Thank you for lighting my way…..

Maya Angelou has taught many people across the world lessons about life from the simple honesty with which she could lay open her own life for others to perceive. That she is no longer with us today does little to diminish the power of her wisdom and the scope of its influence,  because her literature will carry her voice even more stridently than ever before to generations that span centuries to come.

I discovered her books in London and read her writings in the years when I was young and shaping my own personal feminist mould; and through her wry humour and quiet factuality, she opened up a world of courage for many by her fearless ability to leave no space for secrets or shame to cloud the clarity of the truth that she delivers.

To laugh at yourself is what keeps the balance in ones life when the odds are against one….
and to know that tenacity is required to find what you desire from life rather than merely letting life dictate to you in random ways, is a very Maya Angelou lesson that scripts itself between all the lines that she writes.

Maya grew up in a period of extreme racism and yet knew how to hold the dignity of her equality at all times; insisting that violence and bigotry would not break her spirit ever. She attributes a great deal of her influences to her mother, who taught her to stand up and fight for what she knew to be right and not care too much about the consequences, because otherwise fear would rule you and despair an endless trap.

I remember listening to an interview that Tim Sebastian did on Hard Talk with this legendary writer and was amused at the open flirtatiousness with which Maya ended her talk with him, leaving the otherwise rumbustious Tim completely floored. For a man who normally exerted control over those he put in the hot seat to interview, Maya effortlessly subverted the power-equation to effectively  ridicule such methods of communication,  and put him in his place with great humour. Her confidence always filled a space she shared with others with experiences that were powerful and her responses provoked a deciphering that required you to examine yourself more closely to find your own indomitable spirit to succeed.

Oprah Winfrey has always regarded herself as Maya's spiritual daughter, and I have loved the few interludes I watched them interact on the Oprah Winfrey show, communicating beyond language and exuding such a strong bonding that is drawn from the lineages of shared history and feminist quest. Maya Angelou radiated a light that was about self empowerment and self esteem, and the desire to know oneself without fuss or pretensions.

Many of us are also Maya Angelou's spiritual daughters. 

Re-born from her wisdom and engulfed with the celebration for life that she insisted living must entail….her life offered us a second chance …..a new beginning from the words of her enlightenment.

Warm and compassionate, in interviews she would talk of life with her throaty laughter interspersing the poetry of her words, bringing you closer to a space within yourself,  of understanding and forgiveness. A mighty woman who like a massive tree, even if felled,  would surely  have its roots spreading  far and wide;  Maya Angelou's roots spread over a universe and more.

Know you are always loved dearest friend,  as your spirit resides in each of us you have touched.

I'll tie a yellow ribbon on the old oak tree….

Yesterday the swearing in of the new Prime Minister has brought with it a new chapter of governance to Indian polity that talks of more determined leadership. In the lead up of this election we have witnessed a battle of the two major parties attempting to win the confidence of a voting public, wooing them to agree to their ideas of leadership for this large and proud democracy that is our homeland, with many words and many promises. With a sweeping majority a single party has come into power, putting aside the hotch-potch bartering of yesterdays coalition governments that held decision-making and each other at ransom on too many occasions and for too long; frustrating well-wishers and disappointing its voters on many occasions.

Putting aside my own personal political preferences, I watched the proceedings of the transfer of governance since the election results and the swearing in ceremony yesterday,  and agreed with those commentaries that brought to  attention that India is a nation that truly understands and celebrates its democracy. The mandate of the people in elections is always respected and it is a country that honours change without compromising itself dignity by resorting to  the shame of violence at such times to display disappointment or dissent.

Without doubt each of us must hold a space of critique for accountability from every government, and so the same must be for these new office bearers too. But we must also be fair in allowing for this regime to showcase to us whether it delivers on its promises or not. To simply rant and condemn would be that we are merely sore losers over not having the party of ones choice that holds an ideological position that one identifies with at the centre.  A democratic process has delivered its verdict  and people have sought for change, so we must now look to set aside our differences and work collectively for common goals. Those who held power and squandered it from weak leadership must now hold great humility to introspect and take steps to restructure and find new leadership. This is imperative if the opposition is to be strong. I will tie a yellow ribbon on the old oak tree* and hope for the rejuvenation of ideals and values to bring home a cohesive political strength and unity to those political parties that did not deliver as promised, and where lessons from history through which to learn, are sought.

We also recognise that a country as complex as India cannot have its course of progress redirected too drastically by any government, and so it is more the methodologies of approach to the areas of existing development and progress that will be fine-tuned, and where hopefully corruption is clamped down upon and transparency of governance is offered instead.  It is also the stability of a pluralistic nation with its course of growth and aspiration already charted which must get more focused attention, and with the dynamics of  newly elected government which brings with it fresh perspectives,  ideation and energy;  it  perhaps can work its magic to revitalise a weary nation that seems rather beleaguered by scams and inflation. 

Everyone deserves a chance to hold their space of leadership if it has been fairly fought. Today Narendra Modi has to prove to people like me that he is the person I can trust with the leadership of my country despite my political affiliations lying elsewhere . He and his party have won an election and hold the popular mandate of this country,  and so in the spirit of optimism I therefore must now hope for this leadership to yield my dreams too. If that occurs then I will know that democracy has truly won.

* The symbol of a yellow ribbon is a reminder of an absent loved one, that would be welcomed home on their return.

Demolished heritage...

 Once again we show case the attitudes we have as a nation that chooses to be selective in its upholding of traditions and heritage. Yesterday, a beautiful old palace building, the Nazarbaug Palace, situated near the old city area of Baroda was torn down to be able to facilitate development plans for that space. A large contingent of activists for conservation of heritage properties have been long on the war path with the to oppose this terrible act of destruction, but as is always the case, the abilities of power to manipulate a system for corrupt gains always appears in this day and age to win such battles and fudge the rule book in their favour.

The prevailing Vadodara Municipal Corporation have turned a blind eye to the demolition knowing fully well about the amendments in the General Development Control Regulations of 2012 under chapter 28 of the Heritage Regulations which defines the process of listing and grading heritage properties as mandatory for protection against such acts of vandalism. The current owners who received this property within the dispute settlement of the Gaekwad property litigation  case are completely aware of the rules they are violating, however who cares to be concerned about ethics in the face of larger personal revenue gains today….? To many who look at conservation issues with an eye on progress and development  and the monetary gains to be cashed in on (excuse the pun!),  will sell you a Mayawati-style dream of developmental progress that thinks nothing of damaging the foundation structure of the Taj Mahal as an off shoot of such planning schemes. 

I came to the city of Baroda in 1967. I still can recall that first evening driving from Makerpura to the cantonment area in Fatehgunj and being mesmerised by the layout of this green city as it stood in pristine splendour with its neat roads and quiet order, sparkling like a unique gem. Full of trees, each area of the city with is dwellings and market places, university campus areas, and large public gardens were magnificent to perceive; all holding the concept of an architectural and city planning design that came from informed ideas of experience.  This beautifully laid out city held the potential of defining future development and urban planning that could have continued to be in keeping with its existing elegance,  and enhanced the grandeur  of this domed city, if little thought had been applied.  Instead we got a "doomed" city that crammed commercial enterprises higgledy -piggledy and without any conscience keeping ever caring to note the ensuing damaging consequences of such actions.

Crores of rupees will be spent on lavish Indian weddings and sports extravaganzas, but the private and public sectors fail to recognise how important the preservation of heritage really is.What they need to do is to address this with committed seriousness that holds accountable actions as visible inroads of  change towards the apathy we possess regarding conservation issues.  But no...Instead we have a paan-spitting-urinate-in-public attitude that views the entire city as its personal garbage dump, so where do the finer issues of pride and heritage fit in to this crass make-your-money- and move-on trend. 

A mall or ugly high rise apartment building will now come up upon the "grave site" of this old palace. Still partially standing tall the beautiful Nazarbaug Palace continues to hold its delicate charm preserving to its very end the regality of its origins even when its desecration will soon obliterate its physical presence on earth. Who will come forth to mourn this annihilation, or will we just drown this tragedy in the blaring of horns from packed roads with SUV's and Audi's showing off the wealth of muscle power? After all,  to the ignorant and corrupted its merely a pile of rubble with nothing too much of value to pilfer. History be damned, no?!

A long leave of absence, and many new beginnings...

Sometimes time demands other things from one which hold at bay activities of desire till later. I have written many blog posts in my head all these many months because writing is like painting for me; even when I am not in my studio, I conjure images in my head continuously….

Illness has dotted this new year of 2014; both for me as well as within the family. With such challenges we begin to comprehend the real meaning of energy and life.   A new cycle of experience is charted and old methods of adaptation facilitate change, making for new harmonies in otherwise discordant  situations. Hopefully the balance, though tenuous, is now in place and reordered structures of work slowly set a new normalcy. 

I was unable to vote as I was out of the country. And mores the pity as this time more than ever I so desired to execute my voting franchise. The country as it calls for change from the weak governance of a government that took its mandate and vote of confidence perhaps too lightly, now sets itself up to face a regime that will hold conservative and regressive ideas on culture; and design a new vocabulary to accommodate and sells its agendas in the fast track of supposed progress and development. 

I fear that in truth all  countries with political histories that have had outside agencies govern them find their greatest moments of political clarity at the time of their freedom movements and the   initial years of self rule. It is perhaps the only time when political service holds the greatest ideals and is relatively less imbued with corrupted practises.

India now is a cacophony of multiple roars….all deafening and sounding ominous without the slightest overtone of comfort and peace. Like a bad hazer party that makes mud pools to initiate the incoming fraternity on many a Western university campus, the Indian political campaign trail has the equivalent in the mud  slinging that is often crude and violent in nature during campaign speeches. The palpable aggression that is omnipresent which does not tolerate any differing opinion other than which is being rammed down ones throat as a monolith truth is being showcased with high TRP ratings by news channels. These programs all sound the same and feature the same people and air the same cacophony that leaves one exhausted and bewildered and without much hope.

Is my India slowly fading away? That vision of modernity that is to up hold humanism over caste and creed and work to dispel religion as a vote bank card, and hold instead democracy and progress at the fulcrum of driving our nations future? What I see is a new re-drawing of a national agenda that appears to pull region and caste into the belly of political discourse; and the attempt for a new governance to originate from a mindset  that chooses to view Indian culture from the prism of Hindu accordance,  desiring to make this the new definition of "the Indian way of life".

As the 16th of May  draws closer I fervently hope that the secular forces of politics within India can make its presence felt in a significant manner to reinstate itself with new vigour and atone for its dismal performance. If not then we certainly are in for a new chapter of Indian political history, the consequences of which I remain deeply uncertain of. 

So much occurs in the blink of an eye!

The festive season was a blast surrounding Amma with the immediate family who came down from many corners of the world to congregate at Sauparnika and all the extended loved ones who make our lives so complete! From cooing over Mehran and beating each other in scrabble, to a host of other silly stuff that always brought about laughter and lively debates, creating a scenario of comforting sentiments that makes family holidays so priceless and memorable. Tucked into the itinerary was a day trip to Adalaj, Modhera and Pathan and a nights stay at the House of M.G in Ahmedabad,  along with the delight of going to the Calico Museum and the Sabarmati Ashram; and peering at the Sidi Saiyad Jali too. In Baroda a morning drive to Pavaghad and Champaneer was a must, and of course many sessions of  shopping at Fab India and Seasons, and stuffing ourselves with food treats that left us all a couple of kilos heavier; thus makes up the photo album of memories incredibly special and to last us till our next Christmas tamasha of togetherness occurs!

 The best part was having my adorable nephew Ashwin and his absolutely gorgeous wife Athene visit with us. Life has its own ways of providing opportunities for the tapestries of family histories to grow and develop. Family tradition has my cousin Sherna come over every Christmas since three years . She is the calm one in the family, and she gifts to the occasion each year the grace and wisdom of her quiet personality that is the perfect balance to the otherwise more vocal strains of merriment from us all!

Thankfully social media and the overall cyber world of communication technology keeps the reality of geographical distances slightly more bearable. As we whatsap each other and keep the everyday happenings a shared space, we plot and plan the next time to get the family together again.
Little Mehran, who currently celebrates monthly birthdays,  will hopefully grow up with the joy of all these memories as the space of his belonging. Yesterday a parcel arrived from Houston for us…from Ashwin, Athene & their four legged baby Daisy duke…..spilling over with love and tenderness that makes a family feel encircled and complete. Cheers to 2014…. I feel so blessed by the energies of my loved one….

Five star rating for What the Fi$# !

I will begin by saying that my rating of 5 stars for What the FI$#! is based on the total delight of being completely  biased and partisan.  This is because our son Mithun Rodwittiya  plays the character of Hooda,  a Haryanvi lout, who attempts to get his lover from Manipur (a boxer and a Mary Kom looker alike!) a professional deal;  and the iddar-uddar tamasha that occurs as a sequence of many events centred around the care taking of a home, a gold fish and a potted money plant, makes up the entire jig-saw  of this film.  This multiple narratives within this comedy has lovely little insights into the India of today, where urban practices and upward mobility leans into street smartness and the altu-faltu of our kismet culture and yaaro ways, and mixes together into the khichadi of metro life. What is refreshing different is that the film never comes across as a pontificating missive or trying to sell a message of any kind. 

The film cleverly allows you to believe you have the upper hand as the voyeur to it all because it lets you know the end right at the start, and then in the end gives it a slight twist,  to spice it up. This is a clever move on the part of the scripting team because it lets each tableaux that unfolds  have its moments of glory without any preamble. It also suggests the typical indian "aisa hota hai na" attitude packaged perhaps rather endearingly wherein you begin to get soft hearted recalling   incidents of irritation from your own back yard from precisely the muddled methods of our quick-fix existences!

Directed by Gurmmeet Singh and starring the affable Dimple Kapadia, this is a definite  must see film. Yes, certainly because you have to whistle loudly the moment Mithun makes his appearance on the big screen (that's mandatory!); but also because it is a film that comes from a type of cinema I want to see more of.  Quirky and with a simple story line, it allows a story-telling of the mundane to be engaged with,  and for cinema to be entertaining without vulgar budgets being involved and gimmicky techno effects to prop it all up. 

"What the Fish" provides vignettes from the everyday that could be anybody's story; and wrapped into the slap-stick humour are some wonderful flashes of what life is all about in the higgledy-piggledy of what makes India this terribly infuriating,  but equally lovable country we live in!

Congratulations to the the cast and crew….Encore! 

And to my Mithun……..

You've come a long way Bebo!

Matters of the Heart ….on at Sakshi Mumbai till the 31st of December 2013

The privilege of birth and the gift of education impacted itself upon me from a very young age. A much desired girl-child I have carried the legacies of a female history with a conscious alertness which led me, very early in my personal journey, to a space of belonging that formulated my feminist ideology and the spirit of deliverance of my energies.

Art is a process of transmutations. Where translations and transpositions trace the outer world to the inner consciousness and vice versa, thereby making an elaborate tapestry of contextualized belonging. It is a space where the recognizable alters to become the receptacle of new meanings, and where human experience then becomes the bridge of empathy that allows the viewer to find their connectivity.

I have often described the territory of my ideas as being like a small garden patch, much loved and faithfully nurtured. This is because I hold a consistent desire to examine the feminine space of survival, the spirit of endurance and the empowerment of pride and self dignity that centuries of feminist oral histories are infused by; and which cast their shadows for me to find my resting space within.

As an artist the most liberating lesson learnt is that ones own sense of belonging is held in multiple histories that form the stories of the world. And it is the curiosity of wanting to know about the unknown that beckons us through the doorways of many new discoveries. But like all sensible travelers each of us needs to carry along in this journey the memories of our own origins. For in doing so we will then never fear getting lost.

The assimilation of a personal language involves many influences gathered and many areas of teachings resisted; and between this tightrope act of balancing what to absorb and what to reject, an informed and critical aesthetical space is finally arrived at. Within this territory of the female world that informs my concerns, I observe the rituals of confronting daily life that require for us to measure our valor and vulnerability with wisdom. Each of us in our moments of reflection will know the value of this double-edged sword.

The energies that we place ourselves central to forms a grid, patterned by incidents and histories that demand our participation willingly or otherwise. As artists we often become the chroniclers of larger narratives that hold both the particularity of our lives as well as a wider world of information.

I believe that a pictorial language revolves around the engagement with re-examining tradition and modernity within the contexts of changing requirements. I delight in drawing and so lines define the shape within my work by out-lining the contours of the images blatantly or by the evoking the line from the starkness of shape itself.  Whilst painting, the magic of conjuring as the brush trails its mark on a blank surface holds both the edge of terror and excitement simultaneously.

The female figure, often in isolation, becomes the presence that bears witness to the passage of time. Embodied through the centuries with the energies that hold the continuums of being a life giving force, I place the female figure as the central focus to be encountered.  

The unflinching gaze and the frontal posture of the female figures demand that the viewer is obliged to participate in an engagement with its presence.  Stark and arresting in demeanor these female figures or large heads with their unrelenting gaze, are like protective guardians of the universe.

The photographic image reappears after I put down my camera twenty-eight years ago. A series of personal occurrences brought back the affinity I once had with the camera and I resumed taking photographs once again. The bodies of my female protagonists now become the site of retrieval of personal histories. Retraced like mapped terrains the contours of these figures are extracted from previous paintings, archived like from an archeological survey. The montage of images lace together to then become the second skin.

What I desire above all else is in fact the deliverance of my own honesty to myself.  Where my art and my life are seamed together and hold the image of representation uncompromised and unfettered. My art exits finally severed from the umbilical cord that initially defines its articulation; to be then placed in a space of interpretation and discourse, unmonitored by my protection.  It must hold the credibility that molded it, if it is not to be felled into wasteful oblivion.  I can exert no control over any external forces that act upon my work, but what I can do is remain accountable to myself at all times. 

There are hundreds of stories that each of us carry with us. These stories are often matters of the heart which are an amalgamation of truths and desires, memories and histories which in turn are fed each day by the pulse of our lives as we live it. As an artist it is from this ever evolving framework of energies that my ideas are born.