Use in North Indian Cultural and Artistic Activities
Mustard oil was once popular as a cooking oil in northern India. In the second half of the 20th century the popularity of mustard oil receded due to the availability of mass-produced vegetable oils. It is still intricately embedded in the culture:
- It is poured on both sides of the threshold when someone important comes home for the first time (e.g. a newly-wedded couple or a son or daughter when returning after a long absence, or succeeding in exams or an election.
- Used as traditional jaggo pot fuel in Punjabi weddings.
- Used as part of home-made cosmetics during mayian.
- Used as fuel for lighting earthen lamps (diyas) on festive occasions such as Diwali.
- Used in hair. Known to be extremely beneficial for hair growth.
- Used in instruments. The residue cake from the mustard oil pressing is mixed with sand, mustard oil and (sometimes) tar. The resulting sticky mixture is then smeared on the inside of Dholak and Dholki membranes to add weight (from underneath) to the bass membrane.This enables the typical Indian drum glissando sound, created by rubbing one's wrist over it. This is also known as a (Tel masala) Dholak Masala or oil syahi.
Read more about this topic: Mustard Oil
Famous quotes containing the words north, indian, cultural, artistic and/or activities:
“The discovery of the North Pole is one of those realities which could not be avoided. It is the wages which human perseverance pays itself when it thinks that something is taking too long. The world needed a discoverer of the North Pole, and in all areas of social activity, merit was less important here than opportunity.”
—Karl Kraus (18741936)
“The next forenoon we went to Oldtown.... The Indian is said to cultivate the vices rather than the virtues of the white man. Yet this village was cleaner than I expected, far cleaner than such Irish villages as I have seen.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“The men who are messing up their lives, their families, and their world in their quest to feel man enough are not exercising true masculinity, but a grotesque exaggeration of what they think a man is. When we see men overdoing their masculinity, we can assume that they havent been raised by men, that they have taken cultural stereotypes literally, and that they are scared they arent being manly enough.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“The artistic temperament is a disease that affects amateurs.... Artists of a large and wholesome vitality get rid of their art easily, as they breathe easily or perspire easily. But in artists of less force, the thing becomes a pressure, and produces a definite pain, which is called the artistic temperament.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (18741936)
“There is, I think, no point in the philosophy of progressive education which is sounder than its emphasis upon the importance of the participation of the learner in the formation of the purposes which direct his activities in the learning process, just as there is no defect in traditional education greater than its failure to secure the active cooperation of the pupil in construction of the purposes involved in his studying.”
—John Dewey (18591952)