The Chronicle of Ganja and Mahua
How can you trust yourself in caste society? How can you truly love in an unequal world? What traumas and dogmas infect your everyday? Can we ever know what a free human looks like and acts like?
Today, 14 April, is Babasaheb Ambedkar’s birth anniversary. His life itself was a chronicle of unfreedom. To lead a movement and be a public figure meant sacrificing the personal. It meant abandoned projects, unfulfilled ambitions, unwritten books and unrequited desires. Such are the pressures of social conservatism. And yet, his life shows us how freedom can be asserted in the most audacious and spectacular ways. Once asserted, it comes as a flood. A sip of water from the Chavdar Tank in Mahad can establish the norm of equality. It can inspire millions to leave the fold of Hinduism and embrace Saddhamma. Freedom is in every decision of love despite the strictures of a prohibitive society.
This Ambedkar Jayanti, we bring to you the paperback edition of the Navayana classic Ganja–Mahua Chronicles. This is the story of Venkat Raman Singh Shyam and his soulmate Anand. One is born into an Adivasi family of artists, the other is born a Brahmin. As they begin an intoxicating jugalbandi of poetry and art, Venkat and Anand’s unlikely love takes the form of a book in which both disappear into a singular voice. It narrates the story of Adivasi art and takes you through the strange world of the art industry. It tells ancient myths of the Gond community and the modern amalgamations that make an artist. Here is an excerpt from the book about the love between Ganja and Mahua, two mythical figures separated by caste. A story that shows how freedom was proclaimed against the prohibitions of caste since caste has existed. This Ambedkar Jayanti, a love story in Baba’s name:
We have a story about Ganja and Mahua in our lore. It may have been passed on to us by the people of caste whom the world calls Hindu. Ganja is a Chamar, an untouchable. Mahua is a Brahman woman, the top caste. As often happens, Ganja and Mahua fall madly in love. One is intoxicated with the spirit of the other. Ganja wishes to bubble inside Mahua. Society does not allow this. Their breath is snuffed out. By the time the ganja-smoking dreadlocked Shiva tells this tale to his love Parvati—whose folks were opposed to her marriage to the ash-smeared man who had animals for friends—the truth becomes legend. A stoned Shiva, who believes the crescent moon is perched on his head, tells Parvati: Look, there they stand, Ganja and Mahua, in their separate corners. Since their love was unfulfilled, they have incarnated as the most loved plant and most loved tree on earth. Ganja is cannabis. Mahua is liquor brewed from the flower of life. Both are commonly consumed. In Indian society, the Untouchable-Ganja remains illicit though. There are two threads people pull out of this yarn: that an Untouchable and a Brahman must not have a union, and the upshot that you cannot smoke up and drink at the same time. The worst perversions of society are imagined to be derived from nature. But it is also human nature to put two don’ts together into a do. This book is testimony.
I wrap your name in mine
I’m mixing weed with wine
I’m the dot, you’re the line
I’m the name, you’re the sign
