{"id":3775,"date":"2018-08-26T07:29:52","date_gmt":"2018-08-26T01:59:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/?p=3775"},"modified":"2018-08-26T07:30:19","modified_gmt":"2018-08-26T02:00:19","slug":"zanapan-e-kihaar-these-lowly-paid-animated-the-life-in-the-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/editors-take\/zanapan-e-kihaar-these-lowly-paid-animated-the-life-in-the-night\/","title":{"rendered":"Zanapan-e- Kihaar- These lowly paid animated the life in the night"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/fb:like>

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nostalgia<\/h2>\n

Zanapan-e- Kihaar<\/h2>\n

By<\/h2>\n

ZGM<\/h2>\n

Like a \u2018hypnotic gem,\u2019 our birthplace was mesmerizing. It had many facets, with every facet having its own shade and color, the life here opened like \"\"<\/a>into a kaleidoscopic- with its variety of colors continually changing. For diversity of its characters, with children of less god immensely contributing to the landscape of the Downtown, it reads like a Dickensian novel. In the wee morning hours, it would be goatherds, dressed like Hebrew in the Hollywood films with their drove of ewes and goats and tinkling bells that made children to toss their quilts aside for buying a pint of ewe\u2019s milk. The melodious folk devotional songs of robust natives pulling the carts mixing with morning breeze added to the spiritual ambiances of the old city. The music coming out of the thin willow whip-rod put by the tanagawala into the wheels of his single horse driven chariot added a new rhythm to the songs of the toiling and sweating natives. Echoes\u2019 of choruses of men and women believed to be Noah\u2019s descendants propelling log rafts up and down the Jhelum energized even the lethargic who fattened on the offerings and the alms.<\/h5>\n
The nights, during the summers and autumns, had their own beauty, they came to full life late in the night when the bands arrived at the bridegroom\u2019s house to accompany him to the bride\u2019s house. Mostly, these musicians comprising flutists, bagpipers and drummers \u00a0\u00a0wore red uniform with lot of brocade work like the British military marching Band. On their arrival at the bridegroom\u2019s house the flutists, bagpipers, and drummers presented a \u2018salam,\u2019 a congratulatory musical note that would usually end with the drummers beating their drums faster. The Rangadanga with kerosene lamp inside a coloured kite paper box on his head and facing rows of mashal carriers made his presence felt with his lyrical directions to them; to watch their steps lest they fall in the drain, cautioned them against moving near to wooden sunshades of the shops- that could set city on a fire.<\/h5>\n
It were these lowly paid natives, like \u2018Jo the crossing sweeper in Dicken\u2019s novel \u2018Bleak House\u2019 that animated our mornings and evenings and provide rhyme and rhythm to marriage revelries. Besides, the mashal men, there were also Zanapan-e- Kihaar \u00a0\u00a0that were important part of the marriage festivities. I don\u2019t know the etymology of the word of Zanapane if the word was of Dardic origin like a larger part of our vocabulary or it had its origin in Sanskrit, Persian or Arabic. Ostensibly, it seems a combination of two words zana and pane.\u00a0 Nonetheless, the word Kihaar is an Urdu word meaning a porter engaged in carrying palanquin on his shoulders. It suggests the word has entered into our lexicon during the Dogra period when Urdu had replaced Persian as court language. I don\u2019t know, how old the tradition of \u00a0using palanquin for brides had been but in our primary school days, when there were just a few cars it was the most in vogue all over the city.<\/h5>\n
\u00a0In our neighborhood, there were a couple of Zanapan-e- kihaar families, who rented out bridal palanquins and provided men for its lifting.\u00a0 They owned about half a dozen of them. In this column, sometime back, I wrote how at the commencement of the marriage seasons these were done up; some painted parrot green and silver grey, some turquoise blue and golden yellow and some draped in brocades. The palanquin put in the center of two long poles was carried by four Kihaars of almost of same height on their shoulders. I still remember some tough palanquin porters of our Mohalla- who were much sought after during marriage seasons. During daytime, they pulled huge carts loaded to capacity with fodder for animals or stones and bricks for the construction works and in the evening hoisted brides in zanapane on their shoulders. It was the grooms\u2019 family that sent in advance bridal palanquin to the house of the bride- at the bride\u2019s house; it was greeted with wanawun. There was wanawun (marriage song) for every occasion and event. \u00a0They received\u00a0\u00a0 a better treatment at the bride\u2019s house than \u2018Mashal-e-khu\u2019ere- and were not served cold leftover food but hot rice and some dishes. In tow with the groom, they returned with the bride. And on their return, they stopped at bridges in the way whether on the river Jhelum or any other rivulet and demanded tips called \u201cKadla-Tar\u201d \u2013 and crossed the bridge when it was paid.<\/h5>\n<\/fb:like><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

 
\n 
\nNostalgia
\nZanapan-e- Kihaar
\nBy
\nZGM
\nLike a \u2018hypnotic gem,\u2019 our birthplace was mesmerizing. It had many facets, with every facet having its own shade and color, the life here opened like into a kaleidoscopic- with its variety of colors continually changing. For diversity of its characters, with children of less god immensely contributing to the landscape of the Downtown, it reads like a Dickensian novel. In the wee morning hours, it would be goatherds, dressed like Hebrew in the Hollywood films with their drove of ewes and goats and tinkling bells that made children to toss their quilts aside for buying a pint of ewe\u2019s milk. The melodious folk devotional songs of robust natives pulling the carts mixing with morning breeze added to the spiritual ambiances of the old city. The music coming out of the thin willow whip-rod put by the tanagawala into the wheels of his single horse driven chariot added a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3776,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editors-take"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3775"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3775"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3777,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3775\/revisions\/3777"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}