Afternoon TV is so funky sometimes. Today, the Christian channel was not showing a silver-haired white guy with expansive hand gestures, clad in a shiny double-breasted suit. Instead, it was showing a desi couple, the guy with those huge uncle glasses, singing a ghazal in Hindi, interleaved with clips of folk dancing.
The ghazal sounded completely traditional, but instead of being about love, melancholy or a Hindu / Muslim / Sikh God, it was about Jesus and Mary. ‘Prabhu,’ which usually refers to a Hindu or Sikh God, meant Jesus in this song, ‘Yehuda’ was Judas and ‘Yeshu’ was God. The song, broadcast by the South Asian Gospel Broadcasting Network (who knew?), was subtitled so New Yorkers could groove along. Talk about using the tools of the masters — this concoction merges the ghazal (which originated in Islam), Indian folk dancing and American-style televangelism.
Pardon my parochialness, but I’ve never seen this before. Fusion? Talvin and Karsh got nothin’ on the church. Similarly, I’ve always been fascinated by how omnivorously religious many Hindus are. They practice it like metareligion where other ‘one-and-only’ deities are merely slotted into the pantheon. I often see Bollywood philms where a Hindu protagonist’s idea of the holy trinity is to pray at a temple, a church and a gurudwara all in the same day. And many Punjabi Hindus attend their local gurudwara instead of temple. I’d imagine it all drives hardcore monotheists crazy.
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Related post: The fight for the proselyte
Soon we will hear chanting (in Sanskrit) in front of Jesus’ idol. The temple will be named Ishu-eshwar mandir with Hanuman mandir at the gate. Do I smell harmony?
Oh, you’ve never seen that before? That show has been running on public access for at least 10 years now. It’s hilarious, is it not? They even beam it out to Long Island where I used to live – where non a brown person was to be found. Go figure.
Actually hymns in Hindi, sounding very much like bhajans have been around forever. I remember attending services with my best friend in school, and hearing “bhajans” to Yesu. I have even been to revivalist meetings under a big tent, all in Hindi and very much like a jagaran. And can attest to the Hindus going to gurdwaras, which drives the hard-core neo Hindus bananas, as was said to me by someone who describes herself as “kattar” Hindu, which sort of translates as uber-Hindu.
I went to a Catholic school in Bombay where we had to sing these sort of hymns in hindi with words like ‘prabhu’ and ‘eeshwar’ for Jesus.
I’m not sure of the technical differences between ghazals and bhajans, but this sounded distinctly like a ghazal to me: off notes, melancholy rather than sweet, a Jagjit and Chitra feel. The tabla line wasn’t the clap-along kind found in many bhajans.
what IS it with the Uncle glasses, anyway?
Bhajans can have a tabla line that’s not obviously clap along. But yeah, the rest of your evidence points to Ghazals.
My sister always likes to say that Hinduisum has enormous powers of digestion.
Christian ghazals are not uncommon, but bhajans are the dominant “devotional” form for Indian Christians. And, if I’m correct, in Christian ghazals, God is usually referred to as the “beloved” and not “Yeshu”… Christian ghazals, if written, were usually done so by artists who stuck to form and always spoke of “love,” but in the divine and sublime sense.
Who knows, it could have been a knock-off, like Kenny G as jazz, etc..
(“American-style televangelism” actually began over on that side of the world with overzealous missionaries who needed to create a sense of “power” via theatrics in order to awe the masses in a manner similar to “indigenous” religions; Billy Graham, although not so theatrical, was the first to broadcast his missions from the around the world, which is how televangelism started)
The “uncle glasses” are what take the place of blue hair and sequin-suits, by the way; the women, as you may have noticed, still have bad perms.
Mad malu christians live out in long island.
Actually Hinduism is categorized as one of the world’s ‘inclusive’ religions, where religious figures in other religions become avatars of the traditional Hindu gods.
Most other religions, like Christianity, are categorized as ‘exclusive’, where religious figures in other religions are pagans.
You’ll have to forgive Christian television. I’m pretty sure that, like, every Christian broadcast is done in the American south or by some southerner. I thought that comment about the uncle glasses replacing big hair and blue sequins was pretty funny. So true!! If TBN is, like, the #1 world-wide (technically, I can’t say they have a monopoloy because they don’t so much as generate money as need it) channel for Christian television, and every program is produced by the same weirdos, what do the other counrties think about Christians? I mean, if they go by what they see on TBN?!
Also, I quote your note, “Requests for celebrities’ contact info or homework assistance; racist, abusive, illiterate, content-free or commercial comments; personal, non-issue-focused flames; intolerant or anti-secular comments; and long, obscure rants may be deleted. Unless theyÂ’re funny. ItÂ’s all good then.”
Anti-secular? You josh about these guys, making fun of a religious thing (is does look pretty funny), but then don’t want “anti-secular” comments? This makes no sense. You’re talking about an anti-secular subject here, homeboy!!!
And dear, Bak,
Forgiveness, the staple of the Christian religion, is “inclusive” as it applies to everyone. You can say what you want about Christians, but it is Christ you must know. Every other religion is based on merit. MEASURING OUR OWN MERIT has always been the source of evil and leads to EXLCUSIVENESS. But it is by Christ’s merit that we are all rendered equal.
IVAN from Bombay