Another type of family!

I have such a wonderful support system of friends and loved ones, who in the blink of an eye just step in to help me in my moments of crisis. My mother now has a 24 hour assistant to aid us with the care giving we desire for Amma. However suddenly the assistant has taken off for fifteen days without giving us substantial prior notice to accommodate this rupture of routine into our  schedules, and the agency from where we have procured her services from could only commiserate with us, but do little else! 

In an instant I was embraced with a time-tabled schedule that put together a round-the-clock supervision of Amma, organised by our friends who are our extended family; allowing me therefore to continue with the project I am currently working on frantically. Without the generosity of their spirited support, I would have had to postpone my work schedule to a later date.  I feel truly indebted to them them for their belief and love.

When the Collective Studio originated we never imagined it would take the shape and form of such precious intimacy that developed this unique platform of growing together. Though Surendran, Mithun and I gave up many areas of our personal privacy as individuals, we found that collective living holds so much more consciousness than merely being desiring the module of a traditional nuclear family structure. The rewards are these exquisite gestures of good will and the delight of the safety-net that genuine caring  provides one with.

Our meal times together are spent in chatting, discussing, and generally some masti or the other.  Today at the lunch table we had a spirited discussion about language and specific terminologies that also hold nuanced meanings. Between chewing on the sliced carrots of my raw salad and nibbling at my mince cutlet  we were fishing around our  cerebral spaces (!) to put together a feisty discourse from all the corners of the table.  Of course Begum, our cat, remains unfazed by the rumblings of such animated occurrences.

I fly off tomorrow to Mumbai and leave with a complete sense of peace knowing fully well that Amma is in safe hands. What more can love be about.

Effective change is always possible.....

I attended a lecture yesterday that positioned "Teaching art from an insiders perspective" as it's core focus. Perhaps because the speaker was faced with the task of a mixed audience, the issues that were tabulated for discussion in the paper appeared far too basic; disallowing therefore  any significant discussion to be borne from it,  that could have addressed and reflected real issues that are eroding the standard of art education throughout the country. Instead  miscellaneous wikipedia-like statistics took over the forum in the preceding discussion slot, thereby hijacking any opportunity for historisizing and contextualising the progress of art  teaching over the years;  and analysing any resulting impact of this upon contemporary Indian art, if at all, and visa versa.

The real issue that becomes the stumbling block in such instances is more to do with misconceived proprietary notions. Educational institutions must be open to critique and censure. To over protect them and condone deliberate apathy by continuously blaming bureaucratic interference for perhaps ones own lack of imaginative intervention as educators,  would be a grave folly. Love for the vocation of teaching alone is not what motivates many to become art teachers, so this virtuous charade of chest beating must stop too.  It is a rather cushy job with a substantial pay packet to boot and plenty of free time, so let's do the job boys, and quit complaining!

I have grown weary of hearing the laments of limitations that one is met with if you have any probing query regarding the Baroda fine arts faculty. I thankfully grew up in an era of teaching at the same institution thirty years ago, where the homes of my teachers extended into exciting spaces of learning too. Film screenings and informal lectures occurred that had no connection with seeking approval from any university office whatsoever! These were also "practising artists" who in those days really didn't have the infra-structure of support  of a gallery system that is thriving today. Yet the generosity of spirit of these individuals created a system of learning that didn't ever compromise itself on the laments of limitations! 

I have some good friends who teach at the faculty of fine arts in Baroda. I respect their efforts, but the"boys club" and it's stuffy shirted pomposity with the "rolling of the eyes" drama of fake frustration is all really growing rather tiresome. The hallmark of educators like Nasreen Mohammedi and K.G Subramanyan is their insistence of inclusiveness as a methodology of learning; and the potency of their legacy as teachers is established because they didn't seek to play "professorial" roles, and held a genuine desire to engage with polemic discourse. Their insightfulness  came from a lived and exemplified premise of excellence as artists, who constructed their vision of teaching from the  wisdom that came from respecting that others too hold the quality to contribute to the collective concerns of art education.  

Don't hark up the wrong road...

I remember the pride of wearing my school uniform. Perhaps it was an off shoot of the pride with which my father wore his as an Indian air-force fighter pilot. Early in life we were taught the responsibility and the rules of conduct that govern wearing a uniform,  and also made to acknowledge the sense of belonging that it should inculcate. I remember my teachers taking time to share thoughts and ideas about conduct, responsibility and ethics which were camouflaged as anecdotes, but nonetheless left the desired imprint of teaching us values that would aid us in defining our personalities.

School children dot the roads each morning in Baroda, most of them with their well ironed uniforms and properly polished shoes;  the girls with bows and clips and ribbons and the boys with smartly cut hair...yet barring only a few, they almost always never adhere to ANY traffic rules. If they cycle it will be in rows of three and four abreast, putting their lives at risk by blocking narrow roads for other vehicles. The scooters and  motor-cycles whizz about without anyone wearing helmets, and of course cellphones are held in crazy grips by them attaching their ears to their shoulders to be able to ride and chat at the same time! And as for road dividers.....why have them. Our traffic will ply any which way is the shortest route as decided by them...willy-nilly you die in the process of such anarchy or not!

I find it perturbing to see how no rule is ever considered of relevance to maintaining law and order or basic safety within public areas of co-existence. The Indian mantra is short-cut leylo and simply enjoy yaar! Kya tension unnecessarily lene ka hai... ! 

I was horrified when travelling only a few years ago to witness how two ladies accompanying one another  mixed up their passports amongst themselves when passing through Indian immigration on embarking on a trip abroad.  The mixed up passports were duly stamped and the scary part is that these two ladies did not even resemble each other in the slightest! Then we lament over tragic consequences that arise from lapses of security that such blatant apathy  deliver.

Why parents and educational institutions cannot take on the onus of creating a consciousness within their wards to be ethical and respect discipline, amazes me. Why is it only always about competitive success that they all harp on about with children, and the real issues of training get side lined.

Etiquette is another area we just have no clue about in most instances in India. I have some hollers as stories that leave you wondering at why at the nimble finger that normally flicks at gaming buttons on the proverbial "give me all answers' telephones cannot get some know how on the does and don't of social politeness!!!!

Anyway we shall all love to see another day....or at least hopefully, because on my morning walk it is either step into the cow patty or be hit by a broom-zoom vehicle .....take your pick.....! 

Mea Culpa!

Today is the 67th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.....

Yesterday was friendship day!

Where does one thing begin and another end in this rather paradoxical cycle of destruction and retrieval ....

I hear people who support the Modi regime wish away the Gujarat genocide as though it is only a small blemish on an otherwise career-graph of excellence. That families from a particular community were targeted to be annihilated with the precision of deliberated strategies is of course not to be dwelt upon; and in the pro-Modi debates that  propagate him as the golden boy of Gujarat who now needs to move into the prominence of national politics,  this horrifying massacre is continually played down shamelessly.

The memorials at Hiroshima and Nagasaki have photographs that document a chilling account of vengeance and human beastliness that is terrifying to even imagine, let alone confront as a historical reality. We continue to pretend that such attacks on human rights and life are few and far between. What is frightening to realise is the human capacity to harbor the desire, and encourage the wielding of power, as tool to wreck fear and destruction  in order to get into positions of control; to terrorise.

Acid attacks, rape, bonded labour, organ thefts, land scams, fake encounters by the police, sexual harassment by politicians, indifference and apathy .....you name it, the list is endless. Controlled lawlessness that supports corrupted governance, makes the life cycle of countless citizens in different countries hold a hopelessness, because no election really brings the change that keeps at bay the viciousness of greed.

I hold my optimism close to my heart....yet.................

A girl commits suicide from the despair of harassment.

Children die from lack of medical care.

An old woman runs from pillar to post to try and access her dead husband's pension of Rs. 250/-.

A child dies from falling through a hole in a moving school bus.

A small boy suffocates to death in the bowels of the earth because an unused bore well is left open.

A care giver of the state  molests the children he has intend to protect.

A teacher makes a child lick her urine to teach her the discipline not to wet her bed.

A woman is stripped naked by the police to teach her shame.

A son abandons his widowed mother because she is a burden to his freedom and wealth.

A family burns alive their son's wife.

A woman aborts her girl child.

A whistle blower is killed for his/her honesty.

A farmer is forced into debt whilst grains lie rotting from want of conscience.

I am shamed into silence and

My optimism feels drained.

I am haunted by the photograph of a woman,  

fleeing down a road with her body burning body,

after the atom bomb exploded 67 years ago in Japan. 

Each year the cycle of violence continues.....

.....and we help perpetuate it......

all the time.....everywhere. 

The space of imagination......

For all the years I have been teaching, I am always asked why I do so, since I take no monetary remuneration for it. I don't really bother much about offering explanations too often since the question doesn't really have a single definitive answer. What has prompted this involvement is because I recognised how poorly art educational institutions function in India without exception; and barring a few stray teachers, the commitment to nurturing the individual development of students is just not happening in these colleges. 

Teaching art isn't about influencing people to reflect your ideas, nor is it about skills alone. Teaching art is really about human engagement that is anchored in honesty, and the courage to confront life unflinchingly. To create spaces of discourse that open up personal and collective histories to be re-examined in the here and the now of ones life. Those who believe that working in the isolation of their studios alone can keep an imagination fertile or alive, only fool themselves into opiated comfort zones;  merely postponing the inevitable of public interaction that defines the very nature of  disseminating art.  Art demands for a  nakedness of the mind, heart and soul; and this is pivotal to the process of both making art and delivering it to an audience, and cannot be circumvented ever. I perceive this in fact to be  the bed rock that determines a truthfulness of intention for an artist, and offers itself as a methodology to arrive at a clarity of articulation that in turn aids the formulation of  any visual language. Inter-dependecies within art are necessary and need to be explored much more.

One must hold at the very core of our art practice, the belief that the art that we produce truly can make a difference to the world we live in. For this to be a genuine belief, then it is logical to assume that art should originate  from the desire to engage with life, with out pretense or posturing.

It is perhaps a tall order.....but then that is what sets apart really meaningful art from the otherwise banal and trite efforts we see around us in abundance.  As a teacher I continue to wrestle and fight till I make my students and young artists in residence find the truth of who they are.....

.......the reward is an imagination that is alive and alert.....powerful and real....because knowing and feeling will find their exquisite compatibility to deliver un-compromised if hard won.

Whose heart for the Valley beats....

We went to Srinagar for a three day visit.....

Years of hearing stories about the valley from my parents who lived there in the 50s' and from one of my best friends who is Kashmiri and who is an artist too, had me holding images of this place steeped in the love of all their recounting....

But the shock of viewing a land devastated by the battles of indecision was  heart wrenching. Over two decades of strive shows itself starkly in the poverty of the people and in the lack of economic progress that is all too visible to observe. Abandoned houses bear silent witness to the flight of fear that drove people from their ancestral land over night, and  left divisive political agendas  to map new histories that do little to heal the trauma's of hatred and violence. 

The all pervading presence of the gun is everywhere......

The faces of the local population reflect a resigned spirit as flies sit everywhere, and the disrepair of neglect is palpable and horrifyingly intrusive.....

I felt oddly voyeuristic. It was as though my coming to  Kashmir as a tourist became a token gesture of involvement towards the normalcy of the state. What is eluding  Kashmir is the powers of governance that can orchestrate it's integration into the mainstream of India's economic  development. Merely riding starved horses (which I refused to do) or looking at the snow capped mountains and ignoring the  ground level reality, does not address the complex political issues that leave Kashmir in such an unresolved political  mess till today. 

You feel the time warp acutely when visiting this corner of the country. Even staying in a supposed 5 star hotel does not come up to the standards of expectation one normally has for such an experience to hold.The Grand Lalit Palace had such poor service I felt embarrassed for them! Their food was below average, the appliances they offered in the rooms were faulty; and to boot no mention of the old part of the hotel not being air conditioned appears on their official website!  So it was hot as hell with noisy fans that kept you awake all night as you tossed and turned!  As it is a heritage building, permission for air-conditioning  has to be sought for all the re-wiring. However can somebody inform them about tower air conditioners and generator systems that can support this facility?! My star rating for this hotel is only one star! Exorbitantly expensive, the hotel was no value for money, and a very tacky experience altogether. 

I came back with a Phirin  that is actually made in Ludhiana !... and a little wooden yellow-painted shikara that holds no exquisiteness of craft-personship !!

Magic moments are like a rabbit out of a hat!

I read two books recently, both whilst travelling to different locations. Jerry Pinto's co-authored book Leela was a simple and very well written biography that brought back the era of my parents; more vividly the lives of my mother and her elder sister. From the few encounters I have had with Mr. Pinto via hearing him on panel discussions, I would not have imagined the quiet sensitivity with which he has been a listener and chronicler of a story told without cloying sentimentality. The crispness of the language makes the book a start to finish read, that is a bit like watching the film Howard's End, of an era long gone and strangely missed by all.

There are times through the book that the name dropping is a little over powering; but forgivable considering these were the people whom she encountered. The jibe at Arundati Roy however seemed rather unworthy within a narrative that appeared to desire precisely not to become a playground of petty score settling. Was it perhaps Jerry Pinto's desire to settle scores that brought that innocuous tit-bit of the cuddly toys being more protected by Ms. Roy than human rights....? Whatever the reason it stains the quality of the story and  placed a doubt for me about the objectivity of perception both by the subject and her co-author. A great pity indeed to an otherwise delightful book.

The Pinto boy intrigues me....

I have bought EM and the big HOOM by the same author. It has a photo of the author writing in long hand with a happy grin plastered on his face. The book has a beautiful feel in ones hand: with blue edged pages and a cover illustration that is evocative, it has a rich red hard cover that gives it an old worldly elegance I love. Part of the pleasure of reading is often these strange details. The preface has already seduced my interest and so I shall take Mr. Pinto to bed with me tonight!

Something tells me I am slowly becoming a fan!!

I went to Rani Dharker's book release at Crosswords Baroda some months ago, and bought a copy of her new novel. Anurima makes for a very pleasant quick read for those who have lived in Baroda since the sixties. Almost all the characters in the narrative are very clearly recognisable. It is a clever attempt to accommodate her memories into a fictional story, but what occurs is that far too much personal descriptiveness is revealed so that the actual identities of these real people she has cast her characters from, become easily traceable to a local audience. How ethical this is becomes a subjective moral dilemma for me. Well written and otherwise tightly structured, Rani Dharker weaves the mystery within the tale and recounts the fabled legends of royal stories of stolen pearls and secret dalliances with quite a flair. The end however subscribes to the typical formula of a mills and boon romance with a tame "happily ever after" sweetness that seems misplaced. The book could have done well by leaving some things to be unstated and imagined.  But definitely worth taking as a light read on a trip.

In the pages of books that I read, I press flowers.....

Do you do that too?