Tika are the dabs of colour, usually red, but sometimes incorporating yellow as well, which are smeared on the middle of the forehead just above the nose. What they are made of varies, but even more varied is what they signify – affiliation to a particular sect, celebration of a festival day, as a symbol of welcome and honour to a guest… I have not yet been afforded such an honour, but I am entirely relaxed about this. I know my time will come.
Incidentally, the other day was “Iron day”, the celebration of all things mechanical. Tikas were placed on motorcycles, tractors, whatever. When I returned to my room, I found a small one smeared on the top of the TV screen.
The most famous symbol of all, widespread throughout Nepal and India, is the swastika. (Most people know we have inherited many words from India – bungalow, hooligan, dungarees. Less well known from this source is swastika, now infamous – and frequently banned – as the Nazi symbol.) I had thought that the word meant purity (hence the Nazi appropriation) and that the Hindu and Nazi versions were inversions of each other. It would have made a clever point; unfortunately the truth is not so simple. In Nepal and India, it represents many things, all good: good luck, peace, auspiciousness, universal brotherhood, none of them associated with the Nazis. Though one scholar suggested that a more ancient meaning was “permanent victory”. Which is.
The Hindu version can also be drawn both ways – a right-hand one symbolises Lord Vishnu and the sun; left-handed is for Kali and magic. (That’s us left-handers being stigmatised as sinister again.)
But one sees the symbol everywhere, on gates, houses, gift boxes sold in the shops… even bricks. But to western eyes it still causes a shock, every time.
The afternoon’s rehearsal was actually a final audition, and was devoted to stage fighting; there is a lot more fighting than kissing in R4J. It was a lot of fun. I went through the rules: safety, more safety, teamwork, choreography, no improvisation, slowly establishing speed. Then I asked them to form pairs and taught them some of the tricks: pulled punches, a slap which is a clap, hair pulling, butting, head locks… And then they had to devise their own short fight, each of which was performed. And though none of them were especially good, that was not really the point at this stage; this was as much an exercise in getting to know them a little better as serious choreography. Most of them will not even be fighting.
But it did enable to finalise (or I suppose come up with another draft of) the cast, and then publish it. For my first time ever for such a thing, on WhatsApp. It did, as expected, unleash a small storm of enquiries, complaints, etc. Though nothing like the volume it might have. We’re moving on.
