact,

and earthen pots of water, grasses woven into pallets

the warmth of fire and the staunchness of faith;

just a made-up memory, a figment, nothing exact

for I wasn’t present, young and raw then, in any of it.

I heard it later, from the ones who were there

how composed she was in that dimly lit

room, on the shabby death-bed, sounds of gully-cricket

played by slum children hung like flies in the air.

All her offspring around her, but her eldest;

they sat weeping, silent.  The eldest beyond the wires,

the ken of postal men and Morse codes, the rest

had gathered. She made her last bequests -

this brooch to my grandkid. As per her last desires

I hold it now, it has my grandfather’s likeness

a romantic token he told me later; and I their last witness.