Dr MANJU KAK walks us through the hills of Kumaon and discovers a rich culture that holds many lessons. By Angela Paljor
Growing up in the hills and shadowed by the colonial times, Manju Kak was unaware of the reality that lay behind the smiles of the paharis. “The lives of the hill school staff were one of general oblivion. little did we know of their real names and called them Rosy dhoban, Marie ayaah or Tommy bearer. They were sturdy, hard-working school staff who lived in the staff lodgings at the fringe of Ramnee Park. We imagined they lacked ‘our’ sense of sophistication and merited little discussion or scrutiny. How misinformed we were, for their rich world of myths, invocation of divinity, rituals and customs rooted in a deep reverence for nature, escaped our understanding.”
However, her true revelations started with the numerous trips to fix Knock Fierna (Where the Fairies Knock), a house that her husband’s family owned. “Our old-fashioned colonial house has walls that exude the history of the century and half that it has stood. Invariably it draws you in to dig out other stories. Exploring, digging deep into some corner of the earth, deep enough to really understand its palimpsest, allow one to comprehend the ‘real’ India we all live in. To know just one bit of geography intimately, doesn’t matter which, is also to know what it means to be Indian. Finally, I put all of this together in a book. It is an outcome of all that I collected like a magpie and all the people who helped me do it. The wondrous photographs of Anup Sah, Vaibhav Kaul, Deb Mukherjee and others, the sketches and drawings and mostly the bus rides and conversations over a hot cup of hill chai.”
After ten to 15 years of research and writing, Kak is able to draw the lives of the Paharis from the prism of Uttarakhand’s unique woodcraft. “I used the wood carvings, which were very common in the region and the remnants of which are still found in some beautiful doorways of village homes, as a metaphor for understanding the people, caste structures and environmental policies. The wood used for this craft tradition, locally called the ‘tun’, a derivative of mahogany, became a very rare species due to the environmentally-insensitive policies of the colonial rule. Also the pan-Indian nature of the motifs and their iconography showed a rare sophistication which pointed to an evolved aesthetic language sustained through traditions that appeared to me paradoxical and at variance with the accepted notion that mountain people were ‘less-cultured’ or ‘culturally poor and unsophisticated.’”
Talking about the balanced hill culture, she also stresses the innate respect of the locals for the environment and their sensitivity to degradation issues because of tree-cutting methods and cycles. “The environmental consciousness rooted in their traditions is a cornerstone of all their livelihood patterns. It becomes the ethos of hill life. Today disregard for this age old traditions is what is causing many environmental disasters. It is important for those who work in governance to acquire knowledge first and create policies later. I remember one story about a woman telling me how the government had once pushed for Jersey cows, little realising their weight did not allow them to be comfortable treading village footpaths or khranchas. As a result, the cow would fall down precipices and get traumatised.”
She highlights the prominent social status of the women in the Kumaon region who are deeply affected by the economical and environmental drift. “There is no doubt that these are some of the toughest women known. They could put our urban feminists to shame. Even the burden of collecting fuel and fodder for animals falls on them. They operate in what has become known as a money-order economy where the men folk find jobs in the plains towns while women sustain home, hearth, farm animals and families. It is no surprise then that the prevailing reverence for Shakti, or Devi, is all pervading.”
Kak talks about the need to look further into the cultures and traditions, rather than just merely passing by. “One learning that we urban dwellers should take from them is the greater joy lies in having less. And that beauty in nature is non pareil. If you must dig, then dig deep because only then will the effort be worth your while.”