[Reader-list] Urban Spaces and Identity Formation: Second Posting

madhura l lmadhura77 at gmail.com
Sat Apr 21 19:01:27 IST 2007


Hi all! Am just managing to put in my second posting before my designated
week gets over. I'm beginning to think this practice is nice though…gives
you a chance to stop and look back on where your work is going. And this is
how and where my work is going:



By now I have a fairly concrete idea of what is the pattern of content of
the notice boards (*vartaphalak*) I've been covering in different areas. To
give a crude categorization, here are the 'types' of content that are put up
in the *vartaphalak*:



*Pertaining to religion:* There are actually three broad categories in this
type. The first one concerns overtly technical information about religious
practices (in the context of Hindu religion of course). Very pedagogic in
nature, these are small tips on how to perform *puja*, where to place ritual
objects, how to make a ritual offering, what is the significance of a
particular festival and so on. The language used is extremely formal, some
of the words almost alien to everyday language. These boards are homogenous
since they are 'adopted' by a local organization 'Sanatan Sanstha', whose
volunteers write these messages on the various *vartaphalak*. I'm not yet
completely sure what the organization is all about, whether it is affiliated
to the political Hindu right and so on. More on this in the next posting
definitely!



The second type is again related to religious teachings, but which are
largely couched in a spiritual-moral discourse. The 3-4 Muslim boards
included in this study fall in this category. For instance, some of the
messages generally revolve around extolling the virtues of Khwaja Garib
Nawaaz or explaining the generosity of a particular *pir*.



Lastly, there are the overtly Hindu fundamentalist *vartaphalaks*, which
have a specific agenda of consistently spewing forth hatred against Muslims
and Christians. The content here is acidic, the rhetoric strongly communal.
It is not a surprise that these 3 *vartaphalak* are to be found in the
Sadashiv Peth-Narayan Peth areas, which are almost exclusively Brahmin
populated.



*The moral discourse:* I have given this title to this category for the want
of a better term. But I'll try and explain what exactly it entails. There
are 3-4 such vartaphalaks, wherein a '*Suvichar*' (Thought for the day) is
written everyday. There is a strong rhetoric of morality, 'good' behaviour,
ethics, values like humanism, benevolence, courage that is reflected in
these messages. They present an archetype of 'ideal' citizen, who is moral,
ethical and patriotic in his outlook.



*Political commentaries: *This is an interesting category. There are 2
vartaphalaks which constantly engage in commenting on the recent political
happenings, at the local as well as the national level. Both the boards use
an irreverent, satirical style while critiquing the happenings around them.



I will try and give a sample of a few messages of each category the next
time.



I have also realized that the frequency of these messages tends to be pretty
inconsistent, barring a few. So some boards that regularly used to change
their content, have now hardly anything new to say. In such cases, I've been
confused as to whether to include these in the study or omit them.



By now I have almost close to 300 photographs, since a photoessay is also
one of the outcomes of this study. It's a shame one cannot put up images on
the reader-list, otherwise it would have given everyone a greater sense of
what I was saying.



That's all for now. Waiting for some feedback, comments, whatever.

Madhura
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