Posted by Casey Meade on 25 Jan 2007
So my awesome new Sony T50 digital camera records great videos, but I cannot figure out how to get the videos into Final Cut Pro WITH SOUND! If anybody has any insight into this problem, please email me immediately.
As a result of this minor obstacle, this second post from the Ardh Kumbh Mela features a little cultural clash of aesthetics. Maybe you don't think of Nouvelle Vagueâ when you're crammed into a crowd of 5000 excited and shivering naked men covered from head to toe with ash, shouting at the top of their lungs as they push and shove their way down to the river for a bath... in the midst of 18 MILLION other pilgrims.â But there's something about this music that brings out the sublime nature of that moment as I experienced it.
...And there's something about the lyrics that brings out multi-layered compexity of the Naga Babas. I have been spending a lot more time with them this time than I did at the Maha Kumbh Mela in 2001. At that time, I was so busy running around coordinating the production of Take Me To The River, that I had little time to actually sit down and try to get to know the environment that we were documenting. That was fine at the time, since we weren't trying to produce an analytical film. We wanted to capture the bewildering kaleidescope of aesthetic experience as we experienced it, as directly as possible. That was all we could do as a group of 20-something american artists with no previous knowledge of Indian or Hindu culture.
Now that I have had an opportunity toâ immerse myself in the Kumbh Mela somewhat deeper, I realize that the more I discover, the less I understand about the Kumbh, The Naga Babas, The Akharas, The History, Myths etc. It could take a lifetime of scholarly analysis to sort through the thousands of contradictions that dance around every inquisitive endeavor here. And then whatâ wouldâ be achieved? The essence of the Kumbh Mela is the aesthetic and emotional experience that gives it spiritual meaning to each individualâ separately. To take away it's mysteries and try to come to some conclusion, would be to distroy it... and whatever conclusion one comes to would certainly be wrong.
Back to Nouvelle Vague, those complex Naga Babas. Sorry for laughing... actually it's ok, laugh if you want to, just don't try to figure these guys out. The general consensus is that 50-70% of the Naga Babas and other aesthetic Saddhus are "fake". But which ones are fake and which ones are real? You may need to be enlightened to figure it out, I certainly can't. Almost all of them are quite enamored by money, in fact the whole akhara infrastructure and hierarchy is driven by cash. It seems those saddhus with seniority are the ones with the most money, generally (but not always) given to them as donations by their desciples. I'm sure many of the "fake" ones are very cool, and some of the "real" ones are jerks. You could try to ask one baba about another, but the response could be tainted by feuds that date back all the way to breakfast or back to the times of the Upanishads.
That's enough blabber from now. If I have come to any conclusions, I know they are wrong. Enjoy the video. Stay tuned for BabaVlog!
Casey Meade
Allahabad, India
24 January 2007
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