unwittingly complicit in a sadistic ritual

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hampi,
last night, been here ten days, because its so easy, because of fest, and because we were both writing and working and we found Café Gopi for flagons of coffee and morning writing … and P under the cosh
first beer in three weeks, this is a holy town so no beer, or meat, so we had to buy it over the river… it was something of a commitment to cycle a mile to the wineshop … uphillish at the end of a 20km tootle…
and it might be a holy town but I just went for a last subtly beautiful sunset… of orange orb fading into wan… from the ruins above the temple… and there is crap pretty much everywhere… and by crap I mean human shit… cos the fest was big… and the young men don’t care
the same leering adolescents we’ve had enough of… and who make watching anything difficult because they’re so hyper and gangy and... well… every generation of forty year olds and over looks at their succeeding generation in their adolescence and thinks, we’re doomed, civilization is doomed… the ancient Greeks thought it, the ancient Hebrews thought it, many others must’ve thought it, an ungenerous English mind might think it now… and an Indian here could think it too
and it might be a holy town but… never is the sky wholly blue cos there are mines and factories and big cities and what have you well out of sight behind the bouldery hills
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so we’ve had five hot days of walking… of cycling… of temples and ruins … of a jolly interlude tubing down some kinda rapids… of light climbing …and light bouldering… i.e. clambering up down and around the large and small and very large boulders which are the landscape... of trotting thrice out to the waterfall which isn’t a waterfall as we know it… but a underground torrent down beneath the smoothed rocks of this gorge-to-be …where the water has made Henry Moore sculpture after Henry Moore sculptue …and there are cool shallow pools for the slow swimming… [though mind the monkeys cos they love to steal your bag and taunt you]… of cycling along the rice-paddy valleys around below and between the high boulder hills
the fest was ok.. thick crowds… as with New Years Day Parade in Cochi, the fests are the only time the girls and young women are allowed out … and girls just wanna have fun ….and a mixed bag of dance and music … all difficult to judge cos well, its difficult to enjoy yourself when everything stops and starts so much, and its an alien tradition and you’re not sure what constitutes good… so you enjoy the faces of the performers… though too many of them look like professors surveying a class… and only a few are full of glee and zeal and wonder… and the music only rarely seems to syncopate … and only rarely do the dancers do something new and rhythmic… something with the body utterly compelling to the eye … which a good few do, but not enough, not enough… and none of the ensembles are wholly competent, so you have to watch the good ones and not look at the bad … and only a few are so good they can be playful with the form… and they are the ones to enjoy the most
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and we did watch something truly awful, unsettlingly ugly… which made us feel unwillingly complicit in a sadistic ritual… enacted on a twelve year old girl… cos she’s dressed up in coloured silky finery and dances to recorded music, which cuts out for ten seconds of every minute… and after a couple of minutes the music is broken up by a voiceover which, we assume, explains the tradition of the form… which, we assume, isn’t karnatakan… and while the voiceover goes on, and on, the girl holds the same one-legged pose… but then the broken-rhythmed music gets in to it for fifteen or so long minutes, yes fifteen, where the poor girl is just whirling, and whirling, and there is something brutal about the rhythm and she is whirling whirling exactly the same whirl again and again and again, gamely never ceasing to go for it, and go for it, as it goes on for five minutes, ten minutes, with still the ten seconds of no backing track every minute, fifteen minutes, whirling, whirling, with men appearing from side of stage and looking at her, some with clipboards and conferring, and interfering with the spectacle, which hasn’t happened with any other performer, except this spectacle isn’t pretty, and we`re asking each other, what is this? why are they putting this girl through it? why? what moron thought this up? why did they think could be good? why isn’t someone stopping her? and some goodhearted souls to our left start clapping, loudly, as if hoping this will end it, cos no-one is enjoying it and we’re relieved some of the Indians are uncomfortable as us and STILL SHE SPINS DIZZYLESSLY ON to the brutal rhythm, the poor girl, and this is awful to watch because we can’t stop thinking, this girl is being tortured, this is awful, she is spinning spinning whirling spinning in the same againsame clockwork pattern without ceasing over the CD screw-ups and still going for it, keeping her rhythm her composure her smile but there is no point to it, and we, and we’re sure we’re not alone, we are angry this can be happening, this should not be happening, what career advancing proud parent or teacher or instructor or cultural commisar or shithead thinks this is good and then it stops, stops, its over and she get the biggest round of applause of the night, less for her dancing which was ok, but she’s only twelve, but chiefly we reckon [and we think we’re in sync with the audience] but chiefly FOR HER AS A HUMAN BEING cos that shouldn’t happen to a dog, to a Republican, to Osama Bin Laden…and then one of the clipboard cretins gives her a mike and she thanks the people of Karnataka for listening and I can only think of the Spanish Inquisition who would expect the tortured to thank the torturer afterwards…
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next stop badami, another ex-capital, now only 25000, which, in India, is small… its not far but its six hours so the roads must be… an … entertainment...
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