Shiptown. Ann Grodzins Gold

      

      Shiptown

      CONTEMPORARY ETHNOGRAPHY

      Kirin Narayan and Alma Gottlieb, Series Editors

      A complete list of books in the series is available from the publisher.

       Shiptown

       Between Rural and Urban North India

      Ann Grodzins Gold

      UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS

      PHILADELPHIA

      Copyright © 2017 University of Pennsylvania Press

      All rights reserved.

      Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher.

      Published by

      University of Pennsylvania Press

      Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112

       www.upenn.edu/pennpress

      Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

      1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Names: Gold, Ann Grodzins, author.

      Title: Shiptown : between rural and urban North India / Ann Grodzins Gold.

      Other titles: Contemporary ethnography.

      Description: 1st edition. | Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2017] |

      Series: Contemporary ethnography

      Identifiers: LCCN 2016055422 | ISBN 9780812249255 (hardcover : alk. paper)

      Subjects: LCSH: Market towns—India—Rajasthan—Social life and customs—21st century. | City and town life—India—Rajasthan—History—21st century. | Ethnology—India—Rajasthan. | Rajasthan (India)—Social life and customs—21st century.

      Classification: LCC HT147.I5 G65 2017 | DDC 307.760954/4—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016055422

      All photographs by Ann Grodzins Gold unless otherwise acknowledged.

      Photographs are from the 2010–11 fieldwork period unless otherwise specified.

       For Mariam, Colorado, and Cheyenne: I love you

      This book was coproduced (researched anddeveloped) in close association withBhoju Ram Gujar, Madhu (Hemalata) Gujar,and Chinu (Lalita) Gujar.

      Contents

       Preface

       Introduction

       PART I. ORIGINS, GATEWAYS, DWELLINGS, ROUTES, HISTORIES

       Chapter 1. Legends: Of Names, Snakes, and Compassion

       Chapter 2. Entries: Five Gates and a Window

       Chapter 3. Colony: Suburban Satisfaction

       Chapter 4. Streets: Everyone Loves a Parade

       Chapter 5. Depths: Minas and Jains Inside, Outside, Underground

       PART II. ECOLOGY, LOVE, MONEY

       Chapter 6. Questioning Landscapes: Of Trees and a River

       Chapter 7. Teaching Hearts: A Triple Wedding

       Chapter 8. Talking Business: Commerce and Cosmology

       Epilogue. Wondrous Jahazpur

       Notes

       Glossary

       References

       Index

       Acknowledgments

      Preface

      Between August 2010 and June 2011 I lived in the town of Jahazpur in Rajasthan, North India, and practiced anthropology as best I could. Bhoju Ram Gujar and his daughters were companions, helpers, and genuine partners in producing whatever ethnographic knowledge I am able to offer here. The writing is mine, for better or worse. I relied on so much assistance from my Rajasthani family that I intended their names to appear on the title page as coproducers, although not as coauthors, of the study. Paperwork obstacles prevented this or rendered it a struggle for which I had not sufficient gumption. I have highlighted their contributions on the dedication page to acknowledge up front my respect, gratitude, and dependence on their help.

      I liked living in Jahazpur. The people I met were kind and cordial. I perceived a straightforwardness to relationships and attitudes, even when sporadically contentious. If my husband wrangled with our somewhat difficult landlord over money, members of the landlord’s family still regularly brought us plates with samples of the special delicious treats they prepared for innumerable festivals. Our sitting room was, after all, right above their cooking area, and many enticing fragrances came through the open grating. When a friend’s son was injured in a brief street squabble among young men, the person who injured him appeared at the door the next day, utterly contrite, and bringing prasad (blessed leftovers) from the goddess temple as a peace offering. While proximity can sometimes lead to unredeemable fissures, as recent global history depressingly shows, part of my larger point in this book is that proximity untroubled by political manipulations normally leads to benign forms of familiarity: to greet, to share food, to chat about banalities. These simple interchanges are worth something.¹

      After about a third of my time in Jahazpur was up, I wrote the following:

      I have become acquainted with a lot of extraordinary characters; no one could ever convince me that small-town people are boring, or “all the same.”² There are, to sample just a few: our Brahmin neighbor-woman who keeps an extraordinary variety of vows and fasts every month—twenty days out of thirty without exaggeration—and whose house is lavishly adorned with her own decorative handiwork in every medium from needlework to woven plastic; the goldsmith who shut down his jewelry shop to work for the Tulip insurance network and describes