Sita Sings the Blues

My venerable readers,

Today’s item to share is something I learned about just yesterday. It is an ethical and artistic triumph, and I really want to share it with all of you.

This is a new retelling of an old, old story, the story of the Ramayana by Valmiki. But it is told not from the old, patriarchal point of view (i.e., Rama’s point of view); rather, it is the story that is universal to not only women, but men, too: of loving, of being rejected, of feeling unworthy of the rejection, of moving through the places of disbelief and pain to a new birth and self-love.

The story is much more detailed than is shown in the movie, but the movie gets all of the main points: Rama, the good and noble son of a king, is banished by a boon asked by his evil stepmother (it’s amazing how many cultures feature evil stepmothers in their traditional literature) for 14 years, even though he does not do anything wrong and in fact should have been crowned  king of Ayodhya. But Rama, being the dutiful and filial son that he is, doesn’t question his father; he just goes. And Sita, Ram’s wife, being the dutiful wife that she is, goes with him. The story goes on, but from Sita’s point of view. She is kidnapped by Ravana, the evil 10-headed king, and taken to Lanka (now Sri Lanka). Rama goes looking for her, but, unable to find her, he is assisted by Hanuman, the monkey king, who is, according to one of the commentators in the story, an incarnation of Shiva, which is something I never knew. Hanuman flies over to Lanka and finds Sita, and then flies back to tell Rama of Sita’s location and captivity. Rama then puts together a mighty army–in the movie, it is just monkeys (or this monkey-human hybrid), but in the versions that I have read, other majestic animals, such as bears, led by Jambavan, and eagles, led by the eagle king, whose name I forget, join the army.

Rama, Hanuman, and the army then go to Lanka, rescue Sita, and basically raze Ravana’s palace to the ground. Happy ending, right? Wrong. Rama, who is concerned, as everyone back then, with his wife’s purity, believes that she could not have been held captive in Ravana’s palace and not been “known” in the Biblical sense, if you catch my drift. She was very beautiful, and that makes it all the more likely, in Rama’s opinion. Yet Sita knows herself to be pure; she had refuse, despite threats and fear and all kinds of coercion, to give into Ravana’s lustful desires (and for some reason Ravana did not force her), so she basically throws herself into a funeral pyre and emerges unscathed to prove to Rama that she is in fact pure.

So Rama relents (enough to get her pregnant, at least), and it seems as though we’re in for another happy ending. However, enter the dhobi, or the washerman. Apparently the dhobi’s wife got jiggy with someone other than her husband, but she went back to her husband hoping that he would accept her. He refuses, quite vigorously, and says something to the effect of, “I will never take you back, you shameless hussy. Who do you think I am, that cuckolded wimp Rama?” Well, Rama gets wind of this, so he decides that he cannot rule without the respect of his subjects. This is obviously takes place in a time when rape was always a woman’s fault and suspicion equaled guilt. Heck, we still live in these times, in some places and cultures, but we of a Western culture are probably mostly going to be outraged by his treatment of her.

So Rama calls his brother Lakshman and makes him take Sita out into the forest and abandon her there, even though she had previously told Rama that she was pregnant. She is pregnant with Rama’s children, but I think that he might have had a doubt about that; I think he might have suspected that they were Ravana’s children. So he tells her to pack her bags, and then Lakshman takes her on a one-way trip to the bush. Well, in due time, she meets Valmiki, the teacher and the author of the Ramayana, and she tells him the whole story (and that is how the story came into being). Valmiki is then engaged to teach Rama’s children to praise and respect Rama, even though he’s essentially a deadbeat dad.

It eventually comes to pass that Rama’s wandering around in the forest, and he hears these two boys singing his praises, so he goes and finds them and asks to know who they are, and he finds out that they are his own sons. Undoubtedly they’re blessed with above-average looks and charm, so he wants to bring them back to Ayodhya to rule with him. However, that leaves the troublesome issue of Sita, whom he still does not want to honor as the mother of his children and his faithful wife. So he demands that she prove herself yet again, and this time, she says that if she has been the pure and chaste wife of Rama and has not even thought of another man, the Earth herself will take her (Sita) back into her womb. And the Earth opens up in a wonderful musical sequence and accepts Sita back into her womb, while Rama, Valmiki, Rama’s sons, and some various animals and people are left awestruck–and bereft–at this magnificent proof of Sita’s loyalty.

That is the story of the movie. There are many versions, both written and unwritten, of the Ramayana extant, and if you read it, you’ll see much more to it. The creator of this version, though, had to keep it to the basics in order to prevent it from being a monstrous epic, and even as stripped down as it is, it took her five years to make.

That is the basic plot, but what is really interesting about this retelling is other backstories and elements woven into the original story. This retelling can be broken up into five elements, and I will discuss them based on their different artistic styles. Much of the information I am going to relate to you comes from the October/November/December 2010 edition of Hinduism Today, which is where I learned of this wonderful movie. You can also Google it and look on Wikipedia, and you can see Roger Ebert’s review of it here.

Modern, Scribbly Animation

Nina Paley, the gifted animator/artist who created this picture basically single-handedly on her home computer, tells her own story about how she came to make this movie. She lived with her husband in San Francisco, and he got temporarily transferred to India for his work. His contract was extended, so she followed him out to India. She is called to go to a meeting or conference in New York and, while there, receives what Hinduism Today calls a “cryptic” e-mail from her husband saying to not come back. Bam. (And it is obvious that I can relate to this because I got a very similar e-mail on the night of May 19, 2010, from my husband. Dumped in cyberspace.) So, woven in episodically with the story of the Ramayana is the story of Paley’s own sad ending of her marriage and discovery of the Ramayana as she is forced to stay on the couches of friends since she and her husband sublet their SF apartment to friends for the duration of his stay in India.

While at one of the friends’ houses, she discovers the music of Annete Hanshaw and is completely taken in by her voice and lyrics. She also sees a tripartite synchronicity between her situation, that of Sita, and the music of Hanshaw (1901-1985), a jazz singer whose songs were popular in the late 1920s-early 1930s. These songs form a strong central core to the story and really move the story along. It truly is amazing how well they fit the situation.

Paley tells her own story using a kind of mobile, almost stick-figure-like drawing style in a collage-type of animation: certain objects, like the telephone and cars and rugs, look like actual photographs, and they make up the background for the stick figures to move around in. That is the modern and most personal aspect of the movie.

“Betty Boop”-style Animation

All of the musical numbers featuring Hanshaw’s vocals are made with an extremely stylized type of animation that seems to be modeled (I don’t know if it is deliberately or by accident) on Betty Boop (see below):

These are single-dimensional, paper-cutout-looking pictures that move stiffly yet rhythmically to Hanshaw’s vocals. These songs are a glimpse into Sita’s mind, a look at her emotions as she lives the painful and tribulation-ridden story being told. While they are not the direct narration of the plot itself, they are almost more important because we get to see much more of Sita’s personality than is ever told in the traditional versions of the story.

The Mughal-style Animation

This is my favorite style of animation in the whole film, probably because I love the Mughal miniatures, an art form that occurred in India between the 1600s and 1800s, during the Mughal rule. Sita is pictured here with Ravana:

I have always loved the way that the women are portrayed in this style of art, especially their clothing and jewelry, and I so wish that we could dress like this nowadays and not look anachronistic! It is this style of animation in the movie that forwards the plot, and the characters are acted out by voice actors. This is the actual telling of the story, not one of the other three side elements: the music, Paley’s own story, and the commentators, which I describe below. It is interesting to note that Paley painstakingly drew, on parchment paper and using antique watercolors, all of these pictures, so they are not computer-generated. Just gorgeous.

The Comic Book-style of Animation

Another style of animation that helps tell the actual story is the low-budget-looking style of the Amar Chitra Katha comic books in which you can read the traditional story. I’ve actually seen these all over the place.

These are also shown with a collage style, as is pictured above (Sita is here being kidnapped by Ravana, and she’s dropping her jewelry like breadcrumbs to leave a trail so that she can be found. If you look at the bracelet, you’ll see that it looks like a photo of a very modern piece of jewelry, as it is.) This is a modern-traditional style of art, very popular, and it is acted out by the same actors as those in the Mughal-style parts. The way that these characters especially move remind me of Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail and its animation scenes.

The Wayang Kulit Shadow Puppets

One of my favorite parts of this movie takes place with this traditional Indonesian form of art.

Commentary about the story–modern and hilarious–is offered by three of these shadow puppets, whose voices are provided, completely unscripted and naturally occurring in a conversation, by “three New Yorkers” (according to Hinduism Today, but beyond that I am not certain of their connection with Paley.) They don’t seem like Ramayana scholars because they exhibit a lot of uncertainty about the story itself; it seems like just a conversation between three educated people who know the story well, perhaps grew up with it, and have thought about it, but who aren’t necessarily experts. Nevertheless, they offer wonderful modern interpretations, complete with slang and idioms that are a laugh-riot in this context. The three people are Manish Acharya, Bhavna Chhabra and Aseem Chhabra. Apparently they sat in the studio while Paley asked them questions, in chronological order, about the story, and their answers, edited to be woven episodically, like all the other styles, into the telling of the story, were as I said completely unscripted and natural. This is my favorite part in terms of material; although I love the Mughal style of art best, I like this part for its irreverent, personal, and modern interpretation of the actions and the characters.

The War and the Triumph

I will not delve too deeply into the details of the struggle Paley endured; you can check it out on Wikipedia or on the site itself (I’ll give you the address and such below). However, in brief, this is the story: Paley threw all of her resources, not to mention five years’ tedious effort, into this wonderful movie, and then she discovered that she could not release it because of copyright laws of the lyrics, not the recordings, but just the words, of Hanshaw’s music. She would have had to pay upward of $200,000 to be able to release it in a customary, money-making distribution. So she settled on paying $50,000 (and going into debt), plus $20,000 in legal fees, to be able to release it for free, to donate it to the public, and you can see it for free at www.sitasingstheblues.com. Apparently she went through hell and high water even to do this, so she has become something of a hero for shared culture and artistry.  She could have, according to Hinduism Today, released it for conventional distribution since she did manage to pay off the licensors (I don’t really understand how these things work; I’m quoting the magazine now, and I found this information on page 38). But she chose a “Creative Commons license to allow the film to reach a much wider audience; to prohibit the copyrighting–’locking up’–of [her] art; to give back to the greater culture which gave to [her]; to exploit the power of the audience to promote and distribute more efficiently than a conventional distributor; and to educate about the dangers of copy restrictions, and the beauty and benefits of sharing.” Certainly all who have seen it have been the recipient of wonderful benefits and the witnesses to terrific beauty.

I realize that I’m late on the wagon to promote this. I tend to stay out of news and politics and only get around to seeing things if they make their way through my narrow channels of awareness. But I’m so glad that this one did because it is truly an artistic triumph, something that we can all enjoy, and an inspiration to which we can all, and I especially do, given my own current situation, relate and that we can all appreciate. All of us who have been dumped, all of us who have felt that we deserved better, and all of us who have moved on to a place of greater strength and self-love can relate to this movie, which is lauded as “The Greatest Breakup Story Ever Told.” I hope that you watch it and that you enjoy it as much as I did.

Note: Paley went into great debt and went through plenty of hardship, financially and emotionally, to release this film, so if you would like to show your appreciation monetarily, you can click on the “Donate” link on her site to donate money. Or just click here to go straight there.

Devdas

My magnificent readers,

So the first thing I would like to share with you is the movie Devdas. I’ve been watching it over and over. Of all the movies I owned, which was not many, the only ones I have kept were Devdas, Chokher Bali, and a DVD collection of Harold and the Purple Crayon, an imaginative and fun cartoon that I find endlessly comforting.

There’s no better movie to watch when you want to get dressed up than Devdas–at least the most recent release, starring Shah Rukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai, and Madhuri Dixit. This 2002 movie had the distinctive honor of being the most expensive Bollywood film ever to date, and I can see why, as the sets and the clothing and jewelry are nothing short of mind-boggling and awe-inspiring. I must confess that the sheer beauty of these three aspects of the movie are why I keep watching it over and over.

Devdas is a remake of two previous (at least) versions, that, to my understanding, were not as glamorous. And many reviewers love to take exception with the amazing opulence of this version, almost as though to admit liking it would be admitting to shallowness or materialism. It’s as though people are ashamed to simply delve into the richness that abounds through the entire movie, lest they be accused of not being “realistic” or something equally illusory. So I’ll freely admit to loving that flamboyance, secure in the knowledge that I am neither shallow nor materialistic; in fact, the relative penury with which I have grown up makes me appreciate it all the more, and I’m sure that many, many folks in India felt exactly the same way.

But I did not get the feeling that the producers of this movie were just going for bling for bling’s sake. The movie, as grandiose in its melodrama and mercurial emotions as it is in its props, has the feeling of a myth, a story so common to the human condition and so pan-cultural that it rises above the 1800s Calcutta setting to become the stuff of legend. And certainly all of the sets, even the outdoor ones, boast a twinkling magic that give the story a fairy tale quality, and there are always royalty, beautiful princesses, and fabulous riches in fairy tales. I certainly do not hold it against the movie–or its producers–for trying to achieve that “mesmeric” grandeur (as Jackie Shroff amusingly, and probably erroneously translated, says). I think it succeeds beautifully, and I can tell you that I would neither have watched it the first time, nor have kept watching it, nor be writing about it now if it were filmed with the Bergmanesque gloom that other people believe should saturate it.

And Aishwarya Rai, who, as everyone knows, was crowned Miss Universe in some year (thus supposedly being the most beautiful woman in the world, and I just simply have to agree), is so gorgeous that to frame that beauty in anything but the most perfect of saris and jewels would be a travesty! She, of course, would look amazing in a burlap bag, but why stick beans up your nose if you don’t have to? Besides, she wears the equivalent in Chokher Bali, and, while she does not lose any of her enchanting quality in the undyed muslin widow’s sari of that story, it’s certainly less entertaining to look at for a couple of hours. In Devdas, she changes costumes every scene, at the least, and every one of her ensembles is so stunning that I have to mop up the drool.

Pictured below is Aishwarya Rai as Paro in a famous outfit that I understand took 3 hours to pleat and arrange on her.

Although she was not dressed as richly through the entire movie, she was dressed as complicatedly. In the early part, before she is married, she is dressed in gauzy chiffon-looking (but probably cotton, as this takes place in Bengal, where cotton is Queen and where they have perfected weaving it so that it is so light that it looks like clouds) diaphanous clouds of gorgeous, spring-like colors and contrasting cholis. Stunning. I cannot decide which I like better. Because, in the first part, she really does possess that light-hearted, naivete that befits one who is probably supposed to be a teenager in her late teens. (The story is that Devdas, played by Khan, is returning to Calcutta and his ancestral village–and mansion–after 10 years’ education in London. I think that Aishwarya Rai, with her almost knee-length hair unbound and puffy cap-sleeved cholis could barely pass as 19, perhaps, though she really looks like she’s in her early 20s–and that’s no insult, let me tell you–but Khan clearly looks about 35, too old for the story, IMHO. However, I like him so much as an actor and I have had a years’ long love affair with his eyebrows, so I would not replace him with anyone.) Anyway, the early cottons of Paro, so bright and floaty and yet actually fairly plain in terms of pattern, really suit that young-girl quality.

However, the moment she gets married, she is weighted with a gravitas lent her by the intricately embroidered brocade saris in richer colors, like the one above. Other notable ones are similar, but in a deep purple, when she’s getting chewed out for having a courtesan (played by Dixit) illegally in the house, and my favorite (I think…depending on my mood) a gorgeous emerald green, barely seen, when she hosts the Durga puja.

I know people like to twit Rai about her acting, but the only thing I’ve ever had a problem with is the same thing I have a problem with in all Indian movies; they all seem over-acted to me. But I really favor East Asian movies–Japanese, mainly–where the emotions are not worn so baldly on the faces and in the body language. Hollywood movies seem over-acted to me, too. But Bollywood does take it to a new level, and Rai just performs well within the culture of that industry. I really do like her a lot, and in this movie, I think she does a grand job of going from the light-hearted, naive girl to a mature and strong wife, literally overnight. The heavy brocade saris and heavier gold jewelry–the jewelry she wears in her unmarried ensembles is definitely lighter–and the way she wears her hair, beautifully wound in a low bun with ornaments, as opposed to swinging freely before the sindur is put in the part, adds years to her. And I mean that in a good way.

I can’t talk about this movie without mentioning Madhuri Dixit, who plays the courtesan Chandramukhi. People scoff at the “hooker with the heart of gold” as a hackneyed movie device, but remember the context: it’s hackneyed for Americans because in the US, we don’t, despite our Puritan origins and culture even now, have the severe caste and religious recriminations that would lard up even a movie star playing a prostitute (and remember, kissing in Bollywood movies is still very new and very controversial), so it isn’t quite the tired cliché in that genre that it is in ours. We should give them a little credit for pushing an envelope that is not as flexible as we are accustomed to.

Anyway, Chandramukhi also wears amazingly beautiful outfits, specifically when she’s dancing. Below, probably my favorite:

For her dancing sequences, she wears what are called anarkali outfits: a tight-fitting bodice so encrusted with zari (pure gold thread) embroidery and rhinestones and sequins that it looks armored, attached to a light, loose, flared, diaphanous but also heavily embroidered skirt that spins out beautifully when she turns quickly, and over churidar: tight-fitting and also spangled pants, and over that, gunghuru (sp?): low leggings entirely made out of little bells, a traditional “instrument” of dancers in India, so that the percussive nature of their steps can be accentuated by the surprisingly (because there are so many bells) loud tinkling. Oh, and the veil. I read that her two main dancing costumes, this one and another one equally ornate in a gorgeous dark red, weighed 30 kilos, which I guess is about 50 pounds. I assume that includes all the jewelry. I can’t even walk carrying 50 pounds; I cannot imagine how strong she must have been to dance in it. And there was not much room for movement, either, with all that stiff embroidery; it’s as bad (but far more beautiful) as whalebone.

For her times when she was not dancing, she wore a lot of ghagaras, lovely flared skirts, with cholis (cropped blouses). I think my favorite is the one she wears in the dance number with Jackie Shroff and Shah Rukh Khan, when they’re all dancing with bottles of liquor. It’s a deep brown, just darker than her hair (at least on my monitor) with gleaming, but not obnoxious, gold borders. It’s actually plain, but it is so rich in material and quality that it does not seem skimpy or dowdy at all, and the way it moves when she spins…if only we truly dressed like that now and in this country. Even in India people do not wear that sort of thing in this day and age, and I say it’s a shame!

So…these are some of the things I admire so much about the movie. But there are also some funny parts of it as well–and some plain old questions.

The first question I have is how do the women run around, hug each other, dance and sit and stand while keeping the pallu (the loose end of the sari)not only attached to their heads, but the buns of hair. I’ve actually looked online and the only thing I’ve seen is that “they’re pinned on,” but I can see that it’s not with bobby pins because those would show. I caught a glimpse of what looked like small “pull” wrinkles on the sari of Kaushalya (Devdas’s mother), and it looked like they just put tiny straight pins right into the sari and the bun of hair on her neck, but I cannot see how that would hold. I would give a lot to know how they keep the pallu on their heads and still manage to keep their hands free and move at the same time. It’s not easy to do, and the heavier the sari, the harder it is.

One of the funny things that I have to laugh at every time I see the movie is how Devdas’s family reacts to him when he’s shacking up (albeit innocently) with Chandramukhi. I will not say why; I don’t want to give the movie away. But he does stay with her for a time, and her “brothel” is as magnificent, if not more so, than either of the mansions there. It is gorgeous, with marble and spangles and glitter and breezy curtains and lovely pillows all in silk and satin, with chandeliers and magical pools and fountains right inside. But both Dharamdas, Devdas’s manservant, and Paro try to pry him out of the brothel, saying that they cannot bear to see him in that “hell.” Hell! I would gladly live in that “hell” any time; they only have to name it, and I would be there with gunghuru on!

I read a great review on the movie, and, though I do not agree with all that the reviewer writes, one aspect of the review cracked me up. The reviewer refers to Devdas’s self-destructive drinking. She writes, “He ends up living in a brothel under the care of Chandramukti, a courtesan who falls in love with him knowing he can never love her back, and watches as he descends into death from occasional light drinking. (OH THE HUMANITY!)”

I laughed out loud when I read that because I can see what she means. The drinking is so urbane and framed in beautiful cut-glass bottles and small glasses that it really does look like Devdas is just tippling. But if you really pay attention to how much he drinks, despite the loveliness of it, he really doesn’t stop having a glass, flask, or bottle in his hand from the moment he takes his first drink until the end of the movie. They make such a big deal of the drinking because it is strongly implied that he is trying to kill himself via alcohol that the actual liquor is very present. I mean that the drinking is not implied; bottles and bottles of the stuff abounds, so much that they could not have actually been using real liquor. They dance with bottles, they pour it all over themselves, they break bottles and glasses in cheerful and melodramatic furors; the warm Calcutta nights just rain the stuff. The liquid looks suspiciously like tea, yet one has to hand it to both Shroff and Khan when they chug an entire bottle each of tea. Now, if it were whiskey, they’d have to be dead of alcohol poisoning, but even if it’s tea, chugging an entire whiskey-sized bottle (and not 1/5, either) is a man-size job, and they do a good job of it without belching or throwing up. I don’t know that I could do that. And they dance afterward! I’m sure that, if it were liquor and they miraculously survived the alcohol poisoning, they would not be able to put one foot in front of the other, let alone dance in any organized way, but that’s the magic of Bollywood: where drinking is an art form and dancing is a contact sport.

Well, it is getting late, and I have an early day tomorrow, so I’d better stop here. Besides, that’s all I can think of right now to talk about. However, I’m sure I will have more to say; it seems like every scene in the movie brings up something that I admire or think is funny or terrific. And, although I do recommend it, I’m not actually meaning this to be a movie review. If you recall, my goal is simply to share some of the things that are important in my life right now, this in lieu of other important things (such as fountain pens and Japanese office supplies) that I cannot afford to buy and then write about. Devdas was first, and I think the next item in the pipeline is going to either be Chokher Bali, another movie starring Aishwarya Rai, or my favorite anime series, Sketchbook ~full color’s~ [sic]. I can’t remember exactly how they title it, but it’s something like that, and it does have that apostrophe “s” at the end. I have no idea why; there’s no reason for it to be possessive “Sketchbook full color’s what?” but that’s how it is always listed, so I will comply.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my first sharing, and if you want a treat for the eyes, do go rent Devdas. I don’t want to comment on plot or acting because, frankly, I don’t care at all about those. The pure gorgeousness, beauty, opulence, and traditionalism of the movie are what draw me to it again and again. I do have to shut my eyes during some scenes (the sadder or more annoying ones, like a flashback to when Devdas was young and getting his hand hit in punishment by what I guess is a switch (?) by his father), but other than those, it’s a safe movie. It helps that I understand maybe 1/100th of the Hindi spoken in the movie.

Stay tuned for the next important item in my life! Take care!

The Other Kind of Indian

My motley readers,

So I was writing to a friend who happened to read the blog about the sari encounters I had yesterday, and she told me that she had been reading a lot about cultural appropriation lately, due to the fact that feathered headdresses are being sold by Urban Outfitters and other “hipster” outposts. I was surprised to read about it because usually I’m pretty up on multicultural conflicts like this, but this particular one slipped totally under my radar. So thanks, friend! You know who you are.

Before I begin my cogitating, here is a link that will lead you to other links that explore this and related issues:

http://bonne-vie.net/index.php/2010/about-that-cultural-appropriation-thing/

In a nutshell, this seems to be the question on the table, and this is my question to you folks out there (provided that more of you have joined my single reader): Is it bad, and why or why not, to wear this feathered headdress thing as purchased by some money-making, non-spiritual company?

Here’s a pic that shows what it might look like at a party (how’d you like to be the girl on the right, thinking you’re so cool, but being shot all over the Internet as the ultimate in insensitive cultural appropriators? Sucks to be her.)

This photo is from “My Culture is Not a Trend.” The related post can be found at

http://mycultureisnotatrend.tumblr.com/post/523529245/via-berrysaymaduug-war-bonnet-gone-wrong

(Note: I have not yet read anything from this blog, so I cannot attest to its…well, anything. I’m totally unfamiliar with it. I am just borrowing a couple of pictures from it to illustrate what this issue looks like.)

And this is, according to someone’s comments on the same blog (so I cannot attest to its accuracy) apparently someone named Lucia Holm, a self-portrait taker, done on commission for one of the companies that make such headdresses.

You get the idea.

So, what is cultural appropriation? Everyone might have a different definition, but here’s mine (highly unofficial): “taking, whether stealing or borrowing, aspects of a culture not one’s own.”

And this issue goes back to the familiar conflict that Native Americans and non-Native Americans have been duking it out over for a long time. From Hollywood’s depiction of “Indians” in the corny Westerns of the 1950s to names of sports teams such as the “Braves” and the “Indians,” to naming vehicles (wasn’t there an SUV called the Navajo?). Now it’s headdresses.

A little background: the kinds of headdresses you see here being sold are knock-offs of a real phenomenon that was specific to a specific region, and they have a specific cultural and spiritual significance.

I think that this one is a little more real.

These headdresses were worn in the Plains regions of the US. (What one might call “the middle.”) These are the Indians that the layperson thinks of when the word “Indian” is brought up because it is the style that has most often been portrayed in the media. (Think Dances with Wolves.) The Sioux, the Kiowa, the Comanche…these are all Plains tribes.  Only men could wear them (so I can imagine that, for traditional Native Americans, seeing women flouncing around in these would be doubly blasphemous), and of the men, only warriors could wear them. And chiefs, I think, but there may be some overlap around who could be made a chief; perhaps only warriors could be made chiefs; I don’t know. However, it is true that wearing one was an honor not to be taken lightly. The feathers in them are, to my knowledge, mainly eagle, and these were awarded based on the warrior’s bravery and deeds. The eagle is protected federally now, but I don’t know if some tribes, the ones that have sovereign status, are still able to gather feathers. They may not. Perhaps a knowledgeable reader can let us know that. However, I know that some eagle feathers are still awarded, but they might be heirlooms…gathered in a time before the eagle was an endangered species. Nevertheless, the cultural significance of the eagle feather is still extant.

There are two obvious sides to this question, with an oblique question that sort of comes in at a 45-degree angle. One side is that wearing such a headdress is not insulting; it might even be honoring the culture(s) of origin. After all, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Anyway, they don’t wear those headdresses anymore (actually, they do at certain significant events), and all of the genocide and stealing of land and not honoring treaties happened a century ago. This is just fashion; it’s not like anyone is doing that anymore!

The other side: Well, the unfairness in terms of access to resources (ever been to a reservation? Not all of them are dirt-poor, but many are.) still exists. Native Americans are still marginalized and mistreated and dishonored and ignored, if they’re lucky, but outright persecuted if they’re not, even to this very day. They should not have to see their cultural and spiritual representations/icons worn as fashion. (Here’s an interesting, if difficult-to-imagine parallel: most Christians know the history of Christianity and how the earliest Christians were persecuted by the Romans, right? Well, what if the Romans had eventually prevailed and wiped out all but a smattering of Christians? And then strolled around wearing crosses and crucifixes because it “looked cool”?)  Are there any devout Christians out there who don’t like to see the Holy Cross sold at Wal-Mart for $1.95 as part of a “gangsta” outfit? (I’ve seen it. It sucks. I’m not even Christian, and I don’t think much of that.)

Now the oblique angle, which I read on that link that I posted above: what if you made your own headdress? Obviously you won’t be catching any eagle feathers, but these hipster ones aren’t eagle feathers, either. What if you did the beadwork or the quillwork and made it represent your own life? What if you added a feather for each brave deed you did? (Please, for my sake, use vegan feathers–imitation ones. Please don’t use real feathers; the birds need them more than you do…but let’s make that another issue. I just don’t want to be propagating the idea that I think it’s OK to steal birds’ feathers for anything.) If you gave the headdress the significance in your life that the traditional Plains headdress had in the lives of the Plains tribes, would that be OK? Keep in mind that you’re still “appropriating” their culture; they didn’t offer this to you.  And if you’re a woman–and I think it is women to whom these hipster headdresses are aimed–that is a doubly difficult question because this headdress is not traditionally allowed to be worn by women. Are we right to impose American/European, Age of Reason ideas of feminism on a tradition that is clearly not rooted in it?

I suppose you want my opinion in this Gordian knot of issues. Well, this is it: I don’t completely know. Obviously I would never want to offend ANYONE for cultural insensitivity. So you would not catch me dead in one of those headdresses because, as it says on the blog, if someone wears one, she looks like a douchebag wannabe. Seriously. Not only does she show that she doesn’t know a fat damn about the culture she’s borrowing from, but she also is basically wearing a big sign that says “CULTURALLY INSENSITIVE ASSHAT” on her head.

But I also don’t want to say that it’s illegal or forbidden for her to wear it. I strongly believe that anyone who would wear such a thing is an idiot because of the obviously heated conflict that will arise from it and, at bottom, the hurt feelings that wearing such a thing would engender. Because, to me, that’s what it boils down to: hurt feelings. And I would never do that to a person because of her culture. Ever. When we wear mockeries of other people’s cultures, we say that we don’t care that those items were hugely important to them. Therefore, we don’t respect the traditions that go along with them. For example, I don’t know if this is true of the war headdress, but I know that it is true of the Kiowa sacred image, the Tai-Me: it was carried and set up by one specific person who was trained in the spirituality of the culture, and who was considered ritually pure enough to do so. Not just any Tom, Dick, or Wind-in-his-Hair could carry it around and be in charge of it. I would be willing to bet that the war headdress evoked similar respect. I know that, in the Kiowa tribe, traditionally women weren’t allowed to hold the weapons. Now, if the same is true of the headdress, but women are now wearing it–and so casually–what is that saying to a Kiowa who’s very traditional? “Your culture isn’t important enough for me to respect.” And for me, that’s not OK.

I would hope that it would not be OK for anyone else, but in fact, it is. There are people out there either ignorant or insensitive enough to wear such a thing. But I don’t think that the answer is forbidding them to wear it. That speaks of a kind of oppression that we never need to go back to again, and nobody knows that better than the Native Americans. Instead, I think perhaps the answer might be ridiculing them out of existence. Sort of like the “song mocking” that some indigenous people did as a form of social control. I am not sure what culture did this; I heard about this in an anthropology class over ten years ago, and it might even be more than one, but I thought it was a clever and effective idea. Basically, someone wrongs another, and everyone involved goes through all of the legal proceedings of the group so that it is definitely sure that he is in the wrong; he did commit the crime. But rather than slamming him in jail or chopping off his hands or killing him, thus depriving the group of a worker/able-bodied human, the tribe or group gathers and basically make songs about him and his crime, mocking him until he really feels the sting of it.

That doesn’t sound like much of a punishment, especially depending on how egregious the crime was. But think back to your school days, when you were the one in the center of the ring of your classmates and peers and that girl you thought was so cute, and it was your Superman Underoos that were around your ankles. Think back to the pointing fingers, the laughter…and the fact that you have never told anyone about that incident. Suddenly, public ridicule doesn’t seem that mild.

So, perhaps that is the answer to this conundrum. Rather than forbidding these wannabe hipsters who are just trying so hard to find a way to belong and be unique at the same time from wearing these headdresses, we can just make songs about how lame they look in their desire, conscious or not, to ridicule another’s sacred tradition. If it was not intentional, then one song session should do it. If it was, then maybe a week’s worth of song mockery should help rehabilitate them. It is a better way than out and out getting angry because, when you’re angry, you look like the douche, and nobody wants that.

However, what about  the asshats who make these headdresses to be sold? And the idiotic buyer who’d stock these lame-ass hipster stores with ill-gotten regalia, hopefully someone NOT American so that he or she can plead ignorance about the bad blood that has gone on between Native Americans and non-Native Americans since the first tribe was given smallpox-infected blankets? I don’t know about them. Maybe the hands-chopping-off is still an option.

Goa Meets Greece at the Fabric Store

So I was at the fabric store again…this is where I seem to have all my sari-related encounters…and I was getting some fabric cut to make a valance in my room. While I was getting it cut, the lady who cut it declared, “Nice toga!” regarding my sari. It is not the first time I’ve had such a back-handed compliment. I often am told that someone likes my “toga.” It happens often enough for me to know how to reply. I say, “Wrong country. It’s not a toga; it’s a sari.” And they go on in various directions: some say how comfortable and cool it looks; some regale me with their stories about going to India, and many tell me about all the saris they bought in India that are lying in the back of some closet somewhere because they couldn’t find a use for them. “Try learning how to wear them!” is what I think, but I don’t say it.

I cannot blame the people who mistake the sari for a toga when I wear it in my invented way, which I described in a previous posting (See the one about Goa meeting Gujarat in the fabric store, posted a few days ago).  The way I invented it is not the way it is commonly worn.

Below is a photo of the most common way of wrapping a sari:

You can see that she is wearing a little shirt, called a choli, and there are gathers in the front around her waist, and the pallu (or end piece) goes over her left shoulder. Underneath the sari, to help keep it up, she is wearing a petticoat. However, despite the fact that these items are all commonly worn in most of India, which is mostly a very hot country, it’s not a cool arrangement. A sari is usually about 6 yards (18 feet) of material wrapped around you, and, combined with the choli and petticoat, very hot, despite the air-conditioned abdomen. It completely covers your legs, and your back gets very hot, too. It traps heat wonderfully in all its folds.

Because, despite my heritage, I cannot abide heat AT ALL, I designed a new way of wearing that looks a lot like a toga: I don’t use a petticoat or a choli, and I tie the sari in two knots on my right shoulder, leaving my left arm and shoulder totally bare. I can use a choli with it if I want, but where I’m living now, it’s just too miserably hot to do that. (And we haven’t even gotten to the worst of the heat yet! it’s only June! EEEKKK!)

That is why I cannot blame the people who call it a toga; it is not worn with the customary other pieces of clothing, and it is not draped in any way that is familiar, even to Indians. However, for all the people who have called it a toga when I’ve worn it in the above style with the petticoat and choli, you’ve got the wrong country. It’s a sari, not a toga. Nobody but fraternity brothers and movie stars wear togas anymore.

Goa Meets Gujarat in the Fabric Store

Wearing a sari all the time, at the very least, causes Indian people to look askance at me, but if I’m lucky, sometimes the friendlier people will come up and talk to me. Such was the case yesterday at the local JoAnn Fabric store here in Elk Grove.

I was wandering around looking at stuff, and an Indian lady pushing a cart dropped a frame in front of me, so I bent over as she did to pick it up. We didn’t bonk heads, but it was close. She thanked me as I handed it to her, and she said, “You are wearing sari?” As I was, I could only affirm it. Obviously, she could tell that I was, but she asked the question as a way to break the ice. So she asked me the usual set of questions.

“You are…?” and I could tell she was thinking “…Indian? But you don’t look Indian.” so I filled in for her, “Indian, yes, but just a little.” And then, inevitably

“Where are you from?” Meaning “Where did your family come from?” because to Indians (as well as Chinese people, and, I wouldn’t be surprised, many other Asian cultures) “you” does not exist separate from “family.” So, rather than explain that my ancestors and immediate family come from Macau, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Goa, I just said, “Goa.”

“Oh! Wow!” That’s the inevitable answer. But then I had to ask, because I always want to know if I know how to wear the sari of the region that my interlocutor comes from,

“Where are you from?” and she replied

“Gujarat.” Yay! Fortunately, I do know how to wear a sari in the Gujarati style, with the pallu going from back to front and spread across the chest to show off the beautiful designs. So I told her that I know how to wear it in the Gujarati style. So she said,

“This is a Goan style?” But it’s not, really; it’s a style I sort of made up, although I’m sure it exists somewhere; I just don’t know where. I invented it as a way to keep cool. So, rather than wearing a petticoat and a choli, I just tie the sari around my waist and wrap it in a sort of modified Bengali way twice, tying it in two knots above my right shoulder, so, if it’s a 6-yard sari, I’m completely covered, with just my left shoulder and arm left bare. It’s unusual, but it looks like any other regional, choli-less variation.

So I explained to her that I had sort of made it up in order to keep cool. Despite having tropical blood, I cannot deal with heat. At all. Anything above 80 makes me miserable, and 80 is already pushing it. So she commented approvingly on how I was wearing good cotton because that’s the coolest in this weather. She seemed to find the heat problematic, and I take that as reassuring because if a lady from India is uncomfortable in heat here, I know I’m not a total wimp.

So we talked a while about the benefits of cotton saris, and then said our farewells. This scenario is very, very common for me; I cannot tell you how many such little encounters almost identical to this that I have all the time. One thing I should have done, but it didn’t occur to me to do, is ask her where one can buy a sari around here. When I lived in Rohnert Park, I could always go down to Berkeley, just an hour away, and I had plenty of choices. I even developed a great relationship with a really nice lady over at Roopam Sarees, and she would give me amazing discounts. So I always bought my saris from her, and I also developed a great relationship with the owners of Chandani Jewelry, on that same street (San Pablo and University). They were also from Gujarat, and they claimed that I was their good-luck charm because, on any day that I came in first to buy something, they would do great business. I was so flattered to be thought of so highly. They were such nice people. I will so miss going to see them.

So…if anyone out there happens to be from Elk Grove or Sacramento, do you have any recommendations as to places where I can find inexpensive cotton saris? I wear a sari mainly in my made-up style or the Bengali style, so cotton works best for those. And I need to find a place that sells cholis and petticoats as well; mine are starting to wear out. I suppose I could buy online, but you never know what you’re going to get when you buy from Indian companies; quality control basically sucks ass. So I’d prefer to buy in person.

I’ve been online to see what’s available, and I’ve seen that there are some shops in Sacramento, but I have no idea if they sell petticoats and cholis, and I know that, as a firangi-looking person, I’ll get rooked if I go to some shops that are not ethical.

Anyway, that’s my little sari adventure for the week. I have past adventures that I will write about, but this is the most recent. So, if anyone knows a good, inexpensive sari shop where I can buy plain, everyday, cotton saris and petticoats and cholis, please drop me a line; I’d be very grateful!