kakna

i was conducting a training for nurses in sarguja district last week at a place called kakna, 18 km from ambikapur. the night train between durg and ambikapur takes about eight hours from usalapur (near bilaspur) to get there, but the journey was comfortable.

my brief glimspe of ambikapur left me wide-eyed: a huge bustling market, good roads (no significant potholes at least in the market areas and the centre of town, unlike in bilaspur which is one endless series of potholes of varying dimensions all over the city), and large showrooms with branded products. when i worked here, first in 1987 for a year, then in 1992-93, it was much smaller, without a rail-head. traveling to ambikapur meant an eight hour bumpy bus-ride from bilaspur, with at least two punctures guaranteed on the way. both towns were still part of madhya pradesh at that time.

kakna is a silent haven, a lush green valley ringed by hills with no internet access, and poor cellphone connectivity. a perfect place for training. the only downside was the prolonged powercuts but an inverter ensured that the projector and laptop could be used without interruption. keeping the 25 nuns and myself company on the campus were kajal and kalloo the dogs, and changoo the kitten. it rained practically incessantly, with occasional spectacular thunder and lightning thrown it for good measure.

the RAHA centre at kakna is a perfect place for a retreat or for solitude if one wants to write a book. unfortunately i do not have any photographs to share.

more on lungis

contributed by another soul with ancestors from kerala, but now from all over india like many of us. he has also kindly contributed the photograph of lungis in mumbai.

Some trivia:

- Lungi Utao. Pungi Bhajao was the slogan used by Shiv Sena during their anti south campaign in the 70s. But then most madrasis were tamil, telugu, mangalorean, kannada and yes, malayalis.

- Bengalis also wear lungi.
- The Burmese national dress is also Lungi,

- Most brands of lungis that you buy are packaged/designed for a muslim audience and that could be Mal, Tam, Bengali.
- Kannadigas also wear lungi. Except they like to stitch the ends like a sack with a hole.

Lungi - The Legend

read on- this is not only about mallus: there are contributions from others as well.

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Lungi - The Legend : A Tribute to Our Mallu Friends

Author: Unknown (US Citizen, born in Kerala )

Just as the national bird of Kerala is Mosquito, the national dress is 'Lungi'. Pronounced as 'Lu' as in loo and 'ngi ' as in 'mongey', a lungi can be identified by its floral or window-curtain pattern. 'Mundu' is the white variation of lungi and is worn on special occasions like hartal or bandh days, weddings and Onam.

Lungi is simple and 'down to earth' like the mallu wearing it. Lungi is the beginning and the end of evolution in its category. Wearing something on the top half of your body is optional when you are wearing a lungi. Lungi is a strategic dress. It's like a one-size-fits-all-bottoms for Keralites.

The technique of wearing a lungi/mundu is passed on from generation to generation through word of mouth like the British Constitution. If you think it is an easy task wearing it, just try it once! It requires techniques like breath control and yoga that is a notch higher than sudarshan kriya of AOL. A lungi/mundu when perfectly worn won't come off even in a quake of 8 on the richter scale. A lungi is not attached to the waist using duct tape, staple, rope or velcro. It's a bit of mallu magic whose formula is a closely guarded secret like the Coca Cola chemicals.

A lungi can be worn 'Full Mast' or 'Half Mast' like a national flag. A 'Full Mast' lungi is when you are showing respect to an elderly or the dead. Wearing it at full mast has a lot of disadvantages. A major handicap is when a dog runs after you. When you are wearing a lungi/mundu at full mast, the advantage is mainly for the female onlookers who are spared the ordeal of swooning at the sight of hairy legs.

Wearing a lungi 'Half Mast' is when you wear it exposing yourself like those C-grade movie starlets. A mallu can play cricket, football or simbly run when the lungi is worn at half mast. A mallu can even climb a coconut tree wearing lungi at half mast. "It's not good manners, especially for ladies from decent families, to look up at a mallu climbing a coconut tree"- Confucius

Most mallus do the traditional dance kudiyattam. Kudi means drinking alcohol and yattam, pronounced aattam, means random movement of the male body. Note that 'y' is silent. When you are drinking, you drink, there is no 'y'. Any alcohol related "festival" can be enjoyed to the maximum when you are topless with lungi at half-mast and a towel tied around the head. "Half mast lungi makes it easy to dance and shake legs" says Candelaria Amaranto, a Salsa teacher from Spain after watching 'kudiyaattam' .

The 'Lungi Wearing Mallu Union' [LUWMU, pronounced LOVE MU], an NGO which works towards the 'upliftment' of the lungi, strongly disapproves of the GenNext tendency of wearing Bermuda shorts under the lungi. Bermudas under the lungi is a conspiracy by the CIA. It's a disgrace to see a person wearing Bermudas with corporate logos under his lungi. What they don't know is how much these corporates are limiting their freedom of movement and expression.

A mallu wears his lungi round the year. It's all weather, all season versatility has no match. A mallu celebrates winter by wearing a colourful lungi with a floral pattern. Yet in summer, a lungi provides good ventilation and brings down the heat between the legs. A mallu is scared of global warming more than anyone else in the world. If despite wearing a lungi you feel the heat, you can use the ends of the lungi to fan your heated parts.

Jai Lungi

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Confirmation from a friend from Kerala:

Of course, there is nothing more liberating than a lungi. It is truly a free flowing garment and colourful too. But the modern gen is not very impressed. My kids have banned lungis in our house – probably they are in cahoots with the Bermuda manufacturers. So I have to go around wearing shorts – like an overgrown school boy :-)

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An objection from West Bengal:

How come the lungi is considered something only Mallus wear? As far as I know lungis are favoured casual wear in (at least) West Bengal, Orissa, Bihar, and even in Punjab, where it is worn slightly hitched on one side - as anyone who has watched Bhangra dancers will have noticed.

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And a protest from a true Tamilian:

I am deeply offended that no one has pointed out the fact that Lungi's history is incomplete without acknowledging the contribution of the Lungi Clad Tamil Desi [LCTD] to this great tradition. Who can forget the ishhtyle of the quintessential LCTD traveling in a bus, his mundu folded and worn high about mid-thigh level, and upon being asked by the conductor to pay the fare, accede to the request by standing tall, with one arm holding on to the rail (primarily to quell newtonian forces because the driver always 'full take a fast' on hearing the biggle [whistle]) reaching deep into the pocket of a long multicoloured Nijar [shorts] allowing the lungi to ride even higher.

Ofcourse I concede that accidents happen sometimes, when the LCTD executes the manouevre only to discover that the long shorts are missing causing the conductor to use the aforementioned biggle again-this time to admonish the LCTD to drop the Lungi immediately forthwith ["Lungi erukku pa- bus iley ladies irukkanga"] and let him get off the bus [" Kasu illaiya? nataraja nata!"]

the dalli manual mines

this mountain has been mined for 53 years now, and we are told the iron ore will last for another two years or so. then they will abandon this mine, fill up the hole, and plant trees on it. "leaving mother earth as we found it" is how the assistant mines manager explains it to us.

we are standing on a hill overlooking the dalli manual mines which is a sight to make you pause and catch your breath. the open strip mines here are enormous, leading far down into the hole, where dumper trucks look like miniature lego toys. and small white square structures with a conical top that i mistake for temples (why so many in one area i wondered) turn out to be blaster shelters. the person laying the charge to the dynamite that will blast the rock from the mountainside sits inside this to protect himself before he lights the fuse. each layer is called a bench and is 5 metres high - the limit of the sweep of the excavator. the ledge is as wide if not wider. these mines are completely mechanised now but are still called by their original name of manual mines.

strips of white among the prevailing rust red are where there is no iron ore, and this has now to be removed to get to the ore under it. the iron content here is over 60%, and the mines produce 1.2 million tons of iron ore a year. a sign tells us that on 31st may this year, the mines have achieved 929 accident-free days.

i cannot help wondering how much earth it will take to fill a hole this size, and where it will come from - will it not leave another area somewhere devoid of its topsoil, or make another hole?

mines, and sparrows

the view from my room with the profusion of trees on the campus. the hill where the mines are is seen only dimly in the hot afternoon haze. a part of the hospital building is seen to the left.


i have been here for nearly a week now, and the sound of the blasting on the hills around dalli still startles me. sometimes i see a cloud of dust rising from a far-off hillside, but at other times i cannot make out where the earth is being blasted to lay bare its treasure of ore. the rajhara mines are strip mines: the ore is mined from the surface of the earth, in contrast to the typical mental image one has of mines, which has a pit going deep into the earth in a mine shaft and then horizontal tunnels under the earth.

the shaheed hospital sits on a hillside just outside the town of dalli rajhara, and across the valley is a huge rust-red hill, which has numerous parallel lines on it which i realise is the winding dirt road on which trucks ply all day long. i hope to be able to visit the mines sometime.

the hospital is a 100 bedded one, constructed and managed by mines workers who felt the need to have something of their own, where they would be treated with dignity, and where they could get affordable health care. it is always full to capacity and overflowing, with patients on the floor and in the corridors as well. at present it has seven doctors including dr saibal jana who has been here for the past 25 years. his wife alpana jana is a nurse, who has helped to train the 26 local girls who work in the hospital and provide nursing care, as well as handle most of the deliveries in the labour room.the patients' relatives cook in a long hall fitted with 21 sets of smokeless chulhas; and a separate room provided with LPG gas stoves for those who can pay the required amount of Rs. 20 per hour to cook a meal.

the campus has a variety of trees - amaltas, neem, mango, drumstick, bel, karanj, palash, banyan, and others in addition to the bougainvillea and hibiscus that grow in profusion everywhere. what amazes me is the number of sparrows here, including the couple that has persisted in building its nest in my room in spite of my efforts to shoo them away. in the process they litter my room with several handfuls of grass, small feathers, string and other ingredients essential to the building of their home. i love the sound they make. not since my days in bokaro in the 70s have i seen so many sparrows. lately i have neither seen nor heard them at all: i dont recall any in bhopal, and my part of the town in bilaspur has few birds, and certainly no sparrows. the blasts on the hillsides seem to bother them not at all.

the sisters with the sisters

i was in karangabahla earlier this week. priti and muskaan look happy to be there. here they are in their school uniform, with the holy family nuns. they are outside a toilet complex that is being constructed with financial help from friends and well-wishers.

the end of the line

if you board the 08788 passenger train at raipur, it will take you slowly, over three and a half hours, to dalli rajhara - a distance of 126 km. the train meanders past durg through the dry hot countryside, never stopping long at any one place, but not leaving out any station either. risama, gundardehi, balod, kusumkasa - these are stations i have not glimpsed before.

at bhilai a large group of young men gets on with equipment which they stack carefully at one end of the coach. they wear sky-blue T-shirts with "Bhilai Giants" embroidered on the pocket. with easy camaraderie, they share cucumbers, bottles of water, and their earphones to listen to songs on their mobiles. they are headed to dalli for a series of cricket matches this week.

i sit up straight, not wanting my kurta to stick to my back in the sweltering heat. twice i get down to fill my water bottle at the station - lukewarm water from a tap on the platform, but it tastes good. my eyes and throat dry up every so often, and i can feel grit on my face. the glare of the sun hurts my eyes, and i squint down at the book i am reading, though i would prefer to look out of the window.

we pass once an area that has many railway wagons piled high with iron ore. there are low hills beyond, and we have passed the station before i could see what it was. as we pass through this place, the wind blows in reddish dust, instead of the usual grey dust during the rest of the journey.

at 1 pm on a hot april afternoon, we pull into dalli rajhara, after passing through miles of hills of iron ore, that are being mined to feed the steel plant at bhilai. dalli is too small to be marked on most maps. this is the end of the railway line on this route.