NPAT — Episode 2 — ‘B’ — Transcript

This is a transcript of an episode of a podcast that I run called NPAT. I run down the English alphabet and tell stories about names…

This is a transcript of an episode of a podcast that I run called NPAT. I run down the English alphabet and tell stories about names, places, animals, and things (NPAT). linktr.ee/npat

5 Years ago I made a trip — an hour’s drive away from Ahmedabad to a town called Balasinor. A former princely state of the Babi dynasty — that branched out of the Babi dynasty of Junagadh in the 1700s. The erstwhile royals now run a luxury hotel from their palace. Balasinor is home to just shy of 40,000 people. What the census data does not capture is that it is also home to 10,000 un-borns.

Balasinor is one of the largest hatcheries in the world. In the early 1980s — during a geological survey by employees of a cement manufacturing company -dinosaur eggs — up to 10,000 of them — and bones were found. This is said to have led to a frenzy among residents of nearby villages — who took the fossilized eggs with them and worshiped them. There is also a story of how a lady kept a dinosaur egg fossil in her kitchen to grind spices. The most significant discovery was of the giant herbivore — Rajasouras narmadensis — the stereotype of Gujaratis being vegetarian holds up. Raja means king in many Indian languages and the dinosaur is called so because of a horn-like bone jutting out from its head — which looks like a crown. These dinosaurs lived in the valley of the Narmada river and hence — narmadensis. These dinosaurs — at least 13 distinct species lived from about 100 million years ago to when they died out about 65 million years ago.

The site is unusual in one way — there is evidence of the birth and eventual extinction of several species in this area. There is even a crazy fossilized snake — wrapped around dinosaur eggs. Presumably, the snake wanted to eat the eggs and died there. I don’t remember seeing that. But, it is crazy that the site was almost unguarded when I went there and I could have just gone up to the fossils — some of the rocks are pretty obviously fossils — and touched them. There is no protection which seemed odd to me. There are also trace amounts of iridium — a radioactive element — possibly linked to a meteor strike.

Another important Indian dinosaur hotspot is the Kota formation — a geological formation in the region around present-day Telangana. This formation is approximately 170 million years old. A particular dinosaur found here is interesting. Barapasauras is a sauropod — i.e. dinosaurs with long necks, long tails, small heads, and thick legs. ‘bara’ or ‘bada’ means ‘big’ in several Indian languages and ‘sauros’ is Greek for ‘lizard’. Its binomial name is — Barapasauras tagorei — tagorei after the great poet, writer, painter, musician — Rabindranath Tagore. The dinosaur was discovered in the centenary year of his birth.

Now, we will take a long flight to Europe and we will talk about a completely different thing. I could not find any segue.

There are many ways in which the worlds of the great English author, J.R.R Tolkein, and Norwegian culture intersect, but I want to talk about one particular word.

The Black Speech is one of the many languages created by Tolkein for his epic fantasy world. Not to nerd out completely with the details about Mordorian life — especially because I have a perfunctory understanding of Tolkein’s oeuvre — we know that Black Speech was created by Sauron — an important character in the writings and was primarily meant for use by Mordor’s servants.

The only example of pure Black speech is the inscription of the One Ring — which is a central plot element in the Lord of the Rings — which reads -

Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul,

ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul

aside:Why do I do this? Why do I write scripts where I have to say things I can’t pronounce.

Its English translation is: One Ring to rule them all. One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

In the black speech, Burzum means DARKNESS.

Now, beware! We will be dipping our toes in slightly troubling waters. Well -more than ‘slightly’ if I am being honest.

Burzum was also the name of the one-man musical project by Varg Vikernes — an influential black metal artist. He became a part of the early Norwegian black metal scene — out of which modern metal was born as a teenager.

Vikernes as Count Grishnackh was a part of another infamous black metal band called — Mayhem. It gained much notoriety in the media because of its vocalist who went by the name Dead — committing suicide and for its guitarist — Euronymous’s death by murder. Euronymous was stabbed by Vikernes in 1993 — partly because of financial disputes.

Talk about Death Metal …right?

Vikernes was also involved in a string of church burnings in Norway. Vikernes believes that everything that is non-European is a threat. Specifically, he advocates for a pre-Industrial revolution pagan Europe.

He was convicted of church arson, possession of explosives, and first-degree murder and was sentenced to the maximum sentence in Norway of 21 years of which he served 15. He was released on parole in 2009.

It is important to note that I was not even alive or capable of making my own choices for a large part of his career. I have followed his works — from a distance — when I came across them on YouTube. I don’t claim to have ANY understanding of the events described above or of any claims of factual accuracy.

There are so many insane nuggets of information from his life — for example, he lived in Iraq for a year because his father worked for Saddam Hussein or that according to Rolling Stone — Vikerenes endorsed neo-Nazi views during the 1990s. He later disavowed the ideology. In 2018, he announced that he would be saying goodbye to the Burzum project. But he did release a final Burzum album in March of 2020.

See you on the second part of Episode 2 of NPAT Podcast — where we will be in Norway — again. I mean … the story will still be set in Norway — I am actually in Ahmedabad and you are … wherever you are.

My introduction to Norse mythology was through the brilliant Neil Gaiman’s brilliant book ‘Norse Mythology’. Well, granted it is not the most creative title. I loved it so much I started to read his other books. When I found out that his 2001 novel, American Gods had been made into a television show for the cable network — Starz — I had to read the book. You know, I am one of those people who needs to bring up the fact that they read the book before they came across its derivative media. And to gain even more points among people who care about these things — I even read up on the deities featured in the book.

The most interesting character in the book was Anansi. But that does not fit into this whole alphabetical scheme I have cornered myself into. So instead we will talk about Chernobog — that’s a bloody metal name I will tell you that — a proto Slavic deity — whose name literally means black God. A common theme in pagan Eurasian religions is the concept of dualism. The counterpart to the black-god — Chernobog is Belobog — the white god. In American Gods, Chernobog lives in a flat with the Zorya Sisters — Zorya Vechernyaya, Zorya Utrennyaya, and Zorya Polunochnaya — representations of Twilight or Evening, Dawn or Morning and Midnight in Slavic tradition. As springtime approaches — Chernobog lightens in personality and is replaced by Bielebog — his brother — or perhaps — another side to him. This difference in interpretation — whether the Slavic gods — Chernobog and Bielebog are different aspects of the same entity, or are in fact different entities is up to debate. A debate I don’t want to get involved in.

According to Vikernes — the protagonist of the first half of this episode — Belus is the oldest Proto-Indo-European resurrection deity — reflected in the Norse God Bladr, the Slavic God Bielebog. I will give Vikernes this — there are surface-level similarities in their mythology. So, Vikernes as the one-man band Burzum released an album titled Belus exploring the myths surrounding the deity. Unlike Vikernes’s other projects — Burzum mostly looks like a personal analysis of Norse mythology — and doesn’t seem to be political in nature.

That was it for the second episode of the NPAT podcast. So, go listen to Vikernes’s music if you like. But I would definitely recommend that you read Neil Gaiman’s books. OR if you are into audiobooks — listen to them — they are brilliantly narrated.

If you have not already figured it out — this project is largely self-indulgent. But if you have ideas, criticisms or dare I say — compliments — send em to me at npatpod@gmail.com

The next episode is quite special. Its the first episode I wrote and here is a teaser . all the elements — name, place, animal, and thing share the same root word.

Bye, see you next time.