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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jun 2000
Posts: 724 |
> Be fashionably depressed, smoke non-filter cigarettes, write poetry during the
monsoons, drink loads of tea, and 'do' drama.
Hi shanks,
Were you a Jholawala? Do you remember that tribe - young bearded communists who went everywhere on a cycle, wore Kolhapuri Chappals and a cotton Kurta, and carried a jhola (long cotton sling bag) in which were the mandatory copy of Kafka and a bottle of rum. Of course the poetry and looking with sadness into the monsoon rains and smoking beedies, instead of looking for a job, since the entire system was wrong and was no hope for mankind, anyway.
Do you know they are extinct now? We have in India - everything American. So now the Kolhapuri Chappals have given way to Nikes and Reeboks, and the kurtas have been replaced by Lee T Shirts. And trendy knapsack kind of bags instead of the Jhola. And instead of poetry and desire to save mankind are the thoughts on how to start a new dot com and make a quick buck.
Nothing wrong with that, I guess. It is just that I mourn the passing of the Jholawalas. They were a useless, idiotic but lovable lot.
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
They were a useless, idiotic but lovable lot.
Avy, your whole story sounds remarkably like USA hippies!
(I think I can say that, because of my age, though I was not exactly a flower child.)
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Joined: Apr 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
actually, I was thinking of the 'beat' generation; only known to me by hearsay, of course!
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Joined: Jun 2000
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jun 2000
Posts: 724 |
> Avy, your whole story sounds remarkably like USA hippies!
Jackie hippies were happy?
Jholawalas were deep in their thinking, passionate in their emotions and definite in their unhappiness. A happy Jholawala just wasn't. (as Shanks says depression was the fashion)
They existed around 70s-80s (or maybe even 60s, I would not know), before economic liberalisation when India was supposedly "non-aligned".
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
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I think tsuwm might be right. The beatnics were the dark broody types. Wore dark glasses, went to depressing poetry readings, smoked unfiltered cigarettes and riled against the establishment in a rather sedentary way since "there was no point in anything anyway". If I remember (I was rather young) instead of clapping their hands to show appreciation, they snapped their fingers. Hippies, on the other hand, were rather free-loving happy types.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
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belMarduk is on the money. Beatnicks : think dark coffee houses. Hippies : think flower gardens! Yes, I waz dere, Charlie. Or are you all to young to recognize the "Baron" reference. Gad zooks but I feel old -- sometimes.
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stranger
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stranger
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 11 |
My 21-year-old daughter thinks 80's songs are Golden Oldies and buys new clothing that looks like 70's fashions. Some of her friends make me think of Beatnik-types (although that was a bit before my time). They may be "Goth" in style; I'm not sure. The kids that worry me are those who pretend to be so cool that in effect they are simply indifferent to the world. Then there are the scary ones who are so entertained by violence.
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old hand
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old hand
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Avy
Spot on (apart from the communism thing).
I used to cycle to the station, little khadi jhola over shoulder, one college mate getting a lift (usually on the back, though - I could never get used to the splay-kneed style of those who took passengers on the cross-bar), and then stuck in a sweaty train to college, kolhapuri-d feet all stepped on by the time we got there, kurta (from khadi gram udyog, or khadi bhandar as we called it) suitably rumpled. Thence to 'bunk' all lectures and sit downstairs in the alcoves mourning the futility of existence (whilst claiming to be suffering from unrequited passion for five women at the same time). Quarter bottles of Old Monk rum (still, IMO, the best spirituous liquor in the world - relative and friends have standing instructions to bring bottles over when they visit). Beedis when there wasn't enough money for cigarettes. All this in, as you suggest, the early to mid '80s. My sister, on the other hand, went to the fashionable St Xavier's college, and has never used a jhola in her life - brand names only, dah-ling.
Even today, on the rare occasions when I visit Bombay, nearly the first stop (after my parents' place) is khadi bhandar, for a mass shop of about 8 kurtas, a pair of kolhaps, some aligarhis and (the last time I was there) some lovely raw silk waistcoats. I still believe there's no more comfortable way to dress in India.
Oh my word the nostalgia...
cheer
the sunshine (I'm not really that old) warrior
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Joined: Nov 2000
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stranger
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stranger
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 2 |
Anna, your name is intriguing. Do you by chance have a (probably somewhat clumsy) sister named Cata?
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 29
newbie
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newbie
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 29 |
Not familiar with smeghead, but it has to be vulgar -- smegma?
Carpe rutila
Carpe whatever
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