Two posts in a week! Truth be told, I should have posted about this year’s Ganpati festival before my jewelpron, because the festival already came and went a couple of weeks ago. What can I say, the post on earrings took precedence, and as a lover of good things, may the portly deity forgive me!
This is the first year I am in Pune for the Ganpati festival in a decade. Neighbourhood groups or mandals host the god, who visits annually for ten days during the Hindu month of Bhadrapad, in elaborate themed decorations, around which revolve a lot of cultural activities. At the end of his visit he is immersed in water, after he has promised to visit again next year. A big part of enjoying the festival is to wander around the city at night, seeing all these themes brightly lit up. The festival itself began in the 1890s as a means of bringing anti-colonial politics into the public sphere, and these themes have always been explicitly political – about history, contemporary politics, social reform, etc.
In this past decade, a lot of my research has involved examining how this region’s (Maharashtra’s) past is invoked in the public sphere – festivals like this one included. This particular installation commemorates the escape of Shivaji, Maharashtra’s most famous king and founder of its independent state in the 17th century, from the clutches of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb at Agra. Shivaji too got a festival for himself in the 1890s, but it’s really during the Ganpati decorations that a lot of the history of his times and its meanings are commemorated. A good deal of this historical imagery has very sharp Hindu nationalist overtones.
The festival, with its social history, has been in my consciousness mainly as an object of analysis, a thing. We also don’t properly celebrate it at home any more because of a death in our immediate family during the festival some years ago. Plus, all everyone does nowadays is complain – with justification – about how the loudspeakers and traffic and piped devotional music during these ten days are straight from hell. Remover of Obstacles Ganpati might be, but his annual sojourn spells chaos in the city. So I wasn’t that enthusiastic about it.
But after a long time, my mum wanted to go check out some of the historic Ganpatis in the area where she grew up, so I went with her. These historic ones are called “Maanache Ganpati” – especially respected idols that have pride of place in the city’s public immersion procession. (The term “maanache ganpati” is also colloquially used to refer to high-maintenance people, usually fussy sons-in-law!). Here is Kasba Ganpati, with pride of place # 1, in one of the 18th c. neighbourhoods:
Next is Tambdi Jogeshwari, # 2. This year, they featured women priests for all their rituals. Women priests are quite the thing now in Pune – a soft reformist move that has become very popular. Lots of institutes train women to take up historically male ritual tasks and become professional priests – some, I gather, are also open to women from all castes.
Women’s participation in this public festival is actually something worthy of more scholarly attention. On the one hand, as a classic public arena, it is heavily male, with female participation disciplined along national/familial lines. Personal safety, especially in the insane crowds at night, is always an issue, so “mandal hopping” or dancing crazily in the streets to the heady and insistent drumming during immersion, however tempting, is not always an option for women.
But of late, women’s participation seems to have swelled – not only through these priests, but through enormous public ritual chants before popular Ganpati idols that attract them in the thousands. It is tempting to immediately bracket this upsurge as part of the religious right’s reformist mobilisation of women for a very reactionary politics. But there seems to be, at least through an anecdotal glance, a wide variety of class and caste or even political backgrounds among the women who participate in this public devotion – certainly worth investigating the nuances of this “politics of piety.”
This one, above, is the Guruji Talim Mandal’s Ganpati, # 3. This one, also of 1890s vintage, was explicitly conceived as, and continues to be, a space where Hindu and Muslim folk from the city could participate in the public celebrations together, as a counter to some of the other more exclusivist and majoritarian ones. We wandered around some others that were open during the day. Directly below is the Dagdushet Ganpati, possibly the most popular one in the city, followed by the Mandai Ganpati (in the main vegetable market of the city), and a few random others that had nice installations.
My personal favourite is the Tulshibag Ganpati (the very first photo in this post), which sits amidst the oldest and best trinkets, crafts, cosmetics, undies, crockery and what-have-you market of the city. A place I adore. They had a beautiful installation about the temptation of the austere and angry sage Vishwamitra by the heavenly siren Menaka.
Much remains depressingly the same, especially the simplistic nationalism, now of course combined with a new flexing of consumerist and globalised aspirations. The scale of things has changed. Some big urban manDals are corporatised, their turnover running into millions. TV channels hook up with popular manDaLs to transmit their rituals, mobile phone companies issue fresh Ganpati devotional ringtones and a whole host of bad singers do brisk business selling off-key devotional CDs. I can’t tell if the overt religiosity on display is recent, or whether I just wasn’t that observant back then and more focused on the food and floats.
And yet, the public platform is not as politically homogeneous; the festival’s decentralized, neighbourhood format continues to allow irruptions of these large, bombastic, chauvinistic celebrations. Environmental themes seemed to be popular this year – there was a big drive to make soluble clay idols rather than harmful plaster-of-paris ones, the nirmalya (ritual detritus) was aggressively collected for disposal in large pots on bridges rather than people throwing them randomly into the river. Lots of installations about female foeticide, farmers’ suicides in eastern Maharashtra due to severe debt and agricultural decline, environmental awareness… it was most interesting to follow it in the papers and on TV. The ones we saw were mostly on mythical tales and religious themes, and it’s a pity I didn’t get to photograph these more interesting ones, some of which were in fairly far-flung places. But still, it was fun walking the crowded lanes – and down memory lane – with my mother, who hitched up her sari and biked all over the old town as a teenager many decades ago.
Ah well. When Ganpati comes back next year. Or when I do!
It is hard to feed your online addiction when you have a lot of power cuts. Even harder when your beloved laptop goes belly-up on you, after a sudden, but probably severe illness. It is hardest when you can hear your old and wizened PC snigger as you type.
So, things will be quiet chez Desiknitter for a bit, while we wait to see if the folks at Apple, with their much vaunted global warranty, work a miracle on my Macbook and bring it back to life.
A post high on colour and short on text. Captions and snapshots from the sprawling yarn extravaganza at Santa Clara Convention center yesterday.
In front of the giant Ravelry poster:
Before and after the Slaughter, or Spotless Fibre Loses Battle with Dye:
ManDuka peers through the lattice work of an Orenburg shawl at the Skaska Designs booth:
People go crazy at the massive sale pit in which crawled bags and bags of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino, Elsebeth Lavold Angora and lots of lots of Drops yarn:
My precious, bank-breaking, luscious, awe-inspiring, Brooks Farm acquisition, Mas Acero worsted wool-silk:
A monster storm cometh our way in the Bay Area in a few hours, and in the time it took me to upload the photos and write this post, rain clouds have already smothered the sun. But nothing can smother the high I am feeling after inhaling all those yarn fumes yesterday and just swimming in a sea of stunning handknits on display! I do believe I saw the largest number of triangular shawls in one day. I also squealed in delight on spotting Nancy Bush and shamelessly asked for her autograph. She looked a little startled but took it in her stride, the good woman.
Now I do have some of my own handknitting to show you, but you have to excuse me. I have to pack and cross my fingers for good weather at the airport, because I hope to be listening to some Fado very soon:
Hope everyone has been having a good holiday season! These past two weeks have been crazy busy, way busier than my normal semester is. Between a busload of guests, two birthdays, a wedding anniversary and a major holiday, I am grateful for all the red wine and sugar to have come my way. I have hardly had any time to sit and knit, but you know how it is – a row here, a row there, and suddenly, you have a finished creation, just in time to wrap up a year’s knitting. Here’s the “Back-to-School Vest”:
I am not into the whole speed knitting thing, but this one was super-quick even for me. Took the total of five-six days’ knitting time. Apart from some clever but simple shaping, it is mindless, productive knitting. To say nothing of the fact that it took less than $25 to make.
Project Specs:
Pattern: “Back-to-School Vest” from Stefanie Japel’s “Fitted Knits”, size 39 inches Needles: Size 7 bamboo Gauge: 19 st to 4 inches in waffle stitch Yarn: Cascade 220
Seriously, Cascade 220 is wonderful. This shade is a silvery-grey heather flecked with maroon, and matched exactly the kind of colour I was looking for to wear with the dark shirts I have. It took just under 3 skeins.
Notes: For all the loveliness of the yarn and pattern, I am, quite honestly, not as taken with the FO as I should be. It fits okay, but tends to ride up a bit. The next size up (41″) would have made it too baggy, though. I’m hoping that a decent blocking, or just plain wear should settle it down a bit. But for all its shapeliness and darts, this empire waist thing places a bit too much emphasis where it perhaps ought not to, and I don’t know if I care for the roundish neckline. Also, I made it mainly to wear to teach and be comfortable in the slightly cold classrooms. But when I wore it yesterday, I found myself doing what devoted Star Trekkers would recognize as the famous “Picard Pull” or the “Picard Manoeuvre”: straightening one’s uniform every few seconds like the hot and gorgeous Capt. Jean-luc Picard does on the Starship Enterprise. It’s okay when resisting the Borg, but I imagine in class it will annoy me to hell. Am not sure yet if I’ll rip or wear it a bit more and see. But it is very comfy and warm. Incidentally, if you make the vest, do be sure to check the errata for the pattern.
Ah well. I will leave you some mist, redwoods, and sunlight. Enjoy the rest of the holidays, dear readers, and see y’all in the new year!
Two years ago on this day, I took the plunge into blogging. I gave myself three months, then six, and then a year to see if I was really going to stick with it. I had picked the name randomly for a knitting forum login and just went with it. My first anniversary didn’t even register. In between periodic bouts of angst about ‘Why Am I Photographing This’ and ‘Who Is Reading This Anyway’, doing a roughly weekly post over the past two years has validated my tag-line about keeping me (almost) sane more than I realised. I have learned so much about new techniques, adapting patterns, and am much more disciplined (in a good way) about my knitting now. (This is clearly not the time to ponder how obsessed I am with it). The best part has been making blog-friends from all over the world and being part of a wonderful circle of creativity that has taught me so much about the craft. Thank you all! I know there are many who read regularly without commenting, but if you can, do stop today to say hi.
I had hoped to have an FO post by today on the Ogee Tunic, but it has to wait a few more days – definitely by this weekend. Instead, am sharing with all of you a plate of my Diwali faraal.
Clockwise from top –
1) chiwdaa, which is spiced, flattened rice, available in Indian stores as ‘thin poha’. Basically you roast it and make it crumbly and crisp, then mix it up with a bunch of spices. An excellent recipe for this snack is here.
2) karanji, a deep-fried crescent filled with a mix of fresh grated coconut, brown sugar, powdered cardamom and crushed almonds. The dough is a mix of all-purpose flour and semolina. I made myself sick in childhood once by eating too many of these. This was my first attempt at making them from scratch, and they didn’t disappoint! If anyone wants to try them, the recipe I followed broadly is here.
3) chirote, a kind of south-Indian beignet, if you will – layers and layers of a deep-friend pastry dusted with powdered sugar. As my friend Spud said recently, this combination is a *very good thing* and she is quite right! Here is a good recipe for it.
And now, I think I must celebrate my second blog anniversary by going to the gym!
It’s Diwali: the annual festival of lights, spread over these four days from now until Sunday. Diwali wishes to all! May the new year bring good cheer and happiness, renewal and fulfillment all around.
This is the one festival that my family celebrates with abandon, and the one festival I can never be home for, given the dratted semester system. To be sure, there are religious ceremonies, and a mythical tale of good triumphing over evil that ensures renewal and prosperity – but what is Diwali without new clothes, fireworks, and food? The centrepiece is a snacks package called faraal in Marathi – about twenty different types of eats are made specially in each family, depending on their resources, taste and enthusiasm. Everyone exchanges faraal over the Diwali weeks and you give yourself over entirely to fried dough, powdered sugar and clarified butter. It is a good time. I am attempting an ambitious faraal myself this time, but more about that in the next post – cross your fingers that I manage to get it all together.
My festivities began spectacularly today. I had a very intense, exhilarating graduate seminar class, and came back home to open a package from Finland, containing this:
Silja sent me the most gorgeous sock ever in the whole wide world, encased in a wonderful little bag, along with a spare skein of Regia silk for me to knit the second one in the pair.
I love the colour, the fit, the pattern – thank you, thank you, thank you single sock partner! You chose everything just right, and this is just the perfect, timely festival gift. I cannot wait to knit its pair. I have been wearing the lone sock all over the flat already. That Cookie A. is a genius designer, just look at the twisted flower stitches:
Finally, this evening concluded on a pleasant note with this finished object:
Although not mine, I am proudly featuring it on the blog, as the first FO of my friend who learnt how to knit not two weeks ago! Isn’t it gorgeous? Just look at the elegant shape. She switched to DPNs in our neighbourhood Chinese restaurant this evening over dinner, and we walked home to cast off and photograph the hat amidst much squealing and glee. I am amazed at how smoothly she transitioned from circulars to DPNs, and from ribbing to stockinette to decreases. Definitely a natural at the craft! I think I have some idea of what evangelists feel like, finally. She left the house muttering, “cabling without a cabling needle…” even without my broad hints about knittinghelp.com, Ravelry, Zimmermann, etc….. I think we might have a convert!
It’s not for nothing that all the photos in this post have a warm glow, eh?
Sometime this past summer, a friend of mine emailed me to say that a picture of my Rangoli hat had seized her with the desire to knit one for herself, and asked me how difficult I thought this was. Said friend is, in a word, intrepid – she regularly reports on seventeen-mile hikes as if these were like a walk to the nearby grocery, and her attitude is generally to beam at any challenge in welcome. So I didn’t even bring up the “don’t you want to start with a garter stitch scarf?” line. Garter stitch scarves, I am convinced, are a horrid way to introduce most people to the craft – yes, the stitches are simple, but boy is the boredom of it off-putting! This wretched fabric is what I’m poking every stitch in the ass with this needle for? you say.
Yet, my own mind boggled at the prospect of teaching someone to knit cables on their first try (well, second – her first was an unhappy childhood encounter with booties and a bad teacher that ended after a mere six rows of stockinette). So we settled on a stockinette watch cap from one of my favourite books, Hats On! by Charlene Schurch. Today we went to Stash, and bought her a lovely Araucania Naturespun skein in shades of crimson.
Apart from Schurch’s book, we were fortified by some chai and Zimmermann’s Bible for moral courage. Not that she needed any. Before I knew it, she was off, knitting, purling, casting on and ribbing. First a small swatch, then 120 stitches cast on, and wheeeeeeee. It was great fun to actually see her figuring it out and answering her questions – so, what happens to the tail? How do I know this is a knit stitch? What do you mean, ‘knit them as they appear?’ Gauge?? Do I really need a marker? Aaah, so you can tell when you’re coming up to a decrease? And so on. I swear, I could actually tell when her hands relaxed on the needles, and the stitches began to get loose – very very quickly for someone who swore she was going to be a disaster at this. It was a delightful Saturday afternoon. Made me wish I could remember when I learnt the actual process. All I can still recall is clutching the red and white acrylic in one hand and my mother’s hand with the other, climbing the stairs to Sushila teacher’s house to learn how to crochet, as a seven year old.
I also started playing around with something else, hoping to make it into another Rangoli pattern, this time with colourwork. Just a peek, since I’m not yet sure what (if at all) it will morph into.
Okay, this is the new place. I’m still unpacked and have to figure out the fixtures and the neighbourhood, but so far so good! Please do let me know what you think of the decor; any tips with home improvement are most welcome. I’ve tried to keep it like the earlier one, but clearly there’s still work to be done. Since this move has exhausted all my tech skills and more, I’m going back to some basic knitting now.
But I thought that after the awful dancing in the last post, I’d leave you with one song that has been playing in my head all day – it’s a classic from the ’50s movie “Howrah Bridge” (sung by Geeta Dutt), and the dancer is the gorgeous Helen. Nobody can wiggle it like she could, no matter how much the hip actresses of today try to. O.P. Nayyar, the composer of this film’s songs, would later bring in a lot of Punjabi folk tunes and rhythms into his music to brilliant effect, but this song is also a great example of how he incorporated swing into some of his early tunes too. This song was part of my regular Geeta Dutt repertoire in the college band days. Those were good times, we always had a blast performing it!
(The words go – “My name is Chin Chin Choo, The night, the stars, me and you, hello mister, how do you do?”)
Thanks for the comments on the socks, everyone! I’m glad I’m not the only one who wasn’t bowled over by Opal. I actually find the bamboo 0s easier to knit with than the metals, which really hurt my hands. But they do get all bent out of shape. Better them than me, of course.
I really should be working on my shaped triangle shawl, but it’s unbearable to hold the black yarn in my hands right now. Somehow makes it hotter. MIL’s just going to have to wait till winter.
California is beautiful. The cool, misty mornings are great, and it’s lovely seeing so many flowers everywhere. But if one more person tells me how lucky I am to have such gorgeous weather, I’m going to fervently pray for some snow. Mallige, I’m going to try to post photos: if not of des or knitting, at least of food.
Here they are, done! Lying on some kind of bush in the shade in Reno, NV. After seeing the shades of pink in the painted desert, the hues in these look a little tame to me, but there’s no denying it, Koigu makes some incredible colours.
I am quite kicked with this pattern. I picked out the cloverleaf stitch out of Barbara Walker, and it’s a simple repeat over 6 rows and 3 stitches. So with 60 stitches, it’s easy to adapt it to the overall sock pattern. I did the usual cloverleaf pattern for the left sock, which slanted leftwards and then came up with a reverse cloverleaf of sorts ("unvented" to quote Elizabeth Zimmerman!) to have it slant rightwards. Am very pleased with it only! Hey, we’ll do all we can to avoid SSS, right? This afforded the right variation for the second sock to feel different. The pattern makes instinctive visual sense in terms of placement of the pattern (once the initial six rows are done you basically shift the cloverleaves three stitches over, that’s it), but am trying to write it up. It doesn’t lend itself to easy and clear narration. Let’s see, maybe a chart.
One odd thing was that all other things being equal, I knit the first sock on size 0 metals and the second on size 0 bamboos: the second sock is marginally larger. Not large enough for me to frog it, but noticeable.
Oh, so I finally didn’t go to Vegas. After seeing Phoenix, AZ I was all the more convinced that I didn’t want to see bright lights in the middle of the desert. Phoenix reminded me of Delhi in more ways than one, none of them complimentary, of which the heat was the most prominent. Walking in the afternoon in Phoenix gave me some idea of what to expect next month in ze good ol’ capital city, even though I’m *dying* to go back to Delhi after six years and visit some of my old haunts and friends. The drive to Reno from Phoenix was alternately hellish and heavenly: the desert was deeply depressing (and gas $4 a gallon: had to be, when I’m driving a car for the first time in two years, right?) but the Sierra Nevada mountains, esp. near Lake Mono, Tahoe and the Walker river were out of this world. Haven’t seen much of Reno yet but am mostly going to catch up on some sleep here.
