Trampolieri - the fabulous sky-walkers of Bologna (2)

This photo-essay is the second part of a homage to the "Trampolieri", the stilt-walkers of Bologna (Italy). They use wonderful creativity and imagination to choose new styles, costumes and colours for each of their public appearances. While the first part looked at their costumes and colours in the period 2005-2011, this second part is about the period 2012-13.

2012

At the Bologna Gay pride parade, I had reached early as I was supposed to meet someone. That gave the opportunity to see the Trampolieri getting ready with their make-up and costumes. Their make-up included putting body paint in different colours. This offered numerous opportunities for taking very striking pictures. In fact, I really love these images.

My favourite was the lady in blue who made me think of Shiva!

A small group of Trampolieri were also playing with gender and identity issues. I was really struck by the women with moustaches, who seem to underline how gender identities are constructed. At the same time, it made me think of "Didi tera devar diwana" kind of situations in Indian marriages, where girls dress up as boys during the women's music ceremonies.

I ended up taking hundreds of pictures that day and it was an unforgettable experience. Looking at these pictures brings back that feeling of joy.

2013

Based on my experience at the Gay Pride 2012, when I heard about the Gay pride 2013, I immedietly imagined repeating the experience and the reached venue much in advance to catch the "getting-ready" part of the Trampolieri stilt walkers.

The initial make-up images were fun, though I was missing the strong colours of 2012.

After putting on the make-up, the Trampolieri covered their faces with colourful clothes, through which you could see only their eyes and lips. They made me feel a little uneasy and I think that they conveyed very effectively the feelings of persons who are forced to hide their true selves, to escape the societal discrimination.

Usually in Gay Pride parades, many persons use masks to hide themselves. May be because masks are associated with happy festivals like carnivals or may be because, masks still retain the "being human" kind of feelings, they do not give me the feeling of unease. On the other hand, those faces covered with clothes, did convey a feeling of imprisonment.

The Trampolieri explained that they had chosen that particular style to express solidarity with Pussy Riot who were imprisoned at that time.

They also had chains criss-crossing over their bodies, which increased the feelings of unease.

In the end, the Trampolieri were equally colourful in this occasion, but rather than joy, this time, their costumes transmitted pain and fear.

In 2013 there was a second opportunity to see the Trampolieri in action - the biannual summer festival Par Tot parade. For a change it was held in one of the peripheral areas of the city called Pilastro.

Obviously, this time, I was there well in advance, to catch their make-up and getting ready.

This time, they had again decided on body colours - all the team had their bodies and heads covered with white colour with a few small designs in red or black. Some persons had white flowers, others had silver or black coloured necklaces or bracelets.

The two team leaders, one man and one woman, were covered entirely with deep red. These colours made for very striking visuals.

This brings to end my photographic homage to The Trampolieri, the stilt-walker group of Bologna. Watching them has given me a lot of pleasure and clicking their pictures has been wonderful. So, thank you and best wishes for continuing this tradition of new make-up, new styles and new costumes.

I hope that this photo-essay will inspire people in other cities and other parts of the world, to think of starting something unusual, which can express your creativity in a different way so that you can carve a distinct artistic identity for your group.

You can check the Facebook page of Trampolieri of Bologna for more pictures and their other initiatives. If you missed the first part of this post that presented their costumes from the period 2005-2011, you can check it by clicking here.
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Artists working together

Nicola Zamboni and Sara Bolzani are two Italian sculptors. I like their works very much. In May 2013, I had the opportunity to visit them and to learn about them and their art. This is the last part of that interview.

Sunil: Sara, tell me about your artistic journey, how did you decide to be a sculptor?

Sara: At high school level I went to the art school in Monza. There I had a good teacher who did clay modelling and sculpture, so I got into it. He literally forced me to go to the Brera art academy in Milan. For the first 2 years I was with Prof. Giancarlo Marchese, but I was not feeling creatively happy with him. For the first year he made me do only sketching, without ever touching the clay and I did not like it. At that time I already had a studio and I was doing sculptures. Then in 1997, in the third year I went to some lessons with Nicola, and from the first lesson, I wanted to work with him. Luckily, it worked out and I could shift my classes. He told me to work with bronze, and once I did that, I fell in love with it. Two of my important works in that period were in Bronze, and I did my thesis on Nicola.

At that time I was also working as a waitress because I needed money to buy materials for my art. Nicola told me to give up that work and he gave me some work like making holes in the leaves, making small sculptures of fishes, etc. and he paid me. Some time after finishing the academy I started living with him.

Nicola: The personal thing between us, it happened when she was out of the academy and was no longer my student. I think that it is important to clarify it since I don't think that teacher can have relationships with their students, it would not be correct professional behaviour.

Sara: So now each of us has our own individual work but we collaborate when we make sculptures for public spaces. "The Humanity" project started in 2003. It started as a project for a school but we could not manage it, but then we continued with it for many years up to 2008-09. Since then, because of the crisis it has got a little slowed down.

Since 2001 after our first journey in India, I am also working on the theme of women.

Sunil: How do you influence each other? Do you influence each other?

Nicola: Surely we influence each other. To be in love is necessary for creating art, it becomes the oxygen that you breathe. There are things we share, like our love for travelling, our love for food, our way of living. It all influences the way we work and the kind of things we make. However, we don't share similar taste in music, I love classical music while she loves Bruce Springsteen and Vasco Rossi.

Sara: Perhaps that is a generational thing.

Nicola: It is not generational, I was like this when I was twenty. My son, he is forty, he also loves classical music.

Sara: But the world has changed, your twenty years were very different from my twenty years. Coming to the questioning of reciprocal influence, in the initial phase of our work, we do sit together and ask each other's opinion.

Nicola: We are very honest in giving opinion to each other.

Sara: Suppose he makes a horse, I can tell him that in my opinion, the neck is too long or he says that the arm of the my sculpture is too thin in this part.. so we criticise each other's work. We recognise that there are some things that he is good at and I am not so good, there are other things that I can make better. So in our joint works, we keep account of these things.

Nicola: In some human figures in bronze, she is really good, even if I try I can't match her.

Sunil: Apart from India, was there any other journey that has influenced your work?

Sara: Even our journey to Cambodia was significant, in terms of female figures. The influence of Africa has been much less. But some journeys like from this last journey in India, there are things that will remain in my heart for ever. Kumar, our guide, took us to the village of his wife. There the headman, an elderly person with white beard, he washed our feet as a sign of welcome. I was so embarrassed and at the same time, it touched me very deeply. It was an emotional experience very different from the experiences of other journeys. For example, once we were in Mexico and went to a catholic church, where the floor was covered with pine needles, and every where they had statues of saints. Another strange thing was that people were drinking coke and making loud hiccups, so it was a church prayer with some strange rituals. I can remember that experience with pleasure but it did not touch me emotionally like this journey to India touched me. They have influenced our work most.

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Nicola has made two sculptures of Sara. In one, she is lying down nude, her arms up holding a big fish. In another sculpture, Sara is surrounded by stalks of tall weed or thin bamboo like plants, holding her a prisoner, and she is followed by a figure in a veil.

Sara has also made a sculpture of Nicola. In this, a weaver (Sara) is making a quilt and in the quilt, there is Nicola's face made with metal wires.

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Read more about Nicola Zamboni & Sara Bolzani

An Introduction to Nicola Zamboni and Sara Bolzani

Meet the artist: Sara Bolzani

Meet the artist: Nicola Zamboni

Art for Public Places - Nicola Zamboni

In May 2013, I met the Italian sculptor duo, Nicola Zamboni and Sara Bolzani. Nicola believes in art for public spaces rather than art for rich individuals or for museums. Here are some excerpts of our conversation.

Sunil: Nicola lets start with you. Please tell me about how did you decide to become a sculptor and which experiences shaped you as an artist?

Nicola: From the childhood I was interested in sculpture and painting. My father, who was a factory worker, wanted me to become an accountant, so I did go to the accountancy school, but I was not good at studies. At the time of my final exam, the president of the commission was a person who knew me, said that we shall pass you but you have to promise us two things - one that you will make a bust of Marconi (our school was called named after him) for the school and second, you will never work as an accountant!

Actually I did work briefly as an accountant, but after a few months, the owner told me that it would be better for me to do something else. So I went to the art academy but I did not finish it. During the third year of art college, I went to UK at Henry Moore's house for one month and when I came back to Bologna, I did not want to study any more. At the school we had a good teacher, prof. Ghirmandi, he asked me to become his assistant. Since then I have spent all my life as a sculptor.

Today I find persons who have no preparation or experience, but after 2 days of art work they want to be recognised as artists or sculptors!

Sunil: So you think that formal art training is important for an artist?

Nicola: I think that you need to have talent as an artist but you also need to work hard and practice your skills. With a lot of hard work and discipline, even with little talent you can reach good results. Others can reach good results because they have a lot of talent though they do not have enough discipline. But generally speaking, you need a little talent and a lot of discipline and hard work to be a good artist.

Sunil: I have seen your works in terracotta, stone and metal - which is your favourite material?

Nicola: I like all the different materials, each has its own characteristics that are unique and that you have learn to understand and discover. My desire was to create works that can be displayed in public spaces, especially in spaces of the marginalised people and peripheries, so I always try to adapt my working materials to the economic possibilities of those who can commission my work. I also need to think of the place where the art will be displayed, in selecting the materials. For example, for the sculptures in Parco Pasolini in Pilastro area of Bologna, they did not have lot of money and the work was huge. I was supposed to create sculptures of a long line of persons going to the theatre spread over 500 meters, so I used mostly cement and a little stone. I made persons without faces, without features, who as they reach the theatre acquire features and become full persons. Those sculptures also included a theatre with seats, but 5-6 years ago the municipality decided to cover that part of my work and now it is gone.

Sometimes, vandals can deface your work in public spaces, but usually it is the institutions that suddenly decide to destroy art in public places.

Sunil: Why did you choose to make art for public spaces?

Nicola: I don't like the idea of rich persons keeping my art hidden away where no one looks at it, except may be for their Dobermans, who piss on it regularly in their gardens, and only once in a while some person will look at it. In the big museums, you find all kinds of art works put together, you have to look at them all at one time, one after another. On the other hand, the art, especially sculptures, need to interact with the people and the city spaces, it is part of the city life. Society needs to look at the art and say what do they think of it. Society needs to tell the artist what it appreciates in art, there should be a dialogue between the artist and the city. So every space, every context, needs it own style of art and this is a challenge for the artist - you need to think of the spaces and find artistic idea for that space, rather than having your own style of art that you put up every where.

Sunil: If you look backwards on your works, do you see some kind of evolution?

Nicola: When I had come back to Bologna after staying with Henry Moore, I was in love with him and for some time, all my works resembled his. I feel that we are always influenced by works of others, there is nothing that comes out of no where, you always find inspirations in the life around you and in the works of others. Thus, started a period of experimentation for me. For one year, I asked a construction company to work with them. During that one year, I was using their materials - stones, cement, wood, anything that caught my fancy, and I worked on it. So I got my materials and in exchange they got all my art works and these were put up in different parts of Bologna and San Lazzaro (suburb of Bologna). During that year I felt that contemporary art was not the right style for Bologna - after a few years, the contemporary sculptures do not fit in the city spaces any more. So I turned towards more classical figures for my sculptures.

Many of those sculptures in public spaces, are now in a bad condition, but that is the risk of making public works, to be a street artist is not easy for your art. In a museum, your art is safe and people take care of it. Destruction of my art work is part of their life cycles. I accept it. However when institutions, deliberately destroy my art, that hurts me. In Via Larga in Bologna, near the mall, I had built about 120 sculptures. There were sculptures of some well known people among them. However, some 7-8 years ago, they destroyed all of them and that hurt me. Only some pictures remain of that monumental work.

Sunil: Among all your works, do you feel especially close to some specific work?

Nicola: The group of bronze sculptures that I am making now with Sara, "The Humanity" that is very close to my heart. It is an allegory for modern times. It has figures of those who are killing others, destroying things, destroying their animals. It also has those who are trying to run away, to escape with their miserly belongings and their dreams.

Sunil: When I had seen the exhibition of "The Humanity", I had thought that it represented a medieval war.

Nicola: It is an allegory about modern times but I chose medieval style for its representation since warriors with their medieval dresses and armors express strongly the differences between those who kill and the other simple persons. If I had made them with modern clothes, it was more difficult to express this concept. These persons hide their faces behind armors, masks and shields, so that they are no longer persons, but they turn into things. That mask and armor can mean a bank account, some secret group, some power - so those sculptures are not about a medieval war, rather medieval war is a symbolism for what is happening in the world today.

Like there are the animals in those sculptures, they have been pulled into this war, and they are also the unfortunate victims of this war. To show all this, I decided to express myself through an allegory. It is not only men who are destroyers, there also some women also, dressed as warriors in this work.

Sunil: And the women covered with veils where you can see only their eyes?

Sara: They are part of the victims, those who are trying to escape this war, the refugees.

Nicola: Once we went for holidays at a seaside resort in the middle east. There were American and German women who were walking around in bikini and then there were local women, covered from head to feet.

Sara: These two very contrasting ways of dressing brought together in one place, it was a strange and powerful sight. A very strange kind of fashion show.

Nicola: I liked it very much, this contrasting visual, though I must say that I believe in the freedom of choice, that people must be able to choose what they wish to wear. At the same time, I think that it is worse when people forget their customs and become homogenized. For example on the TV to see the leader of China dressed exactly like the leader of USA or France, that seems so strange to me!

Sara: Even in Africa, where traditions are lost and a lot of persons dress like westerners, though fortunately there are some people who still wear their traditional dresses.

Nicola: There are some paintings from Venice from the 15th century, where you can see persons from different parts of the world - the Arabs, the Jews, the Indians, each with their own way of dressing. It is so beautiful. I think that differences of costumes is a beautiful richness of our humanity, providing that people have a choice in deciding what they wish to wear and are not forced to do it in a certain way.

Sunil: This opera "The Humanity" how do you see it, already complete or you still making new sculptures for it?

Nicola: As long as I will have strength in my body, I will keep on making new sculptures to add to the Humanity. However, now I want to focus only on making the sculptures of persons who are the victims of this war, who are trying to run away to save their lives and livelihoods. These sculptures of "The Humanity" have already been to four exhibitions - first in Modena, then in Arezzo, then in Accursio palace in Bologna, then in Piazza dell'Unità in Bologna.

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Read the first 2 Parts of this Post

Part 1: An Introduction to Nicola Zamboni & Sara Bolzani

Part 2: Meet the artist & sculptor Sara Bolzani

The abusers and the lynching mobs

When Tahehlka's Think Fest had started, we were getting ready to start our research on "Violence and Abuse" in north Karnataka. Reading the list of the speakers at the Think Fest, I had briefly fantasized about somehow flying to Goa to listen to some of them. About two weeks later, as the first news about Tarun Tejpal's sexual abuse of a journalist had come out, we had just started to discuss the preliminary research results. We were trying to make some sense out of the terrible situation that had come out of our research.

Our research was on "violence and abuse, including sexual abuse, towards persons with disabilities in the Bidar district of Karnataka". The research was conducted jointly with local associations of disabled persons and persons working in a community programme.

A group of disabled persons and community workers from Bidar district, both women and men, were trained to conduct the research. The aims of our research were two - (i) to gain an understanding about factors influencing violence and abuse towards disabled persons and (ii) to initiate a dialogue on how can violence and abuse be prevented.

During the initial training of the researchers, it had come out that this issue directly concerned both disabled persons and community workers. In the past 12 months, many of them had also been through personal experiences of emotional, physical and sexual violence.

Our daily feedback sessions during the research, when we discussed the information collected during the day, brought out sharing of peoples' stories and invariably had some of us crying.

In the next few weeks, I will be working at the analysis of the information collected during this research. However, the preliminary analysis of our data shows a terrible situation -

• More than 80% of the disabled persons interviewed had at least one experience of significant violence and abuse in the past 12 months. For most of them the experiences were more frequent, some times even daily.
• More than one third of the women interviewed had had at least one episode of sexual violence in the last 12 months.  Married women suffered more violence and abuse compared to unmarried women.
• Disabled men were also victims - more frequently of emotional and physical violence, but about 9% of them had had at least one episode of sexual violence in the last 12 months.

Our research shows that violence and abuse are common in our homes, in our families and in our communities. Few persons had the courage to talk about the abuse they had suffered. Often, those who were supposed to protect them, including police and authorities, were themselves complices and even perpetrators.

While reading about Tarun Tejpal and the journalist, everyday I am listening to the shrill debates, to the cries for jail and stringent punishment, to those who ask for castration and death. And I think of our research.

They shout - kill the rapist, hound anyone connected with them, make examples out of them, better if they are well known persons. The shrill noise means we are exempted from looking inside ourselves, to recognize and understand our societies. We do not need to look at what we do every day in our homes and our communities.

One Nirbhaya every now and then, is fine for breaking news, prime time debates and candle light vigils, so that abuse of hundreds of silent unknown Nirbhayas in our homes, families and communities can go on.

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Tulsi Das: Retelling Ramayana

Ramayana (Story of Rama) is an ancient Indian tale about prince Rama. Centuries ago, the tale of Ramayana had spread from India to the neighbouring countries such as Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. In the sixteenth century, Tulsi Das rewrote Ramayana as "Ram Charit Manas" in Avadhi language (close to Hindi language). Till that time, the most well known version of Ramayana in India was in Sanskrit, written by Valmiki. Thus Tulsi Das is credited with making the sacred text accessible to a large number of persons in India, because Awadhi is a language of common people while the knowledge of Sanskrit is limited to a few.

Tulsi Das (1554 - 1644), is credited with different literary works in Awadhi and Brajbhasha variations of Hindi. A contemporary of William Shakespeare (1564-1616), his influence on large parts of India has been enormous, but unlike Shakespeare, Tulsi's historical figure and his literary abilities have largely been ignored by academics in India and internationally. In recent years, Tulsi's figure has been "taken over" by some conservative Hindu groups, who give a selective interpretation of his works that supports specific political and socio-religious ideologies.

This article reviews “Manas ka Hans” a bio-fiction about Tulsi Das, written by Hindi author Amrit Lal Nagar in 1972.

INACCESSIBILITY OF RELIGIOUS TEXTS

A few years ago, while visiting Mongolia I had started thinking about the way different religions use languages across the world, to ensure that sacred texts are not understood by majority of their followers. We were in the Gandam Buddhist monastery in Ulaan Bataar and I had asked the person accompanying me, to tell me about the words written on a giant bell in the temple courtyard.

“I can’t tell you what it says, because the monks use Tibetan language for all their prayers!” he had told me. Buddhism had come to Mongolia through the Tibetan monks and even today in their temples their prayers continue to be in Tibetan.

I had heard something similar in Vietnam, where the temples often have their prayers in Chinese and not in Vietnamese.

In Catholic churches around the world, the mass was celebrated in Latin till some decades ago. It is relatively recently that the Bible has been translated to languages like Malayalam (some years ago I had met Fr Sebastian, who had done this translation).

In India, majority of Hindu prayers for specific religious rites, are in Sanskrit. Thus, Tulsi’s "Ram Charit Manas" played a fundamental role in making Ramayana accessible to common persons. Because of this, many persons consider him as a saint and call him Sant Tulsi Das or Acharya Tulsi Das.

HISTORICAL FIGURE OF TULSI DAS

If you look for information about Tulsi Das on internet, you will mostly find mythical stories - about his being an incarnation of Valmiki, his miracles and his meetings with ghosts and gods such as Hanuman and Ram.

He was born around the time Mughal emperor Hamayun had returned to India in 1554 AD. Tulsi saw the reigns of three more Mughal emperors during his life time - Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan. He was a writer and a poet during those reigns. Yet analysis of his historical figure are few.

In recent years, some persons have worked on collecting historical information about Tulsi Das. For example, some years ago Anshu Tandon had presented a play called "Jo chaho Ujiyyar" focusing on Tulsi's struggles as a Hindu reformer. Excerpts of this play (in Hindi) are available on Youtube. Still much more can and should be done to understand the historical figure of Tulsi Das. (Below a scene from"Jo chaho ujjiyar" play)

BIOGRAPHIES OF GOSWAMI TULSI DAS

According to Amrit Lal Nagar in his introduction in the book “Manas ke Hans”, there are five biographies of Tulsi Das written by persons who were his followers - Raghubar Das, Beni Madhav Das, Krishna Dutt Mishra, Avinash Rai and Sant Tulsi saheb. However, Nagar explains that according to expert academics, none of these biographies is accurate,and they differ from each other about significant events in Tulsi Das' life.

For writing "Manas ke hans", Nagar looked at these biographies, as well as, looked at other oral traditions and works of academics on Tulsi Das. He also did a critical reading and analysis of Tulsi Das's own writings. He acknowledges that the information he found was not complete and thus his book is a bio-fiction rather than a biography.

Nagar mentions two additional important sources of information, " Among others, I want to make a loving mention of friend late Rudra Kashikey (Pen name of Shiv Prasad Mishra) who could not complete “Rambola bole”. Rudra ji was a walking encyclopedia of Kashi. Late Dr Rangey Raghav had also expressed his ideas about Tulsi Das through his work “Ratna ki baat".

TULSI DAS'S LIFE HISTORY FROM "MANAS KA HANS"

The book is written in flashbacks from the point of view of an old Tulsi Das telling his story to his followers.

Context: In 1540, Hamayun had to leave India after losing the war to the forces of Sher Shah Suri. Over the next 12 years, Sher Shah was followed on Delhi's throne by Islam Khan and Adil Khan. In 1554 when Tulsi Das was born in Vikrampur, Hamayun was engaged in the war with the Pathan forces of Adil Shah.

Childhood: Tulsi's mother Hulsi died while giving birth to him. His father Pandit Atma Ram prepared his son's horoscope and found that his son had an unfortunate mix of planets in his birth chart and asked the child to be given away.

Muniya, a shudra ("low caste") servant in the home of Atma Ram, took the baby across the river to her mother-in-law Parvati amma, a beggar. Soon after, Mughal forces destroyed Vikrampur and Pandit Atma Ram died childless after some years. Parvati amma named the child Rambola, and he grew up as a singing beggar, who walked the village streets asking for alms and singing prayer songs (bhajans) of poet saints like Surdas, Kabir and Mira. When Rambola was five years old, Parvati amma died and Rambola, tormented by the Brahmins of the area, ran away to Sukar, at the junction of Ghagra and Saryu rivers.

At Sukar, Rambola was taken as a disciple by Swami Narhari, who took him to Ayodhya for his religious initiation and thus Rambola became Tulsi Das.

Young Tulsi: Tulsi studied with Guru Shesh ji Maharaj in Varanasi and received the title of Shastri. During this period, he composed "Hanuman Chalisa" (Prayer to Hanuman) to overcome his fear towards the evil spirits (bhoot-pichash) and became famous for his singing of religious texts and compositions of prayers.

He journeyed as a rich young Brahmin man, to the place where once his birth-village Vikrampur had stood, and there he built his new family home and a temple. His fame as a singer and a poet brought back many other persons who had lived in that area in the past and knew his family. Thus a new village called Rajapur (named after Tulsi's friend Raja Bhagat) came around his house.

Marriage: Raja convinced Tulsi Das to visit Pathak maharaj, an old friend of his late father, pandit Atma Ram. Pathak had no sons, and wanted a learned husband for his daughter Ratnabala, so that he could leave his valuable book collection to his son in law. Pathak asked Tulsi to marry his daughter and finally Tulsidas agreed.

Tulsi fell in love with his wife and together they had a son Tarapati. For earning livelihood, Tulsi Das decided to go to work in Varanasi, while his wife went to stay at her father’s home. After a few months, Tulsi Das went to see his wife. During this visit, Ratna said to him that he did not have self-control and that he could not wait for sex.

Renouncing of marriage: Hurt by his wife’s words, Tulsi Das left home that night and went to Ayodhya. For different months he wandered around as a beggar and did occasional work - including work as an accountant in a math (Abbey of Hindu monks) for some time. In this period, he travelled in different cities of the region between Ayodhya, Varanasi and Chitrakoot. For a period he was responsible for a gaushala (cow home) in Varanasi, and thus earned the title of Goswami or Gosain.

Full of remorse, Ratna went to see her husband to ask him to come home, but Tulsi Das was firm that he had renounced his household duties, he was now a Brahmachari (celibate) and that he would not go back to married life. Their son Tarapati died due to small pox. Thus, Ratna lived alone in their house in Rajapur.

Writer Tulsi Das: Tulsi Das on the other hand, continued his writing of prayer-poems and retelling of "Ram Charit Manas", the story of Ramayana. Other Brahmins of Varanasi felt that making the sacred book accessible to general public was against the scriptures and thus started different campaigns against him. However, with popular support, Tulsi Das managed to thwart their machinations. Called “mahatma” (Great spirit) by general public for his literary works and for his emotional singing of prayers, Tulsi Das died in Varanasi at the age of ninety years.

In the book Tulsi’s faith in the figure of Ram constantly moves between the life and stories of Ram as the God incarnate and Ram as the symbol of a formless infinite God.

VIEWS OF TULSI DAS ABOUT CASTE SYSTEM

It must have been painful for the child Tulsi to understand that his father had preferred to believe in the stars and had abandoned him. Perhaps that was the reason, why as a grown up young man, he went back to his old village and built his home there, as a message to his father that he was not unlucky and that he had managed to accumulate enough wealth to build himself a house?

How much of those early experiences of rejection from his father and his life as a child-beggar  searching for an identity and security, influenced his later decisions to renounce married life and to fight with Brahmins?

I felt that his early years as a child growing up in a "low-caste" shudra home and his difficulties at different periods of life with the Brahmins in Ayodhya and Varanasi, should have given him an understanding and a feeling of solidarity about the oppression and marginalization faced by persons who are seen as inferior in the caste hierarchy.

At the same time, I had read other criticisms about Tulsi Das. For example, a line from Ram Charit Manas "Dhol Ganwar Shudra Pashu Nari, Sakal Tadan ke Adhikari" (Drums, the illiterate, lower caste, animals and women, all need to be beaten to make them work), is often quoted to explain Tulsi Das's views on castes and women.

Thus, while reading "Manas ke Hans" I was curious to read about Tulsi's socio-religious views. Since the book is a bio-fiction, we cannot say that these were really the views of Tulsi Das but these can be considered as the understanding of the writer Amrit Lal Nagar about Tulsi Das. In the introduction to the book, Nagar explains how he wrote it:

"Before writing this novel, I read with particolar care "Kavitavali" and "Vinaypatrika". Vinaypatrika contains different invaluable moments about inner conflicts of Tulsi, and thus I thought it appropriate to build the psychological framework of Tulsi on their basis. Even about the psychological background to his writing of "Ram Charit Manas", I found help in "Patrika". Some details about Tulsi's life can be found especially in Kavitavali and Hanumanvahak and occasionally in "Dohavali" and "Geetavali". From the innumerable oral-stories that are so popular about Gosain ji, I have included those that could fit in with this psychological framework..." 

In the book, Nagar's Tulsi answers these accusations about his being a casteist and being against the women by explaining, "Ram Charit Manas is a story and in the story, different characters have different beliefs. If you take the beliefs of any of those characters and say that this is Tulsi Das' belief, then it is wrong. You can also find some other character in the story who has completely opposite belief." Thus Nagar felt that it was manipulative to quote of a line from Ram Charit Manas as a justification for characterizing the personal views of Tulsi Das.

The book also has an episode where Tulsi helps a hungry chamar (one of the "untouchable" castes) man who is accused of killing a Brahmin and gives him food, going against the Brahmins of the city. In this episode, Tulsi justifies the killing of the Brahmin because "he was cruel and did not behave as a Brahmin." (p. 319-20)

The book also has different references to poet-saints of his time - there is a small episode (p. 179) about young Tulsi's meeting with eighty-five year old Surdas in Mathura and another episode about his meeting with Rahim (p. 364). The book mentions some disagreements between Tulsi and the followers of Kabir, though Tulsi expresses respect for Kabir's ideas (p. 325). As these poet saints were reformists and against the caste oppression, we can see that Nagar's Tulsi Das was more humane and progressive figure.

TULSI DAS, MUSLIMS AND BABRI MOSQUE

Babur had come to India in 1526 and he had died in 1530. Thus building of Babri mosque at the site of Ram Janamabhumi (birth place) had occurred a couple of decades before Tulsi Das' birth. He had lived through the reigns of Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan. Though the book was written in 1972, I was also curious to know about how Nagar has depicted Tulsi Das' relations with Muslims and if he had written about the Babri mosque controversy, that had inflamed opinions in India in 1992 when the mosque was demolished by some Hindu groups.

In the book Nagar depicts the UP villages as places where Hindu and Muslim communities have been living together in close relationships. Many episodes of the book located in Tulsi's native village Rajapur, have different Muslim characters, shown as Tulsi Das's close friends and neighbors. For example, in the book, a Muslim neighbor, Bakridi baba, born a couple of days before Tulsi, tells the story of Tulsi's birth and his banishment to Parvati Amma's village. They also come to him for his advice about stars and future foretelling.

There are different episodes in the book where Nagar mentions Babri mosque. Here are some examples:

After a pause Medha Bhagat said, "Recently I was in Ayodhaya. There, where after destroying the holy temple of the birthplace, king Babar has built a holy mosque. Nearby, on a hillock I met a young man [Tulsi Das], lost in Rama's love... from morning till sundown, sitting behind a tree, he kept on gazing at the mosque. Sometimes he laughed, sometimes cried, and sometimes like a yogi he became lost in meditation .." (p. 135)

[A disciple asked to Tulsi] "After leaving the abbey, where did you go?" "I stayed in Ayodhaya, where else could I go? I begged for food and in the night, I slept outside the mosque together with other fakirs .." (p. 283)

One day he went to the Babri mosque that was built at the site of Rama's birth place. A Sufi saint was reading the verses of Mohammed Jayasi to the soldiers and the public. Written in dohe and chaupai (two and four lines verses), that divine love poem was so beautiful that even Tulsi lost himself in its words. (p. 294)

The date of Ramanavami (Rama's birth date) was close. A lot of movement had started in Ayodhaya because of it. Ever since, they had destroyed the birthplace temple and built the mosque in its place, since then followers of Rama could not enter the place to pray to their lord. Everywhere in India, the holy day of Ramanavami brings joy but in Ayodhaya, this day comes on the sharp edge of a sword... the area of Rama birthplace is made wet with the blood of martyrs every year... thus the ruler prohibit any public telling of the Rama's story.. the followers celebrate the day hidden in their homes .. Tulsi felt these things in his heart. In Rama's birthplace, Rama's story cannot be told was an unacceptable injustice for Tulsi. .. Everyday around mid-day he always went towards the Babri mosque. Behind the mosque, a short distance away, there was an old hillock. Tulsi used to sit on that hillock in such a way so that he could see the mosque built on the birthplace. For long time he sat there. He was friends with Muslim fakirs who sat in front of the mosque. (p. 295)

[When Tulsi was not allowed to sit behind the mosque:] "Lord Rama, you are my witness that I have never thought anything bad about this mosque. A place of worship remains worthy of worship even in this form. Even now, it is a place where people pray in front of the infinite formless supreme consciousness. When I had come away from Ramanujiya abbey, I used to come to sleep here. I was friends with these same persons, but then I was also seen as a fakir but now I am seen as a Hindu. Rama, please come back to stop this injustice." (p. 296)

Around mid-day, the drummers announced in different parts of Ayodhaya .. the government of emperor Akbar had sent orders from Delhi that in the courtyard inside the Babri mosque, people can make a platform for the worship of Rama. .. Tulsi was very happy. (p. 298)

[While Tulsi was writing Ram Charit Manas] Ever since the platform for worshiping Rama was built in the mosque and people could visit it, the people of Ayodhaya were happier. The soldiers of the mosque behaved less harshly. The anger between Hindus and Muslims had reduced. Even though some conservative Muslims were against this decision of Akbar, but they did not have any power. Tulsidas, every day, before starting writing, used to visit the Rama's statue on the platform inside the mosque. (p. 301)

Thus, Tulsi's views about Babri mosque in Nagar's book ask for the possibility of praying to Ram but they are also about living in harmony and friendship with Muslims and respecting the mosque. Nagar's Tulsi is happy to worship Rama in the courtyard of the mosque and looks at it as a place of the worship to the "infinite formless God".

CONCLUSIONS

Tulsidas was a historical figure whose name has been familiar, not just to a lot of Hindus, but to most Indians. He had played an important role in simplifying the story of Rama and making it understandable to the common public.

He was a contemporary of William Shakespeare. Like the influence of Shakespeare on the English literature, Tulsi Das' literary works have had an enormous influence in India. However, while Shakespeare's works have been the subjects of an enormous amount of studies and analysis, Tulsi Das did not receive much academic attention. In the recent decades, there has been some attention towards Tulsi Das' work but often it is in mythological terms rather than historical. It also tends to make a manipulative use of his works to justify specific political and religious ideologies that support conservative Hindu worldviews.

However, the biography of Tulsi Das written by Amrit Lal Nagar, presents him as a more humane and progressive thinking, creative and mystic person, who was shaped by his early life experiences of marginalization and exclusion. In the book he comes through as a person of his times. At the same time, he is someone, who was also linked to some of the key progressive figures of those times.

Note: I have translated from Hindi the different passages from the Book quoted in this article. I have tried to remain faithful to the sense of the phrases rather than doing literal translation.

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Body paints: Hiding the body?

Why did man decide to invent clothes? Did ancient man have a sense of shame about the human body so that certain parts were supposed to be hidden behind clothes? Probably not. Man had evolved in nature full of animals, birds, roaming around without any clothes, except for those given by the nature - the body hair of different animals that covered the body, changed colours according to the seasons.

Probably early humans evloving in the hot tropical climate of Africa, did not even need lot of body hair and thus clothes were probably invented much later, when Homo Sapiens moved towards colder climates in the north?

Another reason could be that the genitals are delicate parts of the body and evolution of human beings from being four-legged creatures like other animals to the upright walking two legged creatures, further exposed to these delicate body parts to possible injury. Thus human beings had to look for something to cover and protect these parts.

Whatever the reason, today clothes are considered necessary for human life, and when ever new tribal groups are discovered, they are taught about the need to cover themselves. Apart from the stray nudists who may rebel against this imposition of the society, we all tend to accept to cover ourselves to varying degrees. Most cultures allow men to wear lesser clothes than women.

Artists have always tried to critically look at the social costumes and question them through their art. One such artist who questions the need for wearing clothes is Joanne Gair. Gair has become famous for her body painting, where she paints the clothes over nude bodies, giving the illusion that the person is wearing clothes. Here is sample of the art by Joanne Gair.

About 10 or 15 years ago, an Indian actress, Pooja Bhatt, had also posed for a magazine cover wearing just body art and that had raised a scandal. I personally admire such persons who dare to provoke the society into questioning the seemingly unbreakable and rigid social costumes.

Here some of my pictures of body paints from the cultural events (mainly the Par Tot summer festival parade and the GLBTI pride parades) in Bologna (Italy) - (Note: images have been updated in 2013):

Did you like my collection of body-paint images? I hope that you will be inspired by these images and then use your imagination to come with new variations in body paint to give shape to your desires.

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