[Reader-list] Trojan Horse/ The Bazaar for sale

[Lehar ..]

friends
a post script to the Surkh Kukkads/Spicy Subcondiment
piece..( HT, Sept, 28, 2002)


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Trojan Horse/ The Bazaar for Sale
by Lehar

Bazaar rumours.. Mango rain.. surkh kukkads in
deghchees..pistachio Kulfis and betel red paans..itr
sellers.. and afeemchees..kabuliwallahs selling dried
grapes.. old panditjee walking past the old
maulana..’Ram ram panditjee’- as he smokes his
hookah..
Hookah coals.. smouldering in the winter chill..red
glows in the still winter evening.. blending with the
smell of kababs.. and old cows walking past..
sniveling at the dirt on the ground..

An evening in India..or for that matter any old bazaar
of Asia.. from Kabul to Baghdad to Peshawar, to
Chittagong.. Replace the cuisine with one or the
other.. roadside dhabas..selling pakoras, garam chai
or goats liver..

Men.. Lounging around.. waylaying past.. Nonchalant
and smoking as if the world is forever..bankes
..handsome men.. ugly men.. wizened old men with hands
craggy as their beards..sikh beards blending with the
maulana goatie.. dervishy beards growing like the
matted locks of Mahadev shambhu..mast qalandar. Poor
ones selling parrots and talismans.. reciting a sher
or two.. with Ram and Allah inscribed on
them..Everything from Arabic to Sanskrit to ward off
the bad eyes..parrots flying past roofs with kites
flown by screeching boys.. and an occasional woman..in
ghunghat or head carrying fish and wares, proud
backed..or in black naqabs..smouldering with
kohl..Inviting awed stares.. and nothing more..

Could be the scene now.. or a 100 years ago.. or a
1000 years ago..
The city..the urban bazaar..where castes and cuisines
and fragrances mingle..
Ghalib wrote his poetry..in the bazaars and bylanes of
dilli..and Kabirdas wove his tales of the Beloved
Banaras’s galees..interestingly.. the Islamic world 
..now filled with taliban covered women and US navy
ships.. Was responsible in a major way for the rise of
the bazaar..wites an eminent scholar ‘ the rise of the
urban bazaar in the medieval age did away with much of
caste differences and contributed to the rise of
trade.where communities and crafts mingled in unique
ways.’

Where men fell in love with men.. and more..pick any
Arabian nights text.. sold in the bazaar of the
booksellers..or to arab spain..where the world’s
largest library lay.. with books from 40 different 
countries..
Jahez the poet dies in one such bazaar.. when a
shelfload of books falls on him..the most intellectual
grave in history.
In Peshawar they had the bazaar of storytellers..
where you could buy a story for a rupiya..before
partition closed shop.
Persecuted poets, eunuchs, Christian heretics, Jews,
Sufis, seers and traders flocked to the bazaars.. As a
spanish poet sings.
‘ for any man of learning, ambition, or a Jew or a
homosexual or a persecuted heretic.. the best place
was the south of spain where the moors ruled or the
bazaars of the East.. From morocco to madras..you
could also get some  exquisite kahwah/ coffee..’
Even Roger Bacon, father of the European renaissance
learnt most of his science in one such bazaar of
Moorish Spain..
sip it up..as the pigeons fly up the Red fort’s
walls..

Its in one such bazaar that Sarmad the Sufi (born a
Jew) saw his dearest Abhay Chand..and Ras Khan his
bania’s son.. and both became jogis..
Wrote a Dilli poet:
Majnu was mad that he went to the jungle.. 
Where the kabuliwallah hawked his wares before
partition fenced it off..and made him an Afghan
refugee.

The whole subcontinent was a bazaar.. with castes and
creeds and tongues mingling.. in midst of poetry and
hookahs ..creating language of its own urdu.. the
language of the bazaar.. neither Persian nor
Sanskrit.. yet all..

Not for nothing  was the Indian subcontinent the
trading metropolis of the world.. accounting for a
quarter of all manufactured goods in the world! Till
the infamous launch of the Trojan horse.. the East
India company (traders who became their Majesties) in
Plassey, 1757. Fast fwd 150 yrs.. you have an
impoverished nation of half naked fakirs.. struggling
to ward off famines and sending indentured labour to
the pravasi islands .. on rat infested ships. And the
bazaar grows more and more famished..as the Trojan
horse continues it rampage..

The bazaar has seen many things through the
centuries.. from the Aryans to Mongol invasion of
central Asia and Iran. As teeming Sufis and parrot
sellers fled from samarkand and bukhara..to the plain
of ganga jamuna and created a unique civilisation..a
blending going on for centuries.. from the times of
the first Aryans..
 
The most recent Trojan horse invasion.. has turned the
bazaar on its head ..its nothing like a run of the
mill one of the past..then you could garner armies and
hold off..at most people just went indoors and came
out when the war over.. restricted to the battlefield
anyway.. civil society had yet to be invented and
obviously there was no civl war..no one entered their
homes and their meals and their food and the air they
breathed.. life went on its leisurely pace.. centuries
..rolling.. in a drifting haze.. as the chutnies
blended and diversified..an endless
cooking/blending..always on the kadhai.

This time the bazar has been invaded by a force which
is like no other and its not here to blend. It is here
to bleed. 

For the first time.. the bazaar, now called the
market, is not another home..or another manzil... but
a hostile territory full of dispensable half barbaric
races..to be taken over..and amalgamated .. into the
Empire..no more chutnies.. We’ll take it over..
chutney, chilies and all..

The Trojan horse.. has planted itself in the midst of
the bazaar and is now sapping it soul..and turning its
bankes into Levis wearing goondas..
Of television and the empire..the bazaar has been
replaced by the One market..and the market is free to
Do what it wills.. if you do not comply . you will
either be bombed or be ‘sanctioned’.. So accept now of
forever hold your stomachs..
The Trojan horse is the fool proof strategy..unless
there is an annoying Cassandra around.. (the original
was a soothayer princess.. she was the only one who
predicted the Trojan horse.. a ruse by enemies to
enter her father’s kingdom..by placing a wooden horse
hiding soldiers..unsuspecting, the people carried it
inside.. because she was cursed  that no one would
believe her)
Yes there are many.. a native American chief once
said: 

The red Indians cannot revolt. It is such a cunning
strategy . pay them a salary. They think ‘revolt; for
what? We are getting enough money, no work,
enjoy..take drugs.. no problems of poverty.. goodies
on the market.. why bother about revolution??..they
are all lotus eaters, addicted.They are not in a
position to fight. Their revolution has been killed
with their spirit.. by money.’
By the Trojan Horse.

A war won even before its begun..
Looking at the bazaar with Orientalist eyes.. riding
past in sola topees.. the Trojan horse
arrives..heathen.. is what the panditjee and old
maulana and the deghchee maker are called..
They resist and the first non violent revolution in
the history of the world happens. They throw out the
Trojan horse..or so they think..
It is cleverer. It wont attack by the front but enter
thru the backdoor.. sneak in and lie before them..
till they don’t know what hit them..and by then it
will be too late. Remember Plassey?

The Trojan horse will turn the panwallah into Nike
wearing hawker selling Wrigley’s chewing gum on
traffic lights.. and the old hookah will be a
Smithsonian musuem artifice.. looked at by ladies with
designer/Prada bags..

The old maulana will fade away in a cloud of smoke..as
rifles rattle with the clash of civilizations....the
b52 rise in the sky.. and smoke em all out..
Make way..for the Trojan horse..
He makes way for The Kingdom.

The kites are part of the smoke filled sky and the
sounds of the courtesans ghungroos drown in the sleaze
of the nightclub..
Disrespectable thumri singers.. the nautch girls
deserved what they got.. now women are freer than ever
before..you can pick them up in the disco.. without
being called a kotha goer..

Hark..the herald angels sing..watch them on TV..
selling their wares.. what will you like? Spring or
autumn..the tawaifs were a disrespectable lot..
manners and name counted..they turned you away if you
were not ‘appropriate’..now.. it’s the age of MFN..
money for Nothin.. and chicks for free..

For 5000 yrs the bazaar has survived and amalgamated..
all.. into its all encompassing embrace. Mughals and
Pathans and Aryans and deghchees and Turks and tribals
and Mongoloid women selling handmade shawls..

Now..all( but a few raving lunatics).. from chittagong
to china want to belong to the Market.. and wear only
Revlon nail colour..diversity be hanged..who wants to
bind feet when you can be Britney spears..and bind
your whole body..it’s only then you’ll be free.. the
Trojan horse says.. you have been oppressed and
britney spears is the only free woman on earth.. they
listen.. as Britney goes in and out of
hospitals..under pressures of the good life..called
nervous breakdowns..

Britney is already part of the Trojan horse..but he is
avaricious.. Greed is Good is the official creed...so
the chinese girl picking tearoses..and the burqa clad
beauty from bagdad..opressed by dirty old arabs.
Marriage is a useless institution if you can get it
all on the free market.. you aint seen the market man
complaining. The Trojan horse has put beauties online
for him..from Beijing to Baghdad..bomb em if they
don’t comply.. 
Hookahs go flying out of the window .. as do diyas for
diwali..pick them at walmarts. Diwali is now hip
unlike the old grouchy days when Hinduism existed.
Before its takeover  as a Trojan horse brand..used for
riots and suchlike. Hinduism was so nice.. with tulsi
leaves in cool water.... and the kindly old panditjee
in his wooden kharouas… Tulsi is not longer property
of panditjee.. only registered mandirs – preferably
foreign ones/pravaasi need apply.. the puja material
is at mandir.com-  pay by credit card..foreign
exchange preferred..donations maybe used for genocide
and such purification ceremonies. 

Where are the dervishes who wandered down the bazaar..
singing of the Ek Omkar and the One Saaeiin.. twanging
ek taras of Raidas and other ‘crafts people’?  I am
neither in kailash or the kabaa sings the weaver
kabir..who will buy his saris now?

Meri bukkal wich chor..there is a thief in my
sleeve..sings Baba Bulleh Shah of Lahore..about the
Divine Thief..makhan chor. 
Lahories don’t know the chor is in their land. On
their soil..selling them opium, like lotus eaters(
remember China’s Opium wars!)..and handing them
ak47s..Get the commies.. the yanks..Its jehad for the
market. They think its for the Faith. An easy catch,
laughs the Trojan horse. Next please.

Now it’s the turn of the betel leaf and the neem
tree.. and steaming hot biryani. Smells of it wafting
in the twilight air..will soon float away.. for
biryani is only possible if there is rice. So, we take
the rice and hoard it in calcutta godowns..the Bengal
famine..tut tut.. poor dispensable natives..and now
hoarding ain’t working..those annoying inquilabi
Bengali babus..
 
But, the Trojan horse ready.. Brand it. And patent
it.. USPTO: 1239874..hurray..! he flies out of the
window..no mai ka laal one will ever be able to grow
rice again without raising his head..he will beg and
crawl before the USPTO to ‘please grant permission to
grow my own food’.. on Do bigha zameen.. while the
earth he calls Mother.. Dharti Kahe pukar ke..Mausam
beeta jaye..the season is flying.. son..
So, the trojan horse says, pay the lagaan..or forever
hold your stomach. And if you have any shame..buy it
at the convenience store..a dollar a handful. 

You gotta think of the forex reserves, man  he
says..as he decimates another economy..from argentine
to brazil..he runs out with the bounty and head the
way of another mai ka lal..I got your rice buddy..what
next..?

Charpoys .. lounging by the footpaths..children
running past.. after scared dogs..tincan tied to
tail.. The old men.. look on with crinkled eyes
..hookahs gurgle..’haan bhaiya.. what a time has
come..’
Old Maulana passes hookah to Panditjee and they both
sigh..

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January, 2003


 


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