Ecological Intelligence

Ecological Intelligence

I just finished reading the second novel by a great Marathi writer who was a historian, sociologist and naturalist all rolled into one. He was the great ‘Go Ni Da’ or Gopal Neelkanth Dandekar whom I had met during my schooldays trek and stay at Rajgad .

This man was revered by entire Marathi community across board from illiterate to scholar due to his down to earth writing about the people of Maharashtra .He occupies a high pedestal even in Maruti Chitampalli’s  magnum Opus  autobiographical work – Chakwa Chandana .

I had read his novel ‘Padghavali’ an intense story of a small hamlet in Konkan which gets corrupted due to poverty , greed  and ambition while the protagonist battles to uphold the integral fabric of the settlement preventing the  disintegration  due to exodus and gradual relocation of its inhabitants  to metropolitan Mumbai. In the last moving chapter after significant loss of the good people the woman protagonist who is about to board the ship for Mumbai hurriedly gets off the boat to spend last days in the same village where she has witnessed glory and experienced love ,grace and gratitude. GoNiDa paints a very vibrant picture of the village and the upper caste treachery of some of its vicious members against the humble farm laborers or poor caste brethren who   succumb to the cunning deceptions one by one at times eliminating self by immolation.

‘Machivarcha Budha ‘ is from the same genre. Unlike Padghavali it is a short story but a very intense and scintillating one. It is a story of one’s roots ,of nature ,of life and of accomplishment in paradigm shift.It is a story of liberation and  transcendence of a single ,simple old  farmer  who comes back to his home on a mountain slope to stay all by himself after spending most of his life in the lower income ghettoes on Mumbai and lives on valiantly to appease himself and his ancestors trying to gain the self respect by toiling hard to raise crops and make a living .And while doing so befriends a dog, goats and squirrels  to keep company and add value to his solitary life.Budha is replete with instinctive intelligence and due to his intense faith in his dead ancestors who are watching him integrates himself in his new home which he erects with the help of  local tribal.

Budha is old and retired and suffers from dim vision likely due to cataract but he is lucky because of the closeness with the gods.budha gets fair amount of vision due to a local tribal who instills some herbal medication whereby he is able to see much clearly.budha plants rice in his ancestral land and it keeps him busy .the dog is his constant companion. One day his son land in his house beckoning him to come back to Mumbai.budha is on verge of going back but suddenly decides the other way. And comes back to his hut.budha learns to light fire from local tribal by using flint stone. At leisure Budha sits perched on a tree observing the plains called Konkan.

Actually at this point it is necessary to understand that Budha is a form of the author and writer.GoNida tells us of the immense information about the nature that Budha has learnt and which he puts to good use for survival.But Budha is connected to the other world as well ,for he sees a plane which traverses the zenith every day at the same time of the day and gets emotionally attached to it. Having worked in Mumbai he is aware of technology AND HE DOES RELATE TO IT. But as distantly as the plane flying thousands of feet above.Budha watches the two Maratha forts in the vicinity Manornajn and shrivardhan with pride but there is no mention of his knowledge of its history.Budha plants creepers near his hut and develops special relation with trees around him. He is in a unique envious position as he can spent hours watching neighbors who take their cattle to graze daily and who locate the bees hives to get their share of virgin honey.Budha never allows his protégé animals to go hungry the dog who has become his man Friday and the goats and the squirrels and their kids.Budha provides for them compulsively oblivious of their status .Budha is a liberated soul who connects with everything good and natural.

Budha enjoys special relationship with clouds in their splendid form and when they brings monsoon which beats down relentlessly with downpour to turn everything green and glorious.Budha then comes into his elements and adjusts reflex to the fury with native sportsmanship. He knows too well  natures benevolence which to an outsider is mercislessness.Budha is ecologically informed he is intelligent and wishes to surrender to the glory of the gods of nature. He has patience and waits for that with perseverance. Days pass after nights seasons come and go.Budha has no idea of the calendar days he only understands the signals of nature and is content with it. But Budha is a man of intense faith and he has learnt some basic hymns of the great saints of Maharashtra the likes of Tukaram and recites them daily in the morning a rich heritage which he has memorized during his days in Mumbai from some of the groups who are essentially religious and Budha is aware of this ritual with immense belief.Budha combines best of a native in his elements.Budha lives in rhythm with his surroundings he does not have neighbors  except for the Bomblya family whose wife has a squint and with eight children but they are far away and come to help when in need for a smoke or milk for tea.

Budha is strong and during summer he wards off the forest fire that is about to devour him and his humble hut.Budha gets the energy of a giant and beats the fire to defeat. Budha occasionally remembers his son and daughter in law but brushes the idea of returning to Mumbai.He is here to meet his mentor and there is no compromise.

But Budha is distinctly waylaid eventually by fate and gradually comes to his finality of life. It is a mirage that sets the trap for Budha .One fine day as he is perched on the top of the mountain, he witnesses a troupe of soldiers who pitch their camps 1000 feet below into the valley.Budha welcomes them with the Hindu magnamity.He secretly plays host to them .They are there for around 10 days performing their military exercise, may be the national cadet core (NCC).Budha wants to witness it all. He literally talks to them for a distance of 1000 feet as if they cared. But he is happy for them and their effort s. Then suddenly they disappear packing their belongings and retreating in their jeeps.Budha is sad as they leave without bidding farewell. On the same day the Plane refuses to ply in the air.Budha is angry he returns and due to some reason blames on to his companion dog.Budha now drives him away for he is unhappy with himself.The dog that day refuses to eat and goes out to sleep. Then at night Budha is awakened with strange sounds and he finds the dog devoured by the tiger.Budha is sad and blames himself for the mishap. He buries the remnants of the dog and goes food less in depression.

Budha  is sad and lonely without the dog.Then one day he discovers an old and injured Buffalo abandoned by the owner come for his protection.Budha fights tooth and nail with the injury on the buffalo. She responds but only partially.Budha in an attempt to rescue the being of the malady falls and gets hurt when the buffalo steps on his feet injuring him greviously.But Budha has forgiveness in his soul. He continues to nurse the old Bufallo.That night Budha develops high fever and doesn’t get a wink of sleep.

Budha is now fighting for his life and the life of the Bufallo.But that night Budha gets delirious and he is now coming clear and affront. As the night proceeds Budha drifts from tree to tree ,he touches all the creatures  the goats and squirrels and the sky and the valleys ,the mortal remains of the buried dog .He feels a strange  inner voice that beckons him to all his experiences one by one on the mountain slope and gently but surely Budha  passes  into oblivion.

Next day dawns Budha is sleeping peacefully .But there are ants all over his body .But he cares not. For Budha is back into his elements and with his ancestors. He has won .Budha has acquired the ultimate the oneness with the God Of the Woods who descends onto him and delivers him to eternal peace.

Budha the intelligent,  is now  inseparable  with the soil for which he has waited patiently .

Performing Folk Artist of Maharashtra

Performing Folk Artist  of Maharashtra

Growing up in the Girangaon(Mill worker Area) of central Mumbai was a venerable experience .Life was simple but ethically  and ethnically rich.One land mark habitat nearby  was Mahadevachi wadi at the foot of Golanji Hill where old rooftop houses were located in an area roughly of 2 acres of land which had been leased out by Wakf Board just behind Haffkine Institute .We reviled this colony as against our own built of concrete as this was  occupied  by simpletons from Konkan who worked as mill hands in cotton fabric  factories in Central Mumbai. We would venture into this colony during catching cook games and wonder how these people stayed in these houses and considered these places as wretched homes but at times  secretly envied them due to their rural background which we missed.

Mahadevachi wadi threw up exotic experiences to us city dwellers  some  of them were  red  tiled roofs,verandahs,humble wodden structures with wodden plancks for seatings mimicking rural architecture ,people in khaki half pants with bare chests ,women wearing 9 yards sari worn as kashtas ,mini poultries which they maintained to get their rations of eggs and chiken.Another common feature was the small auspicious Tulsi shrub  potted in tin containers or planted in front of their houses. But one distinct feature were evening Bhajans with chorus , cymbals and dholaks. They sang sitting around the Dholak in small chimney lamps with   tunes and rhythm which were subtle and high pitch. They sang mostly on Thursdays or during festivities or poojas as well. There were no televisions and evening  used to be more scary due to the darkness of which we were afraid as children .And as we clung to our mothers the sweet melodies of the Bhajans came haunting from the settlements adding some  mystery to our city lives.

During festivities in Mahadevachi Wadi there were loudspeakers blurting Marathi songs which were Povadas of the Maratha Military victories sung by balladeers or Fisher folk songs called Koli Geets or   Bhajans of the diety Vitthal..One such song that struck me was a Fisher men song ‘Dada Awar Ye’ a melodious  and piercing song   sung  in high tempo which caught my fancy and made me happy in my soul .I always wondered who this  very talented Sahir was ? I would sing this tune under breath when in great mood or when sad as It was heart rending .This man had  golden  voice that represented the best in  Marathi Folk music although he was not an acknowledged one like more elite sahirs . He sang with verve and appeal. Later his  Martial ballads would stir us our  valorous sentiments called Veer Ras in Hindu classics. His Bhajans took us into raptures of faith and belief in the gods and their incarnation and his rural repertoire send us into the agrarian or marine raptures experiencing the rich traditions of artisans of hinterlands. He was a perfect product of toilers in city and  moffusil  and  displayed rich heritage with his husky yet  voluminous voice. Very Lately I discovered ,he was Vitthal Umap was born on 19 July 1931 Umap  started singing at the age of 8 .His first  public performance was in 1960 when he was 29 years old .He performed in a popular ballet of Vasant Bapat in which he sang a very popular Abhang ‘Variyane Kundal hale,Dole mohit Radha Chale’.I would  hear  this number time and again  on Radio. Vasant Bapat was our  professor in Marathi in Ruia College and in 1969 and 1970 would conduct early morning drill at Ruia Campus that  electrified  the youth with his patriotic songs .One such song which still occupies pace of pride in my mind was ‘Tuzya kama madhun,tuzya ghama madhun  udya pikal soniya che Raan, Chal uchal hatiyar gadya houn hushar ,tula navya jagachi aan’

I might have missed his entire concert of Vitthal Umap during those days in our own colony festivities of Ganapati as I  had embarked on studies in university and had become a keen hostelite while  I missed the rich culture curry  of rural Maharashtra  on a platter  .There were many sahirs like the Pundalik Farande, Shahir Sable and Dada Kondke or some historical story tellers of yester years like Baba Sahb Purandare But Vitthal Umap was distinctive concoction.His talents were diverse and striking and would catch the fancy of non Marathi audiences as well like Dada Kondke who had become very popular among non marathis speaking populace due to his comedies on the screen.

On one of my treks to ‘Vyagreshwar-The diety of the Tiger’ I encountered the same tune and was moved to tears.This time it was extolling the great lord shanker ,the mahadeva or God of Gods.The lyrics,I bet were from some local Shiva Fan.It went: ‘He Bholya Shankara…..Awad tula Bela chi re, Awad tula Bela chi re……bela chya Panachi……..” sung high pitch at 12 midnight A mystic experience in a far away lonely  ancient place of worship.I had experienced nemesis there and then and kept awake with the admirers to claim benefaction. Again two years back ,I had the opportunity to witness a full 3 hours folk  musical by Vitthal Umap  and his troupe. The dance and music drama was called ‘Jambhul  Akhyan’ or the Story of  Era that the Pandavs of Mahabharata spend in forest, Umap playing different  parts  of the Protagonist and of Draupadi whence he would dance with  46 yards sari to portray the episode in which Duryodhan orders to disrobe Draupadi as  Pandavas loose everything  the game of Dice including their wife Draupadi..His renditions and his dances were a treat for the eyes and we were fortunate and indebted to Rangai who hosted the show.Vitthal Umap  was a recipient of  International Folk art shows  award .In 2010 during one of the program  in Nagpur to launch a dedicated channel  to Shri Babashaeb Ambedkar Umap collapsed on stage and met his creator head-on  in a  tradition of Maratha Warriors. Umap will be remembered as a classical folk artist who symbolized all that was good and original in Folk music of Maharashtra.