Skandapuran and an Indonesian Lesson in Tolerance

At the entrance of the famous Prambanan temple complex just outside Yogyakarta, we were in our regular dilemma – whether to take a guide or not? But eventually we decided to go for one and for the next one and half hour or so, our guide was Yono, a middle-aged local guy. As he began with a story of Vishnupuran, we were a bit surprised.

Yono explained that this largest Hindu temple complex in the island of Java (and second largest in South East Asia, after Angkor Wat) was established at the confluence of two rivers, right at the base of Mount Merapi, an active volcano and at a place, which was the most fertile land in the vicinity – that’s how the best of three elements - water, fire and earth were combined here. The main temples, dedicated to the Trimurti or Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva were built sometime in the second half of the 9^th century under the patronages of Hindu Sanjaya kings, who succeeded the Buddhist Sailendra kings in this part of Java (the Sailendras built the nearby Borobudur, the largest Buddhist temple in the world).

Borobudur

Though the Mataram Court shifted out of this area after a century or so, the complex continued to benefit from multiple patronage and at least 240 temples came up here. The entire complex suffered repeatedly due to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions (major ones in the 11^th and 16^th century) before being abandoned. The complex is still being painstakingly rebuilt since the first such efforts by the colonial Dutch government in the early 20^th century.

Yono effortlessly went on explaining typical Indian architectural features, linking those with various Puranic stories and the Hindu concepts of time (as explained in Skandapuran), mandala, and re-incarnations. He drew simple diagrams on soft soil with a small stick to explain architectural alignments or cosmological features. We were two Indians and one Indonesian in our group – often he looked at two of us and said you must be knowing this better than me and we exchanged embarrassing glances with each other. He would turn then towards our Indonesian friend and would explain the story/linkages with local legends or precise Javanese expressions for the same.  As I tried to hide my embarrassment, I could not help thinking that in Java, Indic religions have gone out of practice now for more than five-six centuries, yet they have retained so much.

In the evening, this Prambanan temple complex provides the backdrop for a scintillating open air Ramayana ballet. Both the Indian epics occupy an important part in Indonesian society and culture and today’s Muslim-majority Indonesia takes great pride in celebrating such cultural heritage. Prambanan itself has reliefs of Ram-Sita and the mythical bird, Garuda, which is Indonesia’s national symbol. Garuda also lends its name to the Indonesian flag carrier. All the performers in Ramayana ballet are Muslims, just like our guide, Yono.

Pic Courtesy: https://www.javaheritagetour.com/category/ramayana-ballet-prambanan/

Islam spread in Indonesia through traders and Sufi saints and as such it has always been a much more tolerant version. And of course, the unique Indonesian character has also contributed to this. In the past also, they believed in syncretism and even now, they believe in accepting and preserving the best of traditions and different cultures.

In the heart of Jakarta, in front of the National Museum, there is a magnificent statue of Arjun with his chariot of eleven horses and Sri Krishna as his charioteer (Arjuna Wijaya). ‘Siti’ (noble, virtuous lady) and ‘Dewi’ (goddess) are two of the most popular female names in Indonesia even today (Wisnu, Surya, Indra, Putra also continue to be popular names). Indonesia, home to the largest Muslim population in the world, is also an extraordinarily tolerant multi-culture, multi-ethnic society.

Pic courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

Indonesia’s national language, Bahasa (comes from Sanskrit, Bhasha), contains a number of Sanskrit words as they have preserved so many Puranic tales. Indonesia’s state ideology is Pancasila (Five Principles) and the state motto is Bhinneka Tinggal eka (Unity in Diversity). A large number of national institutions have Sanskrit mottos, including its Army (Kartika Eka Paksi - Unmatchable Bird with Noble Goals), Navy (Jalasveva Jayamahai - On the Sea, We are Glorious), combined forces (Tri Dharma Eka Karma - Three services, one determination), and National Police Force (Rastra Sewakottama - Serving the Nation). Though it was withdrawn in 2008, but Between 1998 and 2008, Indonesian 20,000 Rupiah banknotes had the picture of Ganesha.

Pic Courtesy Garuda Indonesia

As we finished going around the core temple complex, we profusely thanked Yono for such an enlightening tour. With folded hands and a benign smile, Yono said he would like to make a request – he has heard that in India not too many people read Skandapurana and such epic literature anymore, can’t we do something to revive interests in ancient Indian texts? We two Indians did not know where to hide our face and said a quick goodbye to Yono and left for a long road trip back to Jakarta. 

How Indian Merchants and Sufi Saints Took Islam to Indonesia

Whirling Dervishes, pic: Wikipedia Commons

                                        

While talking about India-Indonesia civilisational ties spreading over two millennia, Hindu and Buddhist influences are commonly mentioned but Indian merchants and Sufi saints were, to a large extent, responsible for introducing Islam in Indonesia. Today Indonesia is the largest Muslim nation in the world, but Islam took six hundred years to grow roots in Southeast Asia. Though Muslim traders were a familiar sight for long, the first Muslim state came up at Samudra Pasai at the eastern- most corner of Indonesia,–at Banda Aceh, around 1300 CE. It was here at the eastern most corner of Indonesia that the foreign merchants were most closely involved in commercial operations as well as administration. Ibn Battuta, the inveterate Maghrebi traveller (1304-1369) reached Aceh in 1345 and noted that Samudra Pasai was the eastern most Islamic state in the world then.

In fact, the rise of Islam created an unprecedented trading network in the Indian Ocean. Islam united the Middle East with Persia on the one hand and Egypt and North Africa on the other. There was a sort of Islamic colonisation of the East African coast, leading to the rise of prosperous port cities and kingdoms at Malindi, Mogadishu, Kilwa, and Zanzibar. As more and more people thronged Mecca for annual Haj, Jeddah, prospered as the entry point and the market of Haj started dominating the annual trading calendar of West Asia. At the other end of the Ocean, the first mosque in China–Memorial Mosque or Huaisheng Mosque was constructed in Canton/Guangzhou in 627 CE by Sa`d ibn Abi Waqqas, an uncle of Prophet. Modern historians doubt whether Waqqas had ever been to China but there is hardly any doubt about Muslim presence in China from the mid-seventh century. Probably Persian maritime traders had reached China directly long before, though the first account of the Siraf-Canton maritime route comes from the ninth-century Akhbar al Sin wa’l Hind (a description of India and China) of Suleiman.

Merchants from Red Sea ports or Persian Gulf coasts first stopped at Muscat or Suhar at Oman or Aden, and then either came to Cambay in Gujarat or went straight to Koulam Male in Malabar (Kerala). From there, mostly Indian Muslim (Gujarati Muslims, Mapillas from Kerala, Chuliyas from Tamil Nadu coast) merchants sailed up to South East Asian ports. Islam gave a tremendous boost to urbanisation all over Asia. In the Western flank, a long period of stability and domestic economic expansion, helped to create a large market. Similarly, in China, continuous movement of people from North to South, closer to coast, created another large market for consumption goods. A combination of this resulted in surging Asian commerce from the tenth century onward. Spice trade remained the chief attraction for foreign merchants but with large and stable empires, robust trade infrastructure, close contact with both South Asia and China and maritime Southeast Asia’s first standardised coinage, islands of Java and Bali were by now ready for the age of commerce. Indian merchants, especially from the coastal regions of Gujarat and South India were keen to participate in it.

Long before the rise of international commercial law, the bond of a common religion helped these merchant networks to conduct business across this vast geography, deal with the ever-present danger of natural disasters or man-made violence or extortion of local authorities (it also spawned a huge vocabulary of common maritime terms which were in circulation from Middle East to South East Asia for centuries like Nakhuda or the owner of the ship, Mu’alim or the pilot, Sahrang/Sareng or mate, Tandill or the officer in-charge of the seamen or Khallasi/Khalasi, Laskar or the crew - from Aden and Hormuz to Malacca–these terms became as familiar as the annual arrival and departure of foreign merchants). There were varieties of boats with exotic cargo but out in the water, they all were part of the same culture.

Tombstone of Sultan al Malik al Saleh, written in Arabic script and dated 1297 CE, Samudra Pasai – very similar to contemporary tombstones in Gujarat, particularly in Cambay, the principal port city

It was around the same time when the Islamic state of Samudra Pasai came about in early 14^th century that the first series of Islamic tombs (barring an isolated case in the eleventh century) appeared in Java. These tomb stones closely resemble the style of similar tombs in contemporary Gujarat and in some cases, the tomb stones might have come from the Gujarati port of Cambay. Similarly in Java, Islam came through harbour kingdoms of Cirebon, Demok, Japara and Gresik, where foreign merchants frequented in large numbers. Traditional Javanese accounts attribute spread of Islam to the activities of a group of nine Saints, collectively known as Wali Sanga–though the exact list of the nine is not above dispute. The first of these saints (and his family dominates the list) was Malik Ibrahim, who came from Gujarat (though he was probably of Persian origin) and died at Gresik in 1419 CE.

The Great Mosque of Central Java, Semarang. Pic: Wikipedia Commons

Nuruddin ibn Ali ar-Raniri, a mystic from Rander, near Surat, lived for many years at the court of the Sultan of Aceh. His works are considered among the oldest Islamic scholarships in Southeast Asia. In a sweet celebration every March at Padang in Sumatra, small sachets of sugar are scattered from rooftops to celebrate the birthday of Sahul Hamid, an Indian preacher credited with introduction of Islam in Sumatra (festival of Serak Gulo). This is also a beautiful reminder of the Gujarati commercial association of this saint - Gujarat once exported sugar around the world (from the Sanskrit word khanda/khand, mainly used to denote pieces of jaggery, comes Persian qand, Arabic qandi, French candi and English candy).

Earlier it was believed that Islam was introduced mainly by Indian/Gujarati traders but now most historians believe that Islam came to Indonesia through multiple sources including Chinese, South Indian, and Gujarati. But there is no doubt that Islam reached Indonesia through maritime commercial sources and not riding on the back of a victorious army unlike Western or Central Asia. What the Indian Sufi mystics taught – a personal union with God – was not alien to what a Javanese Guru would earlier be teaching to his disciples. It was perhaps both Sufi and maritime influences that led to the blossoming of a moderate Islam in the archipelago and that too, without constituting a break with their rich, syncretistic social and cultural past, including Ramayana and other Hindu/Buddhist traditions.

Hariprabha Takeda: A Bengali Bride in Early 20th Century Japan

 

In 1907, Hariprabha Basu Mallick (1890-1972), a young Brahmo middle class woman from Dhaka, fell in love and married Oemon Takeda (1875-1949), a Japanese soap maker, who was hired as a manager by her father. Her progressive Brahmo family strongly believed in constructive social work. Apart from establishing this soap factory, they also ran a home for destitute women, Matri Niketan in Dhaka. In fact, Hariprabha, before and after her marriage, was closely associated with this home for women. It is not clear exactly how Oemon reached India or Calcutta but during the Swadeshi movement (1905-11), a number of new age soap factories came up in Dhaka, including the Bulbul Soap Factory, where Oemon was employed. After their marriage, Oemon set up his own Dhaka Soap Factory. 

Rabindranath Tagore in Japan, 1916

This unlikely marriage between a Japanese chemist and a young Bengali woman in Dhaka needs to be seen in the overall context of Bengal’s fascination with Japan at that point. Rise of Japan as an Asian power – as attested by Japan’s victory against Russia in 1904-05 – had captured the imagination of Bengal, then in the throes of the Swadeshi movement. Umpteen number of Bengali children born around the turn of the century had their nicknames after prominent Japanese war heroes and politicians. One of the major planks of Swadeshi in Bengal was economic self-reliance through both traditional means and modern technology. Japan appeared to be a role model in that respect too. Bengalis collected money to send talented youngsters to Japan to learn new technologies. Some of them came back to play pioneering roles in new industries like machine-made potteries or chrome tanning. They also welcomed Japanese technicians proficient in various trades like Oomen.

Okakura Kakuzo (1863-1913)

For Rabindranath, Bengal’s premier cultural icon, Japan remained a lifelong obsession. Interaction between him and the famous Japanese artist and art critic Okakura in Calcutta in the early twentieth century inaugurated the Indo-Japan relations in modern times. Rabindranath visited Japan four times and was hailed as a symbol of rising Asia (later on, his stringent criticism of rabid nationalism compelled Japanese intellectuals in turn to criticise him and begin their own introspection). Japanese culture left an indelible imprint on Rabindranath – he started writing short poems in Japanese fashion (haiku) and introduced in Shantiniketan, Japanese style ink and wash paintings, flower-designing (Ikebana), marshal art (Jujutsu) and carpentry with Japanese teachers. Apart from Rabindranath, Okakura Kakuzo (also known as Okakura Tenshin) developed close friendship with stalwarts of Bengali socio-cultural life, including Swami Vivekananda, Sister Nivedita and painters like Abanindranath and Gaganendranath. Okakura also developed a romantic liaison with Priyambada Debi (1871-1935), a leading Bengali poetess and she translated Okakura’s famous book The Book of Tea in Bengali. 

Rabindra-Okakura Bhavan in Kolkata, inaugurated by Prime Minister Abe in 2007, was a result of lifelong efforts of Tagore scholar Prof Kazuo Azuma (1931-2011), who spent long years in Shantiniketan

Five years after her marriage, Hariprabha sailed with her husband and some of his Japanese friends to meet her in-laws. This was the first known voyage of a South Asian woman to Japan in modern times. After a long journey, they finally reached Oemon’s family in a village near Nagoya. Despite the language barrier, Hariprabha was warmly welcomed by her mother-in-law and other relatives of Oemon. Hariprabha, in turn, observed the Japanese social life through her keen eyes. In those days, the Japanese, particularly outside the major cities, had seen very few foreigners. Their visit had naturally been a matter of popular interest and a Japanese newspaper, Kobe Yushin Nippo had published an interview of the couple. Three years after her maiden voyage to Japan, in 1915 she published what seems to be a rather straight forward account of what she saw in Japan.

First Edition of Hariprabha's book, proceeds were to be used for Matri Niketan

Published by her sister Shantiprabha, Banga Mahilar Japan Jatra (Journey of a Bengali Woman to Japan) was not the first or the only account of Japan travel in Bengali. At least two Bengalis had published their travelogues by 1910 – Japan Probas by Manmathanath Ghosh (1882-1944) and Japan by Sureshchandra Bandopadhyay (1882-?).  A number of eminent Bengalis had visited Japan either before her or around the same time – the list includes Swami Vivekananda, who was perhaps the earliest, followed by scientist Jagadish Chandra Bose, historian Jadunath Sarkar and social scientist Benoy Kumar Sarkar, who in 1923 published a large scholarly book on Japan titled Nabin Asia r Janmadata Japan (Japan, the Mother of New Asia). Rabindranath’s much-acclaimed account Japan Jatri (A Sojourn to Japan) would come out in 1919, three years after her first visit to the land of rising sun.

But what sets Hariprabha’s story apart is her unique perspective – none of the others could gain entry into Japanese social life as a family member. She wrote about the lives of ordinary Japanese women, their social and child-rearing practices (and her implicit criticism of Bengali social mores) – themes which were generally absent in our travelogues.

Hariprabha (in dark saree) with Netaji

Even as the Second World War raged on, Hariprabha went back to Japan a third time in 1941 under much strained circumstances (her second trip in 1924 was undocumented). Plagued by illness, her husband had to close down his soap-making unit and he was also afraid of being jailed by the British government. Her writing paints a dark picture of war-torn Japan – death in almost every family, food ration, broken roads, and a general atmosphere of crisis. Amidst all these, Hariprabha risked her life to find money and medicine for her ailing husband. When she writes about her experience of meeting Rashbehari Bose or Subhas Chandra in Japan, personal recollections merge seamlessly with the historical narrative. Rashbehari Bose offered her a job of Bengali newsreader for Azad Hind Radio and every night, she walked through dark, bomb-battered streets of Tokyo to go to the radio station.

Shortly after the end of the War, the couple shifted back to India (Judge Pal of the Tokyo trial fame was among the well-wishers, who had helped them with the passage money) and started living with one of her sisters in Jalpaiguri. Oemon, physically unwell and completely heartbroken by the fall of Japan, passed away soon after. Later in her life, Hariprabha shifted to Kalyani with one of her nephews and eventually passed away in 1972 in Calcutta’s Shambhunath Pandit hospital when hardly anyone remembered her story. Today, along with Rabindranath, Okakura, Rashbehari, Judge Pal and Subhas Bose, her story is also counted as one of the milestones of the Japan-India/Bengal relations.

A Bangladeshi scholar, Monzurul Huq located a copy of Hariprabha’s book in London’s India Office library and published it in 1999. Since then, there has been a lot of interests in Hariprabha’s extraordinary life and her writings. A recent translation by Somdatta Mandal features her handwritten experience of Second World War ravaged Japan and some other relevant pieces. In 2012, exactly 100 years after her epoch-making first visit to Japan, filmmaker Tanvir Mokammel made a documentary on her life titled ‘Japani Badhu’ (The Japanese Wife). In 2021, another documentary on her life titled Hariprabha Takeda: An Unsung Traveller of Bengal was produced by Eliza Binte Elahi.

Priyanka Yoshikawa Ghosh

In these hundred years, both her homeland and Japan have undergone tremendous changes. Amidst renewed interests in Hariprabha’s life, a fluent Bengali-speaking Priyanka Yoshikawa Ghosh became Miss Japan in 2016. Her father is a Bengali settled in Japan and her Japanese mother is a Bengali teacher by profession (Priyanka also happens to be the great-granddaughter of Bengal’s first Chief Minister Prafulla Ghosh). Excitement over her success briefly brought back the memories of Bengal’s fascination with Japan more than a century back. 

A Brief History of Women in Jeans

Timeless elegance of white on
blue: Cindy Crawford

Many years ago, as evening was about to descend on a   grey-coloured city, I saw a girl in blue jeans and a crisp white shirt from a bus window. It was a small road, more like a lane in Calcutta’s crowded Burrabazar area overflowing with people (almost all working class male) and buses stuck in a nightmarish traffic snarl, so typical of Calcutta in those days. All buildings, shops, everything around were covered in soot and dust. There were small puddles in the road after a sharp pre-monsoon shower and of course, no sidewalk. In the midst of all that she walked in her blue jeans. Even then I did not really notice her features but the timeless elegance and romance of a girl in blue jeans – in this case, heightened by the unlikely surroundings of grimy working class Calcutta is still fresh in my memory.

Jeans: A Riveting Story

The word ‘denim’ came from de Nimes (that is from the French city of Nimes), where such twill fabric was originally produced. French weavers were actually trying to reproduce a sort of cotton corduroy much in vogue among the workers and soldiers of the Italian city of Genoa (Gênes in French, thus ‘jeans’).

Almost all such denim cloth was daubed in indigo, a plant-based dye from India (I have blogged about indigo here). This shows the British connection to blue denim.

Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis

As the story goes, the modern jeans or denim trouser with metal rivets was invented in California when a tailor Jacob Davis started making such trousers for miners. Soon, Davis in partnership with his cloth supplier Levi Strauss obtained a trade mark for their unique trouser on May 20, 1873. This was however known as ‘overalls’ till the 1960s, when baby boomers started calling them ‘jeans’.

Romance in Blue

Patent of Strauss and Davis expired in 1890s and by then blue denim overalls had become the uniform of the American working class. In the First World War, Lee Union-Alls jeans were the standard issue for all US military workers.

Gary Cooper: Denim by then became the favourite dress of Hollywood cowboys

In the 1920s and 1930s, handsome Hollywood cowboys like Gary Cooper started wearing blue denim trousers. This was the beginning of the romance with jeans. During the Second World War (1939-1945), American soldiers introduced their off-duty blue overalls to the World. This was how the global conquest of denim began.  But before we talk about the women in jeans, we need to rewind a bit.

Freedom Machines

Between 1880 and 1895, a women cycling craze swept through the western world. Riding bicycles did not only give them the freedom of movement but also ushered in a great change in women’s fashion. Women wearing trousers was something absolutely dreadful for most of the 19^th century in Europe and the USA. In fact, in many US cities it was a punishable offence.

Thanks to this bicycle craze, soon the Victorian fashion of long gowns/skirts were replaced by different types of leggings. For a while, conservative observers struggled to decide what was worse – women smoking or showing their ankles in public. Eventually this change paved the way for women wearing trousers in western societies.

Ginger Rogers in jeans

By the 1930s, some of the top Hollywood icons including Gingers Rogers wore denim pants, turning it into a fashion statement for women too.

Rebellious Jeans

James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause

Marlon Brando wore jeans on and off screen

Post-War, in the 1950s, denim trousers became the preferred leisure wear for the American youth. With stars like Marlon Brando and James Dean wearing jeans on and off the screen, denim trousers became a rage. In the 1960s, both the hippies as well as the youth protesting against the Vietnam War were invariably denim-clad. Now known as jeans, denim trousers emerged as the uniform of protest.

Madonna in ripped jeans

Ripped jeans also started life as part of this counter-culture trend sometime in the late 1970s- early 80s. Celebrities like Iggy Pop (who claimed to have pioneered this in 1978), Sex Pistols and then Madonna popularized ripped jeans.

Nothing comes between me and my Calvins: The most scandalous campaign of that time

By the end of the 1970s, jeans conquered the world of high fashion too. In 1976, Calvin Klein became the first top designer to put denim on the ramp. And in 1981, when a 15-year old Brooke Shields famously declared that nothing comes between her and Calvin Klein jeans, it came to the fashion centre stage.

Jeans as Fashion

Youngsters started sporting jeans in India from the late 1970s. Amitabh Bachchan was spotted wearing a denim in Sholay (1975). But teenagers in the 80s were mostly dependent on relatives bringing them a fashionable pair from abroad. Before we graduated to Levi’s, Lee or Wrangler, we all had Newport, Ruff & Tuff or Excalibur jeans (most of these brands were from Arvind Mills, which by the mid-1990s emerged as the largest denim manufacturer in the world).

Like in the West, by the 1990s in India also, Jeans emerged as a truly democratic fashion transcending social, economic and gender barriers. There were almost seasonal changes in Jeans trends in the West (check out here), but in India, we roughly remember the transition from classic fit to baggy trousers of the 1990s to low-waist of the 2000s and then back to a more fitted classic look. And of course, not to forget acid-washed or ripped varieties or the embroidered ones for girls.

For men, Khakis replaced jeans as the go-to leisure/casual trousers in the late 1990s. For Indian women, however, by then not only jeans were irreplaceable but also perhaps the most versatile trouser option. Jeans could be paired with white or simple tops for a casual chic looks or with kurti and bangles for an ethnic look or with boots and stylish tops/jackets, jeans could also hit high fashion notes.

Jeans as Freedom

In the 1920s, when a handful of progressive Indian women started cycling to Lucknow’s Isabella Thoburn College or on the streets of Lahore, it was a shock for the urban middle class India. Today even in the most socio-economically backward states of the country, there are popular government schemes to provide cycles to girls.

There is no better friend for most Indian women, especially students and working women, than a pair of hardy blue jeans to travel in crowded Indian public transport, braving water-logged streets in monsoon or numerous other roadblocks. Bans announced frequently by some village/khap panchayats or college principals on women wearing jeans are nothing but an expression of patriarchy, crude attempts to curtail their freedom.

Look beyond those (rightly) protesting on Twitter against a recent thoughtless remark by a politician; every time you see a girl coming out of tenements or rural areas to go to work in her denim trousers - like those ladies riding cycles to their freedom decades back - you know she wants to give wings to her dreams. 

Epidemic Goddess and the First “Tika”

It was a worship like no other. Amidst chanting of mantras and beating of drums and blowing of conch shells, the priest specially called for this ceremony would approach a child, make a small incision on her forehead and apply something he brought with him. The child would then be isolated and given cold food for the next few days. Women would draw alpanas/rangolis outside the room and often break into songs or stories related to the goddess they worshipped in this fashion.

As the child contracted mild fever they would celebrate the success of their effort – this was the surest sign that the child had been blessed by the deity. Over the next few days, this fever would subside and the child would recover. For the rest of her life, this goddess would protect the child and she would carry that mark, ‘tika’ on her forehead.

Goddess Sitala, rides on a donkey and holds a broom to ward off disease and a pitcher of cold water – Kalighat Patachitra

The special priest (often called ‘tikadar’) normally came from the lower castes like that of mali (gardener) or napit (barber) in Bengal and even when they were Brahman by caste, they were often lower in status. Working between November and early March, they collected pus from small pox patients, preserved it carefully in bamboo containers and then diluted it to apply on children in exchange of a fee.This was the unique ritual of goddess Sitala, the cold one, who promised to drive away fever (more specifically small pox and measles). From the Puranas, which described her as another form of Durga, who rose from a sacrificial fire along with Jwarasura (the demon of fever), she was celebrated in folk stories and medieval mangal kavyas of Bengal.

Taming Jwarasura

Till it was eradicated worldwide through vaccination in 1980, there was no cure for small pox. For centuries, small pox outbreaks killed millions globally. But it was known that the survivors of small pox did not contract the disease again. This observation led to the invention of artificially inducing immunity.  

The method of inoculation followed by the worshippers of Sitala is called variolation (from variola or Latin for pox). It appears from the descriptions of European observers in the 18^th century that such inoculation was widely prevalent in Sitala’s home territories of North and Eastern India. But not so much in deep South, where goddess Mariamma takes over her role. Learning from Brahman practitioners in Odisha and Northern Andhra, British doctors started inoculating Europeans and Company soldiers in and around Madras in the late 1780s.

Variolation in China happened through blowing of powdered small pox material into nostrils

By the 17^th century, apart from India this was a common practice in China (where the practice might have started around 1000 CE and we have documentary evidence from around 1600 CE) and large parts of Africa. Variolation might have originated independently in these three geographies or spread from one to another.

Lady Mary Montagu

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, wife of the British Ambassador to the Ottoman Court in Istanbul in 1717 famously wrote a letter to her friend Sarah Chiswell in England describing variolation practice she witnessed in Turkey. Lady Mary, herself a victim of small pox, had her children inoculated and played an important part in spreading the practice in England.

Dr Zabdiel Boylston inoculating patients in Boston 1721 after Cotton Mather learnt about inoculation in Africa

Similarly after a devastating small pox epidemic in Boston in 1721, a Puritan Minister Cotton Mather promoted variolation – a practice he learnt from his West African slave Onesimus.

Goddesses of Plague

Sitala was not the first goddess of epidemic. Buddhist goddess of small pox, Hariti appeared in Gandhara around two thousand years ago. Buddhist myths say, Hariti (the name suggests someone who steals), was a child eating ogress but turned into a protector of children after coming into contact with Gautam Buddha.

Hariti Statue (Gandhar region - 1st-2nd century CE), her iconography was inspired by that of Greek Goddess Tyche

Between 165-180 CE, a small pox or measles epidemic killed 5 million people across Europe and Asia. In Roman history it was known as the Antonine Plague. At least three decades before that a similar plague ravaged the Kushan Empire, leading to a profusion of Hariti images in Gandhar region. Historians believe probably the same epidemic travelled to Europe through the Silk Route.

Gradually, Hariti transformed into both fever and fertility goddess and lived on for many centuries across the subcontinent. Her images have been found from Afghanistan to Rajshahi in present Bangladesh and also in Andhra. She even travelled to Japan as goddess Kishimojin.

Parnashabari - 11th century statue from Bangladesh, a small Sitala visible as her companion at the bottom right 

The other Buddhist fever goddess was Parnashabari. Her name literally means leaf-clad tribal lady. She was popular in Vajrayana/tantric Buddhism in Eastern India. Interestingly Sitala initially appeared as her companion. Her cult gradually disappeared or ceded ground to Sitala but even now she lives on as a goddess in Tibetan Buddhism

In the absence of any effective treatment, it was normal all over the world to invoke deities for relief from dreaded diseases. Bengal is still dotted with temples or areas marked after Sitala or such other deities like Olai Chandi or Ola Bibi (for Muslims) for cholera, goddess Raktabati for blood infection and Ghe(n)tu for skin disease.

But Sitala is different from all other deities in the sense that her worshippers tried to address the disease through scientific intervention.

Variolation to Covid Vaccine

English physician Edward Jenner (1749-1823) is considered the father of vaccination. On 14^th May 1796, Jenner inoculated (he took pus from cow pox blisters of a milkmaid, Sarah Nelmes) his gardener’s 8 year old son James Phipps, who had mild symptoms for a few days but recovered soon. Small pox did not have any effect on Phipps during subsequent inoculations.

Edward Jenner

In rural England, many people noticed that dairymaids did not suffer from small pox and that led them to think about a possible connection between cow pox and small pox. We know at least two cases before Jenner (Benjamin Jesty in England in the 1770s and Peter Plett in Germany in1791), where similar methods were used to inoculate a few. But the credit for scientifically pursuing it and convincing people for vaccination goes entirely to Edward Jenner (the word vaccine came from “vacca” – Latin for cow).

In 1879, Louis Pasteur came up with the first laboratory-made vaccine (for chicken cholera). Since then vaccines for polio, tetanus, MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) and other killer diseases have revolutionized not only medical science but also human history.

From those early days of inoculation by Sitala worshippers to the latest Covid vaccines, technology has changed immensely but the essential approach - of inserting weakened antigens to trigger immune response - remains the same. And the legacy of early small pox inoculation is preserved through the continuous use of the word ‘tika’ in Bengali, Hindi and several other Indian languages. 

Biscuits: An Indian Love Story

What is the item we all have consumed most during the lockdown (other than broadband)? Well, India in any case, is the largest biscuit-consuming nation in the world and we just raised the bar even higher. Less than a year ago (August 2019), the makers of India’s most favourite biscuit said that the economic conditions had deteriorated so much that they were struggling to maintain the sales volume of even Rs 5 pack of Parle G. And in April this year, amidst lockdown, Parle G recorded its highest ever sales!

Baked left-over breads were the first biscuits - we now call them rusk

Have you ever wondered about the history of this humble yet indispensable snack?  The word ‘biscuit’ came from a French word (bis-qui), which, in turn, had originated from a Latin word (biscotus) – it basically means ‘twice baked’. There is no doubt that at least since the Roman times, people had been baking the left-over bread again to preserve it. This is what we call rusk today. This was handy for the soldiers and long-distance travellers.We know for sure that since the time of the Crusades (1096-1271 CE), European armed forces, especially navies, had been stocking up on biscuits. For more than two centuries, till around 1840 (when canned beef was introduced), the standard ration of the British Navy had two fixed elements – biscuits and a drink, first beer and later rum. But these were hard (and quite inedible) biscuits, which had to be dunked in some liquid first. These came to be known as hard tack biscuits. The oldest preserved biscuit today is one such naval issue from 1784. 

13th April 1784 - the oldest surviving biscuit in the world - today preserved in Britain's National Maritime Museum. A hard tack biscuit given to wood engraver Thomas Berwick

Today it is difficult to imagine that hardly 150 years back biscuit was an absolute novelty for Indians. Just like bread, it was the Portuguese, who introduced biscuits in Bengal (and perhaps in Goa/Western Coast also). The first known reference to biscuits made in Bengal came from the famous French traveller and jeweller, Jean Baptiste Tavernier (1605-1689), who wrote in the 1660s that the port of Hooghly was a good place to stock up on biscuits for return journey. For the next 100 years or so, the bakeries of Portuguese-influenced Hooghly, of Dutch Chinsurah and French Chandannagar remained the main suppliers of bread and biscuits to Calcutta.

Rajnarayan Bose, ;eading intellectual of his generation and maternal grandfather of Sri Aurobindo - when he joined Brahmo Samaj in the 1840, celebrated the event with biscuits and sherry with his friends - having biscuits openly was an act of rebellion for them

The first commercial bakeries in Calcutta came up near the dock area and Khidirpore. These bakeries were run by the Portuguese/people of European descent first and then by Muslims. Right from the beginning, the majority population of the city that is Bengali Hindus, found both bread and biscuits irresistible in taste but these remained forbidden food items for long. In the 1840s, when a young Rajnarayan Bose (1826-1899) – one of the most famous intellectuals of his generation and maternal grandfather of Sri Aurobindo – took the oath to join the Brahmo Samaj, he celebrated it with his friends by sharing biscuits and sherry!! It was an act of revolt for them. Revolutionary leader, Bipin Chandra Pal (1858-1932) recalled in his autobiography that in his childhood it was an exciting adventure to buy bread and biscuits from the only shop (that too Muslim-owned) selling these items in Sylhet town and to consume it at night once the entire household was asleep.

By the 14^th century, biscuits were well-known in England. However, from the 17^th century, British slave trading and subsequent sugar plantations in the West Indies powered by slave labour made sugar easily available and affordable. This completely revolutionized British baking – soon there were great variety of cake and biscuits for every occasion. From the 18^th century, tea, especially afternoon tea, became almost a British ritual and biscuits found a pride of place there.

In the 19^th century, with the growing popularity of tea and travel, a variety of easily consumable biscuits came to be manufactured in Britain. The company, which represented the best of this tradition and one of the first global brands – Huntley Palmers – started their operations in Bristol in 1822. By 1900, their products, perfectly preserved in beautiful tin boxes were to be found all over the world from Tibet to heart of Africa and from North Pole to New Zealand. 

Grand Duchess Marie Alaxandrovna with her husband Prince Alfred

For some time in the second half of the 19^th century, biscuits enjoyed a golden period. When Queen Victoria’s second son, Prince Alfred in 1874 married Tsar’s daughter Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna, one of the leading British biscuit manufacturers, Peek Frean, created a special biscuit called ‘Marie’.

Federico Peliti opened Calutta's first stand alone fine dining restaurant with an in-house bakery in 1881

Back in Calcutta, there were more respectable options for the British now as hotels like the Wilson’s started their own bakeries. In 1881, Federico Peleti opened Calcutta’s first upmarket standalone restaurant along with an in-house bakery. However, the problem persisted for the Hindu upper caste till 1887, when a Bengali gentleman named Girish Chandra Mandal and I do not know anything else about him – opened a biscuit manufacturing unit in Central Calcutta. Soon the business grew so fast that he had to request his neighbour Nalin Chandra Gupta, a lawyer by profession, to help him out. Their venture was known as VS Brothers. Soon Mr Gupta came to be the driving force behind the venture. The company was renamed Gupta and Company and they set up a much bigger unit at Dum Dum and started selling biscuits under the brand name of ‘Hindu Biscuits’. As you can well imagine, during the Swadeshi days (1905-11), the company did roaring business.

In 1913, again under what circumstances I have no clue, this company took on board an English gentleman by the name of C H Holmes and subsequently it was renamed Britannia Industries during the First World War (1914-1919).

In 1970, three major British biscuit makers - Huntley and Palmers, Jacobs and Peek Frean amalgamated to create Associated Biscuits. This Associated Biscuits held a major stake in the Britannia Industries. Now you know how your tea time favourite Britannia Marie came about - traversing the channels of colonial commerce (in 1982, Nabisco acquired Associated Biscuits and in 1989, Nabisco sold the Associated Biscuit brands to Danone; Britannia today is majority owned by Danone and their Indian partner Nusli Wadia).  

World's best selling biscuit - it's an emotion, an identity to millions of Indians

Parle G is not just a biscuit but as it trended in twitter recently, it is an emotion and an identity of our rootedness. Many of us would remember the original ‘Swad bhare Shakti bhare’ Parle G campaign with a dadaji and his grandkids from the 1980s. With sales of more than 5000 crore for this single product, this is the highest selling biscuit in the world. Parle Products baked their first biscuit in the village of Parla, near Bombay in 1939 and right from the beginning branded itself as a swadeshi product (bharat ka apna biscuit).

In most cities of Punjab and North India, still there would be at least one National Bakery, producing old style biscuits and other savouries. I do not know much about them but I am quite sure that their origin was also somewhat like the Hindu biscuits in Calcutta. Frontier Biscuit, today well known for premium eggless biscuits in North India, was established in West Punjab in 1921 and probably came from the same tradition.

In every major airport today, you will find Hyderabad's Karachi Bakery selling famous Osmania biscuit

West Bengal is one of the top biscuit-consuming states (of course along with Maharashtra, home of Parle G) and Calcutta continues to be the biscuit capital of India. Britannia, ITC and Priya – three leading Indian biscuit manufacturers are based in Calcutta today. As the famous Irani chai of Hyderabad is intrinsically linked with sweet and salty Osmania biscuits, similarly, roadside tea stalls in Calcutta sell an enviable range of local bakery-produced biscuits. 

Some of these are rusk (the famous lero biscuit, to be dunked in steaming hot tea, served from a large brass kettle into your earthen cup), biscuits flavoured with kalo jire (onion-seeds) or the all-time favourite, projapoti (butterfly) biscuit (I just discovered that there is a recent Bengali film by that name). 

These biscuits taste somewhat different from the regular ones – I am not sure why. My friend and food blogger, Ranjini tells me, perhaps because they use dalda. 

We have surely come a long way since those days when having biscuits could pose risk to one's religion and also the romance of Huntley Palmers, but our love affair with biscuits continues to deepen.