Waswo X. Waswo GAURI DANCERS Gauri (also known as Gavri or Gavari) is celebrated by tribal communities in the southern part of Rajasthan as a forty-day festival that entails fasting and celebration in honour of Lord Shiva and his consort, the Goddess Parvati. Public performances put on as part of the revelry include dance, storytelling, music and worship. The tradition of the Gauri dance has been celebrated for centuries, and this is the first major publication in English on this mystical and enchanting practice. Photographer Waswo X. Waswo has joined with art historian Sonika Soni to create this book that delves into the esoteric world of Gauri dance. Through Waswo’s distinctive studio portraiture, with the photographic prints hand-painted by hand-colourist Rajesh Soni, the astonishing visuals of Gauri costuming and performers is presented in beautiful colour reproduction. In her essay, Sonika Soni explores the history of this ritual dance with an eye to examine both what is known about it, and what still needs to be discovered, keeping central the conflicting stories of its origins and the folk tales that make Gauri the “enigmatic opera” of Mewar.
93 photographs and 4 drawings
WASWO X . WASWO GAUR I DANCERS
WASWO X . WASWO GAUR I DANCERS Photographic Hand-Painting by Rajesh Soni Text by Sonika Soni
First published in India in 2019 by Mapin Publishing Pvt. Ltd 706 Kaivanna, Panchvati, Ellisbridge Ahmedabad 380006 INDIA T: +91 79 40 228 228 • F: +91 79 40 228 201 E: mapin@mapinpub.com • www.mapinpub.com Distributed in North America by Antique Collectors’ Club T: +1 800 252 5231 • F: +1 413 529 0862 E: ussales@accartbooks.com www.accartbooks.com/us/ Distributed in the Rest of the World by Mapin Publishing Pvt. Ltd Photographs © Waswo X. Waswo Text © Waswo X. Waswo, Sonika Soni and Pramod Kumar KG Illustrations © R. Vijay and Dalpat Singh Jingar Photographs hand-painted by Rajesh Soni All rights reserved under international copyright conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The moral rights of Waswo X. Waswo, Sonika Soni and Pramod Kumar KG as authors of this work are asserted. ISBN: 978-93-85360-72-5 Editor: Ashwati Franklin Research: Sonika Soni Design: Moksha Carambiah Printed at Pragati Offset Pvt. Ltd.
As a custodian of a large collection of artworks by Waswo X. Waswo, including many reproduced in this book, the Museum of Art & Photography (MAP) is delighted to lend its support to this publication, in keeping with its mission to promote the awareness and interpretation of its collections. For more information on the museum’s holdings, including how they can be accessed for research and exhibition purposes, please visit map-india.org/collections.
Acknowledgements We’d like to thank the following for their various contributions to this project: Jyoti Soni for introducing her daughter, Sonika, to Gavri at an early age; the eminent Udaipur-based scholar, Dr. Mahendra Bhanawat, and Mr. Deepak Dixit of West Zone Cultural Centre, for sharing their well-researched insights into the Gavri tradition during Sonika’s many field trips; Manohar and Ram Singh, who have so happily allowed Waswo to maintain his Varda Studio at their farm, and the people of the village who have tolerated a quirky photographer in their midst; Pramod Kumar KG for his wonderful preface and Rajesh Soni for his endless talents at photo hand-colouring with patient, skillful, brushwork; Nathaniel Gaskell and the Museum of Art & Photography for lending their generous guidance; Bipin Shah and Neha Manke of Mapin Publishing for making this book a reality; Ganpat Mali and Jay Prakash, who were always at the photographer’s side to assist in any way; Manish Soni and Yug Deepak Soni for their constant support of Sonika, and S. Girikumar for his constant motivation; the artists R. Vijay and Dalpat Singh Jingar for their contribution of the story’s illustrations; Moksha Carambiah for the book’s gifted design, and Ashwati Franklin for her meticulous editing; friends Abhiruchi Oke, Amit Shrungare, Vinit Vyas and Lucky Chauhan for being a part of this Gavri journey; and, last but not least, all of the Gavri performers themselves, for being such delightful, warm-hearted and creative people, who keep this amazing tradition alive.
— Waswo X. Waswo and Sonika Soni
T
he photographs in this book are a product of the longtime collaboration between the American artist Waswo X. Waswo and the Rajasthani artist, Rajesh Soni.
Shot mostly at Waswo’s studio in the village of Varda, these photographs are captured digitally, though the staging itself hearkens back to the days of painted backdrops, arranged sets and natural light. Selected images are printed digitally on matte, fibre-based papers, with archival inks. Rajesh, a third generation hand-colourist, then works diligently and patiently to tint the final prints with Windsor and Newton watercolours. Using an assortment of natural, soft brushes, he utilises the skills and methods that are his inheritance, coupled with a lifetime of training. The silky luminosity of the resultant photographs is difficult to replicate in a published volume such as this.
Limited editions of the photographs featured in this book have been released — each individually and meticulously hand-painted by Rajesh Soni.
P ra mod Ku ma r KG i s t he c o-fou nder of E k a A rch iv i ng Ser v ic es (w w w.ek a resou rc es.c om), I nd ia’s f i r st mu seu m adv i sor y f i r m t hat prov ides it s ser v ic es to a ra nge of i n st it ut ion s, c ol lec tor s a nd c ol lec t ion s. He ha s worked w it h a v a st ra nge of a r tefac t s t hat v a r y g reat l y i n t hei r mater ia l it y, besides helpi ng w it h nua nc ed a spec t s of c u lt u ra l a nd her it age ma nagement . H i s resea rch i n photog raphy ra nges f rom it s ea rl y i nt roduc t ion to I nd ia, to it s c ontempora r y prac t ic e. P ra mod i s t he fou nder-d i rec tor of t he A nok h i Mu seu m of Ha nd P r i nt i ng at Ja ipu r, i n st it uted t he Ja ipu r L iterat u re Fest iv a l a nd i s c u r rent l y t he c o-d i rec tor of Mou nt a i n E choes, t he Bhut a n L iterat u re Fest iv a l. He ha s c u rated show s a nd lec t u red e x ten sivel y across Ind ia a nd i nter nat iona l ly. He is a publ ished aut hor a nd has made c ont r ibut ion s to se vera l ed ited volu mes, besides jou r na l s, maga z i nes a nd ot her publ ic at ion s.
9
Photographing the Elusively Liminal PRAMOD KUMAR KG
In the realm of the Gods, precise times, seasons of appeasement and formats of worship are followed by a protocol of revelation to the laity, with the acceptance of offerings and a final pronouncement of blessings. Within this neat Brahmanical world of order and classification, liminality seems to have taken a beating in the 21st century. Everything is now quantified, assigned a precise place in a larger, ordered sequence of digitalisation, mobile phone data, CCTV cameras and gated communities. Thankfully, despite social media’s relentless prowess at globalising the formerly localised, performing arts like those of the Gavri Dancers of Mewar have eluded mainstream access, perhaps, until now.
This is where a small coterie of initiates enters the frame, led by the intrepid Waswo X. Waswo — photographer, artist, conjurer of dreamscapes and wily prober of all things that should be left untouched. With his merry band consisting of Rajesh Soni, R. Vijay, Ganpat Mali, Jay Prakash, and an extended crew, Waswo the outsider lays hesitant claim to the foreign ethnographer’s propensity for indexicality. And what better subject than a group of performers who subvert traditional notions of political, social, religious and administrative class formations, through historic ‘folk-sanctified’ rituals that prevent societal opprobrium?
The Gavri (Gauri, Gavari) Dancers are a phenomenon unique to the confluence of southern Rajasthan and its borders with Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. This predominantly tribal belt has a glorious tradition of oral literature and performing arts, by way of dance and drama. The Bhils who make up much of this region speak in the twin dialects of Mewari and Vagadi.
10
Eschewing the word dramaturgy leaves us with no other real term to explain the Gavri performance. Perhaps it best plays out as a liminal interlude between classical proscenium-style enactments and ribald folk ballads that have a passionate following amongst communities who shun the mainstream and revel in their wondrous world of Gods, worldviews and situations, all defying an easy understanding.
As the festival of Raksha Bandhan comes to a close across much of north India, a period of forty days encompasses the duration of the Gavri performance where worship, entertainment and art collide with splendid virtuosity. The lack of a stage, greenrooms or audience seating doesn’t deter the performers or those who watch the show. Everyone is on the same plane, and age-old myths, particularly those emerging from the Shaivite pantheon, such as those of Bhasmasur, and related stories, are enacted. The universal triumph of good over evil takes several turns, with past and contemporary realities of dealing with dacoits, or even the police, all forming significant sub-plots to a long line of adventures. Running usually from late morning to early evening, the performance is, at times, resumed later at night and continues till the break of dawn, with other popular acts, such as rope dancers, added to the heady mix of revelry. These itinerant all-male groups in improvised costumes, often cross-dressed in rudimentary makeup and holding iconographic props, are, at the same time, a source of much mirth and ritual worship, a world away from canonical texts and established norms.
Here, the camera can be a keen tool of the ethnographer, insidiously attempting to capture the raucous spectacle of Gavri as it unfolds in its elastic, episodic, permutation and combination of religious myths, political satire, and documenter of human behaviour. The performance is a farce, but the image claims to be real. The moment captured fills the frame, but the frame doesn’t quite add up. The camera as a machine is an unbiased observer, but the eye behind the lens is discriminatory. The image can be bigoted.
11
Does Waswo’s bringing of the chaos of Gavri into a studio setting, with its shift from the kinetic to the formally posed, give nod to his own devious intervention? And what of the backdrop paintings and Rajesh Soni’s hand-colouring, that further highlight the idiosyncrasies of the scenes unfolding? A quagmire of conflicting depictions and meanings is also inherent in Gavri and has kept the tradition alive. Its sense of unreal posturing and impermanence as captured by the photographs of Waswo and the colourations of Rajesh are thus a befitting filter to look at the Gavri Dancers through.
Working in the tradition of painted backdrops has meant that subtle arrangements of props, while creating variegated scenes, are, at first glimpse, grand equalisers that place everyone on the same level playing field. Jungle scenes and idyllic backdrops of palaces looming over placid waters are inhabited by the world of men, malevolent spirits, gods and goddesses. The fixed gaze of the sitters, even when masked, gives the game away, as, in image after image, they reveal their impatience with this attempt at being captured for posterity. In the Gavri Dancers’ make-believe world, any attempt at permanence is to tempt fate.
Like most indigenous traditions, Gavri Dancers are part of a community, and the performance is for an audience that understands their role, possibly as a rite of passage that they themselves have no control over. The attempt to capture this ‘vision’ as performance or art that is subsequently deployed to the outsider’s gaze, is not without its challenges. In the complex world of human beliefs and traditions, any intervention of this kind necessitates much reflection. Capturing liminality is perhaps also to tempt fate?
13
An Enigmatic Opera WASWO X. WASWO
There is The Artist, and there is The Ethnographer. Both are sitting in a chair at Manoj’s barbershop, near the masjid, just beyond Bhrampole. There is gingery chai spilling from green glasses, the coughing rattle of autorickshaws, and one mandatory cow. There is morning sun streaking down upon the cement floor, the crackle of rapidly paged newspapers, and the snip-snip of scissors. There is a cheaply veneered cabinet decaled with the goddess of wealth, and white foam lathered by dark brown hands. There is The Artist and there is The Ethnographer, and they see themselves, distrustfully, in the mirror. They choose not to speak. Across the way, a young boy struts, eighteenish, in dark bell-bottom jeans, and a striped, weirdly-out-of-context cowboy hat. He wears a polka dot bandana and a wild assortment of jewellery; his forearms encased with a jumbled stack of women’s bangles.
“Gauri Dancer,” Manoj, The Barber, answers the unspoken question. “Every year they come. This time of year.”
It is late August, and the rains have not been nearly as good as they should have been. There is a touch of humidity in the air, but also dust. Thunderstorms in the villages have failed to fall upon the needed catch basins, and the river that trickles into Lake Pichola has struggled to bring the surface to the usual mark. Manohar, out in Varda, is worried about his crop of corn. The Artist is asking The Barber if this strange boy would pose for a photo, and Manoj lets peal a sharp whistle, “आइए! आइए! Come! Come!” The Ethnographer looks displeased.
“You don’t know a damn thing about what you are doing! Do you?” The Ethnographer straightens his back. His eyes glare wide. “You think he will make an exotic picture, do you? Is that it? Is that as deep as you go?”
“You know how I think and yet you continually twist it, my dear friend,” The Artist says, while hovering
14
aromatic tea pleasurably under his nose. I’m not here to document a thing. That is your speciality. I only document what intrigues my eyes.”
“Bollocks!” The Ethnographer cracks his newspaper down upon the metal bench. “I’m so tired of this prevarication of yours! You can’t keep excusing your lack of knowledge with that cloak of artiness! Maybe you should make the effort to learn something!”
“I learn every day, dear. I learn with my eyes. For you, it is about knowing — facts, histories, anthropologies. For me it is just a delight in exploring what is.”
“It’s worthless to talk to you! You know that!”
The Ethnographer gets up and exits stage left. The Gauri Dancer walks centre stage, and rests one foot upon an empty chair. The lights fade, revealing Manohar silhouetted in his corn field. A painted linen backdrop descends behind the Gauri Dancer while The Artist adjusts a camera on a tripod. Stage hands bring in potted plants.
***
As the lights come up, we see the stage hands taking down the backdrop that has appeared at the end of Scene One. They are now characters in the drama.
“It’s a little difficult to explain, Chachaji,” Ganpat is saying as he and Jay Prakash heave the rolled backdrop onto the heap of similar backdrops along the studio wall. “Everyone in Mewar knows of Gauri. We grow up with it in the villages. It happens around the time of the late monsoon.”
Jay Prakash swings a downward pointed finger in a large rotating circle. “Dancing,” he says, “in a circle. Gauri people dancing.” He smiles the winning smile that always completes his simple English sentences.
15
“Not dancing,” Ganpat contradicts. “It is a story. In a circle. Only a little dancing, like hopping.”
“No. Dancing!” Jay Prakash pushes his point. “Gauri Dancers. They are called Gauri Dancers!”
The Artist has been folding up his tripod, and packing away his lenses. He falls back on the frayed wicker chair he is most comfortable in. “So they dance and they tell a story. What is the story they tell?”
“Many stories Chacha. Stories from the Gita and Puranas. Stories about Rajasthan…”
“Udaipur,” Jay Prakash corrects. “They are stories of Udaipur.”
“Mewar,” Ganpat double-corrects. “Stories from Udaipur and Chittor and Bhilwara. From all of Mewar. I grew up watching Gauri in my village outside of Chittor. They walk from village to village. They go to the villages where the opium farms are, but they never do these drugs. They do not drink or smoke at Gauri time. It is a very old thing, Chachaji.”
“भगवान! भगवान!” Jay Prakash is adding.
“So it is a religious thing?” The Artist asks, lighting up a beedi to share with his assistants.
“Yes,” both young men answer in unison; a happy point of agreement.
“So why the chains and the bangles? Don’t only women wear those plastic bangles?”
“Boys and girls!” Jay Prakash explains.
16
“Men and women,” Ganpat repeats after him. “Gauri is only played by men. The girl parts are played by men, or mostly younger boys. Some Gauri Dancers dress in between. It is hard to explain. You have to watch.”
“Only Mewar,” Jay Prakash is saying. “Only here. This time of year.”
“If you go to Jaipur or Jodhpur, no one will know of this, Chacha. No one knows of Gauri Dancers outside of Mewar. But for us, this is very normal. We grow up watching Gauri Dancers in villages and in cities too. If you travelled out of Udaipur now, on the Ranakpur Road, you would see so many Gauri Dancers. This is the time.”
“I don’t think we have the schedule for that, Ganpat,” The Artist is saying as he offers him a puff of beedi. We have other work to do. But later. This Gauri Man made a good photo. I love the costuming, and the androgyny… the mix of boy and girl.”
Across the lake, the pale orange sky is hinting at sunset. It comes quickly, as the mountains poke up to the cloudy sky. The stage again darkens; The Ethnographer crosses from the left side of the stage, pausing ceremoniously to spit in the centre.
***
The passage of time is indicated by a slight ageing of The Artist’s clothes. The studio is a new studio, situated in a village. New backdrops are hung in three places. Manohar stands with his hands on his hips while watching the seated Artist adjust his camera. The Farmer leans forward to observe the screen. Engrossed in his work, The Artist is ignoring him. A corrugated metal roof juts at a gentle angle above their heads, and clay mutkas and bamboo ladders can be seen on the ground. Ganpat and Jay Prakash are adjusting a linen screen to block the morning sun from streaming too brightly inside. The studio has only one fully built wall, and is open to the farm on two and a half sides. Tall shafts of corn can be seen at the left edge of the stage, just beyond the rusted iron supports that hold the roof. A woman is approaching, carrying four tiny china cups filled with morning chai. Manohar is lighting a beedi. Ganpat is humming a tune that seems a meld between Bollywood and a bhajan.
17
“Chai, Chachaji? Chai?” Manohar taps The Artist on his shoulder and points to the woman who has arrived with tea. The photo-वाला looks up, and she bashfully smiles.
“Thank you!” The Artist responds, half to Manohar and half to the woman. “Can I steal a beedi from you Manohar?”
“Beedi? Sure.” The Farmer pinches two from the cone-shaped package and offers one to The Artist and one to Ganpat. “Jay Prakash! Beedi?” he says, as he is already holding up another with his hand.
The youngish boy with bangles and a rainbow of ribbons around his wrists, only accepts a small lota of water. He pours this ceremoniously, a hand’s width above his mouth, and straight down his throat. He wipes his lips with the back of his fist, then once again folds his arms and awaits instructions. Ganpat motions where the boy should stand, five feet from the backdrop and between the potted shrubs. The Artist tilts his camera upon its tripod, makes a few preliminary clicks, and fumbles with buttons. Jay Prakash pulls a folded white handkerchief from his back pocket and softly, assuredly, wipes the lens. The boy is standing straight and motionless. Ganpat gently nudges him two inches to the left, and The Artist is suddenly up, bending over with a grunt and flicking stray pieces of straw from the boy’s feet.
“आँ खे ं खोल्ना!” The Artist says, pulling his own eyes wide to demonstrate. The young boy imitates The Artist’s expression. “अच्छा, ठीक ह ै.”
From the side, Jay Prakash raises a slender branch of leafy bamboo, and The Artist can be heard saying “नीचे!” and “ऊपर!” as the branch’s height is adjusted over the boy’s head. Ganpat is repeating “आँ खे ं खोलो,” and the camera begins to click. Instructions are given. “Tell him to turn his head slightly to the right”; “Could you have him bring his left foot back a bit?” The boy is getting impatient, tired, bored.
“He needs to get going Chacha,” Ganpat finally interjects. “He’s got to get to the village where they are performing.”
18
“Where is the village?” The Artist asks with sudden interest.
“Just fifteen minutes from here.”
The Ethnographer has now appeared, looking on skeptically from the edge of the stage. He adjusts his glasses, and gives a snort.
***
As the curtain lifts, Ganpat surprises the audience by driving a white, open-backed Gypsy to dead centre of the stage. The vehicle is piled high with an assortment of costumed riders, some clinging precariously to the Gypsy’s roll bar while standing on the rear fenders; two sit cross-legged with intertwined arms, upon the cabin roof. One by one, and in pairs, they jump to the ground with a jingling of bells that cross their chests and wrap their ankles. A theatrical spear is held by one, as another wields a bow and arrow. A man with a white robe holds a bound bouquet of glistening peacock feathers. Ganpat, in rapid, sharp Mewari, is loudly asking them to sit just outside the studio’s enclosure.
“It’s a great idea of yours, to bring all of these people,” The Artist is saying to his assistants, and then proceeds to ask the various names of the people in the group. They alternately smile or frown at him, each offering his full family name as if reporting to a government office.
“Hurry Chachaji, this is only a small group of the Gauri people; they must get back to the village to join the dance again.”
The Artist begins adjusting and button pushing. He squints his eyes. He asks for plants to be moved, backdrops to be changed, and light reflectors to be held. He asks for the scattered straw to be freshened with new dry chara. He winces and jumps and picks scattered brown leaves from the plants; clinging straw from the backdrops; specks of dirt from his model’s kurtas. He tells his models (he always calls them models) to look up,
19
and look down, and to open their eyes. He asks for the spear to be held at an angle so that it fits the frame, and the bow and arrow to be held high, “as if shooting at a bird.” To his surprise, he needs to demonstrate how forcefully the string of the bow must be pulled. He realises then that this is no hunter; just a farm boy playing a role he has never experienced. As quickly as they have come, the performers remount the truck and Ganpat drives them back, each with a beedi they've squirrelled away, and a few hundred more rupees in their pockets.
Jay Prakash is carefully placing the camera in its bag. He folds the tripod and collapses its legs.
“The Gauri people work all day. They start in the morning and dance until the sun goes down. No drinking, no smoking. The village feeds them. Then they go to the next village. Next year, you should bring them to Varda. Here, to this village. You pay them and feed them. Many good photos. All day.”
The Artist takes a swig of cold Kingfisher that Manohar has handed him. He drinks it like the Gauri Dancers drink water from a lota; like the villagers drink. He has lived in India for many years. His eyes look thoughtfully wide.
“Possible?” he asks Manohar. “हाँ! Possible!” The Farmer replies.
***
The Artist and The Ethnographer sit, spot-lit in the dark.
“You see? This is how I live. I live to see: casually, simply, and cleanly. I live to make the things I see available for others to see. Within this process, I find joy, and I hope that joy is passed onto those who name my workings ‘art.’ I am not an ethnographer. I am not a social researcher. I am not even a documentarian. Why do so many people suppose that photography must be tied to journalism, research, and the archiving of knowledge? To me, it is just a tool to explore beauty: the beauty of our world, the beauty of cultures; the beauty of humankind. I am not a scientist. I am not a politician. And I certainly am not an activist.”
GAUR I DA NCERS 2 010 – 2 018
2010
31
The Mask Seller, Udaipur. 2011
32
Man in the guise of Devi Ambav, the protagonist of Gavri’s central theme. 2018 (Also Pages 33, 55)
33
2013
34
35
2013
35
2013
Waswo X. Waswo is a photographer and writer, noted for his chemical process sepia-toned photographs of India, and also hand-coloured portraits made at his studio in Udaipur, Rajasthan. Rajesh Soni is a third generation Rajasthani hand-colourist, also known for his abilities at drawing, painting, and photography. Sonika Soni has a master’s in art history from the Faculty of Fine Arts, MSU Baroda, and a post graduate diploma in Museology and Conservation from CSMVS, Mumbai. Pramod Kumar KG is founder and managing director of Eka Cultural Resources & Research.
www.mapinpub.com
WASWO X . WASWO GAUR I DANCERS TEXT BY SON IKA SON I Photographic Hand-Painting by Rajesh Soni Preface by Pramod Kumar KG PHOTOGRAPHY
Gauri Dancers Waswo X. Waswo
with contributions by Pramod Kumar KG and Sonika Soni, photographic hand-painting by Rajesh Soni.
₹1800 | $50 | £35 ISBN 978-93-85360-72-5
www.mapinpub.com
136 pages, 93 photographs & 4 drawings 8.15 x 10.43” (207 x 265 mm) hc-plc ISBN: 978-93-85360-72-5 ₹1800 | $50 | £35 Fall 2019 • World rights