Put yourself first.

As the battle with the bulge continues and I pant away at the gym, I am becoming more conscious that as a nation too many of us are perhaps completely in denial over health issues; and more importantly, the wisdom of moderation regarding food and all else that comes into the "indulgence" bracket! This disregard for obesity can be so clearly seen where the host of at least two food programs on well know Indian TV news channels are over weight men who look like they will keel over and die of a cardiac arrest at any moment! How strange that we have obesity publicized in relation to food or is it perhaps that once again the idea of excess is somehow an acceptable equation with food? I don't know the answer but I do know I find it jarringly the wrong message for a nation.

I am consistently nagging our cook who loves to allow her wrist to dip just that little extra with the oil container! "Tasty" food in India somehow seems to add up for many as having to be oily and heavily masala-ed. People don't seem to get it right till they discover they have health issues that put the brakes on everything, and then better sense prevails and boiled and steamed becomes instantly adhered to!

Time, or rather the absence of it, is the common excuse that is glibly given in exchange to any enquiry related to exercise. Irregular work hours will be blamed on bad food habits, and junk food explained off as a "once in a while" whim. All this whilst the flab gets piled on, and we quiver and shake like a nation of jelly babies unconcerned about the truth.

My generation (I am 51), has come into the practice of health awareness more from a back door entry because the importance of fitness was not so emphatically obvious when we were growing up. Our own parents were far more healthy than us because their lifestyles were more simple. And so we sort of imagined health just takes care of itself immaterial of what we do in our lives! Today I am still sceptical as to whether we truly have an in depth understanding of health management because I see evidence that suggests otherwise. The fad seems more about weight loss than a holistic approach to nurturing the body so as to maximise its optimum potential.

From the fabrics we choose to wear, to the sizes of clothing that often constrict us causing headaches and digestive issues, to the hygiene we embrace, to the sleep patterns we follow, to the amount of hydration we take, to the quality of exercise we pursue, to the emotional needs we address, to the entertainment we provide for ourselves; and of course to the diets we formulate for our bodies - all this and more become the points of consideration we need to tie up if we are examining our well being in relation to our health.

No amount of money can ever buy us back our health once it deteriorates. Blood circulations slow down, and conditions of ill health that are not hereditary or congenital, are gifted to us by our own lack of caution. However hard you work in a day, a 30 minute work out (of any kind), will provide you something vital. The name of the game however in all this, is consistency.

In the last year I have lost many friends to conditions of health that could have been prevented. But being sensible is boring, but consider this: being dead leaves you with no emotion left at all!

PC = ?

The new definition of PC is not Political Correctness but Politics and Cricket! Just when the Shoaib-Sania tamasha has died down, (and we thought sanity may prevail with more news worthy items from the media channels) we have yet another scorching story erupting from the bowels of the "doom-departments" of TV, that pick up the timbers of hysteria all over again! Somehow I think it's chocolate-box Shashi Tharoor who is more the core story here, with all the masala of a pretty woman draped over railings, as he saunters off cricket pitches into the loving gaze of her Gucci veiled eyes.

Oh cynic that I am becoming, where is my love for the pulse of a story or for getting at the truth of the matter (or in this case aptly, the heart of it!)!! Well as starters I was doubled up with laughter when Arnab Goswami started postulating on TV, with extreme severity mind you; enunciating every word (like my old french teacher did) and staring straight at me as I lay in bed, telling me that Shashi Tharoor was being "a bad boy" all over again, and the nation was once again in trouble because of him! ( Please imagine the corresponding shaking head, drooping mouth, sad eyes, frown and knitted brows as you read this)!!!

Oh goddy goo....am I loosing it?! But then as I imagined that the trouble lay only with me, I heard a groaning sound emanating from next to me. Turning and believing that Surendran had ODed on the chocolate-cake desert after dinner and had a stomach ache as suitable retribution for being greedy; I confronted instead a pained, beseeching, imploring to change the TV channel pronto! Even our cat Begum hid under the bed as Arnab tut-tutted menacingly and finger wagged at all at large from the idiot box. What is wrong with the guy?????!

Maybe it's just that he feels challenged that Shashi T is a better chocolate-box hero-type then chubby Mr. Arnab himself! Well whatever be the reason I am staying away from the remote control today for fear of Mr. AG playing at Uncle Sam with me again!

Prediction for the day: My crystal ball tells me that Lalit Modi with his cutesy lisping and Yuvi baby with his pouting sulks are the next in line to add more masala to the gossip that passes off as national news these days.

Whilst people continue to die of starvation and food grains rot in store houses from bad governance; we of course will focus on the trivial aspects of life; and jump around like cats on hot tin roofs believing that gossipy news is a better option that staying real.

The carrot and the stick game!

Lee Hayan is a young Korean art student who is currently on the cusp of completing her undergraduate painting course, from the faculty of Fine Arts Baroda. She was approached by Vidha Saumya who was deputed by Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke to organise/curate(?!) a show of young artists for an exhibition titled April Salon. This young art student was extremely ethical in all the subsequent communication with the gallery; talking with both Vidha Saumya and Usha Mirchandani over the phone repeatedly about all the details she needed to know; and promptly attending to all that they were asking for, despite being in the middle of her final examination. The cost of the framing (done professionally at Harmony Arts of Baroda), and the packing of the work in a proper wooden crate, plus the cost of the Gati courier service; was all borne by this young student.

Well Ok....so what's all the fuss about, you may ask. Well, when Hayan went with all her enthusiasm to attend the opening of this show, she was in for a rude shock. The set of ten match box works, beautifully box-framed ( I know because I have seen them myself), were no where to be seen in the exhibition! Well if that wasn't a heart stopping moment for this young art student, Ranjana Steinruecke just minutes before the show opened, authoritatively asked her to reduce the pricing of her works from Rs. 7,500/- each ( which includes the gallery commission and all other overheads) to Rs. 3,000/-.

When Hayan requested that she preferred not to do so as this was the agreed upon price with Usha and Vidha, she was rudely told off by Ms. Steinruecke and informed that if she did not bring the price down then even if someone was willing to purchase it at this original price, she as the Gallery director would not want to sell it for that price! Where the logic in this lies only pretty Ranjana will ever know!

Hayan was sent packing with her set of ten beautiful works because of the whims of power.

That you humiliate a young person you seek out to invite yourself, seems rather a strange modus operandum!

The moral of the story is that young enthusiastic and vulnerable art students are preyed upon by greedy galleries who want to jump into the "grabbing game", (even before students complete their degree courses!), to adorn their walls with "new finds" like trophies from a hunting trip. These galleries of course, make it out that they are the imperial lords and ladies of aesthetic judgement and power brokerage, and that these young art students or fledgling artists should cower in fear and respect, before them. What a sham!

Perhaps it is not inappropriate to remind such galleries that good will is a much better currency for the longevity of transactions that are not fly by night.

I remember the exquisite finesse and courtesy that Mr. Alkazi of Art Heritage, Pheroza Godrej of Cymroza and The Daruwala's of Sarla Art Gallery extended to me when I was the "new find" in the art world in 1984. What is the greatest pity is that many of these smaller galleries posture at being human in their approach, but too many turn out to be sharks.

Carrot and stick games are boringly transparent and shameful. It is a sad day to know how desperate are some galleries that they care so little for the simple and basic precincts of decency.

Snippets!

I think my cat secretly watches Pink Panther films because her favourite game is to hide in and around corners, and leap out at poor unsuspecting me; believing this game of cat and mouse (me of course being the terrified mouse!) is great fun! I look like a lunatic half the time, as she nibbles my ankles whilst I attempt to carry on serious conversations on subjects of supposed profundity (!) with students, and simultaneously try to avoid this pretend piranha! Most mornings I am woken by a purring mound as she balances on my hip whilst I valiantly try to get a five minute extended snooze in; finally being forced to get out of bed from her insistent gentle kneading of her back claws in to my flesh, all this being done as the delight of being my morning alarm service! Any takers for this, just drop a note!

The weekend had Mithun down with us in Baroda and the house teeming with the children taking time off from collective studio practice activities, and indulging in lazing around. Friends joined us for the big Sunday feast which has become the standard norm; and scrabble, IPL and tons of yummy food became the agenda of the weekend. Our home sometimes resembles a Jane Austin novel gone slightly off it's intended narrative with a stream girls and boys of varying ages that pop up in every nook and crevice of the house! Begum our cat, who is always in the midst of anything that occurs at home, always finds something to push off its perch. Most times it is of value and gets broken or damaged! What occurs is a sequence of pretend-pretend again. Me pretending to be angry and she pretending a ghost cat lives in the house and does these bad things!

Was in Bombay for the day on Monday and really take my hat off to the Mumbaikars for their zest to live with commuting time that averages many hours from one destination to another, for so many residents of this metropolis. I was tripping around a few locations and Crawford market was one of them. Dressed all in flowing black, with my Cristina odhani worn more like a veil over my face and head to protect me from the scorching sun, I fitted into the ambiance perfectly and could have been miya gulabi quite easily! Just my Prada glasses flashed from this veil of mystery....maybe 007 films should be my reverse revenge with my cat, Begum!

Today sees me off in the hospital with one of our spiritual daughters who has to undergo an investigative surgery procedure. As I potter around at 5 am, Begum looks at me from half closed eyes, licks my hand with pretended comfort and goes right back to sleep, whilst for me it is Florence Nightingale time!

An Artist and a Gentleman!

At Gallery Prescot last Wednesday, hunched over a table with my hair covering my face as I valiantly was scribbling down my address (for a friend who wanted to post something to me); I was gently peered at from under my greying tresses! I looked up to find Gieve Patel smiling his dazzling smile, and was engulfed in a warm embrace that said so much more than any pretty greeting could.

I first meet this graceful man in the '70s at a show where six artists who had declined to participate in the Lalit Kala Triennial that year, banded together to have an alternative exhibition concurrent to the show they were protesting against. As all good stories normally go, so does this one have a twist in the tail; or perhaps more accurately, it was an infected toe in a shoe! Amongst the scraggly bunch that we were from our preparatory class from the Fine Arts Faculty of Baroda, doing the padyatra of homage to art in the metropolis on a shoe string budget; having to dig into our dwindling resources for a doctor was causing us more pain than perhaps the poor boy with the infected toe! So when Gieve heard our sorry story, with a twinkle in his eye and us gawking like hypnotised gold fish in a bowl, he switched avataars and became a doctor that soothed and comforted and cured.

In later years I had the delight of sharing interludes of time with him on more equal terms, sometimes in the frameworks of idealised setting of huts on a beach as we painted and ate cream biscuits for tea; or in other spaces of crisp debate where we have disagreed and passionately held to the convictions of our respective ideas. But within all this, what is so remarkable is that there is such a palpable genuineness that defines this man. No nakaras, no star attitudes, no I will wish you only if you acknowledge me first falsities: just a no frills person, where the hallmark of his education shines through his complete existence.

Perhaps it is my convent education or my half Parsi ancestry, but the term Gentleman most aptly describes Gieve Patel. Mores the pity that we encounter less and less people who qualify to be termed so. Call me old fashioned, but refinement and intelligence tops my list as a great combination, and believe me, Gieve Patel has oodles of this! Take some pointers bachhas!

Nonstop and back!

I was in Chennai with friends for a celebration that brought many old friends and memories together over delicious food, and the delight of listening to the Gundecha brothers performing for the occasion. What can I say.... by now I think I have established that my heart strings work over time, and so it is suffice to say that back in Chennai with friends (who compound memories that span two decades), made for a blissful encounter.

I stopped over in Mumbai the following evening to catch Nilima Sheikh's beautifully poignant show Each night put Kashmir in your dreams, presented by Chemould prescot. Nilima is a national treasure as an artist, and I wish that a museum or an art patron would acquire the entire show because it is bodies of work such as these that are the art history of our times. What a shame that such opportunities go wasted. Is any IPL cricket team owner listening ?

Unfortunately the hot topic in the Bombay tabloids is the "splitsville" situation between an artist couple. The story doing the rounds is that neither individual is happy over the "sensationalising" of their private lives in this manner. But the lesson to be learnt is that when you believe that being plastered on page three is the ticket to fame, and you connive and cajole and pay your way into this circuit, then this is the unfortunate price you finally pay when your privacy is transgressed upon. Being part of art history is via the quality of work we produce, and this not so young couple are both genuinely good artists whose work does us proud. The only trouble is that they were in such a hurry to "make it big" in Bombay, and perhaps were ill-advised to the methodologies that offer/pronounce "success", that patience was never a sought after module of self governance. I genuinely hope that they both find their way out of this messy situation in a restrained and dignified manner, because washing dirty linen in view of the public will only be a painful legacy for the two of them to live with; and it will not achieve anything other than personal anguish. Privacy is precious, and one should always guard oneself from too much over exposure. But then as is the usual case of stars that blind your eyes in the guise of shutter bugs; sensibility seems old fashioned and caution is the quickest things that gets thrown to the winds at such times!

The highlight of my day in Bombay was the time I spent with Mithun. Time with him is perhaps the most precious for me always. He took me for dinner, and as only he can, I felt the most pampered mother in the universe!

Anyway back at home Begum enthusiastically greeted me, with many meow stories that I am sure translate to how much she has missed me! Of course evidence of this was a chewed up tiny cloth tiger that was recently gifted to me that I discovered under my bed. Oh well, who said anything about a perfect world!

Twenty-six years just yesterday.....

I lost a friend today. One of my class mates from my preparatory batch at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda. 1976. Like it was yesterday. But for twenty six years I had not heard from him. And then last year after I started my blog, voila, he popped back into my life; and through me reconnected with three other dear friends from the class of 1981. It was because of him that I recently signed up on face book; because he wanted to share photographs he had posted on his personal page and was too lazy to send them to my gmail account! So just for him I went into this "other" cyber world grumbling and fumbling along.....but as the photographs brought him back into focus within my life, time melted away and Joseph was back in the gang once again and time sort of stood still!

My three friends and I were planning a trip over to Malaysia to see him. The appropriate time slot within schedules of renovating homes, teaching in colleges, exhibition schedules and other mundane but time appointed chores that spell the routines we adhere to was the stumbling block to finalising a date till now. But suffice to say the delight of planning and dreaming and imagining the reunion with this old friend was the motivation that underlined the joy of this exercise and provoked us to keep it on the top of our wish list.

Today the message I received read: Joe passed away an hour ago. It's so difficult to take in....

Time sometimes cheats us in ways that makes no sense.

Joseph Fernz my dearest friend, rest in peace.