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September 21, 2003
Goshal FestivalYesterday we headed off to Goshal for their annual festival, which is pretty much the last village festival of the year in the upper Kullu Valley - with the exception of the huge Kullu Dussehra Festival which this year runs from 5th - 10th October.
There are festivals during the "off season" in the valley, but the main season for village celebrations runs from mid March with the majority held in May, including the major Hadimba festival - to celebrate the birthday of the Goddess Hadimba - held in Dunghri around 15th May. The only festivals after this tend to be irregular ones, held for specific reasons. Which makes Goshal a pleasant exception, coming as it does at the end of the summer.
The festival is held on the occasion of "Sair", an annual event in which children offer flowers to their elders. the festival revolves around the village amphitheatre, which until a few years ago was built as a tiered semicircle of local stone, but which has now undergone a modernisation to concrete like so much else of the structures in the valley.In spite of this the setting is idyllic; the amphitheatre is backed on one side by two or three especially fine examples of the local stone and wood houses, with a magnificent open view toward Vashist village, and above the roofs of other houses toward the clouded peaks close to the Rohtang pass.
It had been raining constantly until the day before the festival - apparently because local people had started cutting grass to dry for winter before the date appointed, angering the Gods. A special prayer was held last week by way of apology. Something worked, because the day of the Goshal festival was as bright and hot as midsummer. We made our way up through the village to the site, pausing at the small market set up to sell the goods common to all these festivals. A dozen stalls sold hair bands, plastic hairbands, Bindis and other trinkets, and lots of kids toys. Another stall ubiquitous to festivals sold sticky Jalebi and Pakora.
The Pakora stall is, for me, the second best thing about the festivals after the event itself. The Pakora that can be bought on the street or in a Dhaba in any town in India is usually good, but pales into insignificance before Kullu Valley Festival Pakora. I am not entirely sure why it is so good. It is invariably fresh rather than reheated with new batches being eaten almost as fast as they are cooked. But most likely it is because it is simple; basically potato slices and a slightly thin batter which lacked the more complicated flavours of the shop made stuff. Whatever the reason, 5Rs will buy you 100g of India's Finest Pakora - and 100g is never enough.
The festival ground was quiet when we arrived; the local God statue, Naag, was already on its podium with its Gur, sitting beside it were the Vashist Rishi statue and the Banara Naag Devta from Banara village above Jagatsukh. A few local people were sitting on the tiered seating, with young kids running around playing with the shiny new plastic toys bought for them by indulgent relatives. Proceedings soon warmed up with the arrival of visiting Gods from other local villages. The processions wound their way through the paths of the whole village, stopping regularly to be feted with offerings of flowers at the houses they passed. Their accompanying bands changing tempo to fit the scene. As each entered the arena, the palanquins of the other gods were lifted as they stood in greeting to the newcomer.
The Idols were carried around, sometimes running, sometimes turned sideways and going where they wished irrespective of how many mortals were in their path. Many paid respects at the small stone temple that stood to one side of the arena. At other times they stood face to face, shaking and seeming to talk to each other. Occasionally one would run from the arena to conduct some business elsewhere before returning.
Once the Gods had all arrived, the dancers appeared, accompanied by the drums and Nirkalis of another band. They wound their way through the village dancing and entered the arena. The dancers at these festivals are always male, young men from the village dressed in some kind of traditional costume consisting of a sort of long white woollen tunic and trousers, with a wool had adorned with the feather of the Monal, a local pheasant.
The dance is not energetic - a slow rythmic dance in a circle waving handkerchiefs - but it requires a lot of stamina as it can sometimes go on for four or five hours without break, with various other people having a try and then dropping out. Often one or two others have their own solo dance in the middle of the circle waving swords. These festivals invariably involve large quantities of local Lugrari (distilled liquor) and a very drunk person will join in a semi independent dance. I am never sure if there is some tradition attached to this, but every village dance seems to have one of these guys - it almost seems expected.
Tourists are thin on the ground now, and apart from us, there were a small group of Bavarians, some Italians, and two freshly polished Israelis adorned in designer trekking clothes looking as if they had just stepped from a Youth Hostelling catalogue.
Shortly after sunset, the whole thing wound up abruptly; the visiting gods returned with their entourages to their respective villages with much fanfare, and the villagers wandered home to eat and polish off any remaining Lugari. Under the single floodlight, a few kids with the energy played volleyball with a balloon. We wandered back across the river to the main road, and tried unsuccessfully to find a rickshaw before walking to Vashist for a rooftop dinner.
Dussehra with all its pomp and ceremony, human masses and winter market will be with us in two weeks. It is the largest gathering in the Kullu valley and a major tourist attraction in its own right, attracting tourists and cultural displays from all over India and the wider world. But the small village festivals of the Kullu valley rank among the most enjoyable in the world, unique celebrations of a unique culture and a time for the hardworking people of the Kullu valley to relax.
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A sour taste The BBC report that the village of Perumatti in Kerala is taking on Coca Cola in a battle over toxic sludge and ground water. The villagers allege that the Fizzy water giants plant has sucked dry most of the local water, with the remaining water too polluted to drink or cook with. The village council have given Coke a two week deadline to provide reasons why its plant should not be closed. Should the company fail to convince, a closure notice will be issued and the matter referred to the Kerala courts.
Coca Cola and its rival MNC Pepsi has been having a hard time of late convincing the Indian public that its drinks and production methods are safe following revelations by an Indian environmental group the bottles contained dangerous levels of pesticides. Indian consumers have been abstaining from cola in droves since the uproar arose, with little sign that sales are picking up, and the actions of the Perumatti council will give Coca Cola precisely the sort of media exposure they could currently do without.
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September 10, 2003
Fruit loving touristsThe Kulu valleys apple harvest season always attracts a group of unwanted visitors; fruitbats that come up from the plains to feast on the apple harvest before heading back down to a warm winter further south.
At least I think they are fruitbats; locally they are known as night crows due to the fact they only fly at night, and , well, they look like crows when silhouetted against the glow of the night sky. I always imagined fruitbats to be fairly small and cuddly looking, but these buggers appear to be massive, more or less the size of Manali's real crows which are particularly large themselves. with wingspans of 2 feet or more.
They descend on the tops of the trees in gangs and wade into the juicy ripe apples. Not having been taught any manners, they dont just nicely pick a plump apple and sit in the grass and devour the whole lot like civilised creatures would. They go through the tree taking a bite or two out of any apple they fancy, leaving 90 percent of the apple to rot before moving on to make the next apple commercially unusable. To add insult to injury, they perch on other apples to do this and their sharp claws pierce those apples as well, rendering them unsaleable. Their movement around the trees causes many apples to fall prematurely, again going to waste.
We could hear lots of happy little mamalian squeaks of fruity delight from the orchards the other night, so my landlord and I went to have a look. As we walked through the wet grass, every footstep fell on an apple that had been dislodged by the inconsiderate visitors. switching the torch on generated a flurry of activity above as they went off in search of somewhere darker to continue their dinner. Many of the apples on the ground had a single bite mark or cluster of small claw punctures marking them. An especially enthusaistic bat attack can strip a tree in one night apparently.
My landlord went into one of his favourite rants about the apathy of local people who, he said, should get together to go into the orchards and make enough racket and light to keep the bats away. During an especially bad year for bats in the mid eighties the local growers did just that, heading into the orchards with drums, torches and shotguns. After 3 nights of interupted dining the bats decided to move on to more convivial orchards elsewhere.
The next day, my landlord concentrated on picking clean the tops of all his trees. The bats will go first for the trees that are especially full at the top. It seemed to work as there are a lot less squeals of delight at night.
Monkey season is apparently next..
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Apples, markets and the Forces of DarknessFor those of you that think this blog is becoming fixated on apples and related subjects, you may well be right, but unless you have experienced the Kulu valley during an especially bumper harvest, its difficult to understand to what degree life revolves around the crop for a few weeks.
In spite of all predictions to the contrary (and notwithstanding the apparent frost damage in April) this year is officially a Bumper Crop, with actual harvests far, far above the figures expected in May of this year. In 2001, my landlord sent 55 boxes to Delhi, while in 2002 it was a lot better at 165 boxes. After a sharp frost this year during the most vulnerable period for the blossoms, he had estimated the final take at 100-140 boxes. Most peoples estimates were proportionally similar, but in the case of my landlord the actual harvest has run to a whopping 400 boxes.
A walk in the orchards reveals trees on which apples hang like bunches of grapes, clustered in groups of a dozen or more on a single slim branch. One or two trees, perhaps already weakened by the wet, heavy snow in February, have had branches snapped by the sheer weight of apples on them.
The size of the individual apples is also amazing. The other day we were presented with an apple that weighed well over 0.5 KG and was more like a meal for six than a light snack. Unlike previous years this was not a fluke find, but quite representative of much of the crop; they are huge.
The downside of all this bounty of nature is of course Market Economics. A vast supply leads to appaling prices for growers. Whereas last year a box of the red "Royal" variety could be expected to fetch between 450-550 Rs at the Sabzi Mandi in Delhi, this years take is attracting 200-240 Rs for the same quality. Considering costs such as wooden crates, trucking, labour for picking and experienced packers is the same or higher than previous years, overall profit margins are drastically down, leaving local growers a bit shell shocked.
The low market rate hasnt been helped by the Himachal Pradesh Governements grandly named "Market Intervention Scheme" which is ironically supposed to support apple prices for local growers by raising market rates. However this year the Growers association is reportedly furious with the government tactics. The scheme is supposed to see the government buying apples at a fixed and relatively high rate, handing those apples over to Government run business for pulping for juice and other Apple based products, thus keeping them off the market and raising prices overall.
This year a rather tenuous grasp of economic basics has taken over, and the government have been procuring apples under the scheme at Rs 300 per bag, and then dumping the same apples back onto the market at between Rs 20-60 per bag. The net effect is that the government loses about Rs 250 per bag AND simultaneously depresses the market further by dumping cheap produce. The growers lose, the Government loses, the taxpayer (Himachal Pradeshes smallest minority) loses. Only the apple buying public wins with a glut of very cheap apples. Since no sane person in HP would actually buy apples in the market ( a short walk round here will leave you with a gift of a dozen or so apples), the local people dont even benefit from that.
India's domestically grown apples are also apparently under threat from the Axis of Economic Evil in the form of the Dark Powers of the US and EU that hold the reins of the World Trade Organistation firmly in their scaly claws. Due to WTO rules, India's fruit markets are flooded with cheap foreign apples, often of higher quality than the domestic varieties (at least more "consumer friendly" in colour) with which India's growers cannot compete. These apples often contain hidden subsidies in ways that evade WTO rules and totally shatter every moral basis of "fair trade". But then the WTO was never, never about fair or moral, just about US / EU market dominance.
I have never quite comprehended the notion of imports that are shipped halfway round the world being cheaper than those produced six miles away. Doubtless the capitalist piggies of the world would accuse me of extreme naiivete. How can French apples, picked by higher paid pickers, packed by well fed packers, placed on a large ship and transported through the Mediterranean, Suez canal, Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and across the Arabian Sea to some Indian port before transport to market be cheaper than apples picked by people earning Rs 70 per day (packers earn Rs7 per box plus lunch) and transported 600 Km to market in Delhi in a ramshackle truck?
The fact is that international trade is about as level a playing field as Bosnia was a "level killing field" (according to a former UK foreign secretary, Douglas Hurd) with all the advantages going to the rich nations and few to the poorer nations who they cajole and coerce into giving up protectionist domestic trade policies with threats about World Bank loans, domestic economic and political reform, and of course Aid. They are brow beaten over anything that has a whiff of subsidy about it, as demonstrated by the Indian Governments removal of subsidies on staples like rice, kerosene, gas and sugar in all but the hill areas. Rich nations have devoted much time and effort to diguising the subsidies to their agricultural sectors in ways that step outside the "free" trade framework. India's overall economy might benefit from allegedly "free" trade agreements, but it is the well off within the society that end up with fat wallets, while those who do the actual hard graft end up poorer as a result
And so the World turns.
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September 4, 2003
History and MysteryWe picked up a fascinating book the other day; "Kullu, Himalayan Abode of the Divine" by Dilaram Sharma, a former HP politician whose picture inside the fly leaf suggests he suffers the usual affliction of Indian men - extreme vanity about their age. The given date of birth puts him at 81, yet the picture is of a wel preserved man in his mid 50's.
Nevertheless he has collected some interesting facts on the Kulu Valley and its surrounds, plus something of the history back to the beginning of its habitation some 2,000 years ago. The book is written in the beautiful, flowery English so common in the English language press here, full of the enthusiasm and politeness that died in England a long time ago.
History around here is often a difficult commodity to acquire; especially strange since the valley is steeped in history, myth and legend. Alexander the Great is supposed to have stood and wept on the banks of the Beas (although nobody knows quite where) because he had conquered the known world, and there "were no more lands to conquer." Which was really a bit soft in the head, because at that time there were many, many civilised places beyond the banks of the Beas that he could have tried to conquer, although given that he had turned an army of 500,000 into 50,000 during his conquests, he might have had a bit more trouble than he had with the Persians. There is one story that suggests the people of the remote village of Melana were actually the descendants of those of Alexanders men who elected not to return to Macedonia with him.
Asking questions of the village people rarely brings out a story that is older than a hundred years, or newer than the beginning of history iself from the time of the Mahabharata. We know well one of the descendants of the former local Raja who was ousted by the Kullu Raja long ago, and even his family seem to know few stories from the long history of Manali. There are very few books on the subject still on sale, although a number were written by British explorers during the time of the Raj, but are long since out of print. The most recent (bar this one) is by Penelope Chetwode, but that offers little in the way of historical background.
Nevertheless, the Kullu region reeks of history and the mystery of its past. The villages of the valley look much the same as they probably have for a thousand years (barring satellite dishes) and much of the daily life remains agrarian and unchanged. The temples that dot the villages could be a hundred years old. Or a thousand.
Note Ask someone how old a temple in India is, and there are two standard answers. One is a reasonable guess at the age, but the almost standard refrain in some places is "5,000 years". From the time of India's ancient legends. Sometimes this may hold water when the temple looks the part, but about 50 percent of the time the temple to which they are referring is a modern structure of concrete lacking the delicacy of the more historic one.
The prime exampl;e is Murdeshwar in Karnataka. Every local person we spoke to swore the temple was 5,000 years old in spite of the fact that the entire temple complex on the outcrop of rock (including the 160 foot high gold painted concrete statue of Shiva) was built by the concrete Magnate RN Shetty using some of his product. A part still under construction is 26 stories high (it vaguely resembles a multi storey car park in its current phase) and looks suspiciously like it is giving the Big Finger to the Mosque and Church that sit close by on the beach. But that would just be too cynical...
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Juice timeThis being apple harvest season means it is also apple juice season - or more particularly the season in which my landlord decides annually that a juice machine is a good idea.
For a long time he went on about how much he wanted a juice maker and would buy one when he had the spare cash, and then last year up popped an "opportunity of a lifetime" in the form of a guy down at the bridge who was banging out electric juicmakers for 600 rs a go. A sort of Indian Arthur Daly, and as ever, nothing in India is quite as it seems. After a few dozen apples turned into apple juice with a hint of plastic taste it finally dawned why the machine was only 600 rupees - because it was crap. The motor wasn't quite up to apples and was overheating and partially melting the insides, hence the taste.
Stung by this mistake, this year he decided to go back to basics and buy the more traditional low tech juicer seen on the streets of most Indian towns. On request his daughter arrived today with something that looks a bit like an old fashinoned meat grinder. In this case the apples are fed through the top, the juice comes out one side and the pulp at the back - just as it says on the box. The downside of this machine is that it requires a lot more elbow grease that the electric version, but fortuneately that is provided by his endlessly energetic 12 year old son.
So now he smiles happily and we all drink apple juice - albeit with a hint of metal polish taste left over from the shopkeepers frenzied efforts to make the device look like it was worth 500 rs. The metal polish taste will disappear soon enough, as will my landlords boundless enthusiasm for apple juice. A good idea when they can be picked from the tree in the garden, less so at 30 rs per KG.
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September 1, 2003
Murder - one briton involvedIf I hear Bob ******* Marley singing some overplayed crap about the emotional state of his girlfriend one more time, I'll be making newspaper headlines of the "man murders 50 in Indian cafe frenzy then destroys tape deck; one briton involved" variety. Great man, great music, but there is more than one album!!
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