So here I was in Shettyland and the mehndi function was over….I had a blast coz I got to co-anchor the whole evening along with shonali (the bride’s sister) and from the compliments I received I figured that I dint do such a bad job after all.
While the evening was almost over, an enthusiastic bunch of cousins asked me if I would like to join them for NEMA, with a half smile…now at first NEMA sounded like some girl friends name, one whose I hadn’t heard of and going by the fact that going to nema was being suggested at almost midnight I thought that we were heading for another party. My other friends and people I knew said they were too tired and they wanted to romance the bed, so I succumbed to the enthu cousin bunch and jumped in Mithun’s brand new Tata Safari. And that was quite an enlightening drive, I must admit…
Not did I just figure out that Nema was no Girlfriend, but it was an annual peasant’s ritual that was held in honor of the local deities and was somewhat like a town hall meeting with God and the most respectable families in town with the peasants and working class people as audience held in a village far from the town….Now that itself had got me very excited. On the way, Mithun also told me about how at 21, he had earned enough dough to buy his own Tata safari thanks to his extremely offbeat and daring Mining business (the guy got attacked with knives on his face and hand by rivals) and a road jelly business among other minor ones like outdoor hoarding site leasing n all. Now, these are the kind of youth I was mentioning, the ones who are breaking away from the clutches of traditional professions such as Medicine and engineering…the point is the market is very responsive for anybody with ideas, you just need two four letter words in you…WILL and GUTS, n you’ll rule the place.
Ok, so now it was almost like 1 am, there no sign of dullness among the cousins, Nimakka was busy changing clothes…something appropriate to battle the cold and to look traditional while Nitin bawa (nima’s husband), Bobby (nima’s brother), Mithun (nima’s cousin brother) and I (am the one who’s writing this, check my profile for more details) spoke about the living conditions in London, Mumbai and mangalore, the use of alternative fuel to run water vessels over Thames, the booming radio business in India and our respective jobs…Well by then nima and her mom n her sisters had finally changed their clothes n were ready to go to Kopparige, which is where the Nema was to be held. Now after parking our cars at a certain spot, we had to walk in stark darkness through rice paddy fields with only the full moon serving as our guiding light for about 20 minutes. The thing about NEMA is that t is organized by a particular family each time, and this time it was the Shettys (don’t look at me like that I know mangalore is full of shettys, but I mean Shonali’s aunts), who had organized the ritual; and the NEMA does not start till the presiding family comes.
While the evening was almost over, an enthusiastic bunch of cousins asked me if I would like to join them for NEMA, with a half smile…now at first NEMA sounded like some girl friends name, one whose I hadn’t heard of and going by the fact that going to nema was being suggested at almost midnight I thought that we were heading for another party. My other friends and people I knew said they were too tired and they wanted to romance the bed, so I succumbed to the enthu cousin bunch and jumped in Mithun’s brand new Tata Safari. And that was quite an enlightening drive, I must admit…
Not did I just figure out that Nema was no Girlfriend, but it was an annual peasant’s ritual that was held in honor of the local deities and was somewhat like a town hall meeting with God and the most respectable families in town with the peasants and working class people as audience held in a village far from the town….Now that itself had got me very excited. On the way, Mithun also told me about how at 21, he had earned enough dough to buy his own Tata safari thanks to his extremely offbeat and daring Mining business (the guy got attacked with knives on his face and hand by rivals) and a road jelly business among other minor ones like outdoor hoarding site leasing n all. Now, these are the kind of youth I was mentioning, the ones who are breaking away from the clutches of traditional professions such as Medicine and engineering…the point is the market is very responsive for anybody with ideas, you just need two four letter words in you…WILL and GUTS, n you’ll rule the place.
Ok, so now it was almost like 1 am, there no sign of dullness among the cousins, Nimakka was busy changing clothes…something appropriate to battle the cold and to look traditional while Nitin bawa (nima’s husband), Bobby (nima’s brother), Mithun (nima’s cousin brother) and I (am the one who’s writing this, check my profile for more details) spoke about the living conditions in London, Mumbai and mangalore, the use of alternative fuel to run water vessels over Thames, the booming radio business in India and our respective jobs…Well by then nima and her mom n her sisters had finally changed their clothes n were ready to go to Kopparige, which is where the Nema was to be held. Now after parking our cars at a certain spot, we had to walk in stark darkness through rice paddy fields with only the full moon serving as our guiding light for about 20 minutes. The thing about NEMA is that t is organized by a particular family each time, and this time it was the Shettys (don’t look at me like that I know mangalore is full of shettys, but I mean Shonali’s aunts), who had organized the ritual; and the NEMA does not start till the presiding family comes.
So once we were there, we, the main family(yeah by now i was considered one of them even though i couldn't figure out a thank you from a please in TULU, dats their native language) got to sit in the first row of chairs. There were about 300 villagers gathered there. The crux of the nema is a central character who apparently gets possessed by GOD and he then blesses each member of the organizing family and takes stock of the village, its development, its progress, its problems and praises or gives a solution. Throughout the length of the ritual there is this sense of revelry, celebration in the air, fireworks are being fired, music is being played loudly, audience is dressed in festive clothesritual A ritual which probably was started hundreds and hundreds of years ago as a form of entertainment, idol worship, faith, and spirituality still exists and that’s what surprised me…I mean none of the family members who knew they would be coming for the NEMA consumed non vegetarian food or alcohol. Each one was mentally prepared to stay up all night (yeah that’s how long this whole ritual takes, n by the time I figured it out it was too late to go back alone anywhere, if I stayed I would at least be dropped back to my club). So that’s what I am talking about, people who have gone and settled in London still appreciate and encourage our culture, our rituals, our beliefs and involve the youth in sustaining it, coz they are the ones who would keep it alive…I was very impressed by the dedication. My feelings apart, The central Character who plays GOD does a lot of hardwork…firstly he is dressed in this whole outfit made out of palm leaves, his face is heavily masked by colored make-up so that he is not identified in the day time, and his body is adorned with jewellery of every kind. Now this person has to keep moving around, sometimes dancing and hopping around, when he gets charged….with all this weight, he also takes turns in holding these two mashaals/ torches with which he passes blessings to each member of the family.
The entire ritual lasts for about 4 to 5 hours during which there is live music by local musicians, processions of the idol of the local deity which is a personification of Lord Shiva and lots of devotees offering flowers and taking blessings from the deity.
The climax of the ritual is when one of the central character i.e. GOD’s subordinate beheads a live chicken with a huge knife, the blood is drained off and the chicken is then cooked on site and distributed with steamed rice as Prasadam. I was told there is another sect who organizes a similar ritual but calls it KOLA, the difference being that Kola is more graphic, dramatic and calls fro the sacrifice of almost one dozen chicken as against one here.So after this unprecedented evening of fun, frolic and faith (well the evening almost extended till 5 am), I was more than happy to hit the comfortable bed of my room in Mangalore club. There was one problem, my roommates were just not opening the door to my bell, I tried calling them, but both the phones were switched off. Then I think due to some divine intervention Ranjit woke up and let me in…both of them were obviously sloshed!
The next day was free for us so I decided to wake up late…
