INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

courses. 534 The mimicry of people’s contemporary concerns is accomplished by using
words, motifs, metaphors, and other rhetorical devices to target the language of the
audience and support the reality within a shared cultural system. The performer may
thus introduce doctrines and moral principles that are already known to the audience
but his duty and success lies in the ability to expound the Sikh teaching in a new
inspiring, edifying and noble way. To achieve this he will rely on a set of narrative
techniques to oratory power, such as rhetorical questions (e.g.“Visiting all these pilgrimage
sites what will you gain?”), tasteful provocations (“Visiting pilgrimage sites
is waste of time”), moral and theological exhortations (“Believe in one God and not in
buildings!”), humour and irony, citations of texts, change of pitch, intonations, and
acceleration and deceleration of speech tempo.
In comparison with katha performances in other religious traditions in India, 535
the interaction between the performer and the audience during oral Sikh expositions
in the gurdwara is low-keyed, in the sense that devotees, who constitute the audience,
may enter and leave the performance as they like, but they listen to the discourse
silently and do not interrupt a performer on stage with appreciative or disapproving
comments or gestures. The only tangible sign of appraisal a kathakar may
receive during the sermon is the customary offering of monetary gifts – generally a
note of 10 rupees or more ‒ that will be placed before him. While the program is going
on the donor will rise from his or her positions in the gurdwara, walk up to the
dais on which the expounder is seated and drop the note. Still the success of the performer
lies in his ability to establish constant contact with the immediate environment
and he will draw upon a number of devices, such as his vocal capacity, eye
contact, and modest gestures, to attract the attention of the audience. Since listeners
are not obligated to sit during a staged katha performance he can easily judge from
their behaviour whether the performance is effective or not. The state secretary of the
gurdwara committee in Varanasi has the right to interrupt a performance in case the
purport of a discourse is considered improper or not in compliance with Sikh teaching.
536 Evaluations of the other devotees, however, are reserved for post-performance
534
Tedlock & Manheim 1995: 16. In Varanasi the adoption of linguistic mannerism is also palpable
in the choice of spoken langauge. Instead of presenting their perfromances in Punjabi local
kathakars will emphasize the importance of speaking in Hindi.
535
Lutgendorf 1991: 127.
536
The only case of disapproval that came to my knowledge involved a young kathakar who was
deemed too vulgar and provocative in his speech. In one discourse, in which he criticized ritualism
in Varanasi, he told a story about a woman who covered the excrement of her child with soil
to prevent people from stepping in it. Two women came to assist her with the sprinkling of soil
and soon more people would come and imitate the action of the women, believing it was religious
worship. By the evening there was big pile of soil. The kathakar rhetorically questioned, “If
you dig into the pile what will you find?” The instance of this kathakar exemplifies the key rule
to balance jokes, critical remarks, and exhortations in good taste without jeopardizing the major
aim of the discourse.
306
Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008