Akshara shruti bajaj by shrutibajaj

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GRAPHIC DESIGN Internship Study

Student:

SHRUTI BAJAJ Bachelor of Design Fashion Communication 2008-2012

Company Name:

I ME AM • DESIGN

Industry Mentor:

Ms. Chetana Vij Sharma Principal Designer & Director, I ME AM • DESIGN, a division of Chetana Sharma Design Pvt. Ltd. Sharma Farms, Opp. Bharat Petroleum Pump Bijwasan Road, VPO Kapashera New Delhi 110037

Internal Mentor:

INTERNSHIP STUDY: SHRUTI BAJAJ

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I want to thank

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Ms. Chetana Vij Sharma, my industry mentor and Principal Designer of I ME AM • DESIGN, who gave me the opportunity to work at her studio. I really admire her work and her design sensibilities. She has inspired me to be different from others, to break the gender bias & work with honour. She was very encouraging throughout my internship and I learnt a lot under her guidance Pooja ma’am, my senior colleague at the studio during my internship, who clarified all my doubts, very patiently and guided me through my projects Ravneet, another senior colleague who went out of the way to answer my doubts and queries and shared her experiences in the industry with me Punit, another colleague who patiently helped me with softwares and technical problems related to design reproduction & helped me in understanding various printing techniques Praveen Sir, another colleague who helped me in understanding Design Management and costing Kamal Bhaiya, Chetana’s cook, who enthusiastically translated words in Bengali script for my project. Mr. Vijay Dua, my internal mentor, who was of great help and guided me throughout the project and without whose guidance and advise it would have been impossible for me to document the internship study My family, which has always been very supportive in all my endeavours.

INTERNSHIP STUDY: SHRUTI BAJAJ

INTERNSHIP DOCUMENT

Contents

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Background & Objective of Internship.............

About the Company............................................

Project 1: Akshara............................................... 12 Need for Akshara...............................................................

Objectives of Akshara........................................................

More about Akshara..........................................................

Concept for the project.....................................................

Design Methodology...........................................................

Script: Devnagri..................................................................

Script: Bengali.....................................................................

Script: Malayalam..............................................................

Ideal Boy.............................................................................

Project Management..........................................................

Project 2: hU -the Sufi Journal........................... 80 About Rumi Foundation.................................................... 81 Jahan-e-Khusrav................................................................. 86 hU Magazine- Publication Design.................................... 88 Project 3: Wedding Cards................................... 98 Project Brief & Management............................................. 99 Photographs....................................................................... 100 Conclusion.......................................................... 106 References........................................................... 108

INTERNSHIP STUDY: SHRUTI BAJAJ

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE OF

Summer Internship

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he summer internship was a great opportunity for me to get an exposure of the design industry. I had already studied Graphic Design for two years and it was time to apply my knowledge and skill to real- life projects and learn from the challenges, hence faced. I ME AM DESIGN seemed to be the perfect place. It is a boutique size design studio run by Chetana Vij Sharma. Chetana is reknowned in the industry for her experimental and artistic approach towards design. Her work has a freer spirit and tends to break the monotony seen quite often in Graphic Design. My objective during the internship was to get rid of my fear of making mistakes, understand the working of the industry, imbibe various design sensibilities, explore my design potential and learn as much as possible from all resources that were available. My motivation during the internship was the curiosity and willingness to learn and the need for appreciation. As it turned out, I was handed over a project which gave me a lot of freedom in terms of methodology and approach. I had always wanted my design to help people in a way that makes a huge difference in their lives. This thought served as a great motivation during the project as the objective of the project was to impart literacy. The summer internship was a great learning experience and has made me more confident and given me a fair idea of how the industry works. It gave me the courage and confidence to take up real-life projects independently and face the challenges involved.

INTERNSHIP STUDY: SHRUTI BAJAJ

ABOUT THE COMPANY

I ME AM • design

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ME AM • DESIGN is a boutique sized design studio, run by Chetana Vij Sharma alias Chinoo. She is a graduate from The Pratt Institute, New York and began working as a graphic designer in 1989 with no firm business plan. The studio specializes in Graphic Design applied to Interior Graphics, Wedding Cards, Interaction Design, Packaging Design, Branding and Publication Design. The work done at the studio is very experimental and artistic in nature.

Chetana’s design philosophy is, “…design needs to be unleashed not contained. It needs to be open to new ideas and free to become art.” The set-up is in Chetana’s home, a farmhouse in Kapashera in Delhi. There is a core team of six people at the studio. It includes three designers, one DTP Operator, one web designer cum design manager and one accounts manager. The work environment at the studio is harmonious and ego-free. All members enjoy the freedom of expressing their opinion which leads to the final decision, which is taken by the more experienced members of the team and the clients, of course.

Every manifestation is the result of three forces

Affirming, Denying & Reconciling.

Affirming & Denying forces can stand in useless opposition against each other and nothing new can emerge But when the Third Force is present the act of Creation occurs

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CLIENTELE

I ME AM • design

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Mamagoto Tarun Tahiliani Forest Essentials, India Leela Palace Taj Exotica, Maldives The Park Hotels Shanti Ananda Maurice Beatle Hotel, Powai Orange Hara Papillion Ananda Spas in the Himalayas Himalayan Ski Village, Kullu Valley Emaar MGF Nira Hotels and Resorts Opulence Matinee Classic Hu, Sufi Magazine Jahan-e- Khusrao Rumi Foundation Sama Music Ten Hotel Parma Med Spa, USA Indigo Delicatessen

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PROJECT 1

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AKSHARA

Status In progress till March 2012 Client Dastkaari Haat Samiti

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he Dastkari Haat Samiti is a not-for-profit national association of craftspeople that works to increase awareness and respect for traditional artisan skills for the economic benefit of their practitioners. Dastkaari Haat Samiti members come together on a common marketing platform for the development and sustenance of livelihoods. In the process they contribute towards the preservation of India’s invaluable cultural heritage. The Dastkaari Haat Samiti was founded by Jaya Jaitly in 1986. Its major achievements have been the establishment of Dilli Haat, a popular crafts market place, and the documentation of the crafts of India through artistic maps of each state of the country. Delhi’s crafts map is the latest addition to its collection, and was distributed to 15,000 visitors at the Commonwealth Games 2010. AKSHARA is a pioneering and unique exhibition of Calligraphy in Crafts. It brings into public consciousness the knowledge and beauty residing in India’s regional scripts through the talents of highly skilled, but often unlettered, craftspeople. It is an innovative concept that gets off the drawing board for the first time and can be considered a work in progress since the possibilities for further development are immense.

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THE NEED FOR

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AKSHARA

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aakshartha, or literacy, is crucial to India’s development. To be able to read and write, and thus improve communication skills, is one of the greater liberating experiences for any human being. As India moves towards greater literacy, particularly among women, the use of scripts, the shape of the written word, the visual cadence of a sentence, the curve of a line in a letter of an alphabet, all come into unconscious focus in the creative mind’s eye. An aesthetically fascinating vista appears on a page, finally making sense to the newly literate reader. The experience of reading has both mundane and elevating aspects. An adept reader often becomes casual about the visual aesthetics involved since the written word becomes mechanized when it comes out of a computer or printing machine. The content and meaning obviously takes priority over the appearance of the script. This aspect is considered today as the domain of the graphic designer where compartmentalization has taken over.

To be able to read and write, and thus improve communication skills, is one of the greater liberating experiences for any human being

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Due to marvels of technology, when we receive a letter by e-mail it no longer has the personal quality which incorporates the distinct texture of the paper, the thickness of a particular fountain pen, the scent of the envelope, the magic of a stamp from a faraway land, and the familiar handwriting of a loved one. We have to ‘ print out’ a mechanized communication to be able to read it over and over without sitting at a computer and using electricity to do so. This technology that began by serving the English speaking community has now become available in multiple languages through different scripts. Neo- literates will find the computer a tool to communicate simply and instantly. Nothing, however, matches the beauty and marvel of handwork, whether written or created, hand woven or embellished by a calligrapher, and burnished to a high level of excellence in its final form.

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THE NEED FOR

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AKSHARA

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Even without the challenge of standardization wrought by technology and modernization, the beauty of Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s regional scripts have been neglected in comparison to Persian, Arabic or Chinese calligraphy. These have been raised to high levels of excellence over centuries and recognized as valuable in the art world internationally. The Devnagari script and Islamic calligraphy in India find recognition in art forms associated with miniature painting but no significant contemporary attempt has been made to present other regional scripts beautifully. In a country like India, with a multitude of regional languages and scripts, the goals of complete literacy are also tied to her multilingual culture. As India strives to takes its place among the highly developed countries of the world, her large pool of English-speaking manpower stands her in good-stead. But economic and social compulsions have ensured fewer children are learning to write their regional scripts. Consciousness and confidence in oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s identity and heritage should not get eroded because of the economic advantages of knowing English.

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The Devnagari script and Islamic calligraphy in India find recognition in art forms associated with miniature painting but no significant contemporary attempt has been made to present other regional scripts beautifully.

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THE OBJECTIVES OF

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AKSHARA

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To PROMOTE appreciation and interest in the diverse regional scripts of India by bringing their beauty into public consciousness. To ENABLE craftspeople to experience a new facet of being literate by appreciating the beauty of the written word. To SHOWCASE the beauty of India’s regional scripts in varied media and through products produced in this project. To USE calligraphy as a design concept that will help illiterate artisans psychologically and motivate them to overcome shortcomings when they learn that the written word can have multiple uses. To EVOLVE a new ‘Design Language’ based on our regional scripts. This will provide the crafters with a new repertoire of designs for their economic benefit. To DEVELOP a series of products, in a variety of materials, based on regional scripts, through a collaborative process between experienced designers and expert crafts persons. The artists will get the opportunity to test market these products at the exhibition and, subsequently through a much wider market across the world.

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To DEMONSTRATE how the marvels of a computer can assist an imaginative graphic designer in playing artistic games with indigenous alphabets to highlight their many dimensions and thus incorporate the ancient with the contemporary. The exhibition will seek to INSPIRE even as it instructs and informs

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MORE ABOUT

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AKSHARA

Source: Dastkaar

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he Akshara exhibition displays the beauty of Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s regional scripts through panels, graphic art, innovative displays and around 100 handcrafted applications of scripts on metal, wood, clay, embroidered and woven textiles, and traditional art. The visual display will bring alive the beauty of scripts to the neo- literate as well as the aesthetically sensitive viewer. The exhibition will be accompanied by sales of limited editions of the displayed products by the makers to test customer response and build confidence in the economic viability of such design activity. The products on display will express a new and exciting path of contemporary thinking.

SCRIPTS

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Telugu Kannada Malayalam Urdu Devnagri Bengali Gujarati Gurmukhi Oriya Tamil Assamese Multilingual

Source: Dastkaar

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AKSHARA

Concept

Brief To conceptualize graphics keeping in mind the end objective of imparting literacy PROJECT 1 AKSHARA

amongst the craftsmen through their respective craft Design Deliverables Concepts for 2D graphics with their applications on various products and crafts.

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fter analyzing various crafts and product photos and studying the anatomy of letterforms, I realized there are essentially two ways to think of a letterform:

1.By relating an image to its sound 2.By relating an image to its form A good approach will be one that incorporates both the ways of thinking of a letterform. This will help them in mentally relating an image to the sound of a letterform while at the same time, deriving the letter from the form of that image. However, if that’s not possible, the first way should be adopted, because the artisans can already speak their respective languages. Therefore, they can relate an image to the sound of a letter. Secondly, everyday objects can easily be related to the sound of a letter, as that is how scripts are taught in schools in India. However, relating images of flora and fauna to the letterforms would be ideal as the main inspiration of Indian arts and crafts is nature.

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The Sound of the letterform need not necessarily be related to an image. If the artisan is well versed with the names of various colours, it would be a good idea to relate the letterform to the sound of the name of a colour, in a particular script. For example, in Devnagri, ‘Sa’ se ‘sfed’ , which means WHITE in English This approach however cannot be applied to all letterforms in a script and has its limitations. The teaching of a script can be imparted at three levels: -Through the study of letters of its alphabet -Through the study of words by combining letters -Through the study of phrases by combining words

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DESIGN

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Methodology

The first step was to study the anatomy of typography. After understanding the anatomy, the next step was to study the letterforms of different scripts. Once that was done, either of the following approaches were followed:

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Making Patterns I made pattern options from different letters of various scripts. I referred to various books in the process to broaden my visual language and understand the process and thinking behind making of patterns. Image Relation I tried to incorporate images related to various letters in their respective patterns. Feedback from the Industrial Mentor The work done was shown to the industrial mentor for the feedback. I took feedback from other colleagues as well. Make necessary changes in the pattern Changes were made in the pattern as per the feedback with various options. Feedback from the Industrial Mentor The pattern with the changes were shown to the industrial mentor for more feedback and approval. Approval from the Industrial Mentor 1. If approved, think of applications of the pattern on crafts products 2. If not, work on the pattern again and get feedback until its approved and take it on from there

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DESIGN

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Methodology

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Inspiration: Animal Names I searched for names of animals in various scripts. This was to serve as in inspiration and subject for future typographic explorations. It was necessary to find out the exact spelling. Deriving letterforms I derived a letterform from the form of an animal, which should have the same sound as the name of the animal Feedback from the Industrial Mentor The work done was shown to the industrial mentor for the feedback. I took feedback from other colleagues as well. Make necessary changes in the form Changes were made in the form as per the feedback with various options. Feedback from the Industrial Mentor The pattern with the changes were shown to the industrial mentor for more feedback and approval. Approval from the Industrial Mentor 1. If approved, think of applications of the pattern on crafts products 2. If not, work on the pattern again and get feedback until its approved and take it on from there

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THE ANATOMY OF

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Devanagri

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he anatomy of a letter can perhaps be defined as a system which depicts the structural makeup of a letter; describing certain key parts within the letter for a given typeface. These morphological articulations of the characters within the font form the first level of description within the typographic ontology of a script. The Latin script, due to its long and elaborate tradition in printing; has a fairly standardized vocabulary to describe its letterforms. Unlike western typographic systems, theory and literature on the anatomy of Devanagari letters is sparse—although there are a few experts who have tried to articulate the various features of Devanagari letters. There are various approaches taken by experts in describing and defining the anatomy of Devanagari letters. Within these approaches we will focus on the vocabulary used to describe the diacritical and vowel signs in Devanagari, the elements within each of the Devanagari letters and the terminology used to describe them. We’ll also examine the reference or guide lines used to mark the limits and proportions of the individual parts of a letter. This article also attempts to gauge the strengths and limitations of each of the approaches. Finally, we’d consolidate the similarities that exist amongst the various approaches.

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THE ANATOMY OF DEVANAGRI

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Bhagvat & Naik

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One of the first attempts towards a graphical classification was done by S.V. Bhagwat. Devanagari letters till then had not2 been subjected to such a graphical analysis3. Bhagwatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s main focus was on handwritten Devanagari and not on printed Devanagari; Naik4 nonetheless believed that his insights on the graphical structure of Devanagari are enlightening. Bhagwat first creates groups of letters based on shared graphical properties. Six grouping systems for letters based on the following criteria are given on:

Size

Endings, flourishes, fenced etc.

Simplicity

Motion, stroke and angles

Groups according to the parts of letter design.

Groups based on graphical similarity (see fig.1)

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He then goes on to define (see fig.2) the guide lines for the letters and terminology for some of the graphical elements that exist within the letters. The guide lines defined by him are as follows:

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The top lines are the “Rafar line”, followed by the “Upper matra line” and the “Head line”. The head line is also referred to as the “Shiro rekha”, Bhagwat chooses the upper limit of the Shiro rekha to denote the head line After the head line, the upper mean line and lower mean line are indicated. The upper mean line denotes the point from which the actual letter starts, it is the line where the “peg” of the letter ends and the actual letter begins, for example the topmost counter of the letter k and v.The lower mean line is marked where the distinguishing characteristics of the letters comes to an end for example the lower end of the first half of g or the lowermost part of the counter of the letter k and v. These lines are followed by the base line, which is where the complete letter ends and the lower Matras begin. The lowermost line is the “Rukar line” named so that is the line where the lowest portion of the Rukar ends.

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This division of letters is simplistic in comparison with the other schemes discussed in this article, it fails to address issues of the proportion of letters, double ligatures etc. It is also obsolete in a certain sense primarily because it uses handwritten Devanagari as its source material. Therefore it is interesting to note that, in this model two lines are marked above the Shiro rekha—the Upper matra line and Rafar line. A marked difference between the height of the matras and the height of the Rafar is seen mostly in handwritten or calligraphic Devanagari. This scheme cannot be applied to contemporary Devanagari as in most of these the typefaces the heights of the Rafar and the Upper Matras are equal. If we were to consider Bhagwat’s scheme for contemporary Devanagari typefaces then the two lines (Upper Matra line and Rafar line) would merge into one another. Bhagwat titles his figure as “Graphic Elements in Devanagari Letters”, the new contribution that he makes to the vocabulary of graphic elements of Devanagari is the term—the “loop”, which. he uses to describe the top of letters such . and Xa.

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Bapurao Naik also attempted a graphical grouping (titled “Graphical Classification of Devanagari Varnas”) of letters—this grouping is a more succinct version of Bhagwat’s grouping based on the parts of the letter. Naik graphically organizes the letters into five groups (see fig.3) based on the position of the Kana or the verti-bar It is worthwhile to notice that in this scheme the letter E is missing. According to the given logic this letter would have a half verti-bar which would have increased the number of groups from five to six. One could also consider the fact that in group 5 the letter r is considered without a bar, in many contemporary Devanagari fonts the letter r is drawn with a half verti-bar as against a small arc from the Shiro Rekha which is considered in the given example—in such a case one can group the letter E with r and call it a group of letter with half verti-bars. The terminology used by Naik7 (also Bhagwat and Gokhale) is the typical terminology which is used to describe Devanagari vowel signs in schools while teaching Devanagari. The terms used for vowel signs are:

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THE ANATOMY OF DEVANAGRI

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M W Gokhale

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he next attempt at creating a vocabulary for Devanagari was done by M W Gokhale; it was first published in 1975–76J. Gokhale uses the “body” paradigm to describe the various portions of the Devanagari letters—the body is used as a reference for the vertical proportion of the letters. The lines defined by him are as follows:

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Regarding the proportion of letters, Gokhale uses the stroke thickness (thickness of the pen stroke) as the base unit. He suggests—to define the upper Matra signs we need minimum four strokes and bottom Matras need a minimum of four stokes. Thus four strokes for upper, eight strokes for the main characters and four strokes for the bottom Matras are necessary. Total 16 units of strokes can be considered as a primary parameter for the total height. He also goes on to suggest—for practical purpose the thickness of the pen stroke could be 1/16th of the type height (see fig.4) According to this scheme, “an expert designer can vary the proportions if guide lines and alignment zones to suit his/her design needsBA”. The description of the various parts of Devanagari letters is called “Cartographic description of Devanagari” in his document. The supporting figures show the labelled terminology.

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Some notable terminology that we can see here is iXazRdN@, for the “peg” or connecting part of a letter such as d; spRkar mrao@ for the elongated loop of the letter =; ivvr for counter space in the letter v which has a open counter in the given example. ga\# i.e. a knot, more precisely a filled knot in the letter d. biNdSt Avkax for the enclosed counter space in the letter m.

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I took inspiration from the Devanagri alphabet ‘h’ which spells out ‘haqI’, meaning elephant. I stylized the alphabet and made various options for patterns and motifs which could be used as graphical inspiration for various Dastkaari craft products

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Application of elephant pattern incorporating Devnagri script on cloth bags. These patterns can be hand painted, block printed or screen printed

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The motif of the elephant can be used to create jewellery such as pendants or earrings, it can be printed or painted on yardage, coasters, scraves, kurtas etc

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Inspired by a book called Fancy Alphabets by Pepin Press, a basic grid was created for the Devnagri alphabet ‘£’ as in ‘£LlU ’ meaning owl

The alphabet ‘£’ was placed on the grid, following the guidelines. This was a stylized version of the alphabet and had serifs and varying strokes (Figure on Right)

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Once the alphabet ‘£’ was placed on the grid and the final outline was ready, it was traced out and isolated from the grid

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After isolation of the alphabet ‘£’ , it was mirrored to form an owl. I experimented with different proportions and explored the kind and placement of the eyes to go on it’s face. Finally I chose the following option ( Figure Below)

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Several explorations were made for a pattern for the wings and feathers of the owl. Finally one was chosen and placed on the owlâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s body. Various product applications were thought of and tried out

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Above: Application of the graphic on a cloth handbag. The graphic can be applied on various fabrics by means of hand painting/ screen printing on yardage, notbook covers, coasters etc. It can also be converted to jewellery.

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SCRIPT

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Bengali

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engali script is the writing system for the Bengali language. It is also used, with some modifications, for Assamese, Meitei, Bishnupriya Manipuri, Kokborok, Garo and Mundari languages. All these languages are spoken in the eastern region of South Asia. Historically, the script has also been used to write the Sanskrit language in the same region. From a classificatory point of view, the Bengali script is an abugida, i.e. its vowel graphemes are mainly realized not as independent letters like in a true alphabet, but as diacritics attached to its consonant graphemes. It is written from left to right and lacks distinct letter cases. It is recognizable by a distinctive horizontal line running along the tops of the letters that links them together, a property it shares with two other popular Indian scripts: Devanagari (used for Hindi, Marathi and Nepali) and Gurumukhi (used for Punjabi). The Bengali script is, however, less blocky and presents a more sinuous shaping.

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< Vowels in Bengali Script > Consonants in Bengali script

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In the Bengali script, clusters of consonants are represented by different and sometimes quite irregular characters; thus, learning to read the script is complicated by the sheer size of the full set of characters and character combinations, numbering about 350. While efforts at standardizing the script for the Bengali language continue in such notable centres as the Bangla Academies (unaffiliated) at Dhaka (Bangladesh) and Kolkata (West Bengal, India), it is still not quite uniform as yet,

as many people continue to use various archaic forms of letters, resulting in concurrent forms for the same sounds. Among the various regional variations within this script, only the Assamese and Bengali variations exist today in the formalized system. It seems likely that the standardization of the script will be greatly influenced by the need to typeset it on computers. A recent effort by the government of West Bengal focused on simplifying Bengali spellings in primary school texts.

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EXPLORATION

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Bengali Script

Word Mayoor (Peacock)

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The first step to understand the script was to learn how to write it. This involved understanding the beginnings and ends of different strokes and the heirarchy in writing of different parts of the letters

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Inspiration was taken from photos of a variety of previously designed craft products from DHS to derive forms of peacock, which were then simplified

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Explorations were done with hand as well as digitally to combine the typography and the form of Peacock until a suitable form for the word was derived.

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Once the basic structure for the graphic was ready, it was developed by making more explorations by adding graphic elements and suggestive elements to make the form look like a peacock. I worked on two different basic structures (above & below)

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Exploration 1

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Exploration 2

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Exploration 3

Exploration 4

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Sample 1

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Sample 2

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Sample 3

Sample 4

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Pattern made from Devnagri alphabet ‘m’. The pattern forms fish or ‘Machli’. The application of the pattern on a bag is shown. On the opposite page, some patterns with other Bengali alphabets are shown

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SCRIPT

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Malayalam

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alayalam script is a Brahmic script used commonly to write the Malayalam language—which is the principal language of the Indian state of Kerala, spoken by 36 million people in the world. Like many other Indic scripts, it is an abugida, or a writing system that is partially “alphabetic” and partially syllable-based. The modern Malayalam alphabet has 13 vowel letters, 36 consonant letters, and a few other symbols. Konkani, which actually means two individual languages (ISO 639-3: knn and gom),[clarification needed] is also sometimes written in the Malayalam script, though relatively rarely. The script is also used to write several minority languages such as Paniya, Betta Kurumba, and Ravula. The Malayalam language itself was historically written in several different scripts. Even today it is sometimes written in Arabi Malayalam, a variant form of the Arabic script, mainly by Muslims in Singapore and Malaysia.

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Explorations with Malayalam script. The motif & pattern is made from the Malayalam word for elephant

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CONCEPT 2

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An Ideal Boy

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deal boy posters/ charts are pictorial illustrations which help small children in understanding basic manners, ettiquette and good habits. They were intially published by Roopa Publications and are very popular in India and have been used for more than 20 years by parents and teachers for their children/ students. The chart has a very simple grid. It is equally divided vertically and horizontally into columns and row, thus forming square or rectangular blocks. Each block has an illustration, which shows an Ideal Boy doing various activities in a day, which are considered as good habits, such as waking up early, greeting the elders, regularly bathing etc. Each illustration is accompanied by caption or small phrases, usually in Hindi/ English which explain the illustration. If the craftsmen could illustrate Ideal Boy graphics inspired by their own art it would help them in not only learning to write few phrases or words of a language but also at the same time help them in learning good habits. These graphics can then be applied to various products and will further help in educating the people who buy them.

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I found inspiration in the work of Arti Sandhu. She is a practicing Design Lecturer who is also an artist who takes inspiration from everyday activities happening around her and makes illustrations which have some characteristics of Madhubani line art yet they reflect her unique

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illustration style.

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Referring to a book on Madhubani art, I drew out different styles of making eyes of humsn beings. This was going to serve as a template for future explorations

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Explorations made for an Ideal Boy inspired by Madhubani Art

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The finalized template for an Ideal Boy which may be used on all further applications

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AKSHARA

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Project Management

Problems faced during the project and the limitations

INTERNSHIP STUDY: SHRUTI BAJAJ

faced various problems during this project. Firstly, I was completely unfamiliar with all the Indian scripts except Devanagri. Before beginning to work with any script it was essential to understand its anatomy and the way it is written. Sadly, there are very few sources available that teach writing of a script. Thankfully, I found a source uploaded by a blogger by the name of Pooja Saxena, who is an alumni of NIFT. She uploaded various scanned images from National Integration Language series which proved to be very helpful. Secondly, I was too familiar with Devanagri script because it is my mothertongue. I realized I had to unlearn certain notions that I had about it, in order to be able to look at it afresh. I also had to be open to learning and understanding new findings about the script. I must mention it was difficult to understand the anatomy of the script. It took a really long time to find translations based on my concept for the script. Most of the online translators were inaccurate. It was very difficult to find people who could actually write in another regional script apart from Devanagri. Most of the online sources merely provided translations for vary basic words and not of the words we needed. There was also no way of finding out if the translations were accurate. So it became essential to find a human translator. The project is still a work-in-progress. It is to be executed in March 2012. I have been asked to continue it on a part-time basis.

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PROJECT 2

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hU–the sufi journal

Status On hold till further notice Client Rumi Foundation

INTERNSHIP STUDY: SHRUTI BAJAJ

umi Foundation was conceived with a mission – to create a one-world vision based on the mutual respect of communities, religions and regions, and to spread the word of love. It aims to do this through the medium of creative art forms. The Foundation organizes and supports activities that create awareness in people about the present crises the world is facing due to the widening rifts of misunderstanding between nations, and seeks to awaken hearts to come together for a solution. It arranges the Annual International Sufi Music Festival, Jahan-eKhusrau, one of the most awaited cultural festivals of the country. It also publishes a bi-annual journal HU–The Sufi Way, a poet-oriented journal dedicated to Sufi mystics and their message of love and surrender. It recaptures the lives and teachings of the great mystics to rearticulate them in the contemporary context. Sufi means ‘oneness and love’. It is about seeing the beauty in every culture and community and imbibing their essence to foster tolerance and global unity. The ideologies of the Foundation are based on this spirit of Sufism that exists in every heart and every soul, regardless of the boundaries.

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PATRONS & FOUNDERS

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Rumi Foundation

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The Foundation was registered on 29 December 2004 with distinguished members: Patrons of the Foundation •His Royal Highness, Al Hassan Bin Talal of Jordan •Sheila Dikshit, Chief Minister, Delhi, India •Esin Celebi Bayru, Turkey •Deepak Chopra, USA Founder Members •Dr Karan Singh (Scholar and Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha) is Chairman •Dr Abid Husain (Ex-Ambassador to the US) is Vice Chairman •Muzaffar Ali (Filmmaker and Painter) is Executive Director & Secretary •Zainab Chauhan (Business Person) is Treasurer •Dr Syeda Hameed (Member, Planning Commission) •Syeda Imam (Author, Member – National Commission of Minorities) •Sharmila Tagore (Actress) •Dilshad Sheikh (Craft Development) •Ashfaq Peeran (Infrastructure Development)

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•Bipin Shah (Publisher) •Hemi Bawa (Artist)

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ABOUT hU BY

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Muzzafar Ali

Status On hold till further notice Client Rumi Foundation

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The journal Hu, launched by the Rumi Foundation , is for those who would like to know more about Sufi thought. In the words of Muzaffar Ali, Executive Director of th e Foundation, “Basically it for the reasonably acquainted and inspired people.” It has been some time in the preparation. Muzaffar Ali, editor-in-chief of the magazine, is satisfied there is space for such a publication. He feels, the message of Sufism, with its emphasis on oneness, needs to be made available to a world increasingly fraught with intolerance. Hu refers to the traditional way of remembrance of the creator, he explains. The cover design in black and white is symbolic of the colours of Sufism. Says Anu Nayyar, who helped in editing and designing, “Black stands for emptyi ng of the mind. When you want to fill yourself with God you have to make the space.” Also, she adds, while Hu is a name for Allah, the attempt is to take the concept further. “We want to take it to the mysticism of every religion.”

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The first issue, released by Rumi Foundation’s guiding light Karan Singh at New Delhi’s Oxford Bookstore, is dedicated to Amir Khusrau. “My thrust in the beginning is to dedicate each issue to a poet,” says Ali. “What can you do in a hundred pages,” he asks. “You need books and books and books.” Getting appropriate writers was tough. “People who are scholars, and specialised and those who are interested,” he enumerates. The writers in the current issue include Makarand Paranjpye, Karan Singh, Gopichand Narang and others.

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RUMI FOUNDATION’S

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Jahan-e-Khusrav

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Jahan-e-Khusrau, the Annual International Sufi Music Festival, is arranged by Rumi Foundation and has been held consecutively for seven years till now. The Festival is inspired by the Sufi poet Hazrat Amir Khusrau, and artistes from different parts of the world come together to offer their tribute to this great poet. It is an unfolding of the music and verse of this poet of ‘the soil of Delhi’, in the realm of the heart. “It is a mingling of world talent”, as Festival Director Muzaffar Ali says, “to sing in one universal voice”. The event involves the selection, translation and setting to music, lyrics with international voices and instruments, while keeping the spirit of Khusrau alive. The world of Amir Khusrau is a humane world. A world of compassion and surrender. A world without walls where all differences are resolved with love. The world of Khusrau is ever-inspiring, forever in ecstasy, throbbing away, elated at most times…

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This is the spirit of Jahan-e-Khusrau, that attempts to take Khusrau to every child and intellectual across the length and breadth of the country, and to all the corners of the world. It has given the citizens of Delhi cause to rejoice and meditate, with people from different countries joining in the celebration and surrender. Performing artistes come together to discover their similarities and common roots. They are from all parts of India – Kashmir, Maharashtra, Delhi, Awadh, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Gujarat, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh and Uttaranchal, blending with artistes who travel from countries such as Iran, Tunisia, Turkey, Pakistan, Germany, Uzbekistan, Bangladesh, Morocco, the United States and Israel. The fusion of musical form with poetic content creates sheer magic on the mind. This Festival has become an annual feature and a very special reason for visiting Delhi. The world of Amir Khusrau is the Realm of the Heart. ‘Jahan’ means the world and ‘Khusrau’, the King.

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hU MAGAZINE

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Publication Design

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magazine is a publication by the Rumi Foundation, dedicated to Sufi mystics and their message of love and surrender. hU celebrates the Divine Presence… hU perpetuates the culture of oneness… The Foundation has a vision – To take the fire of love to the world and create mutual respect for cultures, religions and regions… through the message of mystics – HU is an Endeavour in this direction… hU started as a bi-annual magazine, but soon got converted into an annual magazine. Up till now, there have been 4 issues of hU. Each volume of hU is launched with the annual Jahan-e-khusrav festival.

PAPER TYPE: Maplitho. Maplitho is a kind of uncoated paper that has the tendency to absorb ink. It is because of this quality and also because it is naturally yellow tinted, it was chosen for print publication of hU magazine. It lends a vintage or rustic look to the print which is required for the subject of Sufi. However, a disadvantage of using Maplitho paper is that it cannot be printed on HP Indigo Printer This is a shortcoming as it is impossible to take coloured test prints from an Indigo Press.

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hU MAGAZINE

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Publication Design

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BINDING & COVER The magazine uses perfect binding with a standard stabilized cover pattern. The cover is hard-bound with a black art card which is matt laminated.

NUMBER OF PAGES

The number of pages varies from volume to volume. The very 1st volume contained 90 pages. The 2nd one contained 120 pages, 3rd contained 180 and 4th contained 210 pages. The current volume, i.e., the 5th volume, is under Roopa Publications and as of now, it should contain 150 pages.

GRID

The cover grid has a flexible hU logo on top left and the logo of the Rumi Foundation on bottom right.

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PRODUCTION PROCESS Each issue takes 6 months time for production. Once the basic design and layout is done and approved by the editor and the client, the magazine goes for test printing in single colour on poor quality paper. This is to check the registration, placement of data, size etc. This test print goes to the editor for proof-reading. Once the test-print is proof-read, it is stamped for printing. After this, the magazine is sent for an Indigo print. The indigo print is 99% close to the original print and colours. After the Indigo print, necessary changes are made in the artwork and then the magazine goes for final printing.

INTERNSHIP STUDY: SHRUTI BAJAJ

In Maulana Daud’s poetic Sufi treatise Candayan (A.D. 1379), a pair

of lovers, Lorik-Chanda, provide the central motif for the exploration of Sufi concerns about the yearning of the mortal

soul for union with the Divine. As an example

of Indian Sufi mystical narratives, the Candayan falls

in the genre of masnavi poetry represented by Shaikh Kutuban’s Mrigawati (1503), Malik Muhammed Jayasi’s Padmavat (1540) and Manjhan’s Madhumalati (1545) -- allegorical romances that emphasize the triumph of love in the face of adversity. In the masnavi genre, the hero symbolizes the soul and the heroine represents the

Supreme or Divine. The hero goes through the test of unconditional love and risks his life in order to seek union with his Beloved. In accordance with mystical Sufi philosophy the hero’s suffering and commitment, his profound viraha (suffering in separation), are highlighted. When the hero leaves home in search of his beloved, he creates a distance between his worldly life and his spiritual existence but at the

Folk origins of

Maulana Daud’s

CANDAYAN

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e-Delhi, who was in turn the disciple of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya of Delhi. Mulla Abdul-Qadir Badauni says that when in 722/1370 Khan-i Jahan, the wazir died, and his son Juna obtained that title, Maulana Daud is supposed to have written the Candayan, a masnavi in Hindawi, in his honor. The Candayan served as a model for later compositions, coinciding with the nirgun and sagun bhakti periods (1450-1550). Since it was written in the Perso-Arabic script, this masnavi literature has remained largely inaccessible and is only recently being rediscovered. Maulana Daud’s Candayan has drawn upon, indeed built upon, the oral folk traditions of a vast geographical region from eastern Uttar Pradesh to Madhya Pradesh. It is therefore worth exploring the nature of these linkages, particularly those motifs within oral traditions which have lent themselves so fruitfully to the larger project of disseminating Sufi ideology. How did Sufi mystics tweak and rework the oral narratives in order to make the Sufi path so widely acceptable?

The above question is partially answered by evidence from south India relating

The folk ballad Lorikayan is sung at celebrations ranging from betrothals (Tilak) to festivals and as the renowned biraha singer Hiralal Yadava of Benaras points out, ‘this is the typical form of entertainment among Yadavas’. The melodic structure and scale makes Lorikayan singing distinctive and unique. While classical singers usually sing within the 5th and 6th scales, Lorikayan singers also use the seventh scale, making the singing taxing and difficult, requiring training and voice control in addition to learning thousands of verses . Hiralal Yadav says that he rarely performs the entire epic from beginning to end, usually singing only the most popular segments such as the episodes dealing with Lorik’s marriage. Hiralal Yadav’s comments confirm Flueckiger’s observation that Indian oral epics are ‘performed episodically, with popular episodes being performed most frequently and sometimes, with considerable interaction from audiences that are likely to have a general knowledge of the epic’ . Such audiences are also more likely to seek emotional or devotional connections rather than development in the narrative per se.

depending on the caste and regional backgrounds of the singers and their individual concerns. The caste of the narrator is an important factor that tends to alter the emphasis in narrative content. Yadava singers, for instance, glorify the Yadava caste to a greater degree than singers belonging to other caste groups. This gives the epic a fluid, shifting character in spite of a broad narrative that remains constant. To a large extent, the emphases different episodes will receive are determined by whether the story is being narrated from the point of view of the hero, Lorik, or the heroine, Chanaini. Thus the oral folk ballad of Lorik-Chanda is known as Chanaini in Awadhi and Chhatisgarhi, and becomes the lore of Lorikayan in the Bhojpuri-speaking belt. While in Uttar Pradesh the epic dramatizes the solidarity of a single caste (of Yadavas) and its values, in Chhatisgarh the epic is identified with the whole region rather than a specific caste. As in all oral performance ballads, the context and audience also determine aspects that are prioritized. As ‘a long succession of storytellers must interact with numerous live audiences to produce a folk epic’, it is fruitful to think of the Lorikayan as a local legend that may have evolved over time in response to a wider cultural milieu. It must be stressed that there is no single text that can be called the Lorikayan, since ‘living epic traditions are not static but continue to change and respond to the communities in which they are performed’ .

From the translated and written Bhojpuri version of the ballad recorded by S.M. Pandey (Pandey 1986), based on Sivnath Chaudhuri’s rendition in 1966 on 48 hours of audiotape , it is possible to summarize the main motifs of the Lorikayan as follows:

The ballad begins with a long episode about the marriage of Lorik to Manjari. Descriptions of Lorik’s barat and marriage celebration evoke warfare and images of armies marching to war. A sociological reading of this vastly entertaining and colorful opening section of the ballad offers unique insights into the social function of marriage as a means to achieve equilibrium and parity between opposing but equal status groups. Early in the narrative it is established that the hero, Lorik, has incarnated to save the honor of the herding and dairying caste. He marries the chaste Manjari but we soon find out that the central character of the epic is not Manjari but the irresistible Chanaini whose remarkable character and exploits dominate the rest of the narrative. The ballad introduces her through an episode in which she shows great pluck and resilience in escaping from an impotent husband.

LORIKAYAN

The oral tradition cited as ‘inspiration’ for Maulana Daud’s Candayan is the Lorikayan. Pandey offers a comparative list of episodes from the Candayan and the elopement episode of the oral epic tradition, while also referring to the Persian and classical Indian literary styles Daud drew upon to transform an oral epic into a literary text . More than simply offering the inspiration, I argue that the Candayan is in fact a literary and Sufi retelling of the folk ballad Lorikayan, which originated at the confluence of the Ganga and Saryu rivers, bordering

There are, in fact, innumerable oral versions of the Loriki or Lorikayan,

Motifs in

ontological link between God, the Prophet, the pir (mystic) and the woman at the grindstone.

An oral ballad

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to the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. For instance, Sufi mystics used grindstone songs to disseminate ideas about Sufism. At least in Bijapur, a number of short poems in Dakani are found to employ indigenous themes and imagery for the propagation of mystical doctrines. Preserved in the oral traditions of Dakani speaking villagers of the Deccan, this folk poetry, chakki-nama, was sung by village women engaged in grinding grains and spices at the chakki (grindstone) and while spinning thread (charkha–nama). For the women who sang them, the appeal of the songs was enhanced not only because they accompanied women’s household tasks but also because they were permeated with imagery especially meaningful to them . Thus elements of Sufi doctrine were adapted to the already existing vehicles of folk poetry. In the cultural history of the Deccan, the works of the mystic Burhan al-Din Janam, for instance, associated with the chakkinama, are considered a major development. These songs recognized that the power that turns the wheel is witness to the light, thereby recognizing the essence of God. . The songs appear to have made the

The Candayan was composed in 1379 by Maulana Daud, a disciple of the nephew of the Sufi Shaikh Nasiruddin Chirag-

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LORIKAYAN

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Introduction

conclusion of his journey, his final return to his worldly life symbolizes the effort to achieve a balance between these two spheres.

INTERNSHIP STUDY: SHRUTI BAJAJ

On her way she is pursued by the lower caste Bathwa, who

preventing their boat from capsizing and thus saving their lives. Their elopement journey is a robust, entertaining tale in

attempts to seduce her but dies at the hands of Lorik,

which the hero and heroine are well matched.

summoned to kill him.

Chanaini’s character is portrayed as endearingly playful. She scarcely loses an opportunity to tease, even in seemingly tense

Chanaini is now restless to meet Lorik, an eventuality that soon occurs at a banquet, to

moments such as when the hero is poised to climb up the rope to her chamber. The ballad’s construction of a wholly earthy, unpredictable, fun-loving, erotic persona, well matched to

which all Yadavas are invited. When Lorik first catches a glimpse of Chanda on her

the hero’s bravery, proves a foil to Manjari’s controlled, longsuffering one. Chanaini’s beauty, ingenuity, resourcefulness and capacity to protect herself are thrown into striking relief.

Moses urges God to reveal Himself but his request is

Chanaini or Chanda is the reflection, as well as the representation of divine brilliance. As earthly beauty is in any case the reflection of Divine Glory,

rejected on the grounds that it is impossible for Moses to see his Creator. In another letter

the worldly beloved symbolizes the Eternal Beloved. Chanda’s beauty is now the means to lead the mystic to the Ultimate

to Shah Muhammad about the spiritual ambitions of holy

Beauty. Hines points out that elevating the status of a woman so that she represents God is atypical of the Indian literary tradition .

men, Shaikh Abdul-Quddus argued, using for emphasis a doha from the Candayan,

The heroine of the masnavi living in Gobargarh is a child

He loses all interest in daily life except thoughts of meeting

enemies have mounted a four-pronged attack and made off with all the family’s cattle and wealth. Saddened, Lorik returns

bride. When she is merely twelve, a beggar-bard chances to see her and is so enchanted by her beauty that he

The verses translated by Shaikh

her. The seduction of Chanaini by Lorik is a fascinating tale involving the construction of

to his village and reunites with the now impoverished Manjari. In the last episodes of the ballad, robbed of their cattle, Lorik’s mother and wife find themselves in dire straits, reduced to

a sturdy rope to gain entry into her chamber; the eventual discovery of the clandestine

selling yoghurt in the bazaar. Towards the end of the ballad, the promise of an alternative femininity shown by its women protagonists dissipates into disappointingly predictable

affair and their plans for elopement. In one episode,

conformity. For instance in one episode, evocative of Sita’s trial by fire, Manjari is even called upon to take the test of

Manjari finds out about the impending elopement of the

chastity, which involves putting her hand into a heated vat. In addition to the strength and ingenuity of its women characters,

lovers and a physical fight ensues between Manjari and Chanaini. However, the lovers

especially in the earlier episodes, the ballad does succeed in foregrounding a self-confident and assertive masculinity, in keeping with the caste’s rise to power both in terms of land

do succeed in their escape while Lorik regretfully leaves his cattle and lands behind.

control and political assertion.

The rest of the narrative is about the innumerable

the political, social, cultural and ideological processes that are likely to have been involved as intermediate caste groups attempted to challenge established centers of local power and question the authority of the entrenched landed Kshatriyas. Indeed, it is in this sense of providing evidence about the gendered nature of such large-scale transitions, that this folk text is most instructive.

Maulana Daud’s

CANDAYAN

In the last section of the ballad, Lorik gets the message that

that only the spiritually adventurous were real men.

composes odes to her. The Raja of Rajapur, moved by the bard’s songs and inspired by Chanda’s beauty, invades Gobargarh. Chanda’s

Abdul-Quddus refer to the bard’s first sighting of Chanda -- the Persian translation

father invites Vir Lorik, a neighbouring raja, to Gobargarh’s assistance. The Raja of Rajapur is defeated, but Lorik and Chanda fall

allegorically describing Chanda as a piece of unreachable fruit.

in love.

The most fascinating portions of the masnavi are the nakh-shikh (top to toe) description of Chanda given by the bard at the Raja’s court. Maulana Daud sees the eye-brows of Arjuna in the heavens but finds those of Chanda even

more beautiful. As she walks, men prostrate themselves before her only to find their sins washed away. Rishis and gods such as Indra, Brahma, Vishnu

The ballad may be read as a sociologically rich document of

and Murari are enchanted by her. The nakh-shikh of the Candayan made a deep impact on later writers of Hindi masnavis and the motif was reproduced chiefly because of the great prestige its author enjoyed as a mystic. Shaikh Abdul-Quddus, in a letter to Shaikh Jalal Thaneswari on the Wahdat-al Wujud, quoted a doha from the

another, she demonstrates immense ingenuity in

Candayan to prove that although lovers sought to meet their beloveds, they were always thwarted. The doha is immediately

The analogy suggests that mystics get a glimpse of the Supreme but God Himself is beyond their reach. Thus in Daud’s Candayan, after seeing

2010

Chanda, Lorik as if blinded retreats to a temple, rejects the pleasures and comforts of life and spends a year in seclusion, practicing austerities. In this first novice stage undertaken by the Sufi seeker in his spiritual search, Lorik isolates himself and retreats from the world to be closer to God. But after a year, when he meets Chanda again, his wife Maina/Manjari, symbolizing worldly existence, finds out. The physical fight that ensues between Maina and Chanda suggests a symbolic struggle between material and spiritual pursuits.

Lorik takes the next step of eloping and crossing the river with Chanda, leaving behind his material possessions of land and cattle, everything he holds dear. At this point he is being prepared for the next stage of faqiri, which is to follow.

The concept of the journey is significant in Sufi practice and Daud’s narrative serves as an allegory for the soul’s odyssey and spiritual union with the Supreme. In accordance with the Sufi path, the seeker must first experience seclusion, followed by asceticism, poverty, repentance and constant remembrance. These are indeed the stages or stations Daud’s narrative about Lorik’s spiritual journey seeks to highlight and exemplify. The main focus of the narrative is then the journey of the hero that becomes the spiritual journey of the individual self in search of the Universal Self.

The second time Chanda is bitten by a snake, Lorik arrives at the station of Patience. Bowing to God’s will he undertakes to engage in constant zikr -- the repetition of the Beloved’s (Chanda’s) name. The stage when a Sufi expects mercy from god is tawakkul. Towards the close of the second snakebite episode, he arrives at the stage when it is possible for him to make the distinction between the essence and the mirror that reflects the divine reality. Chanda’s death from the second snakebite forces Lorik to meditate on his life, call for help and to realize the nature of true love. Finally, there comes a point in Lorik’s lamentations when he wishes to die in order to be with Chanda in the life thereafter.

Preparing a funeral pyre, Lorik is now ready to enter it, holding aloft Chanda’s lifeless body. Finally, bereft of all carnal desire and with purity of heart and mind, Lorik prepares to make the ultimate sacrifice of his own self and ego. In thus embracing self-annihilation, he finally approaches his goal of union with the Eternal (fana). This is the moment when Lorik has gained victory over physical love. Since the physical form represents Selfhood, it must be annihilated to achieve

spiritual union. For a Sufi then, nullifying the ego is necessary for spiritual realization. In both snakebite episodes, the hero repents and blames only himself for his predicament.

Notes Eaton 2002 Eaton, Richard M. 2002. Essays on Islam and Indian History. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Jas kienhau, jas paayaun I reap what I sowed.

ibid 2002: 194. Flueckiger, Joyce B. 1989. ‘The Hindi Oral Epic:

Lorikayan (the tale of Lorik and Chanda) by Shyam Manohar Pandey’. Allahabad: Sahitya Bhawan private, 1987 book review, The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol.48, no.2 (May), 428. 1

Interview with Biraha singer Hiralal Yadav, Varanasi, October 15, 2008 Flueckiger 1989:428. Beck, Brenda E.F. 1982. The Three Twins. The Telling of a South Indian Folk Epic. Bloomington: Indiana University Press: 197

Since the Candayan is a tale of inner transformation, the hero’s return is also of considerable importance to assess whether or not he has achieved his spiritual goals. The last episode then is about coming full circle to the point of departure, signifying the achievement of harmony and balance in the seeker’s daily life. In other words, the journey is complete only when the seeker has returned home to apply what has been learned to his mundane existence. In outlining the significance of the homecoming episode, Hines suggests that the hero’s return to his home and embrace of his domestic life, establishes the successful completion of his spiritual quest.

Maulana Shaikh Taqiud-Din, a godly preacher (wa’iz-i rabbani), is known to have recited the Candayan’s verses from the pulpit, which supposedly had an indescribable ecstatic effect upon the audience. When people asked the Shaikh why he chose this masnavi for his discourses, he is supposed to have replied, ‘the whole of it is divine truth and is not only agreeable to the taste of people who are interested in divine Love, but it is compatible with the interpretation of some verses of the Quran. Even now sweet-singers of India captivate the heart by reciting it.’

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followed by lines from a verse from the Quran in which

heroine are sources of Light. Lorik’s name is changed to Nurak (from Nur, light) and

balcony, he swoons and has to be carried away on a stretcher.

adventures Lorik and Chanda encounter en route. On one occasion, Chanda almost dies of snakebite but is miraculously revived. On

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In the narrative’s altered focus provided by Daud in his Candayan, both the hero and

Blackburn, Stuart H., Peter J. Claus, Joyce B. Fleuckiger, and Susan S. Wadley (eds.), 1989. Oral Epics in India. Berkeley: University of California Press, p.7. Another version is that of Dadai Kewat, a farmer belonging to the river-faring caste who claims to have learnt it from an Ahir guru (now Yadava) over three years while grazing cattle. The latter text is approximately 14,000 lines and its summarized Hindi translation itself runs into 120 pages. As an aside, the occasion of the banquet is in the nature of an expiatory feast given by Chanaini’s father, for his daughter’s association with a Chamar, which suggests the breaking of inter-caste commensal taboos in interaction with a lower caste male. The tenor of the episode suggests caste displeasure at Chanaini’s action that needs public redressal. The scene is set for the forbidden love between the two for which the only solution appears to be elopement. Hines, Naseem 2009. Maulana Daud’s Candayan: A Critical Study. New Delhi: Manohar: 84 Hines 2009. ibid.

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INTRODUCTION

In Maulana Daud’s poetic Sufi treatise Candayan (A.D. 1379), a pair of lovers, Lorik-Chanda, provide the central motif for the exploration of Sufi concerns about the yearning of the mortal soul for union with the Divine. As an example of Indian Sufi mystical narratives, the Candayan falls in the genre of masnavi poetry represented by Shaikh Kutuban’s Mrigawati (1503), Malik Muhammed Jayasi’s Padmavat (1540) and Manjhan’s

Madhumalati (1545) -- allegorical romances that emphasize the triumph of love in the face of adversity. In the masnavi genre, the hero symbolizes the soul and the heroine represents the Supreme or Divine. The hero goes through the test of unconditional love and risks his life in order to seek union with his Beloved. In accordance with mystical Sufi philosophy the hero’s suffering and commitment, his

profound viraha (suffering in separation), are highlighted. When the hero leaves home in search of his beloved, he creates a distance between his worldly life and his spiritual existence but at the conclusion of his journey, his final return to his worldly life symbolizes the effort to achieve a balance between these two spheres. The Candayan was composed in 1379 by Maulana Daud, a disciple of the nephew of the Sufi Shaikh Nasiruddin Chirag-e-Delhi, who was in turn the disciple of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya of Delhi. Mulla Abdul-Qadir Badauni says that when in 722/1370 Khan-i Jahan, the wazir died, and his son Juna obtained that title, Maulana Daud is supposed to have written the Candayan, a masnavi in Hindawi, in his honor. The Candayan served as a model for later compositions, coinciding with the nirgun and sagun bhakti periods (14501550). Since it was written in the Perso-Arabic script, this masnavi literature has remained largely inaccessible and is only recently being rediscovered. Maulana Daud’s Candayan has drawn upon, indeed built upon, the oral folk traditions of a vast geographical region from eastern Uttar Pradesh to Madhya Pradesh. It is therefore worth exploring the nature of these linkages,

Folk origins of

particularly those motifs within oral traditions which have lent themselves so fruitfully to the larger project of disseminating Sufi ideology. How did Sufi mystics tweak and rework the oral narratives in order to make the Sufi path so widely acceptable?

Maulana Daud’s

The above question is partially answered by evidence from south India relating to the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. For instance, Sufi mystics used grindstone songs to disseminate ideas about Sufism. At least in Bijapur,

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a number of short poems in Dakani are found to employ indigenous themes and imagery for the propagation of mystical doctrines. Preserved in the oral traditions of Dakani speaking villagers of the Deccan, this folk poetry, chakki-nama, was sung by village women engaged in grinding grains and spices at the chakki (grindstone) and while spinning thread (charkha–nama). For the women who sang them, the appeal of the songs was enhanced not only because they accompanied women’s household tasks but also because they were permeated with imagery especially meaningful to them . Thus elements of Sufi doctrine were adapted to the already existing vehicles of folk poetry. In the cultural history of the Deccan, the works of the mystic Burhan al-Din Janam, for instance, associated with the chakkinama, are considered a major development. These songs recognized that the power that turns the wheel is witness to the light, thereby recognizing the essence of God. . The songs appear to have made the ontological link between God, the Prophet, the pir (mystic) and the woman at the grindstone. The oral tradition cited as

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‘inspiration’ for Maulana Daud’s Candayan is the Lorikayan. Pandey offers a comparative list of episodes from the Candayan and the elopement episode of the oral epic tradition, while also referring to the Persian and classical Indian literary styles Daud drew upon to transform an oral epic into a literary text . More than simply offering the inspiration, I argue that the Candayan is in fact a literary and Sufi retelling of the folk ballad Lorikayan, which originated at the confluence of the

LORIKAYAN– AN ORAL BALLAD

Yadava caste to a greater degree than singers belonging to other caste groups. This gives the epic a fluid, shifting character in spite of a broad narrative that remains constant. To a large extent, the emphases different episodes will receive are determined by whether the story is being narrated from the point of view of the hero, Lorik, or the heroine, Chanaini. Thus the oral folk ballad of LorikChanda is known as Chanaini in Awadhi and Chhatisgarhi, and becomes the lore of Lorikayan in the Bhojpuri-speaking belt. While in Uttar Pradesh the epic dramatizes the solidarity of a single caste (of Yadavas) and its values, in Chhatisgarh the epic is identified with the whole region rather than a specific caste. As in all oral performance ballads, the context and audience also determine aspects that are prioritized. As ‘a long succession of storytellers must interact with numerous live audiences to produce a folk epic’, it is fruitful to think of the Lorikayan as a local legend that may have evolved over time in response to a wider cultural milieu. It must be stressed that there is no single text that can be called the Lorikayan, since ‘living epic traditions are not static but continue to change and respond to the communities in which they are performed’ .

MOTIFS IN LORIKAYAN From the translated and written Bhojpuri version of the ballad recorded by S.M. Pandey (Pandey 1986), based on Sivnath Chaudhuri’s rendition in 1966 on 48 hours of audiotape , it is possible to summarize the main motifs of the Lorikayan as follows:

INTERNSHIP STUDY: SHRUTI BAJAJ

she is pursued by the lower caste Bathwa, who attempts

preventing their boat from capsizing and thus saving their lives. Their elopement journey is a robust, entertaining tale in

to seduce her but dies at the hands of Lorik, summoned to

which the hero and heroine are well matched.

kill him.

Chanaini’s character is portrayed as endearingly playful. She

Chanaini is now restless to

scarcely loses an opportunity to tease, even in seemingly tense moments such as when the hero is poised to climb up the rope

meet Lorik, an eventuality that soon occurs at a banquet, to which all Yadavas are invited. When Lorik first catches a glimpse of Chanda on her balcony, he swoons and has to be carried away on a stretcher. He loses all interest in daily life except thoughts of meeting her. The seduction of Chanaini by Lorik is a fascinating tale involving the construction of a sturdy rope to gain entry into her chamber; the eventual discovery of the clandestine affair and their plans for elopement. In one episode, Manjari finds out about the impending elopement of the lovers and a physical fight ensues between Manjari and Chanaini. However, the lovers

to her chamber. The ballad’s construction of a wholly earthy, unpredictable, fun-loving, erotic persona, well matched to the hero’s bravery, proves a foil to Manjari’s controlled, longsuffering one. Chanaini’s beauty, ingenuity, resourcefulness and capacity to protect herself are thrown into striking relief. In the last section of the ballad, Lorik gets the message that enemies have mounted a four-pronged attack and made off

mother and wife find themselves in dire straits, reduced to selling yoghurt in the bazaar. Towards the end of the ballad, the promise of an alternative femininity shown by its women protagonists dissipates into disappointingly predictable conformity. For instance in one episode, evocative of Sita’s trial by fire, Manjari is even called upon to take the test of chastity, which involves putting her hand into a heated vat. In

spiritually adventurous were real men.

of Divine Glory, the worldly beloved symbolizes the Eternal Beloved. Chanda’s beauty is now the means to lead the mystic

The verses translated by Shaikh Abdul-Quddus refer to the

to the Ultimate Beauty. Hines points out that elevating the status of a woman so that she represents God is atypical of the Indian literary tradition .

bard’s first sighting of Chanda -- the Persian translation allegorically describing Chanda

bride. When she is merely twelve, a beggar-bard chances to see her and is so enchanted by her beauty that he composes odes to her. The Raja of Rajapur, moved by the bard’s songs and inspired by Chanda’s beauty, invades Gobargarh. Chanda’s father invites Vir Lorik, a neighbouring raja, to Gobargarh’s assistance. The Raja of Rajapur is defeated, but Lorik and Chanda fall in love. The most fascinating portions of the masnavi are the nakhshikh (top to toe) description of Chanda given by the bard at

addition to the strength and ingenuity of its women characters, especially in the earlier episodes, the ballad does succeed in

the Raja’s court. Maulana Daud sees the eye-brows of Arjuna in the heavens but finds those of Chanda even more beautiful. As she walks, men prostrate themselves before her only to

foregrounding a self-confident and assertive masculinity, in keeping with the caste’s rise to power both in terms of land

find their sins washed away. Rishis and gods such as Indra, Brahma, Vishnu and Murari are enchanted by her.

control and political assertion.

The rest of the narrative is about the innumerable

The nakh-shikh of the Candayan made a deep impact on The ballad may be read as a sociologically rich document of

gendered nature of such large-scale transitions, that this folk text is most instructive.

later writers of Hindi masnavis and the motif was reproduced chiefly because of the great prestige its author enjoyed as a mystic. Shaikh Abdul-Quddus, in a letter to Shaikh Jalal Thaneswari on the Wahdat-al Wujud, quoted a doha from the Candayan to prove that although lovers sought to meet their beloveds, they were always thwarted. The doha is immediately followed by lines from a verse from the Quran in which Moses urges God to reveal Himself but his request is rejected on the grounds that it is impossible for Moses to see his Creator. In another letter to Shah Muhammad about the spiritual

“A fruit is seen in the heavens on a lofty tree Our hands cannot hope to reach it. Anyone who is able to extend his hands high, How can he touch the branches of that heavenly tree. There are lots of people to guard the fruit throughout the day and night. He who tries even to look at it is likely to be killed.” The analogy suggests that mystics get a glimpse of the Supreme but God Himself is beyond their reach. Thus in Daud’s Candayan, after seeing Chanda, Lorik as if blinded retreats to a temple, rejects the pleasures and comforts of life and spends a year in seclusion, practicing austerities. In this first novice stage undertaken by the Sufi seeker in his spiritual search, Lorik isolates

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himself and retreats from the world to be closer to God. But after a year, when he meets Chanda again, his wife Maina/Manjari, symbolizing worldly existence, finds out. The physical fight that ensues between Maina and Chanda suggests a symbolic struggle between material and spiritual pursuits.

When the hero and heroine are escaping, Chanda is bitten by a snake and dies. The hero is beside himself with grief. Repenting (tawba) for his sins he pleads for God’s help, while also ‘remembering’ the Divine’s name (zikr). Hines explains that to have complete faith in God’s compassion is of crucial importance for the novice who embarks on his spiritual odyssey-- bowing to the will of god with patience (sabr) and unconditionally accepting His will (rida). In accordance with the stations of the Sufis, asceticism is the next station that the hero must embrace. Comparing his ordeal to Rama, in the snakebite episode Lorik willingly parts with all his worldly wealth so that the Garudi may bring Chanda back to life. Since his wealth is both left behind and also given away, this makes him a confirmed faqir. The second time Chanda is bitten by a snake, Lorik arrives at the station of Patience. Bowing to God’s will he undertakes to engage in constant zikr -- the repetition of the Beloved’s (Chanda’s) name. The stage when a Sufi expects mercy from god is tawakkul. Towards the close of the second snakebite episode, he arrives at the stage when it is possible for him to make the distinction between the essence and the mirror that reflects the divine reality. Chanda’s death from the second snakebite forces Lorik to meditate on his life, call for help and to realize the nature of true love. Finally, there comes a point in Lorik’s lamentations when he wishes to die in order to be with Chanda in the life thereafter. Preparing a funeral pyre, Lorik is now ready to enter it, holding aloft Chanda’s lifeless body. Finally, bereft of all carnal desire and with purity of heart and mind, Lorik prepares to make the ultimate sacrifice of his own self and ego. In thus embracing self-annihilation, he finally approaches his goal of union with the Eternal (fana). This is the moment when Lorik has gained victory over physical love. Since the physical form represents Selfhood, it must be annihilated to achieve spiritual union. For a Sufi then, nullifying the ego is necessary for spiritual realization. In both snakebite episodes, the hero repents and blames only himself for his predicament.

Jas kienhau, jas paayaun I reap what I sowed.

Notes Eaton 2002 Eaton, Richard M. 2002. Essays on Islam and Indian History. New Delhi: Oxford

At this stage of the narrative, the presence of the garudi and guni, who have the power to ‘revive’ Chanda, forces reflection on the significance of guidance in the mystical path provided by spiritual teachers. Finally, as Hines explains, in the mystic journey the seeker must move from one stage to the next without a major break; hence the importance of the two snakebite episodes that are placed back to back in the narrative, to stress the uninterrupted and constant nature of the seeking expected from a Sufi seeker Since the Candayan is a tale of inner transformation, the hero’s return is also of considerable importance to assess whether or not he has achieved his spiritual goals. The last episode then is about coming full circle to the point of departure, signifying the achievement of harmony and balance in the seeker’s daily life. In other words, the journey is complete only when the seeker has returned home to apply what has been learned to his mundane existence. In outlining the significance of the homecoming episode, Hines suggests that the hero’s return to his home and embrace of his domestic life, establishes the successful completion of his spiritual quest.

University Press. ibid 2002: 194. Flueckiger, Joyce B. 1989. ‘The Hindi Oral Epic: Lorikayan (the tale of Lorik and Chanda) by Shyam Manohar Pandey’. Allahabad: Sahitya Bhawan private, 1987 book review, The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol.48, no.2 (May), 428. 1

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for emphasis a doha from the Candayan, that only the

Chanaini or Chanda is the reflection, as well as the representation of divine brilliance. As earthly beauty is in any case the reflection

The heroine of the masnavi living in Gobargarh is a child

with all the family’s cattle and wealth. Saddened, Lorik returns to his village and reunites with the now impoverished Manjari. In the last episodes of the ballad, robbed of their cattle, Lorik’s

another, she demonstrates immense ingenuity in

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ambitions of holy men, Shaikh Abdul-Quddus argued, using

heroine are sources of Light. Lorik’s name is changed to Nurak (from Nur, light) and

as a piece of unreachable fruit.

do succeed in their escape while Lorik regretfully leaves his cattle and lands behind.

adventures Lorik and Chanda encounter en route. On one occasion, Chanda almost dies of snakebite but is miraculously revived. On

MAULANA DAUD’S CANDAYAN In the narrative’s altered focus provided by Daud in his Candayan, both the hero and

CONCLUSION

pages. As an aside, the occasion of the banquet is in the nature of an expiatory feast given by Chanaini’s father, for his daughter’s association with a Chamar, which suggests the breaking of inter-caste commensal taboos in interaction with a lower caste male. The tenor of the episode suggests caste displeasure at Chanaini’s action that needs public redressal. The scene is set for the forbidden love between the two for which the only solution appears to be elopement. Hines, Naseem 2009. Maulana Daud’s Candayan: A Critical Study. New Delhi: Manohar: 84 Hines 2009. ibid.

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I’ll tell you about my great town, the ever-beautiful Jayas. y the fifteenth century a number of sufis had established centres in towns of Awadh: from Awadh (as Ayodhya was then called) itself, to Jaunpur,

In the satyayuga it was a holy place, then it was called the ‘Town of Gardens’. Then the treta went, and when the dvapara came, there was a great rishi called Bhunjaraja. 88,000 rishis lived here then, and thick forests and eighty-four ponds.

Qanauj, Manikpur, Bilgram, Rudauli, Jais, and so on.

They baked bricks to make solid ghats, and dug eight-four wells.

Many seem to have travelled through Awadh on their

Here and there they built handsome forts, at night they looked like stars in the sky.

way between Delhi and Pandua in Bengal, visiting

They also erected several baris, with temples (maths) on top.

other sheikhs and encountering qalandars, majzubs

Doha:

and jogis on the way. The khanqahs they founded seem to have been strategically placed along trade routes, and many sheikhs had traders, local maliks and soldiers among their disciples and visitors. Some of those khanqahs are still standing today, sometimes with a lively pilgrimage to saints’ tombs such as

They sat there doing tapas, all those human avataras. They crossed this world doing homa and japa day and night. [8]

Sheikh Ahmad ‘Abd al-Haqq’s in Rudauli, and sometimes more deserted, like the khanqah established by Then kaliyuga came, and the rishis left this world and disappeared.

Ashraf Jahangir Simnani in Jais (Sultanpur). But what did the towns look like? Visiting Jais a few years ago I was surprised to realise that the description the poet Malik Muhammad Jaisi/Jayasi gave of Mathura in his Kanhavat seemed to describe old Jais as it stood before us, with its hilly

This place became a bamboo thicket again, a forest called Jaykarana. When it was in such condition, it was settled again by Turks.

prospect, city walls, turreted gates, brick houses and surrounding ponds. Jayasi’s description also suggests

Its lord is worthy of praise, and there is enjoyment of delicate things and nine kinds of rasas.

the way in which towns were settled. First the fort was built with a moat, and the town was given a name.

Rich men and poor men live in high house, and a rich scent of incense and sandalwood wafts

Then the king built his palace, with a harem with ranis from seven continents, and several courtyards

through.

containing houses. A city then grew around the fort, with walled gardens and pavilions and tall dwellings

It is full of the scent of meru, kumkum and kasturi.

for the rich and the poor. This is when the population began to come and grow. Public sitting places were

Doha:

arranged for people to sit and play games. Kings and chiefs from neighbouring areas also came to the rajasabha. Good road and water supplies encouraged traders to settle—possibly attracted by the wealth these chiefs/soldiers had, since they traded especially in precious objects. Once this healthy trade was established, sadhus also started wandering into the city; wrestlers, various kinds of actors and mime artists performed while pandits sat and expounded the shastras (bhand, nat-natini nachahin, pandit baithi sastar

When you see this beautiful town, with the scent of flowers, And the closer you get, you feel you are climbing mount Kailasa. [9

bachahin). People sang, told stories, it was a good way to pass the time. People from the fort relaxed and were happy to give handsome rewards. This is an interesting description also because it does not only includes sheikhs, Muslim townfolk and the occasional jogi, as is instead the case in tazkiras and other sufi accounts of this period. Indeed, Jayasi took pains to situate Jais in a long history that included previous yugas.

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SUFIS AND BHAGATS One striking feature of Awadh Sufis is that although they wrote their

While Sufi biographical sources abound in references to meetings, conversations and challenges with jogis, they

theological and biographical works in Persian (though in the fifteenth and

are mostly silent when it comes to bhagats. Apart from instances like that quoted above, we mostly find bhakti

sixteenth century it was a ‘simple’ Persian for the most part), there are ample

refracted in Sufi texts through the prism of their own reworkings and interpretations.

traces that they enjoyed and indeed composed both songs and tales in the

The ideas and words of the Naths and of Nirgun Sants like Kabir easily reverberated in Sufi understandings,

vernacular, what they called ‘Hindi’ or ‘Hindavi/Hindui’. In fact, Maulana

as in the following example from ‘Abd al-Quddus Gangohi’s discussion of the need for a pir and the danger

Daud’s Chandayan is the first long narrative poem written in ‘Hindi’ in

of having a bad guru. After quoting the Prophet’s hadith in the Persian translation by another Sufi, Gangohi

1379 that we have. So while Sufi texts from this period may give the overall

added a doha that will sound very familiar to Hindi ears:

impression that Persian was the language Awadhi Sufis used, a closer look reveals that they must have spoken in the vernacular and that they listened to and composed songs and verses and tales both in Persian and Hindavi. I say a

[Persian:]

‘Anyone without a pir has Satan for a pir. To guide without a pir as the work of a fool’. [Hindavi:]

Jaka guru dubnan, cela kayan tirahi? Andhe andha theliya, dou ku[p] paranhi.

closer look, because Persian biographical dictionaries (tazkiras) only mention that such-and-such a Sufi liked to listen to Hindavi songs or to compose poetry in Hindavi, but they never quote any verse; nor do they mention the

How can the disciple be saved if the guru drowns? A blind pushes the blind: both fall in the well.

authors of the Hindavi romances like Daud, Manjhan, or Jayasi. The same dohas could be uttered by Kabir in Banaras and by ‘Abd al-Quddus in Rudauli, though the frameWe may imagine different settings for the performance of these tales, poems,

work they were set in was not the same.

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and songs, some with restricted access and some open. On the one hand, songs were sung at sama‘ sessions, to which only sheikhs and disciples were allowed. ‘Abd al-Quddus also relates that when his pir Sheikh Ahmad ‘Abd-al Haq first entered the qasbah in Rudauli, a sheikh who was reading out from a collection of Persian poems stopped reading because the poems should not reach the ears of a non-initiate. On the other hand, Jayasi clearly set his story of Krishna in the open space of the town. Singers who sang at sama‘ sessions also sang elsewhere, and Sufis themselves attended performances meant for others. Jayasi tells us that:

At Divali, which falls in the month of Karttik, the Ahirs sang clapping at the beat. So I said, I will sing this khand, I will tell Kanha’s story to all. (14.1-3, Gupta 1981, p. 140)

fis like Sheikh Abdur Razzaq Bansawi, the Krishna bhakti songs and the Krishna katha that became extremely popular from the early sixteenth century required more interpretative footwork. Krishna songs, bishnupad and kirtan, circulated in Awadh through groups of singers, sometimes taught and managed by wandering Bairagis, resident svamis and even Sufi Sheikhs, who performed in urban centres, at fairs, at Sufi sama‘ gatherings as well as for private seva and worship. The Haqā’iq-i Hindā (1566) by Mir ‘Abdul Wahid Bilgrami (b.1509-d.1608) , a short treatise in Persian offering a Sufi interpretation of words and images occurring in dhrupad, bishnupad and other ‘Hindavi’ songs, testifies to the popularity of Krishna songs, and to the ways in which a Sufi pir explained them to his disciples. From the tenor of ‘Abd al-Wahid’s explanation it is clear that while the songs greatly appealed to him aesthetically (and emotionally), the theology of Krishna bhakti did not interest him at all. This is how he interprets the name of Krishna: … if among Hindavi words one hears mention of Kishan or any other of his names, they are a metaphor for the

And Sheikh Bansawi’s biographer tells us that:

risalat-panah (‘refuge of prophecy’, i.e. Muhammad), and sometimes they refer to him and other times to the

Once [Hazrat Shah Abdur Razzaq] Bansawi arrived at the home of Chait Ram

Truth of man (haqiqat-i insan), which is founded upon the essential oneness of God. And at times [they refer]

and Paras Ram in Rampur village, 10 kilometres from Bansa. He found the

to Iblis (= Satan), and at other times to the meaning intended by idols, Christian children (tarsa bachcha) and

bhagatiyas dancing; one of them played the role of Krishna and the other was

Zoroastrian children (= beauty), as will be known from this masnavi verse:

dressed as a gopi. They sang Sant Kabir’s dohas. Moved by their songs, the

‘The idol and the Christian child are the manifest light,

Hazrat fell into a trance. Meanwhile the singing reached a high-pitch note.

The source of light is the face of the idol.

That is when the Hazrat, now under the spell of the divine, opened his eyes.

It charms every heart, and

The audience—Hindu and Muslim zamindars, bairagis and faqirs—were

Sometimes it is a singer, sometimes a saqi.’

moved to tears. All those present, rich and poor, were spellbound.

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While Kabir’s verses clearly remained current in the region and were able to awaken very deep reactions in Su-

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In ‘Abd al-Wahid’s terms, Krishna is assimilated not with

in fulfilling his worship and a gap occurs in his mystical state

Allah but with the highest form of man, that is the Prophet

because he is subject to desire and to the nafs, the benevolence

Muhammad, while the term ‘the Truth of Man’ brings the

of God the Almighty unfastens the language of apology and of

disciple back to the realm and moment of God’s creation. Then,

mercy and says—’From the beginning I created him weak and

possibly on account of Krishna being a god other than God,

ignorant and a sinner.’

he is glossed as Satan. Next ‘Abd al-Wahid turns to Krishna’s

All in all, The Truths of India shows very little interest in the

beauty, which he assimilates to the other figures of intoxicating

theology of bhakti and does not attempt any syncretic move.

beauty of Persian and Sufi poetry: but (idols) and the kafir

What it suggests is a different situation. If we consider Awadh in

young boys that Muslims encountered in the Middle East, i.e.

this period as a place where genres like songs (Vaishnava, Sant,

Zoroastrian and Christian.

seasonal, etc.) and tales circulated among different communities

While the order in which the Hindavi words are listed shows

of interpretation, then the same images and symbols could

that ‘Abd al-Wahid knew the Krishna story and meanings—

acquire many meanings, and there was no one interpretation

Madhopuri/Bindraban/Madhuban, where Krishna spent his

that was valid for all. Participants in this world like ‘Abd al-

childhood, is followed by Mathura, where Krishna successfully

Wahid knew this and accepted it as such. Thus, when he set out

fought his evil uncle and usurper Kamsa, and ends with

to interpret Vaishnava motifs for his Sufi disciples he quickly

Dwarka, where Krishna ruled and died—the emphasis on

departed from the ‘original’ meaning, retaining sometimes only a

individual terms is dictated by the Sufi concept ‘Abd al-Wahid

faint whiff of it, and immediately drew it into a completely Sufi

chose for his interpretation. For example, about Jasodha,

web of meanings.

whose vatsalya bhava is one of the most important elements of

Jayasi’s strategy in his little-known Kanhawat (1540?), written

Krishna bhakti emanating from Braj, he merely wrote that she

only ten years after the first Avadhi retelling of the Krishna

‘indicates the gift and mercy that God had for men since the

story, the Haricharit by Lalac Kavi from ‘Hastigram’ (present

beginning’, and he gave her much less space than Kamsa! In

day Hathgaon) near Raebareilly, is somewhat different in that

this Sufi framework, Jasodha’s defence of her child against the

he addressed two audiences at the same time. Jayasi, as we saw

gopis’ accusations becomes God’s mercy for man’s faults and

above, was telling the story ‘to all’ in the ‘open’ setting of the

weaknesses:

town. And while the story of Krishna in the Kanhawat largely

… And if among Hindavi words we find from the tongue of

follows the blueprint of the Bhagavata Purana and includes some

Jasodha expressions like yah balak mero kachu najanen (this

of Krishna’s popular lilas, like the phulvari-lila and the dana-lila,

child of mine knows nothing) or Kanhaiya mero baro tum bav

when Krishna poses as a tax-collector demanding a tax in kind

lagavat khor (my Kanhaiya is good, you accuse him for no

from the gopis, Jayasi also re-arranged the sequence of episodes

reason), they allude to the object of these two ayats: ‘And man is

and the cast of characters so as to make Krishna’s story work

created weak’ (Qu 4:28), and ‘Surely he is unjust and ignorant’

as an allegory for the Sufi Chishti path of love. The core idea of

(Qu 33:72). The seekers of truth say that God the Holiest

the poem—the impermanence of the world and of false pride—is

and the Almighty, out of the extreme kindness he feels for his

spelt out in the beginning: Kamsa, and even Krishna, all die at

devotee, named him weak and ignorant, so that if he falls short

the end, just as the world is created and will disappear.

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CONCLUSION In a major rearrangement to the story, Jayasi

to. As Krishna himself puts it, ‘I don’t know who is the bee and

Bhakti sources—skewed towards Braj and Puri, Bengal, Gujarat and Rajasthan—have hardly anything

divides Krishna’s love-making into three phases.

who the flower’ (111.4), and again he tells the gopis:

to say about Krishna bhakti in Awadh. It is only Sufi sources that alert us to the significant circula-

First Krishna flirts with the gopis and Radha,

‘There is no one apart from the one, and the whole world is its

tion and appeal of Krishna songs and tales in this area. But what did Sufis make of them? While ‘Abd

whom he eventually weds in the forest while

shadow.

al-Quddus Gangohi sought to interpret Krishna terms in a Sufi way, Jayasi fashioned a Harikatha that

simultaneously dallying with all the gopis in

Wherever you look, it is all the artwork of gosain.

could speak to bhagats and Sufis at the same time.

a kind of round dance. He then goes to fight

He created the game as he wanted, and filled fourteen worlds.

‘Listen Gaura this is my knowledge, I am untouched by pleasure or pain…

Kamsa’s wrestler Chanura (an episode that occurs

There is colour, light and form in all of them, like the sun that

Outwardly I look (pragat rupa) like Gopala Gobinda, but the hidden knowledge (kapata gyana) is: nei-

later in the Bhagavata Purana) and comes back to

shines over/pervades everything.

ther Turk nor Hindu.

Gokul. Now a second extended love episode takes

See the art of pargata-guputa, visible and hidden: he is in

Murari’s rupa comes in different shades: sometimes a king, sometimes a beggar.

place with Chandravali, and a characteristic fight

everything, everything is within him.

Sometimes a pandit, sometimes a fool, sometimes a woman, sometimes a man.

between her and Radha ensues as in other Hindavi

He dictates where every eye turns, no mouth can speak without

Doha: So, for the sake of my rasa, it’s all a game, after all.

Sufi romances. After easily defeating Kamsa, the

him;

Many different shades/guises, the only one (akela) takes pleasure in all. (217)

story diverges again. Krishna spends his time in

Just like life is inside the body, so he pervades the whole world.

Mathura in pleasure with Kubja, while Radha,

(340.1-7)

At one level this declaration by Krishna to Chandravali is perfectly readable with the theology of Krishna bhakti: Krishna has created his beautiful form, in fact any form, for the sake of his lila, and he

Chandravali and the other gopis pine away in Rasa-bhoga, ‘the enjoyment of rasa’, is the term with which

is at one time the ineffable Being and the saguna God. At another level, according to the Sufi theology

them: some gopis fall into the river, others manage

Jayasi seeks to present the story of Krishna as equivalent to the

of wahdat al-wujud, this is Allah, the only God, revealing that he is immanent in all people and that

to climb onto the boats and end up spending more

mutual desire, longing and union between God and man. This

there is a hidden realm in which no outward difference matters; the enlightened seeker knows this and

time with Krishna in Mathura. In this tale Krishna

is the key for interpreting bhoga as a spiritual path—bhoga-

remains unmoved by appearances and events because he can see through them. A third possible way of

does not rule or move to Dwarka but establishes

bhagati as it is called in the poem. An original episode inserted

looking at it is that Jayasi has used language, concepts and metaphors in such a way that he has been

a dharamshala in Mathura that offers food and

before the curse that leads to Krishna’s death and the end of the

able to speak to all and to suggest a kind of equivalence between different religious ideas. ‘Neither Turk

shelter to all itinerant ascetics—perhaps an oblique

Yadus—the long dialogue with Gorakhnath on the respective

nor Hindu’ is, I suspect, not to be read in Kabir’s terms—of a rejection of institutionalized religion—but

reference to Sufi khanqahs?

merits of bhoga and yoga—makes it amply clear. Gorakhnath

as the existence of a hidden realm of truth behind the world of appearances… though of course no one

Krishna in the Kanhawat retains the character of

has come to Mathura with his impressive retinue of jogis because

would have stopped the audience from giving it a different spin.

both avatara and supreme God. Krishna is God

he has heard of Krishna as a famous and talented gyani. Now,

who wants to make Himself known and to love

however, he is disappointed to see him enveloped in bhoga: he

and be loved by His creatures. This is one way

should take advantage of the time he has left to become a jogi, so

we can read the various instances when Krishna

as to acquire an immortal body and the powers that come with

reminds his interlocutor of his divine nature and

it. Krishna rejects Gorakhnath’s yoga as ‘outward knowledge

the ten avataras, as well as the various times in

and outward form’ that is no good to him. Beside, what do jogis

which he appears before Radha, Chandravali and

know of bhoga? ‘He is a true ascetic who remains detached at

the gopis in disguise—first as a tax-collector, and

home (or in the body)’. ‘Outwardly I live where everyone else

then as a bairagi. Each disguise or doubt expressed

lives, in secret I repeat the name of paramesur’ (346.6-7). What’s

by the gopis is followed by the revelation that

more, he is in a position to teach the sixteen thousand gopis

the world is manifested for the sake of God’s

who serve him with folded hands, and death will come for all,

play (khela = lila), avataras are ‘created’ by the

whether bhogi or jogi (348). After a brief and unconclusive fight,

‘supreme God’ (paramesur), and there is a secret

they part saying: ‘Yoga is best for the jogi, and bhoga best for

identity between God and his creatures. As

the bhogi’.

PROJECT 2 hU MAGAZINE

Gokul. Krishna takes pity and sends boats to fetch

Krishna tells both Radha and Chandravali: I am you and you are me, a message that listeners of Surdas’s padas would also have related very well

volume 4 |

2010

INTERNSHIP STUDY: SHRUTI BAJAJ

PROJECT 3

PROJECT 3 WEDDING CARDS

Wedding Cards

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BRIEF

To assist in the styling & technical suport of the wedding cards shoot done by the studio for their website & to design a sample wedding card

PROJECT MANAGEMENT The shoot was done without the use of any studio equipment. The equipment consisted of a DSLR- Nikon D80, a tripod, a reflector and an external white flash. The location of the shoot was Chetanaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s farmhouse. While most of the cards were shot indoors, a couple of them were also shot outdoors. The props belonged to Chetana. The shoot began at a short notice and hence there was no time to go sourcing. Everything was arranged on the spot- including the props. The duration of the shoot was one week. The photographer was a colleague who is an amateur.

There was no studio equipment. Our equipment included a Nikon D80 with an external white flash and a white board as a reflector At one instance during the shoot the photographer found it impossible to click good photographs because of the bad lighting. However, I suggested the use of a reflector and arranged for a white board to be used as a reflector. It made all the difference. However the photographs need to go through post production process, before they are completely suitable to be used on the website.

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CONCLUSION

Learning

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he summer internship was a great learning experience. It exposed me to real-life problems faced by graphic designers. It gave me the opportunity to test as well as apply my knowledge and skill. I understood that the role of the graphic designer varies greatly within the graphic communications industry. This is because of the overlapping duties that are performed throughout the process of design. In some companies, the same artist who is responsible for producing artwork may also be required to perform certain layout tasks. It is very important for the design person to work closely with the printer, since the planned design could cause problems when it arrives to be printed. Limitations relating to folding, press size, and paper capabilities could be potential problem areas. I understood the importance of having an holistic education in graphic dsign which should include not onlt learning and application of principles of design, but also knowledge about various other related fields such as space (interior design), publication design, photography etc. This is because a graphic designer needs to work in collaboration with various other kind of designers such as architects, interior designer, editors, photographers etc. I learnt about the differences in various printing techniques and graphic reproduction. The design industry in India is small and interdependent on various other smaller and larger industries such as manufacturing and wholesale of paper, printing press, packaging industry etc. Practicing designers should maintain a good rapport with not only their clients but also other people in the industry who may be at the same level as them or at a different level from them. This makes sure that they keep learning throughout their careers and can easily get their work done. It is also necessary to be humble and keep learning on our own, as much as we can, from all the resources. During Project 3, the wedding card photoshoot, which was being shot by an amateur photographer, we faced many lighting problems. There was no studio equipment, hence we used lamps and candles. In the beginning the photographer seemed to have reached a deadlock when she felt the light was not good enough and it was impossible to do the shoot. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s when I suggested the use of a reflector ro reflect the light of the flash and it worked! I was proud to have learnt photography during my course in NIFT.

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REFERENCES AND

Online Resources

The sourced images and fonts used in this document are being used for academic purposes and will not be used for commercial purposes. Wherever required, due credit has been given to the source.

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Fancy Alphabets, Pepin Press Arabian Geometric Patterns, Pepin Press Cutting Edge Patterns, Rockport Floral Patterns, Pepin Press Islamic Pattern Design, Pepin Press Innova Indian Ethnic Designs Pattern Design- Applications & Variations, Rockport TYPO, Pageone Madhubani Painting, Mulk Raj Anand Graphic Design School, Fourth Edition, David Dabner, Sheena Calvert and Anoki Casey, Thames & Hudson The Elements of Typographuc Style, Robert Bringhurst, Hartley & Marks Publishers Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors & Students, Ellen Lupton, Princeton Architectural Press Design & Layout, Sample Chapter, The Goodheart- Willcox Co. http://poojasaxena.wordpress.com/page/4/?archives-list&archivestype=months http://www.idc.iitb.ac.in/resources/dt-jan-2009/Anatomy%20of%20 Devanagari.pdf http://wn.com/Devanagari_Script_Made_Easy__Part_1# http://www.flickr.com/photos/anexasajoop/5852450762/in/ photostream/ http://www.aisleone.net/page/6/ http://artnlight.blogspot.com/2009/05/arti-sandhu.html http://www.flickr.com/photos/artisandhu/ http://www.randomspecific.com/typocentric-bazaar http://www.behance.net/gal ler y/De vanagar i-Ty pographyResource/532665?utm_source=network&utm_medium=project_ sidebar&utm_campaign=project_sidebar_references http://www.imeamdesign.com http://www.rumifoundation.in/sufi-journal.html Various images used in this document are ©I ME AM• Design ©Dastakari Haat Samiti ©Arti Sandhu

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