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Two Rajasthani Folktales
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17516 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
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7 / 1990 |
5,816 Words |
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Christi Ann Merrill
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In the desert region of India called Rajasthan, a magic tree used to grow at night around campfires when men talked quietly and at children's bedsides as their grandmothers put them to sleep. The tree was as invisible as it was sturdy, and over the generations people learned that they may never be able to see the magic tree, but they could always count on hearing it rustle while they were together.
They heard it best when a story was told well. Its seeds spread when the story was loved, remembered. These seeds were so powerful that they grew up into magic trees themselves. From these trees, more seeds spread and more trees grew. Today in Rajasthan, although the sun bakes the earth so hot and dry that it turns to sand and young women must keep silent behind their pale yellow veils, the invisible trees' voices fill the land with a thick forest of sound.
They say these trees have been growing in India as long as people have known how to talk. They grew up naturally in the people's struggle to describe the mysteries of their world. An elderly widow takes up the task when she begins, "Once upon a time…." She remembers a story she heard from her grandmother, and, as she looks into the young faces of her own grandchildren, she tries to create a place in their language and fancies that will convey the same sense. She forgets the exact words her grandmother used and the precise details, but certain images remain vivid. These images are what caused her to wonder; if she tells the story properly these children, too, will begin to wonder.
Yet today in Rajasthan grandmothers feel humbled; their changing worlds remind them of the limits of their knowledge, and they do not see these mysteries reflected in their stories. They become awkward with the modern way of life that the young seem to have mastered and lose sight of their own wisdom. They cannot speak the pure Hindi their grandchildren learn to speak at school nor make sense of the English nursery rhymes they read out of books. They believe that the children will learn more from copying sums and sentences will be more entertained by television serials made in Bombay and Delhi.
But the children still want to learn. If they do not hear stories from their grandmothers, then they take them from their teachers, from books, from television. This is not the tradition of storytelling as it was but as it has become. The process has been altered, but the creative urge is the same.
I spent time with the students of the Diganatar School in Rajasthan's capital city, Jaipur, and learned much about the regeneration of culture. Some may claim that traditions are lost in the modern world, but from these students I learned new ways of braiding my hair, of building kites from tissue paper and bamboo, of break dancing of Michael Jackson songs, and of decorating my hands with henna paste. They do not distinguish the roots of various traditions and separate them, but they respect their power and revitalize the forms with their enthusiasm and originality. This is a force we must honor.
A child who is excited about an adventure film she seen in a local cinema is also a child who may love to hear an ancient story. Unlike a new game or dance step, children cannot easily take up a story they like and tell it properly: They leave out many points in the narrative that give it its
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