last saturday (II): sidi goma
[so, the other evening there was much talk about Gujarati (South) Africans, which reminded me to finish telling the tale of that Saturday--now, the one before last---and an encounter with some African Gujaratis.]
All of a sudden I was off the bus and into Merton Street, knocking on a familiar door, bounding up the stoop into a firm hug. Then into the kitchen, where in a heartbeat's time I was making myself tea and thariel was doing the washing-up as if there were nothing particularly unusual about my presence. I like how normal this is, he said to me, the way we just behave as if you're in the house any old day. And that's exactly how it feels: so nice, to be able to move in and out of these scattered spaces worth calling home. Then he asks, people are planning to see this film-and-concert featuring African-Indian Sufis, are you up for it?
I'd heard of the Sidi community before, but only in passing: African-Indians living in Gujarat, the descendants of migrants, seafarers, and slaves who'd came hundreds of years ago. The community today numbers tens of thousands of people, mainly Muslims who speak Gujarati and Hindi.
Despite my exhaustion, I said (of course) yes. We headed out into the chill evening, only to discover that due to technical difficulties the film was not playing. So with friends, we repaired to a tapas restaurant and drank two jugs of sangria (is it not customary, among Sufis, to approach the Divine via the wine-cup?) before returning for the concert, by a troupe called Sidi Goma.
We seated ourselves in the back of the church, although we didn't stay there for long. While an introduction was relayed, an arm emerged from the crack in the door behind the altar-turned-stage, a bunch of incense sticks clutched in its fist, perfuming the space with a familar scent. And then a thin, dark bearded man in a white kurta-pajama and white open-work kufi stepped to the microphone at the front of the stage. He pressed his fingers to his skull, and cupped them in front of his ears, and the familiar words poured out--Allahu akbar, ash-hadu alla illaha ilalla--in a Wesleyan Church, in the centre of Oxford, he was singing the call to prayer. I leaned to the side, and whispered to B.--who is named after the first muezzin--'I've never heard the azan in a church before.'
After a half-azan (he stopped before actually calling us to prayer) eleven more men, dressed the same, came out an joined the muezzin, and they sat in a semi-circle on the stage and began to sing. The music--starting in slow, dirgelike call-and-response, and then, the tempo accelerating and building to a furious pace--was both familiar and entirely new. They sang in Arabic and Urdu, mostly (the songs included a qawwali that was a recognizable riff on Nusrat) but the accompaniment was an assortment of many-sized drums and maracas--no harmonium--and a single-stringed instrument that they call a malunga, which was immediately recognizable as a close relative of the Brazilian berimbao. The capoeirista amongst us recognized it at once--and so did I, having once in Seattle had housemates who played capoeria, one of whom was learning the berimbao.
We had soon all abandoned our seats to sit on the floor at the front of the church, entranced. Several of the younger men in the ensemble danced, each in turn rising from his seat to come to the center of the stage. It was unlike any Sufi dancing I've seen before, slower and more stylized, but playful, with exaggerated eyes, a short interlude of breakdancing (yes, that's exactly what it was), and more than a passing suggestion of Bollywood, especially in the movements of one beautiful young man's wrists.
After four or five devotional songs, they disappeared back into the room behind the altar, and emerged ten minutes later transformed--faces painted with white curlicues that, to me, evoked Maori tattoos, and dressed in brightly pattered blue waistcloths and headdresses sewn with cowrie shells, and peacock feathers trailing from their waists.
They proceeded to do several dances from a series they've developed and performed around India, created from age-old songs still extant in the community, layered with newer images, sounds, and movements they've adopted as a way of declaring and representing their African-ness. We were unable tell what was "traditional" and what wasn't; various aspects of the costumes and movements, and some of the kiSwahili words incorporated into their songs, were apparently the result of contemporary, intentional appropriation; indeed, the phrase "invented tradition" wasn't far from mind (I am exactly the kind of fool who could sit in the midst of this and think of Hobsbawm and Ranger). But the results are fascinating, both as spectacle and as an example of identity-formation and performance ('and we think we have hybrid identities?' says B., afterwards).
Above all, it was joyous. They danced until the paint on their faces was running from their sweat, and we were hoarse from cheering our applause. In the last sequence, some of the dancers were tossing coconuts high in the air and heading them, like blissed-out footballers, so that each coconut exploded in a spray of light. When they stopped, finally, they thanked the audience, and called us to join them, and the drums started up again. I stripped off my boots and stretched out my hands and pulled a friend to his feet, and danced--feeling such gratitude for all the contingencies of work and travel and timing that brought me back to Oxford on this particular evening.
We wandered off into the night warm and glowing, chewing on stray pieces of coconut, only to run into a few of the performers outside. The Hindi/Urdu-speaking members of our posse spoke with them for a bit, and then we all said ma'a salaama, and went away to a pub to prolong our intoxicated fellowship. The next morning at brunch, three of us listened to the recording I'd bought at the concert. That Sunday I spent almost every minute from waking to sleeping in the company of dear friends, drinking and cooking and conversing, the talk ranging from Pakistani politics to Murakami stories to the eighty districts of Uganda, Joni Mitchell songs and five-year-old memories and new arrivals and inchoate plans for the future. How lucky I am, to have these people in my life.
All of a sudden I was off the bus and into Merton Street, knocking on a familiar door, bounding up the stoop into a firm hug. Then into the kitchen, where in a heartbeat's time I was making myself tea and thariel was doing the washing-up as if there were nothing particularly unusual about my presence. I like how normal this is, he said to me, the way we just behave as if you're in the house any old day. And that's exactly how it feels: so nice, to be able to move in and out of these scattered spaces worth calling home. Then he asks, people are planning to see this film-and-concert featuring African-Indian Sufis, are you up for it?
I'd heard of the Sidi community before, but only in passing: African-Indians living in Gujarat, the descendants of migrants, seafarers, and slaves who'd came hundreds of years ago. The community today numbers tens of thousands of people, mainly Muslims who speak Gujarati and Hindi.
Despite my exhaustion, I said (of course) yes. We headed out into the chill evening, only to discover that due to technical difficulties the film was not playing. So with friends, we repaired to a tapas restaurant and drank two jugs of sangria (is it not customary, among Sufis, to approach the Divine via the wine-cup?) before returning for the concert, by a troupe called Sidi Goma.
We seated ourselves in the back of the church, although we didn't stay there for long. While an introduction was relayed, an arm emerged from the crack in the door behind the altar-turned-stage, a bunch of incense sticks clutched in its fist, perfuming the space with a familar scent. And then a thin, dark bearded man in a white kurta-pajama and white open-work kufi stepped to the microphone at the front of the stage. He pressed his fingers to his skull, and cupped them in front of his ears, and the familiar words poured out--Allahu akbar, ash-hadu alla illaha ilalla--in a Wesleyan Church, in the centre of Oxford, he was singing the call to prayer. I leaned to the side, and whispered to B.--who is named after the first muezzin--'I've never heard the azan in a church before.'
After a half-azan (he stopped before actually calling us to prayer) eleven more men, dressed the same, came out an joined the muezzin, and they sat in a semi-circle on the stage and began to sing. The music--starting in slow, dirgelike call-and-response, and then, the tempo accelerating and building to a furious pace--was both familiar and entirely new. They sang in Arabic and Urdu, mostly (the songs included a qawwali that was a recognizable riff on Nusrat) but the accompaniment was an assortment of many-sized drums and maracas--no harmonium--and a single-stringed instrument that they call a malunga, which was immediately recognizable as a close relative of the Brazilian berimbao. The capoeirista amongst us recognized it at once--and so did I, having once in Seattle had housemates who played capoeria, one of whom was learning the berimbao.
We had soon all abandoned our seats to sit on the floor at the front of the church, entranced. Several of the younger men in the ensemble danced, each in turn rising from his seat to come to the center of the stage. It was unlike any Sufi dancing I've seen before, slower and more stylized, but playful, with exaggerated eyes, a short interlude of breakdancing (yes, that's exactly what it was), and more than a passing suggestion of Bollywood, especially in the movements of one beautiful young man's wrists.
After four or five devotional songs, they disappeared back into the room behind the altar, and emerged ten minutes later transformed--faces painted with white curlicues that, to me, evoked Maori tattoos, and dressed in brightly pattered blue waistcloths and headdresses sewn with cowrie shells, and peacock feathers trailing from their waists.
They proceeded to do several dances from a series they've developed and performed around India, created from age-old songs still extant in the community, layered with newer images, sounds, and movements they've adopted as a way of declaring and representing their African-ness. We were unable tell what was "traditional" and what wasn't; various aspects of the costumes and movements, and some of the kiSwahili words incorporated into their songs, were apparently the result of contemporary, intentional appropriation; indeed, the phrase "invented tradition" wasn't far from mind (I am exactly the kind of fool who could sit in the midst of this and think of Hobsbawm and Ranger). But the results are fascinating, both as spectacle and as an example of identity-formation and performance ('and we think we have hybrid identities?' says B., afterwards).
Above all, it was joyous. They danced until the paint on their faces was running from their sweat, and we were hoarse from cheering our applause. In the last sequence, some of the dancers were tossing coconuts high in the air and heading them, like blissed-out footballers, so that each coconut exploded in a spray of light. When they stopped, finally, they thanked the audience, and called us to join them, and the drums started up again. I stripped off my boots and stretched out my hands and pulled a friend to his feet, and danced--feeling such gratitude for all the contingencies of work and travel and timing that brought me back to Oxford on this particular evening.
We wandered off into the night warm and glowing, chewing on stray pieces of coconut, only to run into a few of the performers outside. The Hindi/Urdu-speaking members of our posse spoke with them for a bit, and then we all said ma'a salaama, and went away to a pub to prolong our intoxicated fellowship. The next morning at brunch, three of us listened to the recording I'd bought at the concert. That Sunday I spent almost every minute from waking to sleeping in the company of dear friends, drinking and cooking and conversing, the talk ranging from Pakistani politics to Murakami stories to the eighty districts of Uganda, Joni Mitchell songs and five-year-old memories and new arrivals and inchoate plans for the future. How lucky I am, to have these people in my life.
posted by kitabet at 5:55 PM
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