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[Want to make a list of all songs based on Raga Miyan Malhār...Found these many...would appreciate if you could help with more…and what about Manna Dey's "lapak jhapak"? – Mansi Prasad]  [I thought Lapak Jhapak was Basant. But somewhere they say it is Darbari. – Rafi-fan] [Raag Jai Malhār : āroha [ascending scale] is a sequence of random high-pitched notes and avaroha [descent] is the same going down, creating a mood of confusion and disturbance, sometimes indigestion. Generally played late in the night. Not an easy rāga to listen to and listeners frequently walk out clasping their hands to their ears. Some people claim it is not a rāga at all and what is this world coming to and they'd rather listen to rap. Lapak Jhapak doesn’t sound like Basant to my untrained ears, but that's about all I can say. < posted by Jai Malhār] [Precisely...even to my slightly trained ears, 'Lapak Jhapak' sounds like Miyan Malhār and certainly not Basant. But well....I understand the complications and implications of Jai Malhar through your post (are you sure the raga creates indigestion or it's you) biggrin.gif ...but could you please let me know in explicit terms what the āroha and avaroha are?? Mansi Prasad]

Another Subcontinent forums: music: classical and semi-classical

Remembering Raj Kapoor's great sense of music, Manna Dey recounted how the thespian first made the singer sing the Malhār [Malhār without further qualification, usually refers to Miyan kî Malhār – SV] rāga and then made composers Shankar-Jaikishan compose a brilliant comedy - classical number Lapak Jhapak for Boot Polish. Such was Kapoor's musical passion that he even joined Manna Dey in the song, lending some comic vocal gimmickry.

Dr. Mandar V. Bichu, “Manna Dey at his best” (Gulf News, 30 April 2006)

[Just superb! Manna Dey is just fabulous. And what a performance by David! Raj Kapoor re-shot 'Boot Polish', initially independently directed by his assistant Prakash Arora, again and added songs to the originally planned 'songless' film. And Shankar Jaikishan gave super hit music to make the film also a big hit.] [When Boot Polish was made initially it did not have a single song. When Raj Kapoor was shown the film then he told the film will bomb on the box-office. Then he hurriedly summoned Shailendra, Hasrat Jaipuri & Shankar Jaikishan and inserted some eight to nine songs at various points of the film. This was the genius of R.K. which gave a great musical like Boot Polish.]

Viewer comments on Vishunj's Lapak Jhapak video-clip on YouTube

Comments - There has been considerable confusion about this song and what rāga to ascribe it to.  According to Manna Dey's recollection of this recording, this song is based upon Malhār.  Although his own published recollections should settle the matter, they don't.  The first problem is that Manna Dey simply referred to it as "Malhār", and ignores the fact that Malhār is not a single rāga, but a class of related rāgas (e.g., Megh Malhār, Mian ki Malhār).  One should be able to listen to the piece and tell which Malhār it is.  Unfortunately this too is a problem, because the Shankar / Jaikishan team just did not quite get it right.  Due either to ignorance, carelessness, or rebelliousness, they twisted the rāga and threw in so much unrelated stuff that it became unrecognizable.  This has caused various people to ascribe this song to Basant, Darbari Kanada, Adana Malhār, Mian ki Malhār, and a host of other rāgas.  I do not claim to have the final answer, but the theme of the song suggests that the composers’ intent was Megh Malhār. Therefore, that is what we are classifying this song here.  However do not use this song as a guide to understanding the nature of Megh Malhār.

Comment on Lapak Jhapak at Film Songs in Rags [emphasis added - SV]

“Classical songs in movies” forum 

This is one of those songs overflowing with beauty! I have been listening to this song since childhood. Maybe it’s because of this that I take such pleasure in listening to songs based on classical music. - Sagar Nagar

I have listened to this song yet once more. The sound of the music is coming again from within. How artificial we have become. How much we have debased humor (hāsya). Have we forgotten how to laugh at ourselves? Do we have to go to humor-clubs [in order to appreciate authentic hāsya, readily available in this video-clip - SV]? – Sanjay Patel

Responses to “The Suggestion (vyangya) of Miyān kî Malhār” [in Lapak Jhapak], translated from Hindi by Sunthar

The status of the rasa-canon becomes even shakier when we extend it beyond poetry to the non-verbal arts. For what relevance could the canonical scheme of nine rasas have for (instrumental) music, whose vast range of ‘modal structures’ (rāga) typically ‘color’ (rañj- from which rāga is derived) the mind with tranquility, love whether in separation or union, pathos, ecstasy, devotion, or a combination of these [For example, the pathetic rāga par excellence in Carnatic music is the rare Mukhāṛī. Sweetness characterizes Mohanam, the equivalent of the Hindusthani Bhūpāli. The energetic Natta, that often opens a Southern concert, lends itself readily to the heroic sentiment. Revatī is considered the most sublime rāga in the South, no doubt because its notes correspond to the Vedic chant. Instrumentalists improvise on (the popular composition Raghuvamshasudhā in) the rāga Kadhana Kutūhalam so as to highlight the element of astonishment and even humor.], but hardly ever with disgust, fear, anger, humor or even wonder? This is a question that Thakur Jaidev Singh, the renowned musicologist of Benares, who was also a life-long student of Trika Shaivism, often posed to me with skepticism at his home (where I used to teach him French and German). It seems to me that Indian scholars, in general, have become so caught up in the particulars of the traditional taxonomies that even those exposed to the critical spirit of the West are often unable to penetrate to the underlying cultural scheme. Whereas commentators of genius like Abhinava and Patañjali found ingenious ways, even subterfuges, to reconcile the letter of the authoritative text with the spirit of its underlying project, we who live in the universal age of deconstruction can go straight to the kernel. [note 37]

Sunthar V., Towards an Integral Appreciation of Abhinavagupta’s Aesthetics of Rasa (Evam 2006)

We have here an apparently bizarre situation where everyone is ravished by Lapak Jhapak and attributes its musical appeal to the sublime power of the underlying rāga, and yet there is little agreement and much confusion as to its identity!

Online listings of film music tend to classify this song as Darbārī Kanada or Miyan kî Malhār, though instances of its being labeled as Megh Malhār, Adānā, etc., or even “Jai Malhār” (invented solely for the occasion :-) or are also not wanting:

http://www.downmelodylane.com/ragas5.html#darbari (#21)

http://mayyam.com/hub/viewtopic.php?p=38125 (also Darbari)

http://www.hamaraforums.com/lofiversion/index.php/t10325-100.html (aDānā)

http://www.p-sarkar.com/Classical%20Indian%20Film%20Songs.htm (aDānā)

http://www.chandrakantha.com/raga_raag/song_title.html#l (megh malhār)

http://www.mouthshut.com/Comment/readcomment.php?rid=126340 (megh malhār)

http://raagmala.sulekha.com/blog/post/2006/12/a-list-of-hindi-film-sonfs-based-upon-classical-raagas.htm (Miyan kî Malhār)

Given the bisociative structure of hāsya (humor), we may begin by noting that the rāga (whatever it may be), or its mere semblance, fully partakes in the verbal and gestural double-entendres depicted in the video-clip.

The invocation of (rain-) water (pānî) is the felicitous occasion for playing dexterously on the corresponding musical notes (pa and ni). Imploring grass to shoot forth from the wet earth is compared both through gesture and verbally to hair sprouting from a bald head (bhūtal se bāl ugā de). The ascent (ārohana) and descent (avarohana) of the rāga, whatever it be, is illustrated by the jailbird Junior rising up in joy only to be pushed down repeatedly. The insistent call of the cuckoo (coo…coo) somewhere in the woods is not only rendered musical, but inflames (not, as in Jayadeva’s kokila-kūjita-kunja-kuTîre…Gîta-Govinda, the usual erotic) hunger in everyone (thereby underlining the central theme of the movie: risk of starvation due to poverty, here assimilated to the threat of famine without the advent of the monsoon). In the comic unfolding of this (slapstick melo-) drama, it is amply demonstrated that we don’t need to have any teeth or make intelligible sounds (not just humming but the otherwise offensive sound of gargling one’s mouth in the morning…) in order to be great classical singers. Even tablas are superfluous as long as there are willing bald pates available.

Actually, most of those who are enjoying (and commenting on) this song have missed much of the humor, and the manner in which it adds to the underlying pathos of the movie as a whole. Lapak Jhapak is not so much a collective plea for the monsoons to start (what difference could this make to these jailbirds?) but for Mother Nature to allow hairs (= grass) to sprout bountifully from their bald heads: “the field on my head is parched dry” (sar ki khetî sūkh rahî hai – 2nd line). As such, when John Chāchā (David Abrahams) begins by using their bowed heads as something between a tabla and xylophone, his inclusive gesture is also an invocatory act of both compassion and self-pity. What prompts him to burst forth into this song is the preceding sight upon his entering the prison cell (omitted from the clip) of these jailbirds seated front-to-back in a line, each arduously massaging the skull of his neighbor:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI1Sq9TBThQ (0:58 – 1:12)

Though the Hindi title of the movie is “Oil Massage” (Tel Maalish), the real and more appropriate (English) title “Boot Polish” (which is how the child heroes attempt to eke out a decent living, now rendered impossible because no one bothers to have their shoes polished only to be soiled immediately) is not so much a mistranslation but serves to equate the two themes on the basis of the preceding story-line. John Chāchā’s obsession with his (missing) hair is shown quite early on:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzQ2g34jb5o (6:53-8:00, where he’s already attempting a combination of music therapy and oil massage to achieve the miraculous, as a sort of crude rehearsal for the inspired improvisation in prison).

As the kids note, rather astutely to his great irritation, though the “polish” is being applied on the head the hair is growing instead from his chin, and even the remaining two hairs on his pate have disappeared as a result of the cure. Just before John Chacha is nabbed by the police for (reluctantly) boot-legging prohibited whisky to get some money for the 2 kids to buy each other a frock and a shirt, the latter leave their boot-polish with him for safe-keeping:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co5-UUhZa4A (4:10 onwards)

Had the “Lapak Jhapak” video-clip been allowed to run on a few seconds more, we’d have seen that John Chāchā is horrified that Nature, instead of graciously answering their prayers, has taken the metaphor of raining on parched soil all too seriously. For the result is unmitigated disaster for his fellow slum-dwellers, whose tin roofs are the most exposed to the torrents unleashed. This is what happens when amateurish actors, singers, and music directors get so carried away by their creativity as to let the literal (vācya) sense (invocation of the rains) overshadow the suggested (vyangya) meaning (impassioned plea for a full head of hair)…who can blame even God for compassionately granting your (apparent) wish:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyZmeHSAf_I (“I’ve made a mistake!” from 0:00 – 2:07, where we hear the pathos of the real Darbari on the flute from 1:28)

Does all this mean there is really no humor in the rāga per se, which would have been rendered comic only through the double meanings and unexpected juxtapositions of the lyrics and gestures? After all, Manna Dey can also sing it straight:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpBm_WAjV78 (where one listener again has the impression of Darbari….)

There is little trace of the comic here unless we superimpose the visuals of the clip from memory. However, not only is the song in the movie sung differently, with exaggerated pathos, abrupt turns and flourishes, merry jigs, chorus effects, onomatopoeias, etc., but one could justifiably claim that the rāga in the movie is more than a mere accompaniment to the lyrics and the drama. Rather, such mimicry is bringing into visual relief the humor of the musical rendering that exploits the comic possibilities already inherent in the (semblance of) rāga. Though the episode is enjoyed as an indivisible (akhaNDa) multimedia whole, it is not surprising that it is the unspecifiable (semblance of) rāga that remains so memorable.

For Abhinava, approaching humor from within the purview of the rasa-theory, hāsya results from ‘the semblance of (an otherwise identifiable) sentiment’ (rasābhāsa). Rāvana’s overpowering love for Sîtā is so comic only because it looks like the real thing, viz., shrngāra rasa evoked, nourished, and relished through the convergence of appropriate (aucitya) determinants, ensuants, and concomitants. Transposing this aesthetic insight onto the musical plane, we may deduce that the ‘semblance of (an otherwise readily recognizable) mode’ (rāgābhāsa) is conducive to humor, precisely because it juxtaposes varied notes, microtones, flourishes, and hints of emotion that are otherwise associated with other relatively well-defined rāgas. Considering that the relationship between rāga and rasa is admittedly not straightforward, the semblance of the former would conceivably enhance the comic possibilities of ‘theatrically’ representing the latter. For me, the rāgābhāsa of Lapak Jhapak that hovers tantalizingly between the Malhār and KānaDa families is not only enjoyable in its own right as a distinctive aesthetic entity, but is superior to its non-comic and less memorable non-cinematic rendering by the same Manna Dey. Which brings us back to the question of whether Indian theorists recognized rasābhāsa as a legitimate (despite its breach of moral norms) aesthetic category. For Abhinava, the ‘semblance of love’ (shrngārābhāsa) is not the same as the ‘erotic sentiment’ (shrngāra) but may indeed be enjoyed (pace Pollock) for what it is: love-based comedy. We may similarly enjoy Lapak Jhapak, with its ‘pathetic’ strains of soulful Darbari and mock celebration of Malhār raining, as rāgābhāsa.

So we can all now eat our cake and have it too…enjoy the rāga, whatever it may be, and laugh at its semblance!

Sunthar

[Rest of this thread at Sunthar V. (05 May 2009) and Graham (10 May 2009)

"Lapak Jhapak" (Boot Polish) - Darbari KāNaDā (aDānā) or Miyan kî Malhār?]

[Wow!!!! perfect song....makes you feel so unusual!] [Man what can I say I really was looking for this song since I was 12 thanks a lot] [This movie brings back childhood memories..thanks for uploading this, Vishunj. ] [It is funny and sexy at the same time...nice work] [Notice how in the end David is wearing the number 420... does that have anything to do with Raj Kapoor's "Shree 420"?? or is it just a coincidence.] [Very good song and very good acting. I am curious about what he say in song, for example what does "lapak jhapak tu" mean? Can you translate it, please.] [I think it means "jump around"] [Turkish people are loves Indians people. ] [His shirt says 420, haha pot head Indians]

Viewer comments on Vishunj's Lapak Jhapak video-clip on YouTube

lapak jhapak tu aa re badarava [lapak-ing and jhapak-ing, oh come hither you clouds!]
sar ki kheti sookh rahi hai  [for the field on my head is parched dry]
baras-baras tu aa re badarava  [showering and pouring, oh come hither you clouds!]
lapak jhapak...lapak jhapak...

jhagad-jhagad kar paani la tu [rumble, grumble, and shower your water]
pa..aa..ni... pa..aa..ni  [wa-aa-ter…wa-aa-ter]
paani la tu...paani la tu... [bring water, bring water]
jhagad-jhagad kar paani la tu 
akad-akad bijali chamaka tu [dazzling and dizzying, flash the lightning ]
tere ghade men paani nahin ho [hey, there’s no water in your pitcher]
tere ghade men paani nahin ho to
panaghat se bhar la  [come, fill up the wells and water tanks]
panaghat se bhar la
panghat se, haa panghat se
panghat se bhar la sakhi ri
panghat se bhar la sakhi ri
lapak jhapak tu aa re badarava...............

ban men koyal kook uthi hai [somewhere in the woods, the cuckoo is cooing]
ban men koyal.. koyal
kook...kook...koo koo kook [coo…coo…coo]
ban men koyal kook uthi hai
sab ke man men bhook uthi hai [and everyone’s hunger is rising]
bhuudal se tu baal uga de/-2 [let the hair sprout from the earth’s pate]
jhat pat tu barasa [shower rain at once!]
lapak jhapak tu aa re badarava...............

Lapak Jhapak Hindi lyrics

Rigveda VII.103 on the music of brahmin-frogs invoking and celebrating the rains, translated by Ralph T.H. Griffith [and annotated by the ‘great brahmin’]

NAGPUR: Desperate times call for desperate measures. With rains playing truant, delaying its progress to Vidarbha, people of the city are rallying with traditional methods even though it would make the purists squirm with outrage. On Saturday morning a sizeable crowd, consisting largely of women and children, participated in a unique marriage that's expected to usher in the monsoon season, hopefully, at the earliest. The groom was Raja and the bride Rani. The two were frogs. Their marriage was solemnized, to please the Rain God, by the residents of Futala, a suburb in Nagpur. It's believed that if frogs are married off with full Vedic rites and traditional marriage rituals, it could bring rain within a few days. For the record, the met office said that the monsoon is expected to arrive in Vidarbha by June 24. Ankita Awasti, a computer applications student and one of the organizers of the unique wedding, said she had heard stories about frog marriages from her elders. Her family and friends decided to arrange one such wedding keeping in view the delayed rainfall this year, which is causing severe hardships to the common man and farmers as well. Raja proved difficult to find. It took three days of intense search to find him. He was finally spotted in a nullah near the Mental Hospital, about 5 kms from the marriage spot. On the other hand, Rani was found near Telangkhedi Lake, a stone's throw distance from Futala. "Around 200 people attended the wedding which helped in creating an awareness among people to care and love animals," Ankita. Pandit Pradip Kumar, who solemnized the wedding, said that all the rituals were performed as in any normal Hindu marriage. "This included vara satkaarah (welcoming the groom's party), kanyadaan (giving away the bride), vivah homa (marriage ceremony), panigrahan (auspicious pooja), pratigna karan (oath-taking to remain wedded), manual phera (circumambulating the auspicious fire), saptapadi (ceremony for the couple), aashirvad (blessing from the elders)," he said. "This is the first time that I have solemnized such a marriage and I am confident that rains would surely arrive soon as it's been done with shraddha [faith] and bhakti [devotion] by the people and for a good cause." 

“Raja weds Rani, rains expected shortly” (Times of India, 21 June 2009)

The real culprit behind the Lapak Jhapak fiasco is actually a ‘philosopher’ serving 3 years in prison for having (inadvertently?) “razed the (grassy) playing fields (maidān, on the heads) of 300 men” through his (snake-) oil remedy for balding:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI1Sq9TBThQ (2:03 – 3:42)

Whereas the others are serving much shorter sentences (4, 6, 8, 17 months…with Junior protesting when it is revealed that he’s been there for only 15 days :-), the “Professor” (which is how he is introduced to John Chāchā) has been there long enough to remain constantly immersed in samādhi, introspecting into his past failures, in quest of the ultimate cure (all this in 1954 long before Sri Sri Ravishankar or even the Maharishi’s transcendental meditation had become fashionable therapies in Indian prisons). So John Chāchā is not only thrilled but insists, along with all the jail-mates, on the revelation of his latest (improved) formula: after all, “a balding man will clutch at a hair!” The Professor has apparently put his 3 long years to good use in the prison library studying ‘esoteric’ Hindu wisdom, starting with the Sanskrit theater, for by now he speaks, like the learned but crooked VidūSaka, only in riddles that convey the essence (bāt nichoD-kar): “ghaTāen and jaTāen.” When the others, baffled, think he’s joking, and in rather poor taste, he ‘explains’ laconically that ghaTā means “pitcher” and jaTā means “tresses” (bundled plaits of luxuriant hair that we seen on the heads of ascetics, e.g., at the Kumbha Melā), both of which are now vacant: bring down the pitchers and up come the tresses! While Senior thinks such (Indian) ‘philosophy’ (of language) is just bunkum, John Chāchā gets the point immediately (“great minds think alike”): invoke the water and perhaps (through linguistic subterfuge) our hair will be  (instead)tricked (galtî se…“through error” as the Professor puts it) into sprouting. No doubt bewitched by Anandavardhana, he is confident enough that when they explicitly beg for water, Nature would be sufficiently schooled in dhvani-theory to ignore the literal (vācya) meaning and grant them instead the suggested (vyangya) wish for a fertile head. And no one knows better than John Chāchā how best to transform cryptic words into effective deeds. For when Senior scoffs at the (physical) prospect of drawing down water, he clarifies that it’s just a question of (musical) practice (riyāz), the moment he’s been preparing for so long: “haven’t you heard of Tansen who brought rain” (through Malhār)? More than just a subjective appeal, invoking the (divinity embodied in a) rāga expertly and with intensity of emotion is, like repeating a mantra, to compel Nature to defy her own laws:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95rsl4qREx8

(Aaj gāwat man mero – competition between Tansen, the incumbent at the Mughal court, and Baiju Bawra in rendering the ‘fiery’ rāga Dîpak)

The challenge here is the opposite — to musically melt a solid crystal already immersed in water — but the principle remains the same. Though both singers attempt to move the divine will through (the vibrations of) their bhakti, Tansen’s unchallenged mastery of the intricacies of the (not just Dîpak) rāga has eventually to concede victory to the inflaming power of Baiju’s passion (that has reached fever-pitch due to the tragic circumstances of his otherwise worldly love).

Primitive religions invoked rain either by supplicating the gods, through exaggerating and graphically lamenting our plight (thirst, desiccation, hunger, listlessness, etc.), or by celebrating the desired results in anticipation (dancing as if the clouds, thunder, lightning, rain, overflowing pitchers, etc., were already here). Where both modes of collective ritual were employed, they were either kept apart in separate performances or could alternate within the same ceremony. The ROTFL humor in Lapak Jhapak is achieved by merging the long-drawn plaintive despair of lapaaa…aaak, jhapaaa….aaak (Darbari Kanada, esp. in the ‘alāp’) and the joyful celebration (Malhār, esp. in the rhythmic jigs) through the semblance of rāga. Thus these frogs croak (for and) at the monsoon, eager to embrace each other and combining their voices, like cows bellowing, goats bleating, cuckoos cooing, rain falling, and reveling in the (much anticipated) waters. For just as the avaidika (i.e., supposedly non-Vedic) VidūSaka is actually the master of brahmanical lore, “Lapak Jhapak” might, without invoking too large a dose of humor, be also celebrated as a Vedic hymn to the Rain-God (Parjanya) that has been disguised as a Bollywood hit song. It is for the most part composed of nonsensical syllables that could pass off for potent mantras. Unlike the English “pitter-patter” of harmless rain drops tip-toeing like gentlemen on solid stone, we are hearing the onomatopoeic sounds of the torrential downpour swishing around the gutters (lapak) and thumping frightfully (jhapak) on the precarious tin-roofs of shanty towns. Similarly, jhagaD-jhagaD imitates the roaring thunder, as if the dark monsoon clouds were quarrelling (jhagaD-nā) ominously with each other, and akaD-akaD captures the cutting suddenness of the crooked bolts of lightning, whose slippery leaps and unpredictable bounds are also suggested by lapak-jhapak. Indeed, the ‘sympathetic magic’ that coerces natural phenomena into ‘timely’ existence is even greater here – what began as an impassioned plea, before bursting forth into celebratory anticipation, culminates in an insistent command: “RAIN” (bar do)!

Should we therefore seek the origins of Bollywood slapstick comedy in the sacred hymns and rituals of the Rigveda, just as Indologists before us have claimed to have traced the pedigree of the Vidūshaka to such hoary figures as the brahmacārin (copulating with a prostitute in the Mahāvrata rite…) or the lascivious brown monkey VRSā-kapi (who attempts to molest the wife of his royal friend, Indra….)? Was the Frog-Hymn just an elaborate joke, concocted by bored and self-serving brahmin-priests as a cynical mode of entertainment during an epoch when there were no cinemas around to take a much needed break from the hard-work of conducting year-long sacrifices for gullible patrons? The controversy around the original role of the VidūSaka had assumed tragi-comic, even Shakespearean proportions, around the existential question: “to laugh or not to laugh?” OTOH the recognition of his ritual function and antecedents (e.g., as Varuna-jumbaka) has ‘necessitated’ the denial (Kuiper) of his (subsequent) theatrical role as the prime locus of hāsya (as due to ‘misunderstanding); OTOH the inclusion of the ridiculous and much-abused brahmin and his elevation to the royal hero’s intimate companion has led to (‘Marxist’?) claims that this Prakrit-speaking brahmin must have been a ‘concession’ to (merely postulated) vernacular theater where popular resentment against the caste-system was more openly and aggressively vented.  Derivations from other such bawdy, ludicrous, and ‘profane’ elements in Vedic ritual and myth have largely amounted to “passing the buck” without squarely addressing the problem of comic transgression within a ‘sacred’ setting.

Abhinava’s formulation of the ‘semblance of humor’ (hāsyābhasa) may be usefully compared, especially in this context of the treatment of (missing) male hair, with Bertrand Russell’s paradox of the Barber (of Seville?), who shaves only those men in the town who do not shave themselves, which poses the non-solvable question of whether the barber could shave himself without violating the laws of logic (Russell was attempting to confound the set theory of Cantor and Frege):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barber_paradox

* If the barber does not shave himself, he must abide by the rule and shave himself.

* If he does shave himself, according to the rule he will not shave himself.

Since Abhinava claims that the ‘semblance of [any] rasa’ (rasābhāsa) produces humor (hāsya), he therefore admits that the ‘semblance of humor’ (hāsyābhasa) must necessarily also result in humor. And we are left with the same conundrum:

* If this is an instance of the ‘semblance’ (ābhāsa) of humor, then this must be a mere semblance and cannot qualify as humor (perhaps only as bad, i.e., no humor, like the puerile ‘jokes’ of the VidūSaka?).

* If this is an instance of (authentic) humor then, according to the formulation, it could not be the (mere) semblance of the same (i.e., if the brahmin-frogs were making fools of themselves, they could not be seriously invoking rain?).

Now, the champions of Mādhyamika dialectic and admirers of Chitsukha’s Advaita quibbling (vitaNDā) on this list may well object that our four-pronged (catuS-koTi) Indian logic transcends set-theory and is beyond the comprehension of Westerners like Russell, who are still unable to conceive that a thing could “both exist and not exist” or “neither exist nor not-exist” – so why can’t humor be both insanely funny (hāsya) and dead serious (hāsyābhāsa)?  Unfortunately, this is not the sort of ‘supra-logical’ solution that Abhinava would have accepted, for he takes the principle of ‘non-contradiction’ (a-virodha) very seriously and seeks to delimit the scope of this weapon of Buddhist (and Advaita) logic rather on cognitive grounds. Since rasa is a “particular mode of apperception” (anuvyavasāya-vizeSa), whether something is funny or serious depends on how it is processed: while the (laughing) ‘non-Vedic’ vidūSaka and his ‘puerile’ jokes may appear hilarious to the profane audience, for the initiated this brahma-bandhu is indeed the bearer of the primordial bráhman. What is more, those who ‘see through’ this brown monkey’s (semblance of) hāsya are in the position, for this very reason, to enjoy his ‘jokes’ even more, especially when they are largely at the expense of his laughing audiences.

It’s not only amateur ‘professors’ (only from Banaras and other ‘Hindu’ universities?) who have difficulty interpreting (rasa-) dhvani. Daniel Ingalls misunderstands the logical precedence of the (otherwise normal but arrested) emergence of rasa in the experience of humor to mean that there is a temporal sequence, such that we are permitted to laugh at the ‘semblance of rasa’ only as an afterthought when we look back upon the (now) comic scene. So Abhinava is implicitly blamed for not having a sense of humor simply because the Indologist is unable to appreciate (the cognitive structure and emotional dynamics of not just Indian) hāsya. Marie-Claude Porcher apparently understands Anandavardhana better than Abhinava ever could, for she is convinced that a ‘psychological’ response (rasa) cannot be the (even suggested) ‘meaning’ (vyangya) of a poem, though the original dhvani-theorist is both explicit and adamant that his ultimate and prime concern is the suggestion of emotion (rasa-dhvani). The Western scholar’s inability to grasp the sui-generis nature of the relishable cognition (bodha, pratîti) that constitutes rasa, is translated into Abhinava’s, typically Indian, inability to distinguish between ‘linguistics’ and ‘psychology’ as separate disciplines. Not to be outdone in this academic game of one-up-man-ship, Sheldon Pollock observes that not only would the proposed ‘suggested’ factual meanings (vyangya-vastu) never occur to a non-Indian, the native ‘connoisseurs’ themselves offer vastly divergent, and even mutually contradictory, hermeneutics of the same verse, all of which seem to hover, however, around the round-about (crooked) fulfillment of thwarted desire. Since the meaning of human actions is embedded within a specific (often only implicitly) normative framework of social relations, aesthetic appreciation is necessary grounded in (more than just) sociology (Bourdieu): so too a valid cross-cultural theory of humor must necessarily account for divergent ‘senses’ of humor.

Those who are inclined to think that the Professor has given Anandavardhana’s innovative theory of suggestion an even more ‘revolutionary’ (and ridiculous) ‘twist’ (ghumāo-dār) should note that such ‘crook-edness’ is already at the heart of the Rig-Vedic language. When I arrived at the Sanskrit University in Benares to start my 2-year diploma course, one of my first professors there was plunged in extensive research into Vedic meteorology, which was his main topic of conversation whenever he did manage to find the time to turn up to teach. He claimed there were keen observations scattered throughout the Vedic corpus on the peculiar behavior of fauna (ants, etc.) and flora that could prove invaluable to contemporary Indian farmers in ensuring timely and bountiful harvest (this premonitory sense seems to have been borne out recently by the reports on the behavior of elephants and other animals, for example in the Andaman Islands, just prior to the onslaught of the tsunami of December 2004). Whereas frogs (like peacocks and other fauna) can sense the onset of the rains and start croaking (dancing, etc.) in both anticipation and celebration, the brahmin-priests with their Soma-presses, pitchers of libations, and chants from the Sāma-veda, believe that they are actually responsible for the timely arrival of the monsoon. In the same way, they scrupulously perform the Agnihotra at dawn, and have everyone believe that it is the timely performance of this ritual that ensures the (daily) rising of the sun (which Tilak derives ultimately from the uncertainties of its reappearance at the end of the long Arctic night…). Hence, the (poetic) ‘conceit’ that these glorified frogs (= brahmins) “have vouchsafed us treasure” and “lengthen our lives in this most fertilizing season.” The (so-called) ‘fertility rites’ of ‘primitive’ cultures—that were subsequently reformulated around the person of the sacred king—were indeed a sustained and elaborate metaphor for the rejuvenative powers of the human body and psyche (which includes the growth of hair, which is endowed with complex ritual significance in Hinduism). Esoteric principles and techniques deployed towards this end were translated into (public) sacrificial rituals that were perceived as renewing the whole community and there was no more striking way of highlighting the beneficial effects than by correlating the resulting abundance to the calendrical cycle and the advent of the rains (in monsoon India). From this semiotic perspective, there is indeed little difference whether the union of Raja and Rani is (re-) enacted through the human king (Rāma) uniting with the auspicious earth-goddess (Sîtā) or through the ‘contrived’ marriage of two frogs.

So, as we can see, there are quite a few (snake-oil) ‘dhvani-theorists’ running around loose. In India, they make a laughing-stock of themselves as Vedic priests, pursue meteorological (if not meteoric) careers in Bollywood, even end up in prison as ‘confidence-tricksters’ under section 420 (cār-sau-bîs) of the penal code. In the West, they somehow succeed in getting themselves taken seriously enough to be rewarded with prestigious chairs at Harvard, Chicago, Columbia, Tubingen, or the Sorbonne.

So much for (the semblance of) humor!

Sunthar

P.S. Koenraad, sorry the above musings have come too late to fertilize your scholarly paper on Hindu humor…unfortunately, I have not yet mastered all these techniques (music, mantra, comedy, etc.) and inspiration still rains at its own calling…

[Rest of this thread at Sunthar V. (07 June 2009)

“Is Arjuna-BrhannaDā a transvestite, eunuch, or androgyne?  - another comment from the ViduSaka”

And Francesco’s post (21 June 2009) at

“The Vrishakapi hymn”]