Long flowing skirts and a splash of color at every twirl, tarot card readers, kids running around with bagpipes, bizarre caged pets, patchwork tents, stolen trinkets heaped in discarded metallic boxes-lying there ... lost forever while untamed gypsy music filled in a distant night. Thats how I imagined them! Gypsies... have always been synonymous with dreamy nomadic recklessness for me..an idea romanticized by Tintins adventures and countless children's books all through my growing years. A recent trip to Sacromonte (around Granada)... and a long scenic walk through the gypsy caves at dusk brought back a bunch of these crazy ideas that I held as a kid.
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| Gypsy cave entrance |
These Spanish drifters-among the last of the remaining gypsies are anything but reckless. They felt stubborn... for not changing their way of life, for not working for a living and for refusing to take a chance at a better life. Choosing a life of Flamenco dancing /music by night and forcefully predicting your future by day! Hmmm who am I to judge? Thats true :). They sure did make amusing subjects for my walk. So much so that I went back looking for them all through my stay there. Unlike my idea of gypsies living on scrap lands, the Sacromonte gypsies lived in the most picturesque location....That's what made them more noticeable-the stark contrast of poverty and an uncertain future in a land blessed with mediterranean abundance. They lived in man made caves in the neighbouring mountains surrounding the town the Granada...rich fragrant mountains teeming with wild fruits and vegetables. Unsupervised patches of melons, figs, apricots, olives, grapes, pears, peaches, pomegranates dotted by thyme and rosemary bushes and fresh blooms of lavender .....overlooking a distant Alhambra. The poorest of the gypsies had some of the best views of the city :)
On the same trip I read about another dying race, the most unique gypsies- The Bajau sea gypsies from Sabah. ...It is a place closer to home- international waters between Malaysia, Indonesia & Philippines known for its pirates. Non agressive drifters the Bajau just avoid them and drift to another nook .They have the most bizarre existence that I have ever heard of. They live is acute poverty without nationalities or the concept of paper money. They literally go with the tide. They have completely given up land. Some Bajau families seek land only to bury the dead ,get their boats mended or stock up once every few years. Otherwise most of them are born on the ocean and live their entire lives on just the abundance of the ocean with no one to document their stories or their music. Land frustrates and confuses them with land sickness . Again these poorest gypsies seem to have some of the best playgrounds. Here's a kid playing with his pet shark.
Most of the kids have completely adapted to an aquatic form of life. Apparently Bajau kids voluntarily break their ear drums to facilitate deep sea diving; to resemble the life that they see around them.
Intrigued? Wait till you watch this! Truly amazing!.
Soak in these images. These might well be the last of the gypsy lands/waters.
* I had been to Borneo earlier when I was unaware of their existence. So the pictures/video are borrowed from online resources.
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Last night the gypsies came -
Nobody knows from where.
Where they’ve gone to nobody knows,
And nobody seems to care!
Between the trees on the old swamp road
I saw them round their fire:
Tattered children and dogs that barked
As the flames leaped high and higher;
There were black-eyed girls in scarlet shawls,
Old folk wrinkled with years,
Men with handkerchiefs round their throats
And silver loops in their ears.
Ragged and red like maple leaves
When frost comes in the Fall,
The gypsies stayed but a single night;
In the morning gone were all -
Never a shaggy gypsy dog,
Never a gypsy child;
Only a burnt-out gypsy fire
Where danced that band so wild.
All gone and away,
Who knows where?
Only the wind that sweeps
Maple branches bare.
-Rachel Field
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