From: Mermaid . (britannica@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu Apr 18 2002 - 14:52:20 MDT
To Kalkor: since you had to leave IRC before I could start telling you my
little story...here it is...:)
In the villages of South India, when there was no other avenues to
entertainment, there were only choices. The first is the act that leads to
procreation. This was however limited to only a certain age group. Often, it
got rather boring and people gravitated towards the other source of
entertainment. Music and Dance.
Often, after dinner, the villagers will assemble under the tree in the
village square. The performance will invariably be an enactment of any of
the numerous allegories of Hindu mythology in the form of dance drama or
simply a musical narration by the troupe.
Even though there are "thousands and thousands" of Hindu Gods, there is only
so much mythology that one can regurgitate. The chances are that most of the
audience have listened to the same narrative several times in the course of
their lifetime. Some will listen. Some will doze off Some will snore quite
loudly after the first ten minutes. But does the narrator stop? Nooo. He has
several generations to cover. He will go on and on and on.
Usually, there is a person who sits by his side. Usually, this is the
youngest member of the troupe who hero worships the leader of the group and
will invariably sing out of tune if he was ever allowed to open his mouth.
He is not even trained to play any musical instrument. he is entrusted with
a pair of small metal...hmm..whatchacallums..cymbals...like the ones belly
dancers use?..well...he simply taps 2 cymbals together. His sole duty is to
tap the cymbals together and repeat the last line of whatever the narrator
has uttered. This is to make sure that the rest of audience who have one
foot in slumberland and one foot in wakey land dont slip into their
dreamworld when the narrator pauses to breathe between sentences.
Main narrator: "Dasaratha, the king of Ayodhya, had four sons. Rama,
Lakshmana, Bharata and Shatrugana. Of which, Rama was the eldest and most
dear to the old king."
Cymbal tapper will drone:"Rama was the eldest and the most dear to the old
kinggggggg." *cymbal-clink*
Narrator: "Kaikeyi, Bharata's mother and Dasaratha's favourite wife once
rode the chariot in a war and saved his life at the battlefield."
Cymbal guy: "Kaikeyi saved his liffffffffe." *cymbal-clink*
Narrator:"As a gesture of gratitude, Dasaratha offered a boon. She can ask
him for anything."
Cymbal guy: "She could ask him anythiiiiiiiing." *cymbal-clink*
Narrator:"When his sons came of age, Kaikeyi wanted her own son to be the
crown prince even though Rama was the eldest son."
Cymbal guy:"She wanted her own son to be crown prinnnnnnnnce."
*cymbal-clink*
etc etc...You get the idea about this poor boy's job description. Of course,
to him, he is a performer to the bunch in the audience who werent nodding
off yet.
Anyways, soon enough, there was a new word in their books. Jalara. It is the
local name for the tiny cymbals. It also became a word to describe any
person who has nothing original to say on his own and performs to the beat
of someone else's words without have a 'klue' about whats being said...:)
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