Revisiting Kolkata’s Flower Market
Flowers please the mind and grant prosperity. Hence, men with righteous deeds bestowed the name Sumana on them
The Mahabharata book 13, Anusasana Parva Chapter 101, verses 19-21
Situated under the famous Howrah Bridge in Kolkata, the flower market is a riot of colour, hard working characters and testament to the role of flowers within the Hindu world. One of the largest markets in India, its products are at the heart of the majority of ritual and worship in the West Bengal area.
The Gallery that is No More
One of the charms of visiting different cultures is exploring the hidden nooks and crannies and discovering areas of well used and tarnished, but living, cultural landscapes. One of those areas could once be found in the old harbour area of Tangiers, a centuries old sanctuary of buccaneering. The harbour once contained a boat repair yard which was a veritable graveyard for unrepairable boats and a busy, noise filled area for boats actually being repaired. All boats would be monolithic chunks of sculpted wood designed to survive the uncompromising seas, tides and weathers around the confluence of the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean sea.
All the boats contained veritable scars and welts from their travails; battered and split wooden hulls, scratched and striated coats of paint demonstrating different levels of decay. The repair process was arduous and time-consuming, though boat owners, chandlers and carpenters never seemed in a hurry. There was a timelessness and the yard seemed exactly the same irrespective of the number of times visited or the months between each visit.
My last visit there was several years ago where I met a friend Liesbeth and we ate mackerel from one of the small cafes that lined its walls. As we ate, the bite from the sea salt on the breeze merged with the smell of wood and tarps, and the the heavy smell of diesel. What sprang out from this semi-industrial landscape was the adornment of colours and writings on the hulls of many of the boats. It was like a picture gallery.
The King Will Come
The Moroccan king Mohammed 6 visited Essaouira just a few weeks ago. This is a feature installed for that visit down near the docks. The words below are from the song The King Will Come recorded by Wishbone Ash.
Mellah Labyrinth
Mellahs across Morocco have become synonomous with urban decay, poverty and increased risk. There is nothing different about the Mellah in Essaouira. Although culturally rich it has become neglected and necrosed. Here are some photographs at dusk portraying some of its inhabitants who walk through its narrow lanes every day.
We Shall Not Cease From Exploration…
UNFINISHED POST
We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time.
Little Gidding T.S. Elliott
It may seem incongruous to entitle a page about Islamic and African culture with a quote originating from the heart of English literature. There are however substantial reasons for doing so which relate mainly to my own cultural orientation and state of mind. I need to extricate myself a little from affiliation with Morocco.
I have now spent a long time in Morocco, travelling down from the north and visiting interesting sites along the way. My main focus has been visiting Sufi shrines and tombs often associated with zaouias as well as exploring the role of healing illness through music. The two areas are however inter-connected; it is predominantly the Sufi brotherhoods through networks of zaouias which perform traditional healing music. An important addition to this group is the Gnaoua who have no Sufi heritage. Instead they bring ritual and belief from middle Africa and transpose their animist culture into the melange which is multi-ethnic Islamic Morocco. Essentially they perform the same healing role as the Sufi brotherhoods.
The underlying assumption shared across these groups is that invisible spirits range widely throughout society, mostly replicating the lifestyle of humans in their own dimension. Some spirits are considered capricious and hostile and are believed to decide to inhabit or occupy humans which can cause illness, or ‘malady’. The presence of these spirits are given validity by references regarding their creation in the Qu’ran; they are formed from ‘smokeless fire’ whereas humans are formed from ‘clay’. The Qu’ran provides further details about hierarchies of spirits which suggest differentials in terms of associated strengths and powers. Although the more powerful have individual names and significant personality traits, these spirits are collectively called Djinns ( masculine ) and Djnniyya ( female ); and their presence and capability of possession is found right across the Islamic world.
A further assumption shared across these groups is that music, ritual, prayer and animal sacrifice can propitiate the djinn and, inter alia, bring remedy and peace to the afflicted. These are traditional methods of treating illness within a Moroccan society where educaton, money or access to conventional medicine has largely been historically minimised. With modernity now in Morocco, things should have changed. Have they?