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The City of Mumbai
and the Buddhist Cave at Ajanta
By Runoko Rashidi
Greetings Family,
How are you? I went to bed last night and woke up in Los
Angeles this morning with India in the news.
Specifically, the part of India in the news is the city
of Mumbai. According to the latest news report more than
a hundred people, in a series of attacks, have been
killed in the city of Mumbai. I've been to Mumbai a
couple of times and all of the recent news brings back a
lot of memories.
Mumbai, a city of about twenty million people, is in the
center of India along the coast of the Arabian Sea.
Until recently most people called it Bombay. Bombay is
the Anglicized version of Mumbai.
In October 1987, on the first of three momentous trips
to India, Mumbai was my port of entry and departure.
Indeed, that first trip to India helped sharply to
define my view of the Global African Community.
I recall Mumbai as a huge city with enormous crowds of
people sleeping on the streets. Along with sister Njeri
Khan and journalist V.T. Rajshekar I stayed at the Sea
Green Hotel (the same hotel that the assassins of
Mohandas Gandhi stayed at when they were stalking him)
and visited the slum areas that housed the headquarters,
at the time, of the Dalit Panthers—organized by some of
India's Black Untouchables—the Dalits.
Off the coast of Mumbai there is a lot of history
relevant to us. There is Elephanta Island, whose main
temple is characterized by distinctly Africoid imagery.
Also off the coast of Mumbai is Janjira Island,
dominated for centuries by the African soldiers known as
Siddis.
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Anyway, here is a photo that I've had
for a long time that I just recently
rediscovered. It is from the Ajanta Buddhist
caves due east of Mumbai near the village of
Ajanta. In 1998 during my second trip to
India I traveled by train and them by bus
all the way from Patna, Bihar to visit these
caves. It was a journey and a visit that I
will never forget. I even found myself
stranded there for a brief while.
There are a number of these caves (about
thirty of them), some of them beautifully
adorned with marvelous frescoes depicting
the life of Gautama Buddha. The paintings
have been dated to as far back as 200 BCE.
I believe that this image represents one
of the finest examples of Buddhist art in
the world. The black complexions of the
figures and the Africoid hair styles that
adorn them speak for themselves, and further
reflect the need of including the Black
presence in India as an important part of
African-centered research. One pioneer African-American scholar, George Washington
Williams, referenced this in the early 1880s. Even
before that, Godfrey Higgins, an English antiquarian,
made similar comments in his colossal work known as the
Anacalypsis, published in 1836. So this image
will not be new to some. Indeed, it is an important
component of a presentation that I do called the Color
of God and the Beauty of Blackness. This is a fairly
large color photo and requires a lot of
memory. |
If for some reason you have trouble downloading it let
me know I will send it to you directly. Think of it as
my gift to you.
Check it out!
In love of Africa,
Runoko Rashidi Okello
http://www.cwo.com/~lucumi/runoko.html
TravelwithRunoko-owner@yahoogroups.com
Related story:
Mumbai terror attacks: Who could be
behind them?
posted 27
November 2008
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Not Gone
With the Wind Voices of Slavery—Henry Louis
Gates, Jr.—9 February 2003—Unchained Memories,
an HBO documentary that makes its debut tomorrow
night, provides a powerful answer to that question.
It gives us, through the faces and voices of
African-American actors, an introduction to a vast
undertaking that took place in the 1930's: the
collection and preservation of the testimonies of
thousands of aged former slaves in an archive known
as the Slave Narrative Collection of the Federal
Writers' Project. This archive unlocked the brutal
secrets of slavery by using the voices of average
slaves as the key, exposing the everyday life of the
slave community. Rosa Starke, a slave from South
Carolina, for example, told of how class divisions
among the slaves were quite pronounced:
''Dere was just
two classes to de white folks, buckra slave owners
and poor white folks dat didn't own no slaves. Dere
was more classes 'mongst de slaves. De fust class
was de house servants. Dese was de butler, de maids,
de nurses, chambermaids, and de cooks. De nex' class
was de carriage drivers and de gardeners, de
carpenters, de barber and de stable men. Then come
de nex' class, de wheelwright, wagoners, blacksmiths
and slave foremen. De nex' class I members was de
cow men and de niggers dat have care of de dogs. All
dese have good houses and never have to work hard or
git a beatin'. Then come de cradlers of de wheat, de
threshers and de millers of de corn and de wheat,
and de feeders of de cotton gin. De lowest class was
de common field niggers.''—NYTimes
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Salvage the Bones
A Novel by Jesmyn Ward
On one level, Salvage the Bones is a simple story about a poor black family that’s about to be trashed by one of the most deadly hurricanes in U.S. history. What makes the novel so powerful, though, is the way Ward winds private passions with that menace gathering force out in the Gulf of Mexico. Without a hint of pretension, in the simple lives of these poor people living among chickens and abandoned cars, she evokes the tenacious love and desperation of classical tragedy. The force that pushes back against Katrina’s inexorable winds is the voice of Ward’s narrator, a 14-year-old girl named Esch, the only daughter among four siblings. Precocious, passionate and sensitive, she speaks almost entirely in phrases soaked in her family’s raw land. Everything here is gritty, loamy and alive, as though the very soil were animated. Her brother’s “blood smells like wet hot earth after summer rain. . . . His scalp looks like fresh turned dirt.” Her father’s hands “are like gravel,” while her own hand “slides through his grip like a wet fish,” and a handsome boy’s “muscles jabbered like chickens.” Admittedly, Ward can push so hard on this simile-obsessed style that her paragraphs risk sounding like a compost heap, but this isn’t usually just metaphor for metaphor’s sake. She conveys something fundamental about Esch’s fluid state of mind: her figurative sense of the world in which all things correspond and connect. She and her brothers live in a ramshackle house steeped in grief since their mother died giving birth to her last child. . . . What remains, what’s salvaged, is something indomitable in these tough siblings, the strength of their love, the permanence of their devotion.—WashingtonPost |
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Incognegro: A Memoir of
Exile and Apartheid
By Frank B. Wilderson, III
Wilderson, a professor,
writer and filmmaker from
the Midwest,
presents a gripping account
of his role in the downfall
of South African apartheid
as one of only two black
Americans in the African
National Congress (ANC).
After marrying a South
African law student, Wilderson reluctantly
returns with her to South
Africa in the early 1990s,
where he teaches
Johannesburg and Soweto
students, and soon joins the
military wing of the ANC.
Wilderson's stinging
portrait of Nelson Mandela
as a petulant elder eager to
accommodate his white
countrymen will jolt readers
who've accepted the
reverential treatment
usually accorded him. After
the assassination of
Mandela's rival, South
African Communist Party
leader Chris Hani, Mandela's
regime deems Wilderson's
public questions a threat to
national security; soon,
having lost his stomach for
the cause, he returns to
America.
Wilderson has a
distinct, powerful voice and
a strong story that shuffles
between the indignities of
Johannesburg life and his
early years in Minneapolis,
the precocious child of
academics who barely
tolerate his emerging
political consciousness.
Wilderson's observations
about love within and across
the color line and cultural
divides are as provocative
as his politics; despite
some distracting
digressions, this is a
riveting memoir of
apartheid's last days.—Publishers
Weekly
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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If you like this page consider making a donation
* * * * *
Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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ChickenBones Store
(Books, DVDs, Music, and more)
update 26 December 2011
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