A publication of the Program, Cornell University SOUTH ASIA Summer 2014 PROGRAM

The SAP celebrates 60th Anniversary: The Early Years by Professor Emerita (Department of Architecture), Bonnie MacDougall

he Cornell South Asia Pro- Professor Morris E. Opler, Sociology and Anthropology, left for in early Septem- gram grew out of the Com- ber to study modern developments in the villages of that country. The project is part Tparative Studies in Cultural of a program in cultural anthropology which was instituted at the University in 1947 Change Project, an initiative that was with the support of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. This particular study is organized in the later 1940s with the being sponsored by the Social Science Research Council the Viking Fund of New York, Department of Anthropology/Soci- the Watumull Foundation of Los Angeles in addition to the Carnegie Corporation and ology with generous support from Cornell. Cornell Alumni News, October 1949, p78 the Carnegie Corporation. Three major areas of ethnographic focus in that we know today. It was imagined post-colonial world. In the India proj- the project -- Latin America, South- as a training ground and leadership ect, they took up residence in village east Asia and India/South Asia -- program in anthropology and closely communities that were seen as the eventually grew into the respective related disciplines for graduate stu- fundamental unit of study through Cornell world area programs. Morris dents (Gerald D. Berreman, Bernard which national change and develop- Opler (1907-1996) became the found- S. Cohn, Edward B. Harper, Louise ment could be understood and intro- ing director of the South Asia Pro- G. Harper, John T. Hitchcock, Mil- duced. They studied under mentors gram and the face of its organization dred S. Luschinsky, J. Michael Mahar, concerned with these issues includ- and expansion for the next twenty Jack M. Planalp, William L. Rowe and ing Professors Allan Holmberg, years. others) and even for post-graduate Lauriston Sharp and Opler. Opler, Post-WWII South Asian studies scholars from Cornell and elsewhere later a president of the American at Cornell was somewhat different (John Gumperz, Pauline Kolenda, Anthropological Association (1962- in its aims than the multidisciplinary Leigh Minturn). They focused their 1963), was well known in the field of campus-wide Cornell area programs research on the new issues facing the anthropology for his early e page 4

Notes from the Field Dr. King’s Dream... Klaus Ebeling Donation I sat on a long tan couch in the in the Land of Gandhi I vividly remember seeing Klaus dimly lit waiting room of Sony In 1959, following his month-long Ebeling’s book Ragamala Painting for Entertainment Television’s... maiden voyage to India,... the first time in the window... D D D SEE PAGE 6 SEE PAGE 8 SEE PAGE 14 From the Director... Anne M. Blackburn

fter one of the coldest winters Center. If funded, we hope to expand on record, we’re enjoying a our South Asian language program Abrilliant Ithaca summer and I somewhat, and continue conference write this in a celebratory spirit after and seminar programming. FLAS a strong and active year in the South funding would provide precious fel- Asia Program. Dan Gold stepped lowships for our graduate students. At down as Director of the program the heart of the proposal are new out- last July. I reiterate our warm thanks reach initiatives to extend our South to him for years of service and good Asia expertise to community college stewardship. and education program partners, sup- Cornell’s Task Force on Interna- porting the inclusion of new South tionalization (TFI) and its 2012 report Asia-related components in their cur- are making a positive impact on our ricula and providing travel opportuni- campus, providing a more supportive ties to South Asian locations for their climate for South Asia studies as well faculty and students. I am delighted as financing to seed new initiatives by these projects, increasing collabora- and foster more intensive faculty en- tion across campuses interested in the gagement with the program. The ap- South Asian region and sharing our fi- will require additional financial sup- pointment of Kat Anderson as Direc- nancial and intellectual resources. port within Cornell as well as secur- tor of Development for International Our NRC proposal and TFI-funded ing new sources of external funding. Affairs is excellent news, very favor- projects also include a Tamil Studies Substantial Cornell University sup- able for the longer-term financial secu- Initiative. Cornell and Syracuse have port (from colleges, the office of the rity of the South Asia Program as well long-standing interests in Tamil cul- Provost, and the Einaudi Center for as other international studies projects tural and linguistic areas, and Cor- International Studies) is essential to on campus. TFI support will allow us nell’s South Asia Program is a rec- maintain a climate of research and in- to offer SAP grants to faculty involved ognized center for Sri Lanka studies. struction that attracts and retains un- in overseas learning programs, inter- Through the Tamil Studies Initiative dergraduate and graduate students, as national research, and the preparation our program and National Resource well as high-caliber faculty, committed of teaching materials for South Asian Center aim to build a strong founda- to South Asia studies. South Asian lan- languages. In addition, this autumn tion for Tamil Studies on both cam- guages remain under threat at Cornell, we will inaugurate the Development puses, hoping in time to add new despite a climate increasingly favor- and Research in South Asia Forum, faculty lines and student resources. able to international studies, because creating a space for Cornell under- In the medium-term, Tamil language Cornell’s new budget model links the graduate and graduate students across courses are available to Cornell stu- viability of courses more closely to colleges to interact with development dents through the Shared Course Ini- enrollment figures, neglecting other researchers and practitioners working tiative arranged with Columbia and calculations of their value. All of us in/on South Asia. Yale universities through our Lan- – supporters of South Asia studies at We recently submitted a four-year guage Resource Center. This language Cornell – must continue to lobby hard National Resource Center/FLAS pro- sharing agreement also carries Bengali at all levels of the administration for posal to the U.S. Department of Edu- and Sinhala from Cornell to these uni- a sustainable resolution to the ongo- cation, in concert with our consortial versity partners. ing problem of funding the languages partner, the Syracuse South Asia There remain significant areas of required for undergraduate and grad- concern. Federal funding is always uate study and research related to unstable; therefore, we must continue South Asia. SOUTH ASIA to wean the South Asia Program from I welcome your comments and PROGRAM STAFF its reliance on federal funding. This suggestions as we continue to nurture Anne M. Blackburn, Director Cornell’s South Asia Program. d Bill Phelan, Program Manager Durga Bor, Administrative Assistant/Events Coordinator Aastha Aacharya/Laya Hess Skinner/M. Akbar Malik Karan Javaji/Thanh Nguyen, Student Assistants Ph 607-255-8493 • Fax 607-254-5000 • www.einaudi.cornell.edu/southasia Designed by: Westhill Graphics page 2 Congratulations Foreign Language in Area Studies (FLAS) Recipients 2013-2014

Jerry Benjamin is Shoshana Goldstein for its biodiversity/resilience and vul- a graduate student is a second year nerability to a shifting climate. She is in the Asian Studies Ph.D. student in the studying intermediate Nepali. Department, where Department of City he is focusing on the and Regional Plan- Jennifer Koester is ongoing campaign ning. She earned her an M.A. student in to eradicate polio in B.A. in Philosophy Asian Studies focus- India and what it and the History of ing on North India. may mean for the country regarding Math and Science from St. John’s She received her B.A. its future social and economic aspi- College, MD, and an M.A. in Inter- in Anthropology and rations. He is studying intermediate national Development, from the Asian and Middle Hindi. New School. Her current research Eastern Stud- focuses on rapid urbanization and ies at Dartmouth College and wrote Vincent Burgess is its impacts on spatial planning and her honors thesis on “Voluntour- currently a third- local governance in Delhi and Hary- ism: Mediating Interactions with the year Ph.D. student ana, India. She is studying Hindi. “Other.” Through Cornell Univer- in Asian Literatures, sity’s South Asia Program, she has Religions, and Cul- Faraz Haqqi is a sec- been granted the FLAS to study Hindi tures, studying the ond-year student at and North India. She is research- religious and cultural the Cornell Institute ing how individuals and groups in history of India. His for Public Affairs, North India characterize the effects research focuses on various articula- where he is pursuing of globalization and societal shifts tions of renunciation in colonial and a master’s degree in on their lives. She is studying Hindi. postcolonial North India, specifically Public Administra- the socio-cultural dynamics of dis- tion with a concen- Katie Rainwater is courses of abnegation and utilization tration in International Development a second year M.A./ amongst guru-centered movements of Studies. The FLAS fellowship supports Ph.D. student in Rajasthan. He is studying advanced his study of intermediate Persian and Development Sociol- Hindi/Urdu. of strategies for improved governance ogy. She earned a and poverty reduction in South Asia. B.A. in Anthropology Natalie di Pietranto- from the University nio earned her B.A. Andrea Haynes is of North Carolina in art history at the working towards and a M.A. in Southeast Asian Stud- University Califor- her Masters of Land- ies from the National University of nia, Davis with an scape Architecture. Singapore. Katie studies unfree and emphasis on Islamic She is interested in precarious labor. Her M.A. research South Asia. In 2011, the effects of climate examines Thai and Bangladeshi work- she received her change on ecosys- ers in Singapore’s construction indus- M.A. from Columbia University in tems and how try. For her Ph.D. dissertation, she South Asian Studies. Research inter- landscape architectural practices can plans to study shrimp aquaculture ests include Awadh and later Mughal be applied at the community and workers in Bangladesh and Thailand. paintings, South Asian dance, gender regional scale in mitigation and adap- Katie is studying intermediate Ben- and sexuality studies, architectural tion. She is a practicing Buddhist and gali. d marginalia, and South and Southeast is interested in the Nepali culture Asian visual encounters. She is study- and geography for its historical and ing Hindi/Urdu. modern connection to Buddhism and

page 3 60th Anniversary Weekend... 19-20 September

MANJUSHREE THAPA, well known novelist, non-fiction stylist, and journalist, offers the 2014 Tagore Lecture on Friday, 19 September at 4.30 p.m. in Cornell’s Kahin Center. Thapa’s works of fiction— including Seasons of Flight, Tilled Earth, and The Tutor of History—explore themes related to gender, development, politics, migration and sexuality in Nepal and North America. Forget Kathmandu com- bines history, memoir, reportage, and travel writing to explore Nepal’s political crises of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

MYSORE NAGARAJ AND DR. MANJUNATH, South Indian violin duo play on Sat- urday, 20 September at 8 p.m. at Cornell’s Barnes Hall in a performance graciously orga- nized by SPICMACAY with co-sponsorship by the South Asia Program, and additional support from Cornell Council for the Arts. Gifted violin maestros Dr. Mysore Manjunath and Mysore Nagaraj, the sons and disciples of renowned violinist Prof. Mahadevappa, are among today’s top-ranking Indian violinists with numerous awards to their credit, including the National Sangeet Natak Academy Award. They will be accompanied by Shrimushnam Raja Rao on mridangam and Giridhar Udupa on ghatam.

th The SAP celebrates 60 Anniversary... e cont. from page 1 work on the Apache. During a post- village near , and con- studies had wide ranging influence on war appointment at Harvard (1946- ducted parallel studies in other areas a broad literature in the social sciences 1948) he turned his attention to India. of South Asia as well. Gerald Berre- on South Asia, especially on village He and a close colleague Rudra Datt man worked in the Himalayan foot- studies. It brought Cornell students Singh, a scholar, teacher and develop- hills of near Dehra Dun. into a relationship with students and ment expert, were already collaborat- Edward and Louise Harper studied established scholars in India, some of ing in publications on India by the whom (such as Majumdar) became time Opler arrived at Cornell in 1948. visiting faculty in Ithaca. Professor In an initiative that became known S.C. Dube’s book Indian Village (1955) as the “Cornell India Project,” a rela- was published by Cornell University tionship with University Press and contained a foreword by was soon established with the cooper- Opler. Opler’s students themselves ation of Professor D.N. Majumdar, the created a generous paper trail over chair of its anthropology department. the ensuing years. The India projects By 1950-51 two field sites, both Rajput also had their effects on institution communities, had been identified in building in the United States as young Uttar Pradesh with the assistance of scholars took up places in academic Rudra Datt Singh. Researchers includ- departments around the country. First Director of the SAP, Morris Opler, with ing Cohn, Hitchcock and Rowe began Student, Mildred Stroop Luschinsky, (M.A. 1954, A well-documented goal and arriving in the following year. The Ph.D. 1962), 1953 achievement of the projects lay in first site was established at Senapur the effort to create a visual record of (occasionally given the pseudonym village life in Karnataka, then Mysore. the work as well as a written one. Madhopur) in Jaunpur District about Stanley Tambiah (see obituary, page The technical challenges of photogra- twenty-five miles north of Varanasi. 10), a student in the sociology wing phy were considerable because those The second was located at Randkhani of the combined Cornell department, days were not only pre-digital but (often given the pseudonym Khala- studied change in three diverse com- pre-Nikon. Spouses including Rella pur) in District. Both were munities in Ceylon, foreshadowing an Cohn and Patricia Hitchcock joined in areas that the government of India had emerging commitment to Sri Lankan the mission. Patricia and John Hitch- earmarked for pilot rural development studies that now distinguishes the cock produced a well-known early projects. Anthropology students of the Cornell program. film North Indian Village, a half-hour era also worked in , a Muslim This era in Cornell South Asian documentary about life in Rankhandi page 4 Congratulations to Graduate Students Awarded Field Work Research Funding

Andrew Amstutz, Ph.D. Candidate, Emme Edmunds, Ph.D. Candidate, Devel- Department of History, received a opment Sociology, received a Boren Grad- Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation uate Fellowship for study and fieldwork Research Abroad (DDRA) Fellowship to in India to complete her dissertation: Para- do fieldwork on his dissertation: Finding doxes of Taboo: Sexual Health Information A Home for Urdu: The Urdu Language Move- among Middle Class People in Delhi, India. ment in Twentieth-Century South Asia. Triveni Gandhi, Ph.D. Candidate, Depart- Amit Anshumali, Ph.D. Candidate, Devel- ment of Government, was awarded a opment Sociology, focuses on the connec- junior fellowship from the American Insti- tions between seasonal labor migration tute for Indian Studies (AIIS) to carry out and local economic development in cen- her project: Women’s Inequality in the Public tral India. He received a travel grant from Sphere: Do Electoral Quotas Improve Repre- the Einaudi Center for International Stud- sentation? ies and a Tata Cornell Initiative in Agricul- ture and Nutritional Exploration Grant to Shoshana Goldstein, Ph.D. student in the support his research project: Implications of Department of City and Regional Plan- Graduate Student Bernard Cohn (Ph.D. 1954), in Rural Non-Farm Employment on Household ning, received an Einaudi Center for Inter- India with his wife Rella Gender Inequality and the Development of national Studies travel grant to travel to the Local Economy in Vidarbha, , India for her research: Private Spaces and Central India. Common Resources: The Challenges of Gated Communities in Urban India. based on footage taken between 1953 Robert Beazley, Ph.D. Candidate, Depart- and 1955. After they shifted their ment of Natural Resources, was awarded Anna Golovkova, Ph.D. Candidate in research interests to Nepal, the Hitch- a Fulbright Hays DDRA, to continue Asian Literature, Religion, and Culture, cocks produced four more documen- researching the topic of ecotourism in received an Einaudi Center for Interna- Nepal, Bhutan, and China. His disserta- tional Studies travel grant for her project, tary films. More recently (2011), J. tion is titled: Gendered Mobility and Tran- Creating Tradition: the Early Tantras and Michael Mahar has collaborated on sient Livelihoods along the Trans-Himalayan Commentaries of the Cult of the Goddess Tri- a retrospective of a much-changed Highway. purasundar, in order to access the manu- Rankhandi entitled Leaving Home script holdings of the Bodleian Library. Vinay Bhaskar (Richter videos). For more than fifty , M.S/Ph.D., Horticul- ture Department, received a Tata Cornell Rajeev Goyal, M.P.S. student, Interna- years, Mahar has been documenting Initiative in Agriculture and Nutritional tional Agriculture, received an Einaudi the progress of Rankhandi as it has Exploration Grant. His research in India is Center for International Studies travel moved, in his words, “from the 18th located in Maharashtra, where he is con- grant to travel to Nepal to research his century into the 20th.” Two extensive ducting field trials for cover crops that can project: Towards Creating a Biodiversity replenish the region’s rapidly depleting Land Trust for the Kanchenjunga-Koshi Tappu archival collections pertaining to the soil organic matter content. His project is: Watershed. India project years are held by Cor- Performance and Management of Inter-Seeded nell University Libraries. One is a col- Cover Crops in a Semi-Arid Cropping System Soumya Gupta, Ph.D. Candidate, Dyson lection of the papers of Morris Opler and Impact on Yield, Weeds and Soil Health. School for Applied Economics and Man- agement, received a research grant for her and the other comprises Rankhandi, Vincent Burgess, third-year Ph.D. student fieldwork in India this past year from the assembled by J. Michael Mahar, now in Asian Literature, Religion, and Culture, Tata-Cornell Agriculture Nutrition Initia- professor emeritus at the University of in addition to a FLAS Fellowship, received tive to carry out household surveys in Arizona. These archives contain visual an Einaudi Center for International Stud- India in order to collect data for her disser- records as slides and prints as well as ies travel grant to study in India for his tation. She also received funding from the project: Islands of Authenticity: Village Tour- First Presbyterian Church’s International documentary film footage. Among ism in Western Rajasthan. Hunger Program. His project is: The Effect repositories elsewhere, the papers and of Farming Systems on Women’s Empower- film of Bernard Cohn who worked at Aimee Douglas, Ph.D. Candidate, Depart- ment and Iron Deficiency Status: A Study of Senapur are held by the University of ment of Anthropology, received a Ful- Agriculture-Nutrition Linkages in Vidarbha, bright-Hays DDRA to travel to Sri Lanka India. Chicago Libraries, those of Edward for field work to complete her dissertation, Harper by the University of Washing- Artisanal Nation: Heritage Production and Hayden Kantor, Ph.D. Candidate, Depart- ton, and those of John Hitchcock who the ‘Crafting’ of Identification in Sri Lanka, as ment of Anthropology, was a recipient of worked at Rankhandi by the National well as the Wenner-Gren Foundation Dis- the Wenner-Gren Dissertation Fieldwork sertation Fieldwork Grant. Grant for the 2013-2014 aca- e page 11 Museum of Natural History. d page 5 NOTES from the field

Anaar Desai-Stephens is a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Music at Cornell. She is currently in India conducting research for her dissertation, “Singing through the Screen: Music Competition Television Shows and the Fashioning of Female Performers in Twenty-first Century India.” These are her “Notes from the Field.”

Anaar (in red skirt) performing with Maati Baani at the NH7 Weekender Festival,

a long tan couch the Interface Complex, a collection of He’s not even in the city. I think he’s on I sat on in the dimly lit large glass buildings housing a range a plane—his phone is switched off.” “I waiting room of Sony Entertainment of big media corporations. I had been have some work I can take care of, so Television’s Mumbai corporate office, nervous about finding the place, but I’ll just sit and wait for some time,” obsessively checking my email, SMS, when I told my rickshaw driver to go I told her and returned, confused, to and WhatsApp messages, and absent- towards the business park, he impa- the couch. Two hours later, there was mindedly watching a young adult tiently asked, “Yes, but which build- still no sign of or word from Gaurav movie featuring Amitabh Bachchan as ing? Where are you going? Sony? Seth, head of marketing at Sony Enter- a ghost. Every few minutes, the eleva- Building number 7.” I had signed tainment Television India, the channel tor emptied itself of another load of in at the gate, ridden the dark metal that broadcasts “Indian Idol.” And passengers—most walked straight up elevator to the third floor, and told the so I rode the elevator back down and to the large glass doors and swiped receptionist that I had an appointment stepped out into the hot sun. themselves in with a badge around with Gaurav Seth, adding “at 10:30” (I My dissertation project focuses on their neck, while a few joined me on was nearly on the dot). the production and consumption of the couches after checking with the A few minutes later, though, the Hindi-language music competition receptionist. I had been sitting there receptionist called me back: “Anaar, television shows, so-called “reality” for over an hour. are you sure you have an appointment music television, and examines their That morning, I had traveled north with Gaurav?” Flustered, I checked relationship to shifting economies in the ladies compartment of the my email to confirm that, yes, we had of musical performance, new sites Mumbai commuter train, then taken planned to meet Monday morning at of musical pedagogy, and emerging a rickshaw from the Malad station to 10:30 a.m. “Gaurav is not in the office. forms of youth aspiration in liberal- page 6 izing India. Based in Mumbai, I have simply out of generosity. My research delayed. In lieu of easy ethnographic been meeting with former contestants has relied on these unexpected open- access to sites of production, I’ve had on these shows; with people involved ings, alignments, and moments of to rely more fully on interviews than I with all facets of music television kindness. had anticipated and to locate alternate production—talent hunters, music And so Gaurav Seth emails me the sites for participant observation. Thus, coaches, show directors, the venerated next day, apologizing for the confu- I’ve been observing and participating judges, and more; and with individu- sion and we re-schedule for the next in classes at music schools that offer als involved in television marketing week. When I return to SET, the recep- to train students for these television and branding. Some of these people tionist recognizes me and smiles; this music competitions, while also track- are famous musicians and producers time, I am quickly shown into Seth’s ing various e-learning music start-up in their own right, some are self-iden- sunny office, where we speak for an projects connected to the Indian Idol tified “strugglers” aspiring to careers hour-and-a-half while a TV plays con- franchise, and spending much time in music and media, many more are tinuously from the corner of the room. with Mumbai’s large cadre of freelance working behind the scenes at channels Seth warms up in talking about Sony’s musicians as a violinist in Bollywood and production houses to produce efforts to re-brand Indian Idol as a recording sessions, at gigs providing and disseminate these shows. “serious singing platform” as opposed Bollywood music for India’s wealthy So much of my fieldwork in India to a glitzy performance show. He and corporate classes, and performing has been marked by frenzied network- details how they construct marketing with music groups from Mumbai’s ing and trying logistics—gathering the campaigns for the show, and the ways “independent” music scene. numbers of people who know people in which they deploy ideas of aspira- In a research space where it has in the music-media industry, making tion and talent in such campaigns in been so challenging to develop “sites,” calls, sending follow-up text mes- order to grab potential contestants the revered anthropological spaces of sages, waiting, calling again. This has and audience members alike. Seth social-cultural encounter that allow been followed by more waiting: for is particularly keen to show me the for deep engagement and prolonged interviews, for returned phone calls, marketing campaign for the previous observation, I’ve had to reconfigure for email replies, for the production of season, Indian Idol Junior, where they how I think of “the field.” What I’ve upcoming television seasons to start. inserted Indian Idol judges and con- come to realize is that these difficult Indeed, one thing I had simply, naively, testants into classic Hindi film song pathways of encounter—the fortu- not anticipated is the basic challenge sequences. With pride, he walks me itous, often random ways in which I of gaining access. The Mumbai media- through the tricky technical montages get connections, the iterative process entertainment industry is led by elite that combine the original footage with of trying to get in touch, the frustra- actors operating within complex hier- the new actors and scenery to harness tion of scheduling—are not simply archies, often in multinational media audience nostalgia in service of a new obstacles on the road to information. corporations. While “Cornell,” “New musical–media product. Instead, they indicate the contours of York,” and “America” do retain some When I set out to research how a larger, evasive ethnographic space, cachet and having one’s perspec- music reality TV shows are implicated telling something about the struc- tives included in research still holds in larger changes in music careers ture of this industry, the texture of some allure, these are not instant and in the kinds of desires and aspi- this social-professional space, and the door-openers. The world that I am rations that drive these careers, I had motivations and meanings that drive attempting to study, understand, and planned to insinuate myself into the its actors. infiltrate is a closed one, comprised world of television production in My period of fieldwork is nearly of extremely busy people; as I’ve had order to observe how these musical complete and I am working furiously to remind myself time and again, fail- media products were created through to get in final interviews, complete ure to return a phone call is as often the actions and decisions of a range archival work on music competitions a product of an exhausting schedule of actors. Indeed, through my initial in newly independent India, and play as it is a sign of apathy or hostility. rounds of interviews and contacts, final gigs. The humid heat blanketing Through luck and some persistence, I had gained some assurance that I Mumbai does not make this work any however, I have found individuals could be involved in the production easier—everything slows down, musi- who have made time and opened up of the upcoming season of Indian Idol. cians leave town, and the simple act of to me—sometimes due to a potential However, the unpredictable nature meeting for coffee takes a great deal of proposition for mutual benefit, other of television production itself proved energy. Aam ke liye, shukr hai—thank times because I was introduced by a a stumbling block and the shooting goodness for the mangoes! d friend or superior, and occasionally of Indian Idol has been continuously

page 7 Dr. King’s Dream Confirmed in the Land of Gandhi by Justin Davis

following Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s month-long maiden voyage to India, Ebony In 1959, Magazine published an eight page account of Dr. King’s experiences while in India. In it, King notes his surprise at the Indian media’s coverage of the civil rights movement in the United States, laments India’s pervasive economic inequalities, applauds India’s progress in supporting the community, and calls upon the West to aid India’s development “…in a spirit of international brotherhood.” 1 Some would argue that Dr. King’s voyage marked a strategic shift in his thinking about the role non-violent resistance would play in the struggle for civil rights in America.

Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Ambassa- dor Bowles compared Dr. King’s role in the Montgomery bus boycott to the nonviolent campaigns led by Gandhi, stating, “In America you are develop- ing techniques which will not only establish American Negroes as first class citizens, but will do this in a way that earns the respect of all Americans, north and south, white and negro. The Gandhian method achieves this object not by hurting anyone but by making everyone better.” 3 Fully funded by the Christopher Reynolds Foundation, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Montgomery Improvement Asso- ciation, Dr. King accepted the invita- tion from the Gandhi Memorial Trust of India to visit in early 1959. Accom- Mr. and Mrs. King with India’s First Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, 1959 panied by his wife, Coretta Scott King, and Dr. Lawrence Dunbar Reddick, his Background Gandhian methods to achieve social long-time friend and author of King’s By the end of 1956, Dr. King was justice.2 biography Crusader Without Violence, already widely known for leading the Former two-time U.S. Ambassador the group landed in Bombay on Feb- Montgomery bus boycott and was to India, Chester Bowles, greatly influ- ruary 10, 1959. Dr. King wrote that his quickly becoming a national symbol enced Dr. King early in his career and wife had a profound interest in issues for the civil rights movement and served as an impetus for Dr. King’s trip facing Indian women, and Dr. Red- increasingly sought after as a spokes- to India. Bowles served as a powerful dick sought to study India’s history person for civil rights reform, social voice of support for King’s methods and government to buttress his under- gospel Christianity, and Gandhian and message of nonviolence. In a letter standing of India’s social progression nonviolent resistance. As early as to Dr. King dated January 28, 1957, in the age of Gandhi. December 1956, he made clear his Ambassador Bowles urged Dr. King readiness to build upon the success to visit India and offered to connect Poverty in India of the boycott, depicting Montgomery him with people who worked with During his visit, he met with Prime as a “proving ground” for the use of Gandhi, including India’s first Prime Minister Nehru, other members of the page 8 Indian government, governors, writ- for job opportunities, education, and potent weapon available to oppressed ers, professors, social reformers, and housing.4 people in their struggle for freedom, lectured to students at universities a commitment he took back with him across India. Dr. King observed that Economic Growth to fundamentally change the United despite the progress India made after Despite signs of poverty and ‘cas- States. Dr. King called India a tremen- gaining its independence from the teism,’ Dr. King commented that in dous force for peace and non-violence, British, India still had many social and 1959 India’s leaders, in and out of at home and abroad, and predicted economic problems. He noted India’s the government, were conscious of that U.S.-India cooperation would not vast size and population and reported the country’s economic woes and only be a boon for India’s own growth that many people were poor; the aver- noted that the country was divided on but for that of the United States. As age income per person was less than whether it should become westernized Dr. King presciently observed in 1959, $70 per year. He observed poverty and modernized for the sake of rais- there is much we can learn from each in Bombay, commented on the high ing living standards. He encouraged other and so much positive ground to unemployment rate, and noted that India to welcome foreign industry and cover. food was in short supply. He com- foreign capital, with then PM Nehru While today India continues to pared the poverty he saw in India with partially agreeing with the proposal. grapple with some of the issues Dr. poverty in the United States during However, Dr. King noted that there King wrote about, with mixed prog- the great depression. However, he were those who believed that foreign ress, Indians are “in tune” with Dr. said that poverty was a greater issue investment encouraged a rugged indi- King and what he stood for. In fact, in India with nearly two-thirds of the vidualism and “cut-throat competi- there are movements within Indian nation being ill-housed and ill-fed. tion” that could harm India. Despite universities to establish an MLK chair Still, Dr. King observed very wealthy that, Dr. King still believed that it was that would seek to bring American Indians who lived in nice homes, were in the interest of the United States and scholars who study Dr. King, African- well fed, and owned lots of land. the West to support India’s economic American history, and civil rights to needs. “It would be to the credit of India to teach budding young Indian Progress against ‘Casteism’ the West if India is able to maintain students. Since Dr. King’s visit in 1959, In his remarks to the Indian press, its democracy while solving its own civil rights freedom fighters, poets, King noted his delight that India problems,” Dr. King wrote.5 social activists, educators, and gov- had made more progress in the fight ernment leaders have all visited India against ‘casteism’ than the United As a Result… seeking enlightenment and under- States had made against race segrega- According to Dr. King, his group left standing of the world’s largest and tion at that time. He acknowledged India more convinced than ever that most energetic democracy. d that both India and the United States non-violent resistance was the most had federal laws against racial dis- crimination mandated by their respec- tive Supreme Courts. The difference between how India and the United Justin Davis graduated Cornell in 2007 as a Government major. He is serving as a U.S. States had responded to issues relat- Foreign Service Officer in New Delhi doing political analysis. This article does not repre- ed to its poor groups, King felt, was sent the views of the United States government. that leaders in India had placed their “moral power” behind the law, while (Endnotes) 1 My Trip to the Land of Gandhi. Ebony Magazine. July 1959. the United States had not. He wrote 2 King, “Facing the Challenge of a New Age,” 3 December 1956, in The Pupers of Martin Luther that the Indian government placed its King, Jr., vol. 3: Birth of a New Age, December 195g-December 1956, ed. Clayborne Carson, Stewart Burns, Susan Carson, Peter Holloran, Dana L. H. Powell (Berkeley and Los Angeles: full weight behind programs that gave University of California Press, 19971, pp. 451-463. the Dalit “untouchable” community 3 Letter. Bowles to King. 28 January 1957. an equal chance in society, especially 4 My Trip to the Land of Gandhi. Ebony Magazine. July 1959. 5 ibid.

page 9 Conference Syracuse University

“Transformations in South Asian Folk Arts, Aesthetics, and Commodities” by Emera Bridger Wilson, Associate Director/Outreach Coordinator, South Asia Center, Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs

he Cornell-Syracuse Universi- Building, where the exhibition “Mith- The folk arts do not just exist in ties Consortium and Ray Smith ila Painting: An Evolution of an Art the museum or the archive. The panel TSymposium Conference Trans- Form” was on display. Jha had two “Evolving Traditions” provided more formations in South Asian Folk Arts, Aes- paintings in the exhibition at the ethnographic insights into how folk thetics, and Commodities, held February nearby SU Art Gallery. arts are integral parts of people’s lived 27-March 1, 2014, was received very The efforts of individuals and insti- experiences. Frank Korom, Professor well by the campus community. This tutions to collect and catalog the folk of Religion and Anthropology, Boston conference brought together anthro- arts of South Asia was another impor- University, discussed his work among pologists, art historians, curators, and tant piece of the puzzle addressed patua (scroll painters) in Bengal while art lovers to investigate the ways in at the conference, both in Cooke’s Pika Ghosh, Associate Professor of Art which “folk arts” are defined in South keynote address and in the presenta- at the University of North Carolina Asia and how they have changed in tions made by Susan Wadley, Darielle at Chapel Hill, discussed the lives, light of globalization. Mason and Rebecca Brown during relationships, and social worlds cre- The conference was opened on their panel. Susan Wadley, the Ford- ated by kanthas that survive from the Thursday evening by Dilip Chakrab- Maxwell Professor of South Asian nineteenth and first part of the twen- arti, Professor Emeritus of South Asian Studies and Anthropology at SU, tieth century. Peter Zirnis, curator and Archeology at Cambridge University, highlighted the long relationship that photographer of Mithila art as well who discussed the ways in which SU has had with the Indian folk arts, as a board member of the Ethnic Arts “the folk” may or may not be repre- focusing on the efforts of Ruth Reeves Foundation, presented a paper by sented in the archeological record. He (who collected over 500 pieces of David Szanton, the foundation’s Pres- concluded that the folk has not been folk art, including religious artifacts, ident. This paper focused on the his- found, perhaps because no one has household utensils, toys and jewelry) tory of Mithila painting and how the asked the right questions or looked and H. Daniel Smith, whose collection Mithila Art Institute in Madhubani, closely enough at material culture. of “God Posters” numbers over 3500 Bihar hopes to preserve and perpetu- On Friday morning, Ned Cooke, pieces. Mason, the Stella Kramrisch ate the art form. the Charles F. Montgomery Profes- Curator of Indian and Himalayan Art The last day of the conference sor of American Decorative Arts, Yale at the Philadelphia Museum of Art focused on the continuity and change University, looked at how folk arts and Adjunct Associate Professor of that can be seen in folk arts tradi- have been classified both in the U.S. the History of Art at the University of tions in South Asia, whether it is how and in India. Cooke also discussed Pennsylvania, focused on the work of contemporary Mithila painters in how folk arts articulated with regional Stella Kramrisch, another prolific col- Nepal interpret folk narratives (Cor- and national identities during the lector of South Asian folk arts while alynn Davis, Associate Professor of nationalist and postcolonial periods Brown, Teaching Professor of History Women’s and Gender Studies and in India. of Art and Chair of Museum Studies at Anthropology, Bucknell University), During lunch, Rani Jha, master the Johns Hopkins University, focused the ways in which the idol comes out Mithila painter, demonstrated her on representations of the folk at three of the temple as monumental architec- work in the atrium of Shaffer Art major exhibitions in the 1980s. ture (Kajri Jain, Associate Professor of page 10 Graduate Student Awards... e cont. from page 5

demic year to continue his research exam- ining how the increasing capitalization of agriculture is reshaping villagers’ food practices in rural Bihar, India. His disser- tation is: Embodied Virtues: Local Strategies of Agricultural Production and Food Con- sumption in Bihar, India.

Jennifer Koester, M.A. student, Depart- ment of Asian Studies, in addition to a FLAS fellowship, received an Einaudi Center for International Studies travel grant to India for her project: Producing Indianess: Exploring Gendered National Iden- tities in a Global Economy.

Thibaud Marcesse, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Government, received a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant for field work for his dissertation: Patronage Guar- anteed? Decentralization, Social Policies and Clientelism in Rural India. He also received a Houston I. Flournoy Fellowship Award.

Tanvi Rao, Ph.D. Candidate, Applied Economics and Management, received a Tata Cornell Initiative in Agriculture and Nutritional Exploration Grant to study the preferences and expectations of Indian rural youth regarding their perceived job opportunities, acquired skills and educa- tion, and eventual work choices. His proj- ect is: Subjective Beliefs and Higher Educa- tion Choice: Evidence from an Indian State.

Jeffrey Vala, Ph.D. Candidate, Depart- ment of Psychology, received a Fulbright Fellowship for his research: Hindustani Rani Jha, Mithila Painter Music as Non-Invasive Perceptual Therapy for Children with Autism in Delhi.

Indian Visual Culture and Contempo- haros Jha, Amrita Jha, and Shalinee Maureen Valentine, M.Sc., Animal Sci- rary Art, University of Toronto Missis- Kumari. This documentary material ence, received a Tata Cornell Initiative in sauga) or how tribal textile traditions is a result of a trip that Goenka and Agriculture and Nutritional Exploration Grant. Her research is focused on goat are reimagined for a middle class Wadley took together to Madhubani, nutrition and feeding practices in the audience (Nora Fisher, Curator Emer- Bihar in 2012 to interview artists about Udaipur District of Rajasthan, a part of ita of Textiles and Costumes, Museum their work. The conference ended India where goat farming is a vital source of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, with an exhilarating presentation and of income for many families. Her project and Lakshmi Narayan, Project and performance by Arthur Flowers, Jr., is: Goat Foraging and Body Condition Char- acterization in Northwestern India. Design Consultant, Sandur Kushala Professor of English at SU. His book, Kala Kendra). I See the Promised Land, released by Lua Wilkinson, Ph.D. Student, Division Following this panel, Tula Goenka Tara Books, recounts the life of Martin of Nutritional Sciences, received a Tata and Susan Wadley, co-directors of the Luther King, Jr. using patua illustra- Cornell Initiative in Agriculture and Nu- tritional Exploration Grant to go to India South Asia Center, screened six short tions by Manu Chitrakar. He discussed for her research project: Promoting Iron- documentary pieces in which the what it was like to have his narrative Rich Foods for Infants 6-12 months through motivations and approaches of five interpreted by a Bengali scroll artist, Community-Based Participatory Research contemporary Mithila artists are ex- including moments of synergy and and Nutrition Education in Odisha, India. d plored—Rani Jha, Dulari Devi, Ramb- others of misunderstanding. d

page 11 Obituaries

Renowned Cornell Professor, Colleague and Friend of the South Asia Program, Kenneth A. R. Kennedy Dr. Kenneth Adrian Raine Kennedy passed D. McCown, Professor of Anthropology at away on April 23, 2014, in Ithaca, NY. Dr. the University of California, Berkeley, and, Kennedy was a renowned Professor at Cor- as he frequently stated, to be the spouse of nell University since 1964, and a research his beloved wife Margaret Carrick Fairlie scholar in the discipline of Anthropology. Kennedy, who predeceased him December He conducted extensive field and labora- 7, 2013.* tory studies of the prehistoric peoples of Dr. Kennedy was a prolific as well as India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Dr. Kenne- highly respected scholar. In addition to dy’s pioneering academic studies in South scores of published articles, symposia, Asia as well as his consultation practice and editorial writings, Professor Ken- He considered his greatest in forensic sciences brought him numer- nedy authored several books, including honors to have been studying ous honors. He was awarded the T. Dale God-Apes and Fossil Men: Paleoanthropology with the late Dr. Theodore Stewart Award in Forensic Anthropology of South Asia (Univ. of Mich. Press, 2000), D. McCown...and...to be (1987), was elected Fellow of the American and co-authored with Dr. McCown, Climb- the spouse of his beloved Association for the Advancement of Sci- ing Man’s Family Tree: A Collection of Major wife Margaret Carrick ence (1992), and held offices on the execu- Writings on Human Phylogeny, 1699-1971 Fairlie Kennedy. tive committees of the American Anthropo- (Prentice-Hall, 1971). His courses at Cornell logical Association, the American Associa- were recognized for their rigor and high tion of Physical Anthropologists, and the standards, tempered by Professor Kenne- American Academy of Forensic Sciences. dy’s love of his students and his continuing He considered his greatest honors to have interest in their careers.* been studying with the late Dr. Theodore

Published, in part, from: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/theithacajournal/obituary.aspx?n=kenneth-adrian-raine- kennedy&pid=170851726&fhid=7263 *See: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/theithacajournal/obituary.aspx?pid=168460314 For further information on Professor Kennedy, and his career at Cornell please see: http://sap.einaudi.cornell.edu/publications_newsletter (Fall 2005, front page & Spring 2013, back page)

Celebrated Sri Lankan Social Anthropologist and Cornell Alumnus, S. J. Tambiah Stanley Jeyaraj Tambiah, distinguished social anthropologist and social theorist of South and Southeast Asia, passed away after a long illness in Cambridge, MA on January 19, 2014. Professor Tambiah, Esther and Sidney Rabb Professor (Emeritus) of Anthropology at Harvard University, was born and raised in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, the fifth son of Charles Rajakon and Eliza Chellana Tambiah. After finishing his undergraduate education at the University of Ceylon in 1951, he attended Cornell University, graduating in 1954 with a Ph.D. He began teaching sociology at the University of Ceylon in 1955, where he remained until 1960. He taught at the University of Cambridge from 1963 to 1972 and at the University of Chicago from 1973 to 1976. He joined the faculty of Harvard University in 1976. His early work was on the Buddhist and political hierarchy in Thailand. In later years, after the onset A man of wit, charm, of the ethnic violence in Sri Lanka in 1983, he wrote extensively about collective violence sophistication and wide- in South Asia, culminating in his landmark book, Leveling Crowds. A man of wit, charm, ranging intellectual interests, sophistication and wide-ranging intellectual interests, he will be missed by his extended he will be missed by his family, many friends and colleagues. extended family, many friends Published, in part, in The Boston Globe on January. 21, 2014, and printed with permission from Charles S. and colleagues. Hallisey, Yehan Numata Senior Lecturer on Buddhist Literatures, Harvard Divinity School. Photo: http://www. srilankaguardian.org/2014/01/stanley-jeyaraja-tambiah.html page 12 Faculty

Einaudi Center Announces SAP Faculty Receive The Mario Einaudi Center Winners of Spring 2014 Fulbright-Nehru Academic for International Studies Seed Grants Related to and Professional Announces the First South Asia Excellence Award Cohort of International The seed grant program supports proposals ANDREW WILLFORD, Associate Pro- Faculty Fellows that request “seed funding” for the prepara- fessor of Anthropology received both a South Asia Program tion of external funding requests. Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Profes- member SAURABH BARRY PERLUS, Asso- sional Excellence Award MEHTA, Assistant Pro- ciate Professor, Depart- and a short-term Ameri- fessor of Global Health, ment of Architecture, can Institute for Indian Epidemiology, and Art, and Planning: “The Studies Fellowship to Nutrition, will start a Astronomical Observa- travel to India for his three-year term as an tories of Jai Singh: An project “Sacred Groves, International Faculty immersive, interdisci- Urban Depression, and Fellow this summer, affiliated with the plinary project for visu- Biomedicalizing Mental South Asia Program. As such, he will alization and cultural awareness.” Health Care in South India.” contribute to the intellectual life of the Mario Einaudi Center for International LUCINDA RAMBERG, Assistant Pro- STEVEN WOLF, Associate Profes- Studies by hosting workshops in his fessor of Anthropology and Feminist, sor, Department of Natural Resources: field, interacting with international pro- Gender, and Sexuality “Pursuing sustainabil- grams at Einaudi, and working across Studies received a Ful- ity through community- disciplines to foster cross-college con- bright-Nehru Academic engaged research in nections. and Professional Excel- the Nilgiri Biosphere Nominated by the dean of the College lence Award to travel Reserve.” of Human Ecology, and chosen by a fac- to India for her project, ulty committee chaired by Vice Provost “Dalit Conversion and for International Affairs and Einaudi Sexual Modernity.” Center Director Fredrik Logevall, Mehta was one of four faculty members chosen for this award, selected on the basis of their internationally focused research and teaching and scholarly achieve- 2013-2014 Humphrey Fellows ments. Dr. Mehta received his medical degree from the All India Institute of from South Asia Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi, India, and a Doctor of Science degree in The Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program provides a year of professional Epidemiology and Nutrition from Har- enrichment in the United States for experienced mid-career professionals vard University, Cambridge, Massachu- from selected countries throughout the world. Fellows are selected based on setts. He conducted his post-doctoral their potential for leadership and their commitment to public service in either research in nutritional epidemiology at the public or private sector. the Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Dr. Aamer Irshad, Pakistan, Chief of Food and Agriculture, Mehta has over 10 years of experience in Ministry of Planning, Development & Reforms, Planning working in resource-limited settings in the areas of infectious diseases, particu- Commission, Government of Pakistan: Responsible for the larly HIV and Tuberculosis, epidemiol- formulation of strategies, plans and policies for agricultural ogy, and nutrition. development in Pakistan.

Irfan Razzaq, Pakistan, Deputy District Officer (On Farm Water Management) Agriculture Department, Secretary of Agriculture: Supervises department activities at the town level through supporting staff and farmers’ activities in improving water productivity and upgrading farm-level irrigation conveyance systems.

page 13 Klaus Ebeling Donates Unique Ragamala

Slide Collection by Joep Bor

remember seeing Klaus Ebel- Five years later he wrote in his famous article ‘On the Musi- I vividly ing’s book Ragamala Painting for cal Modes of the Hindus’ that was published in the journal the first time in the window of a reputed Amsterdam art Asiatic Researches: “Every branch of knowledge in this coun- store in the Spiegelstraat. I had just returned from a two- try has been embellished by poetical fables; and the inven- year sojourn in Bombay where I had studied sarangi. Turn- tive talent of the Greeks never suggested a more charming ing over the pages, I was amazed by the many splendid allegory than the lovely families of the six Rágas [...] each of reproductions of ragamala miniatures from all over North whom is a Genius, or Demigod, wedded to five Ráginis, or and Central India, and the large number of ragamala albums Nymphs, and father of eight little Genii, called his Putras, or that Ebeling had used for his research. Though it was very Sons: the fancy of Shakspeare [sic] and the pencil of Albano expensive—and as a teaching assistant I was poor—I have might have been finely employed in giving speech and form never regretted buying the book just after it had been pub- to this assemblage of new aërial beings, who people the lished by Ravi Kumar in 1973. In a brilliant article about fairyland of Indian imagination.” Today we translate raga- the classification of Hindustani ragas, the renowned musi- mala as a ‘garland of ragas,’ and call a raga a ‘melodic type’ cologist Harold Powers (who died in 2007) called Ebeling’s or a ‘melodic species.’ Each raga is in fact a tonal framework work “the best all-round account of the ragamala tradition, for composition and improvisation. However that may though he wisely eschews tackling its musical aspect.” I to- be, William Jones made an important observation. Paint- tally agree with him. ing, poetry and music are uniquely combined in the sets of Many years later, my wife and I met Klaus and his lovely ragamala miniatures that visualize the ragas, and were very wife Barbara in Adams Center, New York. I was working popular at the time among collectors such as Robert John- on The Raga Guide and realized how inspiring his book had son and Antoine Polier. been for my research. By this time Klaus was retired as a A ragamala—or its South Indian version ragamalika—is Professor of Art and Art History at Jefferson Community also a medley of ragas. It is a distinct musical genre, and College, Watertown, New York, and his focus had shifted its medieval precursor was the ragakadamba, a type of song from Indian painting to snow and ice sculpting. But he was that was composed in different ragas and talas. In Hindu- still deeply interested in Indian art, and loaned me the slides stani music it was often referred to as ragasagar (lit. ‘ocean of of an almost complete ragamala album for the guide. ragas’). According to Captain N. Augustus Willard, author What is a ragamala? In 1787, the pioneering British Orien- of A Treatise on the Music of Hindoostan (1834), it “com- talist William Jones called it a ‘necklace of musical modes.’ mences with a particular Rag. Each successive strain is sung page 14 in a different Rag, and at the end of each, the first strain is made every painter in one region paint doors or candles or repeated.” One of the most beautiful recordings of such a trees in the same patterns, almost cookie-cutter fashion, dif- ragasagar is by the now forgotten sarangi maestro Bundu ferent in the next region, but still with the same iconogra- Khan, in which he plays the six principal ragas of the old phy? That seemed to be a golden opportunity for a whole raga-ragini system. book, after a trip around the world, of course. I needed to There are hundreds of ragas in Indian music, and for this visit many collections, photographing every accessible reason arose the need to classify them. One way of doing painting as a slide, cataloging its iconography and inscrip- this was to create hierarchical family groupings of ragas tion, its art style and provenance. There was no digital pho- to which extra-musical associations were ascribed. In such tography then, and no personal computer to sort and file, a system six ‘male’ ragas each had five or six subordinate cross-reference and disseminate, download and compare ‘wives’—called raginis—and sometimes also a number of details and iconographies.” ‘sons’ (putras). From the fourteenth century onwards we Fortunately, the story does not end here. Klaus Ebeling find different raga-ragini schemes in Sanskrit musicologi- applied to the American Institute of Indian Studies and re- cal treatises, in which each raga is poetically described in a ceived a Senior Research Fellowship for a full year in India short contemplative verse (dhyana). In these pictorial poems and Europe, “generous enough to take with me my family, they are personified as beings, ascetics, worshipers, i.e. all five females—how coincidental!” He spent the school or as an aristocratic lover with his beloved (nayaka-nayaki) in year 1969-70 in Europe and India, photographing approxi- various amorous scenes. mately four thousand ragamala miniatures from private and Obviously, this way of portraying ragas caught the fancy museum collections. Three years later he published his sem- of Indian painters who began putting them together into inal work on ragamala painting, in which he demonstrates albums of 36 (or 42) miniatures for their patrons. Between that the Indian painters had their own raga-ragini system the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries ragamalas were among which was astonishingly consistent and different from that the most popular subjects for Indian painters, and thou- of the musicians and musicologists. sands of such paintings have been preserved in museums In 1999 Klaus began to rearrange the slides but that effort worldwide. That is precisely what Klaus Ebeling realized in remained unfinished, and several years ago he kindly of- the summer of 1967 when he was reading books on Indian fered me his collection for my own research, entrusting me art at a seminar at Colgate University. “The painters, like the with the task of finding an appropriate venue for it in due musicians,” he recalls, “had worked without a manual, over time. However, I thought this valuable collection should three centuries, yet had produced very similar paintings be made available to other researchers as well, and for this of the same musical title and pictorial composition. Raga reason I approached Bronwen Bledsoe, Curator of the South Vasant was always Lord Krishna and his gopis dancing in Asia Collection at the Kroch Library. d the spring rains, and tossing around red and purple powder or water. Todi ragini was always a lone young woman in a park, playing a string instrument to pairs of gazelles and pairs of birds, while the inscribed poem spoke of Lady Todi pining for her absent lord and being reminded by her fauna audience, that happiness comes in twos.” “Somebody said,” Klaus goes on, “‘You need to get O.C. Gangoly.’—‘Who is that and why?’ He was a Bengali scholar who had written a two-volume work called Ragas and Raginis—published in 1936 in an edition of only thirty- six copies! That was the biggest surprise of that summer seminar at Colgate University: my discovery that nobody since 1936 had written a book about the subject. Only short chapters in different books on Indian art history explained The ragamala slide collection was gifted by Prof. Bor (right) to in Western rationale and very liberal interpretations, so it Cornell University in 2013 with Prof. Ebeling’s (left) blessings. seemed to me, the how and why of this remarkable art of These beautiful paintings will soon be visible online for research- miniature painting. Nobody had published a whole raga- ers everywhere, thanks to a Faculty Digitization Grant from the mala or explained how regional styles, a thousand and more College of Arts and Sciences. Stay tuned to the South Asia Pro- miles apart, or a century or two different in age, could pro- gram for a clickable link into this world of Indic painting, poetry duce such consistent iconographies over and over again. I and music. mean, in Christian art, the Bible describes in words the ico- Joep Bor is a professor at Leiden University and a visiting nographies of the Nativity and the Crucifixion, for instance. scholar at Cornell University. In addition to The Raga Guide Where was the ragamala bible that every painter seemed to (1999), he has written and edited five other books and numerous follow for 36 iconographies? Where was the manual, that articles on Indian music and dance.

page 15 Odissi Dancers Bijayini Satpathy and Surupa Sen of Nrityagram Nrityagram... February 4, 2015 As part of the Cornell Concert series, Odissi Dancers Bijayini Satpathy and Surupa Sen, both accomplished dancers from the legendary school Nrityagram founded by the late Protima Gauri will give a recital on February 4, 2015, at 8 concerts p.m. in Barnes Hall Auditorium, accompanied by a live orchestra. This event is supported in part by Cornell Council for the Arts. For ticket information, please visit: http://www.cornellconcertseries.com/ccs_ticket.html#ol upcoming

YO: The Spirit of Asia... April 19, 2015 The South Asia Program is pleased to sponsor renowned music masters from Japan fused with tabla. The music of YO represents the ancient traditions of Japan and India through a fresh, creative and inspired new vision. The concert will take place at April 19, 2015 at 8 p.m. in Barnes Hall Auditorium. YO’s performance is funded in part by Cornell Council for the Arts, the Rose Goldsen Lecture Series, and the Asian & Asian American Center (A3C). YO’S ARTISTS: Yutaka Oyama (shamisen)—One of the is respected throughout the shakuhachi world’s leading shamisen players, Yutaka world for his unique improvisational abil- Oyama is known for his breathtakingly ity. http://www.kominato.com/aki/ musical touch and the power of his impro- Ty Burhoe (tabla)—Ty Burhoe has been a visation which is quite rare within the disciple of the great tabla maestro, Ustad ancient tradition of shamisen. He has Zakir Hussain, since 1990. Ty is known for YO the Spirit of Asia members Ty Burhoe on tabla played in many of the top concert halls his inspired accompaniment and uplifting and Yutaka Oyama on shamisen around the world, including Carnegie Hall presence in both classical and in fusion and continues to tour globally. http://oya- settings. He has been featured on many mayutaka.com soundtracks for film and DVD, including Akihisa Kominato (shakuhachi)—A cel- the academy award winning documen- ebrated maestro of the shakuhachi, Aki- tary, “Born into Brothels.” Ty works with hisa is known for his rich expressions, as a broad range of artists including Ustad well as his ability to collaborate and blend Zakir Hussain, Bela Fleck, Walter Becker with many different musical styles and (Steely Dan) contributions to movie sound tracks. He

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