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A poignant landmark of Jaipur that is world famous, the Hawa Mahal (Hindi: हवा महल, translation: “Palace of Winds”) was constructed in 1799 by Maharaja Sawai Pratap Singh. Design was commissioned to Lal Chand Usta who not only showcased Rajputana architecture at its best while incorporating elements of Mughal architecture, but ensured that the hostile climate and weather of Rajasthan was taken care off. The outcome was a unique five-storey pyramidal shaped structure with an exterior that is akin to the honeycomb of a beehive with over 950 small windows called jharokhas that are decorated with intricate lattice work of lotus and floral patterns, domed canopies, fluted pillars and arches.

At a height of 50 feet (15 metres), the Hawa Mahal is by no means a typical palace. The top three floors of the structure have a dimension of only one room width while the first and second floors have patios in front of them, facing the stark and plain rear side of the ‘honeycomb’ structure. Viewed from the side, the Hawa Mahal appears to be no more than a ‘wall’ and gives the impression of it being uncompleted due to the lack of ornamentation in the inner face of the rear side of the building and the few chambers built of pillars and corridors on a need basis.

Thus, the Hawa Mahal is believed to have built by Maharaja Sawai Pratap Singh as a summer retreat due to the cooling effect in the chambers created with breeze passing through the small windows of the façade that is enhanced by the fountains provided at the centre of each of the chambers.

Built of red and pink sandstone that absorbs heat, the palace is also believed to be deliberately situated on the main thoroughfare in the heart of Jaipur’s business centre by Lal Chand Usta (who was also the planner of Jaipur City; then considered one of the best-planned cities in India) and intentionally extended to the women’s chambers (Zenana – the chambers of the harem). This enabled the women belonging to the Royal Family who were required to don a veil or ‘purdah’, to be screened by the intricate windows and balconies while enjoying the Seredeori Bazaar that resembles avenues of Paris in its heydays, green valleys and mountains, Amber Fort, the Thar desert and the daily processions and street activities.

Being part of the City Palace, the Hawa Mahal remains the most popular, photographed and studied section of the palace … perhaps like me, they too are reliving history in their imaginations, trying to capture a glimpse of one of Maharaja Sawai Pratap Singh’s beauties observing freedom in style and luxurious comforts but nonetheless trapped behind strict screened exclusivity.

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Reciprocity between man and God is a big thing in Bali with Canang Sari being offered three times a day.

Fashioned out of coconut leaves that is woven into a tiny square tray (‘canang’) and topped with flowers and/or rice with the “essence” of the offering (‘sari’) which is usually a small amount of money, these offerings is based on gratitude to the richness of life blessed and conferred onto the mortals by the Gods rather than out of fear. Viewed as a duty and honour, to the Balinese the practice of Canang Sari is indeed perceived as the most natural and almost logical practice to maintain good relations between them and the spirits.

Whilst the Balinese believes that Hindu trinity of Brahma, Shiva and Vishu are all manifestations of one supreme spirit - Sang hyang widhi wasa – and these offerings are to a large extend intended as a gratuitous gesture towards Sang hyang widhi wasa, in reality Balinese Hinduism continues to be strongly influenced by animism and naturalism where spirits are believed to be ‘housed’ in all objects and elements of life. Thus, all elements of nature are equated as the manifestation  of the one supreme spirit – Sang hyang widhi wasa.

Interestingly, the various manifestation of the one supreme spirits is categorised  as ‘good’ and ‘bad’. Good spirits are believed to reside in the mountains, whereas the sea is said to be the home of demons and ogres.

In addition to these, there are the spirits of the deceased.

Balinese believes in reincarnation of the spirit; the partition of the spirit from the body is  not an end in itself, but merely a continuation of cycles. Regardless of being alive or dead (spirits) the basic principles of Balinese Hinduism revolve  around obtaining balance and harmony of all elements in life  and afterlife – the dasar asasi. The key to obtaining this balance is via a harmonious relationship between spirits and mortals, and the nature that surrounds them.

This ultimately drives Balinese life … from orientation of homes and temples (pura), preparation of food to the act of offering Canang Sari to the honoured ‘guests’.

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Drawing from their long history of Buddhism, Tibetan art has always been synonymous with Thangkas – religious scrolls that projects iconographical and religious elements. However, with changes in Lhasa brought about by the arrivals of pilgrims  from all corners of the world prostrating in front of the Jokhang and thus the emergence of a plethora of entertainment venues hosting kitschy Tibetan cultural shows, Tibetan artist have been undergoing ‘similar’ transformation or ’progress’.

Tired of being  exotic-sized in the West as “mystics,” and “ethnic”, they have broken norms and boundaries, fiercely defending their right to express their own identities within the modern dialectic under the purview of art schools such as the Gendun Choephal School in Lhasa. 

Neither a traditionalist tantric influence nor an avant-garde fan, I was instantly attracted to the middle-of-the-road approach used by this artist at the Tibetan Refugee Self Help Centre.  What was pleasantly surprising, if not shocking, was to find a docile lady in exile producing such fine pieces that continues to reflect the cultural identity of Tibet, while producing works that are commercially viable, despite being isolated and hence insulated from the developments of the Tibetan art world that has attracted both positive and negative opinions;

1. the ecumenical modern art world (though comprising mostly of artists hailing from the developed Western world) looks at contemporary Tibetan artists as a group playing catch up with post modernism, and
2. whilst the native Tibetans are concern that in the haste to embrace globalisation to overcome social, psychological and economic changes of the world, Tibetan will lose their tradition. 

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check out Thangkas: Buddhist Religious Scrolls a multimedia piece by Mohit Gupta; brilliant engineer, enthusiastic photographer and friend

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In the wake of the failure of the Lhasa Uprising, Khampas (Eastern Tibetans) who did not take to the hills to join the Chushi Kangdruk guerrillas left for exile in India in 1959. Amongst the eighty thousand Tibetans that left their homeland in exodus between 1959-1960, were the 14th Dalai Lama himself, a large part of the Lhasa government, the abbots and many monks from the great Lhasa and provincial gompas, land-owners of Central Tibet, and the faithful from all walks of life who headed the Dalai Lama’s warning of dire times ahead, under the heel of the Chinese Communists.

Continued flights, estimated in the numbers of 1,000 to 2,500 a year (with survival rates that ranges from 10-40% depending on the time of the year, where many died from starvation, disease and the vagaries of climate and landscape), and a second exodus of 25,000 between 1986-1996, have resulted in small but flourishing Tibetan communities totaling to 220,000 Tibetans dispersed in most large cities of America, Europe and East Asia. With hundreds of Tibetan gompas and temples being built, Tibetan Buddhism has been dubbed as one of the fastest growing religions in the world.

The success of the Tibetan diaspora and establishment in both the Indian sub-continent and the West has much to do with being blessed by the right spiritual leader of that era:

• The 16th Karmapa (the spiritual leader of the Kagyu order) through his foresight had prepared a sanctuary and a cache of treasure in Sikkim way before the 14th Dalai Lama’s flight. A wealthy and powerful order, his pre-planning and influence had enabled the Kagyu order to establish an independent foothold in exile.

• Similarly, Dudjom Rimpoche (head of the Nyingma order), had the support of the natives of the border community who were Nyingma devotees in Darjeeling during the exodus, and has remained independent to date.

• The 14th Dalai Lama on the other hand has won himself the repute of being a politician and spiritual man of rare integrity, acceptance and openness. Capitalising on his Tibetan devotees that provided the structure and a conduit for Western devotees, the 14th Dalai Lama had assumed a high media profile to further his crusade for the survival of Tibetan culture and the oppression of Tibetans in Tibet.

Non-Tibetan devotees in the heydays were diverse in personality, nationality, motive and intent; popular ones includes a French film-maker, an Indian Parsee grande dame, a Canadian ambassador, American and Scottish anthropologists and old-style hippie travelers who later established Tibetan Buddhist centres of their own in the West; all of which efforts have contributed towards the popular support for Tibetan Buddhism, the 14th Dalai Lama, the Tibetan government in exile’s political agenda and private promotion of numerous lamas who would continue to travel to the West.

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50 years on, there is a new generation of lamas educated in India, Nepal and the West, who never knew the rigours of Tibet and has been surrounded by a contemporary materialistic social environment.

50 years on, funds have poured into the lama’s coffers from across the world, extending to the new raising economies of North East and South East Asia whose practices and demands varies; giving rise to psycho-magical rites for devotees longevity, wealth, health and success – a concept where conspicuous consumption and Buddhism in one is loath by Tibetans, Indian sub-continent and post-Christian West.

50 years on, accusations of charlatanism, commercialism, power-politicking, exploitation of the naive (and weak – psycho-sexual training methods with female disciples by unscrupulous gurus), primitive shamanic practices, immoral behaviour and radically different teachings has crept in *.

Despite all of this and the evolution of the religion, Tibetan Buddhism in ‘borrowed lands’ has culminated in more followers than the population of Tibet.

But more heart retching is: despite all of the media attention, global acceptance and international endorsement of the Tibetan government in exile (with 10 Central Tibetan Administration offices in the world: New Delhi, India; New York, USA; Geneva, Switzerland; Tokyo, Japan; London, UK; Canberra, Australia; Paris, France; Moscow, Russia; Pretoria, South Africa; and Taipei, Taiwan) the disproportionately high numbers of women (lamas aside) who had survived the first exodus and had spent half a century or so in secluded refugee centres in the Himalayan plains knows only of one Tibetan culture and one  spiritual leader whom they rest their hopes on for a better Tibet and a return trip to Tibet, their homeland.

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* ‘Dance of 17 Lives’ by Mick Brown – a good, light read that provides a broad overview of Tibetan Buddhism and in-depth account of the Kagyu school, the 16th and 17th Karmapa, and a colourful in-sights of the charlatanism, commercialism, power-politicking, exploitation, primitive shamanic practices, immoral behaviour (drugs and sex) and radically different teachings.

The 4 Schools of Tibetan Buddhism : (1) The Nyingma School – the ‘old school’ (2) The Kagyu School - ‘teaching lineage’ (3) The Sakya School – ‘gray earth’ (4) The Gelugpa School – ‘virtuous school’. The 14th Dalai Lama is from the Gelugpa school.

Click HERE for a summary of the differences in the 4 Schools of Tibetan Buddhism.

]]> http://penelopegan.com/photoblog/2010/01/the-tibetan-diaspora-50-years-on/feed/ 0 http://penelopegan.com/photoblog/2010/01/mandi-tribe-india/ http://penelopegan.com/photoblog/2010/01/mandi-tribe-india/#comments Wed, 06 Jan 2010 00:18:47 +0000 ganpenelope http://penelopegan.com/photoblog/?p=909

© Penelope Gan – All Rights Reserved – A Kinnauras lady, Mandi, Himachal Pradesh, INDIA

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Pliny the Elder, Natural History 7. 24(trans. Rackham) (Roman encyclopedia C1st A.D.) :
“Ctesias [Greek historian C5th B.C.] writes that also among a certain race of India the women bear children only once in their life time, and that the children begin to turn grey directly after birth. [N.B. "to turn grey" in Greek meant to become old and wrinked].”

Pliny the Elder, Natural History 7. 28 :
“Crates of Pergamenus [Greek scholar C2nd B.C.] tells of Indians who . . . do not exceed forty years, this tribe adjoining the Macrobi (Long-Livers), whose women bear children only once. Agatharchides records this as well, and also that they live on locusts, and are very swift-footed. Clitarchus [Greek historian C3rd B.C.] gave them the name of Mandi; and Megasthenes [Greek historian C4th B.C.] also assigns them three hundred village, and says that the women bear children at age of seven and old age comes at forty.”

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With a rich and varied history, Himachal Pradesh is said to have been inhabited by human beings since the dawn of civilisation. About 2 million years ago, man lived in the foothills of the Bangana valley of Kangra, Sirsa valley of Nalagarh and Markanda valley of Sirmour. These people were believed to be from the Indus valley civilisation, which flourished between 2250 and 1750 B.C., and was responsible for the exodus of the original inhabitants of the Ganga plains up north, in search of peace and preservation of their way of life.

Greek mythology’s references to this is supported by the Vedas which refers to the early inhabitants of Himachal Pradesh as Dasas, Dasyus and Nishadas, with later works calling them Kinnars (Kinners/Kinnauras*), Nagas and Yakshas.

The second phase of settlers to the Himalayan foothills came in the form of Mongoloid people, followed by the third and most important wave of Aryan migrants from Central Asia who laid the foundation of Himachal Pradesh’s culture and history.

Whilst I am no expert of genealogy, anthropology, sociology, evolution or even social, cultural and economic history of tribes or modern day civilisation, I found this coincidence of meeting a Kinnauras family in Mandi valley uncanny which led to some research that has created even more confusion personally. Are we possibly talking about one of the same people who have evolved over the centuries; i.e. the Mandi tribe are now the Kinnauras? You decide.

But if so, why is a Kinnauras family residing in Mandi valley and not in border district of Kinnaur? The Kinnauras today occupy areas of the border districts of Kinnaur and their origins are of dispute: some holding on the believe that they belong to the Kinners of Mahabharata, while others making claims that they are the descendants of the Kirats who were overpowered by the Aryans and thus receded further into the remote Himalayan region.

What’s interesting to note is that the physical appearance of the Kinnauras resembles the Aryans, but there are also some with Mongoloid features with men sporting a very thin growth of mustaches and beard similar to the Tibetans;  supporting the earlier claims documented in both the Greek mythology and Vedas.

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* The Kinnaraus are a pleasant and soft spoken tribe that are involve in agriculture, horticulture, sheep rearing and wool raising. The Kinnaraus male adorns a long coat called the chubba and woolen pajamas known as the chamu sutan, while the women wears a woolen like sari called Dhoru. Both sexes adorns simple woolen caps called Thapang and protect their feet with shoes made from wool and goat hair.

Marriage alliances amongst the Kinnaraus are based either on caste or on the degree of the relationship. Polyandry is prevalent with the Kinnaraus, where it is common for all the brothers in one family to marry a single girl. Termed the Pandava marriage, such customs is purported to have left many unmarried women converting to a Buddhist monk or Jomo.

Buddhism, Hinduism and a mixture of both is practiced where animal sacrifice remains a common part of the religious rituals. Their dead are disposed in one of the three methods: drowning (dubhant), cremation (phukant), and eating by vultures and birds (bhakant) – an old tradition of Tibet also known as Sky Burial.

© Penelope Gan – All Rights Reserved – My Mother

I write this not because I want to, but because I have to. It’s good to know before it is too late.

Cancer Is A Bitch!

Skin cancer – whilst is the most common form of cancer with more than one million skin cancers being diagnosed annually, it is generally one of the better cancers to get (if one actually has a choice in this matter). And I am saying this not because I am a cynic by nature, but because 3 out of 4 people will suffer from cancer. 4 out of 5 people will die of cancer.

However, only 3% of skin cancer cases are melanoma, which causes more than 75% of skin cancer deaths. This means that only 2% of people diagnosed with skin cancer dies of melanoma. Yes, melanoma kills. Basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma is rarely fatal but can be highly disfiguring.

Melanomas in Asians have a greater tendency than Caucasians to present with advanced disease at time of diagnosis. This is primarily due to the fact that they tend to occur on non-exposed skin with less pigment, with up to 60-75% of tumors arising on the palms, soles, mucous membranes and nail regions, that goes undetectable for a long time unlike other skin cancers that is visible to the naked eye – didn’t I say Cancer Is A Bitch!

Melanoma that occurs on the nail bed is called subungual melanoma. The only good thing about subungual melanoma is, it is a relatively rare cancer with reported incidence between 0.7 to 3.5% of all melanoma cases.

When mom first took serious noticed of her discoloured toe nail with a peculiar dark brown colour stripe that runs along the length of her nail plate, she had by that time lived with it for more than 3 months, dismissing it as a blood clout resulting from a knock, which she admits to not remembering.

Had it not been for her concern as a primary day care giver to my severely brain injured nephew, paranoia with increasing numbers of friends dropping like flies due to cancer, and her deep seated desire to match make (!) me to her doctor, she would not have insisted on a biopsy.

Today, we urge everyone to pay closer attention to their bodies. To exercise extreme paranoia. To be a hypochondriac.

After all, Cancer Is A Bitch! Early detection save lives.

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Happy 60th Birthday Mommy … and many more to come.

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Subungual melanoma is a specific type of melanoma that occurs under the nail bed more commonly in dark-skinned people. Subungual melanoma causes a dark colored stripe that runs along the length of the nail plate , not across the nail. Just having a dark nail stripe is not necessarily melanoma. The following Signs make it more likely that a dark stripe is a subungual melanoma and should be evaluated by a dermatologist:

• Hutchinson’s Sign – Spread of pigmentation into the nail folds
• Pigmentation in a single digit
• Occurs at age 50 or older
• Occurs in the thumb, index finger, or great toe
• Blurred borders
• History of melanoma

© Penelope Gan – All Rights Reserved – Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA

I am HIV positive.

It’s not an easy phrase to say. Yet in April 2009, six brave people stood tall and proud and uttered these simple but profound words that would change their world.

In a country where HIV/AIDS cases were only publicly acknowledged and reported for the last 23 years, and where more importantly discrimination remains the main ‘killer’ for people living with HIV+, the notion of recording uncensored testaments by people living with HIV+ was unheard off.

Yet, through faith, perseverance, sensitivity, respect, responsibility and belief this project evolved from a few scratchy lines of far and between emails dating back to October 2008 between myself and the Malaysian AIDS Council (MAC) to one that has to date helped raised MYR 6 million in 5 months.

From an independent third party standpoint, the HIV/AIDS issue is no more than statistics which ironically is read far less than GDP figures, unemployment rates, road death tolls and even the latest EPL scores and winning lottery numbers.

Since the first HIV/AIDS cases were publicly reported in 1986 by the Ministry of Health, 84,630 HIV infections have been reported in this country and 11,384 people have AIDS as at December 31, 2008. The majority of new HIV infections are found in adults aged between 20 to 39 years, with transmission from intravenous drug usage (IDU) being the number one cause followed by infections via heterosexual intercourse. Although those with HIV/AIDS are predominantly male, the number of HIV+ infections amongst women has been increasing.

Being a woman myself, never has these words rung truer and deeper …

“Due to gender norms and inequalities, many women and girls lack the social and economic power to control key aspects of their lives, particularly sexual matters. As a result, women are in a difficult, and often impossible, situation when it comes to negotiating with their partners over abstinence, fidelity, or condom use.”

(Excerpt from: UNAIDS, 2006. Increase Women’s Control over HIV Prevention, Issue 4)

… as I sat in their bare and dimly lit kitchens and homes, documenting their lives.

Of the two women who welcomed me into their homes, lives, intimate secrets and dreams… both were ‘victims’ of circumstances – contracting HIV+ from life partners that were IDUs. When I walked into this photo-project, I had imagined the women to be bitter, resentful and possibly wallowing in self-pity but I was repeatedly proven wrong. Far from my own personal cynic outlook of things, these women living with HIV+ were spirited, positive and full of zest. What surprises me most was that although they live on to shoulder the burden of raising their children single-handedly with little means,  balancing their health related issues and faced with societal unforgiving discrimination and stigma, they showed no remorse or anger having contracted the infections through irresponsible husband and has coined the term “love disease”.

Their ‘hopes and dreams’ which includes witnessing the graduation and marriage of their children, to me, does not have a tinge of far fetched ambition, but I soon realised that while it relates to matters we take for granted, time is an essence with these brave women and though they may possess will power that could move mountains, their spirits are constantly dampen by their physical inability and unnecessary hurdles posed by us who do not and/or refuses to understand.

By standing tall and speaking from their hearts, these women hopes to spread the message of awareness and to inspire others that are living of HIV+ that it is still a life worth fighting for.

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The multimedia photoessays of  “Voices of People Living with HIV+” was released for selective viewing for fundraising purposes in May 2009 and will be made available only on the Malaysian AIDS Council website in due course. I would like to thank a personal friend of mine, Jimin Lai for having the faith in me and MAC to volunteer his time and photographic skills in this project as well.

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useful HIV/AIDS resources

The BODY |  WHO

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© Penelope Gan – All Rights Reserved – Old Manali, Himachal Pradesh, INDIA

What appears to be distinctively distracting as you drive down the lovely and pristine road connecting Kullu and Manali with the roaring Beas river flowing pass and alpine landscape soaring way way above the skyline, are countless of shops selling mufflers, stoles and shawls, and in your face “Traditional Kully Shawls” signboards posted above or beside what appears to approximate the size of the shop itself!

Interestingly 20,000 to 22,000 people are said to be engaged in weaving around this valley and many of which are women.

During my trip to Manali, I was fortunate to be invited into 3 homes of weavers, two of which were part of a women weaving cooperative society. I was informed that 90% of the weavers in the Kullu Valley work with or is in some way affiliated to the many well-organised weaving cooperative societies, most of which are operated by women for women. Not only does these cooperative societies assist in organising the weavers, procuring bulk raw material and marketing the finished product, the societies have provided employment across the entire value-add chain in the weaving industry to women in this valley which has made them self reliant both from an economic stand point but more importantly in terms of acquiring new skills and experiences that they would otherwise never have had the opportunity and exposure.

Being an integral part of the lives of people in the Kullu Valley, every home has at least one loom; be it being used for commercial reasons or for their own consumption. Not surprising then the Pattus is their traditional attire – a characterless 18-22″ wide blanket like piece woven in the natural colours of wool – black, grey and white (and occasionally dyed with vegetable dyes) that serves the bare necessity of covering their bodies and protecting themselves from severe cold. Worn as a single piece wrapped around their bodies, the Pattu is held in place with a piece of cloth that serves as a belt and fastened at the top with a delicate chain with two clips at its ends.

Today, 70 years after the weavers from Bushehar (Shimla) handed down their weaving knowledge that includes hand looms, geometric designs and synthetic threads  (all of which was possibly from the influence and transfer of know-hows by the British) the Kullu Valley now offers an impressive array of woolens for sale in many exotic designs and from the subdued colours of apricot, olive, ocher …et cetera achieved by the natural vegetable dyes to the vogue and fashionable synthetic dyes.

Handicapped by language and under tight time constraint, I regret that I was not able to better understand this art form and the people creating them. I remain curious about the real economic value in these delicate time consuming pieces they create and the actual portions of the economic cake the weavers are entitled too.

Interestingly, I am yet to see any of these hand looms pieces for sale under those blinding “Traditional Kullu Shawls” signage that dots the Kullu Valley and chocks their mainstreet malls. What I’ve seen seems to me to be over-priced machine woven shawls that are widely available all over India – a far cry from the traditional shawls spunned and weaved from natural fibres by hand looms in almost every veranda, garden shed or room in a Kullu home.

So, where do the real Traditional Kullu Shawls go to?

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More shots and behind the scene story HERE {warning: just rants by me}

© Penelope Gan – All Rights Reserved – Processing argan oil in Little Atlas Region, MOROCCO

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Argan oil, valued for its nutritive, cosmetic and numerous medicinal properties is an oil produced from the kernels of the argan tree, endemic to Morocco. Famed for having wild goats climbing all over them, the argan trees were first reported by the explorer Leo Africanus in 1510. The Berbers or Amazighs (indigenous people of Morocco) have been processing the argan pits collected from the waste of the goats that climbs the trees to eat the argan fruits for nutty cooking oil and cosmetics long before the Phoenicians arrived.

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Whilst the process has not changed and remains largely manual, today, the oil used in cosmetic and culinary products available for sale are more likely to ave been harvested directly from the tree than by sifting through the waste of the goats. All argan oil sold today is produced by a women’s cooperative that shares profits among the local women of the Berber tribe. Not only does the cooperative employs widows or in more recent years divorcees and unmarried single mothers, the cooperative has established an ecosystem reforestation project to ensure continuous supply of argan oil and hence, a sustainable income for the women. Excess money attained has been used to provide for health care and education of the local women, as well as supporting the entire community.

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According to the Department of Water and Forests, argan oil provides income for 3 million people in the southern part of the kingdom and provides a total of 20 million workdays per year.  The argan oil women cooperatives in Morocco work within a biosphere protected by UNESCO which ensures its protection and reforestation.

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Source: Wikipedia and Argan Oil Society

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