In Hindi there’s a phrase: “do din ka mela”, which for years has been a philosophical touch point in my life.
“Do din ka mela.”
I recently watched the classic 1966 Hindi film, Teesri Kasam [The Third Vow] in which the action takes place on the site of a tented country fair [mela] in rural north India. It’s an emotional film full of simple folk wisdom and heartbreak. Within just a few days the worlds of Hiraman, the childlike cart driver and Hirabai, the worldly dancer/courtesan come together, mingle, explode and dissipate like colliding stars. Their intimate bond ends as suddenly as it began. The mela moves on.
Translated literally into English, ‘do din ka mela’ means, a ‘two-day fair’. A temporary excitement that is over almost as soon as it begins. A jollity that is transitory. But the phrase is not meant to be understood literally. Most melas in India and Pakistan last more than two days; often stretching out for a week or more.
Take for example the celebration that erupts each year at the tomb of a Sufi saint. These are called ‘urs’ (from the Arabic for wedding) and in fact are occasions for a full-fledged mela. People come from all the surrounding villages, from the towns in the area and sometimes from all over the country or even from overseas to pay their respects to the great man. Most will spend some time in prayer and meditation at the shrine but also show up to enjoy the swings and creaky Ferris wheel. The Well of Death (Maut ka Kuan) holds pride of place in terms of the entertainment. It’s a wooden velodrome no more than 6 meters around but perhaps 15 meters high. As a punter you stand on a platform at the top that shakes violently as motorcycles and then cars rev up and swirl at breakneck speed around the velodrome. In between this daredevilry hijra (third gender persons) dressed in smart makeup and saris, flirt with the public, singing lewd songs, dancing indecently and generally giving everyone a bit of orgasmic relief. Currency notes flitter downwards to the entertainers like autumn leaves. In another part of the open fairground, the dhol players are gathering a crowd of dancers with their raucous intricate beat. Dust rises and soon covers everyone in a thin film, but the party is pumping. Food stalls of all sorts beckon. On the edge of the fair a few herders may be negotiating the sale price for a camel or buffalo. This revelry goes on till the wee hours and starts again around midday. After a few days, as Elvis sang, it’s time for the fair to move on. The tents are collapsed, plastic chairs are stacked in tilting towers. Within a day there is no sign that the festival was here.
Do din ka mela can be shorthand for a short period of fun. But what the phrase, attributed to the 15th century devotional poet Kabir, is really referring to is this period of consciousness we call ‘life’. Life that we have here and that is exciting and full of charm but also shadowed by menace and dodgy characters. At the mela you’ve got to be on the lookout for pickpockets and scammers, but overall, you’ve got to splurge, get drunk once in a while, push things to the limit and get as much fun as you can before the fair moves on.
If there was a Western phrase that complements, it can be found in the Hebrew Bible:
As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.
For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.
(Psalm 103:15-16)
Or perhaps Wordworth
Truth fails not; but her outward forms that bear
The longest date do melt like frosty rime,
That in the morning whitened hill and plain
And is no more; drop like the tower sublime
Of yesterday, which royally did wear
His crown of weeds, but could not even sustain
Some casual shout that broke the silent air,
Or the unimaginable touch of Time.
(Mutability)
Kabir’s lyrics say (in part),
What have you brought into this world
What is it that you will take with you?
This is a two day life, just a two day fair
His poem is rather stern. He speaks to life’s frustration of chasing hopelessly after something we never find; flavours we never taste and beds we never rest in.
Do din ka mela sums up a certain perspective on life which, as I get older resonates every day. My own mela is moving on. People are starting to head home. It may be getting a bit sparse but man there’s still a lot of fun to be had. So, while the poets lament life’s brevity, I hear marching orders: embrace life! There is plenty to fear and the cacophony is loud for sure. But also, the pleasures of this place still glitter. Drink a little, smoke a little, carouse and laugh. Stay close to friends and family. Because soon you too will wander home and the mela will pitch up in another town for others to enjoy.
***
This theme has been explored by many musicians from all over the world. Here are a few songs from India as well as the West that kind of speak to what I’m on about.
My favorite song from Teesri Kasam. Hiraman (Raj Kapoor) sings a song questioning the Creator why he has made such beauty and joy only to yank it all away too soon. He also intersperses a story about a young girl Mahua, which awakens the heart of the courtesan, Hirabai (Wahida Rahman).
A lovely video made at the world’s biggest mela, the Kumbh Mela in Allahadad (my old hometown). The singer sings a famous Kabir lyric: सब चला चली का खेला दो दिन का है जग मां मेला सब चला चली का खेला {Everyone’s gone off to the games/this is but a two day fair]
A great song about the Wall of Death–the western version of the Indian Maut ka kuan (Well of Death). Live life to the full!
A uniquely John Prine view of the quick changes that come about everyday.
Harmonium 