Lakpiania Nupe Short Story #13 From The Landzun Master Story-Teller Series Stories of Witchcraft and the International Nupe By Ndagi Abdullahi The greatest Bollywood film ever is Sholay. It was produced by my grandfather Gopalda Parmanand Sippy and directed by my maternal uncle Ramesh Sippy in 1975. My mother married a Dalit from the famous Raman Narayanan family, the family of Kocheril the first Dalit president of India. But the status of the Dalits in India remains to this day that of the ignoble ‘Untouchables’. Several centuries before Chinnaswami Subramania Bharati, Bharathidasan, and Ambedkar, hitherto, the Dalitbahujan have been struggling against the dehumanization Brahminical caste system of Chaturvarna. My life has, accordingly, always been torn between the success story of Sholay from the rocks of Ramanagara, Karnataka and the painful liberation struggle of the Dalits across South Asia. I was, however, the favourite grandchild of the great Gopalda Parmanand Sippy. He gave me the best education an Indian billionaire can afford – I attended Harvard, Cambridge and LSE; he introduced me to the Bollywood elites, including Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra, Amjad Khan, Shashi Kapoor, and so on – He even married me to Sushi Malini, the gorgeous niece to Hema Malini. And, over the decades, grandfather Gopalda Parmanand Sippy transformed me into one of the richest producers in Bollywood. Now my elitist crop of intimate friends include mostly members of the ‘100 Crore Club’ including Bollywood billionaires like Akshay Kumar, Rohit Shetty, Hrithik Roshan, Kareena Kapoor, Abhishek Bachchan, Helen Jairag Richardson’s son Salman Khan, and others. With my grandfather’s untold riches and my own personal wealth I eventually ruled Bollywood. Among many other unparalleled feats in Bollywood I was the force behind Aamir Khan’s Ghajini, the first Indian film to rake in over a hundred Crore. Similarly Kareena Kapoor’s 3 Idiots, Ajay Devgn’s Golmaal 3, and many other Bollywood hits were facilitated by me. They call me ‘The Raj from Tollywood’. I am the Emperor of Bollywood. Being touted as the youngest billionaire in India I had all the money and wealth to fund my vocational interests. I pumped great money into the general Dravidian, and Dalit in particular, struggles worldwide. I, for instance, single-handedly bankrolled Namdel Dhasal’s Dalit Panther. I became the most popular Dalit activist in the world. I soared on the wings of the Sholay and the Narayanan names. From the 13th – 17th of February, 2009, I convened an International Conference On The Dalit Question at Chandigarh in Punjab, the state with the largest Dalit population. At the impressive Gandhi Bhawan auditorium hall, on the five waters of the Punjab, distinguished speakers from all parts of the world delivered speeches on the Dalit Question. There was Durga Sob from Nepal, Everett LeRoi Jones from the USA, Manjula Pradeep from India, the MP Thol. Thirumavalavan, and many others. The most impressive speaker, however, was a Nigerian called Lakpiania, from KinNupe. A most persuasive man; he was supremely learned regarding the Dravidian and Dalit Struggles. Lakpiania remonstrated that the Dalits will rise back to ruling India in the future as they once ruled pre-Aryan India. He demonstrated that the Dravidians were the founders of the Hindus Valley Civilisation. Lakpiania then documented that the Dalits originated from Nigeria. He referenced the 5th century BC Herodotus documenting the fact that the original Indians were Black African Negroes from West Africa. And to this very day, Lakpiania demonstrated with pictures, the Dalits and 80% the population of India are still Negroid. The Tamils, he proved, have always been a Black African Negro people. Lakpiania then startled us further by making the monumental claim that the entire Indian race – the Dravidians and the Aryans alike - originally came from KinNupe. Lakpiania said the Indians were part of a worldwide Black African Negro civilization of Kush, Ethiopia, Saba or Sheba which originated from KinNupe millennia ago. Lakpiania said the ancient Egyptians, the Semitic peoples, the American Indians, the Chinese, the megalithic civilizations of Europe, Oceania, Mesoamerica, Africa – all belonged to this ancient Kushite, Nupe, one world civilisation. Lakpiania said this Diaspora now includes the African American. After the conference I became close friends with Lakpiania. Lakpiania, a professor of African History at ABU Zaria, is from Fazhigi, a village near Kutigi. He said he was first attracted to India and the Dalits by the uncanny story of Lelu, a mystery victim of Nupe witchcraft. Lelu was a local champion at Fazhigi. But Lelu suddenly died in 2007. And there were accusations that Lelu was killed by the witches. Angry youths immediately exhumed Lelu’s dead body and placed it on a Kutiwoba altar. His Gaci killers cannot conquer his Fara ghost spirit if he is not reburied a week after his death. Lelu’s corpse did not decomposed several months after he was exhumed; meaning Lelu’s Kuci spirit was still connected to his body – Lelu was not dead. Ebasanci witchdoctors came to resurrect Lelu back to life. But the witches fought back. The witchdoctors failed on all three attempts to resurrect Lelu. But on all three occasions Lelu sat and even stood up to mutter words before falling back to his deadly sleep. On the first occasion Lelu confirmed that the witches made an attempt on his life but have failed in subjugating his spirit. On the second occasion Lelu said his spirit now lives, reincarnated, in far away India among the Dravidian Dalits. On the third occasion Lelu asked the villagers to leave his former body alone to let his reincarnated spirit live and rest in peace in his new body among his new-founded, kindred Dalits in far away India. He requested them to go and bury his former body. Lakpiania said that was how ‘Lelu the Dreamer’, as the villagers came to call him, first drew his attention to the plight of the Dalits in India. I was so thrilled by Lakpiania’s Nupe the Origin theories and Nupe witchcraft stories that I immediately suggested to Lakpiania we should shoot the Story of Lelu into a Bollywood film. A big-budget Bollywood film combining the themes of Periyar Venkata Ramasamy’s Dravidian Movement, Runoko Rashidi’s Global African Presence and S.F. Nadel’s Nupe Spiritualism will certainly become a global blockbuster. I have always dreamt of producing a Bollywood film that will rivaled my grandfather’s Sholay in fame. Lakpiania helped in shooting ‘Asanbhav kalpana karanewala Fazhigi’ or ‘The Dreamer of Fazhigi’. We shot the entire’ film among the Sidi peoples of Gujarat. The Sidis are a Black African Negro peoples from Central and Middle Belt Nigeria. Sidi traditions narrated that the Sidis arrived India from KinNupe, via pilgrimage to Mecca, a century or so ago. We redesigned the Sidi village of Jambur, in the Gir forest of Gujarat, to look like Fazhigi and Kutigi back in Nigeria. Jambur became ‘Fazhiginagar’. Lakpiania dressed the Sidis in Nupe costumes we mass-produced from Bangalore. Lakpiania then re-enacted the Lelu witchcraft story in a Kutigi Gani festival setting. The Sidi Indians and their Nupe ancestors are the same. The ancient Goma music of the Sidis is in Old Nupe language. So we were able to shoot a Nupe story-line right here in the heart of India. Lakpiania himself played the part of Lelu in the film. In two and a half month I spent over USD 15 million on the production, making ‘Karanewala Fazhigi’ the highest big-budget Bollywood film of all times. ‘Karanewala Fazhigi’ was released in 2012 worldwide with over 2000 prints. It grossed over Rs. 200 crores in India alone and it became the most successful and most famous Bollywood movie to date. ‘Karanewala Fazhigi’ overshadowed Sholay. ‘Karanewala Fazhigi’ also became a bestseller for the African Diaspora in all parts of the world. This turned Lakpiania, the lead star or ‘actor’ of ‘Karanewala Fazhigi’, into an international fame. From his professorial chair at ABU Zaria Lakpiania sent me pictures and videos of his being turbaned as the ‘Etsu Fimu’ by the Etsu Nupe at the Wadata Palace, Bida. Then a delegation of elders from KinNupe arrived Mumbai a week later. They said they came looking for Lakpiania who they believe is with me. The Fazhigi elders said the story narrated by my ‘Karanewala Fazhigi’ was true to the letter. Then they gave me the shock of my life when they said that Lakpiania, who acted as Lelu in the film, was the true Lelu he portrayed in the film. They said Lakpiania was the same as the Lelu who was killed by the witches back in Fazhigi, Nigeria! Lakpiania, the Fazhigi village elders told me, died two years ago as Lelu the Dreamer. The resurrecting witchdoctors’ claim that Lelu Lakpiania has reincarnated and now lives in India was confirmed to the Fazhigi elders when they saw the ‘dead’ Lelu Lakpiania as the ‘actor’ in my ‘Karanewala Fazhigi’ film. I couldn’t believe that Lakpiania was a Fara ghost all the while he was with me. I tried to contact Lakpiania but all his contacts were no more. And he was never a professor at ABU Zaria.
Posted on: Mon, 31 Mar 2014 09:18:17 +0000