Tribute to Bhupen Burman

(Bhupen Burman)


(A work by Bhupen Burman in Rukshaan Krishna's collection)


(Bhupen Burman- extreme left- with friends. Picture posted by Moutushi Banerjee in FB)

Bhupen Burman passed away on 6th December 2009. He was a Baroda based young sculptor in his late 30s. For the last few years he had been teaching at the sculpture department of Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda.

The news of his death came to me yesterday morning. Somu Desai who knew Bhupen closely for sometime, was shaken when he conveyed the sad message to me.

When death came in the form of a cardiac arrest, Bhupen Burman was in the sculpture studio at the FFA. He was immediately taken to a private hospital in Fatehganj, Baroda and the death was officially declared by the doctors on arrival.

Bhupen Burman was less known in the art scene than his illustrious namesake, Bhupen Khakkar. But whoever knew the young Bhupen, loved him dearly. ‘No vices, no waywardness. Responsible to the core and devoted to the family’; friends have only good words to say about him.

Bhupen is survived by a wife and a small kid.

Writing about a friend in past tense makes the very act of writing painful. Memories become clouded by unshed tears.

I distinctly remember Bhupen in three different occasions. Latest was on 17th November 2009. I went to the FFA for inviting friends to the Sticker Project that I did at Art Home, Baroda. Bhupen promised to come there and he did come.

In February 2009, I had met him on a similar occasion. In 2008 beginning, at Uttarayan, Baroda, where K.S.R was heading a sculptors’ camp, I met Bhupen. He was assisting the artists including Subodh Kerkar and Rajasekharan Nair.

I don’t know whether I am familiar enough to write about his life or works. But at the face of death, even the faintest of memories become so clear.

Bhupen had never been a close friend. But I remember him as a young bachelor student at the sculpture department at the FFA. I was in MFA final.

The canteen at the FFA is near to the art history department. Hence, all the painting and sculpture students walked in clean diagonals to reach the canteen, where they used to feed themselves, monkeys, dogs and many hungry eyes.

Bhupen also used to spend a lot of time near around the canteen. He drew the diagonals quite often to link up the sculpture department and the canteen.

Most of the post graduates were existential terrorists at that time. Hence we chose not to mingle too much with the juniors. Except for a few doubtful glances my contact with Bhupen was near to nothing.

Years later, we became a little closer than what we used to be.

Today, Bhupen Burman has become a few works, images and scanty information in google search.

But Bhupen has obviously left a lot of impressions on his friends. Moutushi Banerjee posted a picture in Face Book- they all together sharing a frugal dinner.

Everybody dies. May be nobody dies because they leave a lot of impressive moments back in this world- as we see it in this photograph.

Bhupen, death is not the great leveler. It is the great reminder.

I remember you the way I remember all those who had left me at the least expected moments.

Nina Paley’s Sita Sings the Blues: Copying is not Theft

Blasphemy is not all that bad. It makes one to think about the edicts of righteousness. Blasphemy, in that sense, is an unexpected route that helps one to move from the skin of an idea to the core of it. It shakes the patterns, sometimes for bad and most often for good. It forces us to re-program our lives.

And above all, blasphemy is a tool of creativity. It is ironic that creativity could be destructive in a positive sense. Theorists call it ‘deconstruction’. Populists call it ‘rethinking’. Majority calls it a ‘crime’.

Hence, many blasphemers are forced out of the mainstream system only to be embraced surreptitiously and then openly back to the system.

Again the irony is, those who staunchly stand by the edicts are dubbed as ‘fundamentalists’.

Result, blasphemy is a socio-cultural need to further the quality of life.

‘Sita Sings the Blues’, an animation movie by the American animation artist, Nina Paley is blasphemous for those who believe strongly in the righteousness of Indian culture and mythology. The ‘Indian’ here needs to be qualified; it should be understood as ‘ideological Hindu’.

This animation movie is based on Sita; yes our own female protagonist of the epic, Ramayana.

Why Sita is adulated as the embodiment of ‘pati-bhakti’ (unshakable love and devotion for husaband), ‘pativratya’ (chastity) and a subject to all what is considered as ‘good’ by a society, which is ideologically construed and constructed by the dominant male perspective?

Made in 2008, Nina Paley’s ‘Sita Sings the Blues’ is not an answer to this question? But the film is all about questions about the traditionally framed femininity. Nina Paley’s does not seem to be speaking from a feminist platform. On the contrary, all what has been theorized so far by the feminists provides her with an opportunity to humorously look at the life of Sita from multiple aesthetic perspectives.

Sita, born to King Janak is married to Rama, the Prince of Ayodhya. Rama’s father banishes him to the forests for fourteen years. Sita leaves her royal position and comforts behind and follows her husband to the forests. She is abducted to Lanka by the demon king, Ravana. Finally Rama comes with his army of monkeys and rescues her from there. As she has lived in another man’s place, Rama asks her to prove her chastity by undergoing the trial by fire. She does it happily. Back in Ayodhya, Sita is pregnant now. Rama doubts her again. This time she is banished to the forests as the subjects of the kingdom want Ram to be a king who is not swayed by emotions. In the forest Sita delivers a twin- Lav and Kush. Sage Valmiki teaches them the glory of their father. Knowing the birth of his kids, Rama comes to take his children. Once again he asks Sita to prove her chastity. But this time she defies him and ask the mother earth to gobble her up, so does the earth.

This is Valmiki’s storyline. There are ample amount of chances for feminist critique inbuilt in the story itself. It is not just the post-Beauvoir feminists did the deconstruction of Ramayana. In India itself, there had been several classical and modern version of Ramayana that is told from Sita’s perspective. There is even a version that says Sita is the daughter of Ravana.

Nina Paley has not done much in terms of re-reading Ramayana from Sita’s perspective. But what makes her film interesting is that she sticks to the original Valmiki version and makes a few characters outside the narrative to ask questions. These characters are the animated traditional puppet theatre characters, who interestingly speak in a contemporary ‘kick-ass-language’ of irreverent intellectuals and skeptical college freshers.

There are five different dimensions in Nina’s narrative. First, she sticks to a traditional miniature style Ramayana rendition, as seen in palm leaf manuscripts. Second, there is an incorporation of calendar images of Rama, Sita and other characters from Hindu pantheon. Third, the puppet theatre. Fourth, a contemporary remake of Sita as a Blues singer who is waiting for her ‘loving and hurting Daddy’ to come back. Fifth, Nina Paley and her boyfriend in animated forms, facing their marriage troubles.

One cannot take eyes away from the screen and one cannot shut up the ears for a while for the animation is so captivating and the music is truly blues. The music used in this movie is from Annette Hanshaw, one of the noted Blues singers of 1920s. When the movie was released, Nina went into trouble as she had to pay a hefty amount for gaining the copyrights of the music.

Nina weaves in her personal life; her life in NY city, Trivandrum (Kerala, India) and Brooklyn, her marriage and break-up happened during these sojourns. Ramayana came to her when she was going through her marriage blues and she understood Sita in an intimate way.

The movie, though not commercially released in India, has won several awards. Some of the Hindu fundamentalists who have seen this found it objectionable and blasphemous. Nina is reported to have said that even some of the Left wing academics had criticized for her political incorrectness.

Copyright issues made her aware of the problems that she could face in distributing this movie. As a part of the copyleft movement, Nina allowed her ‘Sita Sings the Blues’ to be distributed through internet. Currently it is available in several different downloadable formats.

A.R.Rahman- A Musical Storm

A sharp note on the flute. Rhythmic thumping on a dekka (the left piece of tabla). A few twinkling notes on the keyboard. A set of violins play from medium notes to crescendo. Again the twinkling notes on keyboard. A fresh female voice then sings in, ‘Chinna Chinna Asai’ (Dil hi Chotta sa in Hindi).

That was in 1992 and the film was ‘Roja’ by the ace director, Mani Ratnam. The music was different and effect that it created was captivating.

I was in my final MA with a decision to become so many things together; an IAS Officer, a film actor, if not a serial actor, a stunt man, a poet, an art critic. The decision was that if none of these worked out, I should be leaving for some Gulf countries (as many of the Kerala youngsters of that time used to do). I joined the Brilliant Tutorials in Madras (now Chennai) to prepare for IAS exams. I practiced Karate. Sent poems to magazines. Wrote articles in local journals. Got some training in music and in playing tabla.

Then came this music, music with a difference. The record covers and the magazines said that this music was given by one young wonder named ‘A.R.Rahman’.

The music caught us unaware. S.P.Balasubramanyam, whose velvety voice reigned the film industry with that of K.J.Yesudas, found his new avtar in A.R.Rahaman’s music (kadhal rojave- Roja jaane mann). Unni Menon, who was rejected by the Malayalam film industry at that time found his re-birth in Rahman’s music with Roja’s ‘Pudu vellai mazhai’ (yeh hasi vaadiyaan in Hindi). Then came a stream of new singers with A.R.Rahman- Minmini, Suresh Peters, Shankar Mahadevan. Hariharan left his harmonium and sober looks to become a rock star. Our own rock star Remo Fernandes pitched into top league with Rahman’s ‘Humma Humma’ (Bombay).

I don’t blame myself for thinking about becoming a musician after listening to A.R.Rahman. But those were private fantasies waiting to be dropped at any moment. So it happened soon. But A.R.Rahman lingered on with his music first, then with his high pitch voice. In 1997, when India celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of Independence, Rahman and his advertisement days’ friend, Bharat Bala created history by making the album, ‘Vande Mataram’. Rahman moved from a shy youngster (confused, I should say after reading about him) to an Oscar Award winner (Slumdog Millionaire).

When the Oscar Awards were declared, when the nation erupted in celebration, many were unconvinced. The doubt came from the fact that the music in Slumdog Millionaire was not his best ever. We had heard several original and new songs from Rahman. But Oscar Award committee has different reasons to honor him.

I would have waited a few more years to know more about Rahman had I not chanced upon this biography on him titled ‘A.R.Rahman- The Musical Storm’ by a young journalist and writer Kamini Mathai. Like his music, this biography is also a tour de force. Once I started reading it, I could not keep it down till I finished it.

Reason for this passionate reading is different. Each page in this book made me realize how much the Rahman music is in our lives. And knowing about its making is a thrilling experience. Almost the same feeling that you get when you watch the shooting time comedies by the end of a Jackie Chan movie.

Like many Keralites, I too used to proudly believe that A.R.Rahman was a Malayali (a mundu man- that’s how a Face Book enthusiast once qualified all the Malayali celebrities). This book helped me to come out of that illusionary pride.

A.R.Rahman was born in 1967 in Mylapore, Tamil Nadu, to Shekhar-Kasturi couple. K.R.Shekhar was one of the highly sought after music composers and arrangers in the Tamil and Malayalam film industry. But Shekhar could not establish himself as a music director in Tamil industry. He got that break in Malayalam in 1960s. So many of us thought Shekhar was a Malayali.

Shekhar ghost composed for many directors. As a hardworking man he was running from studios to studio working on 24 x7 schedules. That took the toll of his life. He developed some mysterious disease and when Rahman was nine years old, Shekhar passed away, leaving four children and a jobless wife behind.

Shekhar-Kasturi couple belonged to a Brahmin family and many of the family members worked as electricians. Shekhar too had an affinity for equipments and new gadgets. Rahman, who was born as Dileep, too inherited his family legacy as he could ‘repair’ any musical instruments just by looking and understanding the mechanism of it.

Shekhar too had recognized the talent of his son. But Dileep’s ability was not just in repairing musical instruments. He could reproduce any musical note that was played to him once. His passion was for harmonium and keyboards. By the age of nine, he could play professionally.

Father’s death put the family into utter chaos. With three daughters and one son, Kasturi was finding it difficult to meet the ends. She started renting out Shekhar’s musical instruments that brought some income. But nothing was happening. During her husband’s illness, Kasturi had run to every divine healer available in Chennai. Finally she found solace in a Sufi pir. She and her family was slowly becoming Muslims. They embraced Islam mentally.

At the age of 11, out of necessity, Dileep started playing for recording sessions. He was/is the fastest fingers on keyboards. He could compose, program and arrange music. This shy boy became the talk of the town. Soon Dileep dropped out from school. He started earning for his family by playing sessions, doing jingles for advertisements.

Dileep developed a habit of working at night as he used to spend his day time in session playing. He did his original compositions at night from the home studio by that time he had built. With friends, he thought of starting bands and some of them played for a year and later on disbanded.

When Roja was released in 1992, the family had already become Muslims. In fact, they are not Muslims, but Sufis. When the music of Roja was about to be released, Dileep asked for the change of his name. Rahman came easily. But the A.R was difficult. His mother said to have got these letters in a vision. Now A.R stands for ‘Allah Rakka’ (Allah Rakha).

Now there is no Dileep or that reminds him of Dileep days. He is A.R.Rahman. He wants himself to be a complete Sufi. He does not sing or compose vulgar songs. If at all there are vulgar suggestions in the lyrics he asks the lyricist to remove it. Rahman was not sure of his voice. Hence, when he sang for the first time (humma humma in Bombay Tamil original), he switched off the lights in the studio to not to face anyone.

Rahman composes differently. He samples out sounds from various instruments and mixes them in his computer. He gives total freedom to singers and musicians to improvise to the maximum and none knows which one of their versions that Rahman would finally choose/use.

May be his father was not acknowledged as a musician in his lifetime, but Rahman makes it a point that each and every musician is acknowledged in the CD jackets. The musicians started getting a face with Rahman. He pays each and every musician regularly even if their piece is used in his composition for a couple of seconds.

Rahman is famous for his late arrival. But the movers and shakers in the film industry are ready to wait for him, not for hours or days, but for months in one go.

This biography reveals the world of Rahman for us. What Rahman is like as a person? How does he treat his celebrity status? How does he live his social life? How does he take criticism and controversies? How does he take success and failure?

For Rahman, God comes first. Then, mother. Without mother, he is nothing, Rahman says. That’s why he sang in Vande Mataram, ‘Amma tujche salaam.’

Written in clear prose pepped up with lively narratives and subtle humor, this biography by Kamini Mathai is not meant for portraying Rahman in golden terms. She becomes critical and probing, when it comes to the whimsies and fancies of Rahman. Kamini has interviewed so many people associated with Rahman during his Dileep days to A.R.Rahman days to the world music celebrity ARR.

When you read a good book, you touch the heart of the subject and the author. Here when read this book I touch the hearts of A.R.Rahman and Kamini Mathai.

Bhuj and at the Edge of Rann of Kutch- Setting for a Camp

(Shaam-e-sarhaad- general view)


(Crafts display at Shaam-e-Sarhaad)


(buffet desk)


(Restaurant)


(Reception Desk)


(Folk Singers at Shaam-E-Sarhaad)


(johnyML at the folk singing session)


(Somu Desai with folk singers)


(Asit and Rajesh Shah and Dhruv Patel at Shaam-e-Sarhaad)


(JohnyML at Shaam-e-Sarhaad)


(Somu Desai at Shaam-e-Sarhad)


(on the way to Kutch)


(at Hunnar Shala)


(A work station at Khamir)


(Khamir Crafts Park at Bhuj)

Life seems to be destiny driven. Eight years back I had all the opportunity to visit Bhuj. I remember the date exactly for it was a very memorable day. It was 26th January 2001 and at the Rajpath in New Delhi, India was showing its cultural and military might on the Republic Day.

All India Radio (AIR) news reader, Sushma called me on phone on that day. While talking to her, I found the ceiling fan in my drawing room shaking a bit violently. A sudden feeling of dizziness passed through my brain. Before that feeling of unsettlement was over, I heard the frantic voice of Sushma, “Johny, everything is shaking here.”

In a few minutes everything changed in India dramatically and drastically. The districts of Kutch and Bhuj were completely destroyed by a killer earthquake. What Sushma and I were feeling was the tremors of that destructive earthquake.

I was working with Tehelka.com then as a senior correspondent. Soon I received a call from the office to join that team of reporters that was going to Bhuj. For some reason, I refused to go. I was getting bored of journalism. I was planning to quit.

Today, when I pass through the broad and neat roads of Bhuj and Kutch, I feel the pinch guilt inside me. I should have come here then as a reporter. Today, I am here as an art curator. I am surveying this place for doing an art camp. But I was destined to come here- that’s important for me.

On 18th November 2009 at 5.30 AM, I, Somu Desai, Asit Shah and his associates Rajesh Shah and Dhruv Patel left Baroda for Bhuj. Our destination is Kutch, just at the border where the Rann of Kutch begins. It is a ten hours drive by road. Dhruv and Rajesh are efficient drivers and the Innova picks up speed as we leave the roads of Baroda.

Morbi is a place on the way to Bhuj, one of the industrial centers of Gujarat, where the famous clock brands, Ajanta and Scientific are produced. A mineral rich area, Morbi also has several ceramic and tile factories. You look around and see different brand names of ceramic tiles and ceramic wares. Penguin to Monalisa, Apple to Armani, the international brand names are copied and flaunted with enough spelling mistakes to bring to a smile to your lips. Rejected western commodes become boundary walls here.

Marchel Duchamp would have a field day here.

The roads are very wide and clean. One can step on gas to raise the speed upto 140 kilometers per hour. The earthquake has brought so much of charity and financial investment in this region. One of the major investments is in windmills. Windmill fields are a new area of investment in the power sector.

As an open area with a lot of wind force, these mills produce electricity that makes Gujarat a power donor state. You invest in windmills and you can access electricity from any part of India for a nominal price per unit. Many industrial corporate houses and celebrity individuals have invested in windmills.
Bhuj has a different landscape. The earth is flat and as the salt content is high, the greenery is minimal. The irregular patches of shrubs accentuate the feel of a desert land. There are no high rising buildings. And the villages are in small little clusters where people live in bhungas (small huts). In each plot there are a few bhungas as per the number of members in a family. The individual bhungas assure privacy for the members who seek it.

Khamir Craft Park is one of the important centers in Bhuj. Run by Khamir, an NGO, this place houses crafts from this region. The artisans are given work spaces and the crafts and clothes produced here are distributed to other centers from here. Also Khamir functions as a nodal agency to collect and distribute the craft works produced in this region. The architecture is indigenously developed by Hunnar Shala, an organization works towards sustainable architecture.

Hunnar Shala is located in Bhuj town. Kirtee Bhai Khatri and Kiran Vaghela, architects and researchers in sustainable architecture development, lead this organization. Translated as ‘Talent House’, Hunnar Shala has many young architecture scholars and practitioners in their team. They work from indigenously developed structures, with space framing technology for roofs, paddy for thatch and reinforced mud for walls. Hunnar Shala falls back to the traditional bhunga architecture as a central theme to develop the new methods. They work nationally and internationally in the areas of sustainable architecture development.

Our destination is Shaam-e-Sarhad village resort. Designed by the Hunnar Shala team, this resort is completely built and operated by the village folk in Hodka village at the edge of Rann of Kutch that borders India and Pakistan. There are three bhungas and seven tents with state of the art facilities, but all with a folk touch. Vegetarian Kathiawadi food, folk music and crafts give special effects to Shaam-e-Sarhad.

Shaam-e-Sarhad is supported by Government of India’s Ministry of Tourism and United Nations Development Project (UNDP). Promoted as an endogenous tourism project, this resort came up with technical support of Hunnar Shala after the earthquake in 2001. Now the village boys trained by Hunnar Shala work as reception managers, chefs, room boys and service boys.

When the idea of establishing such a resort came up first, many village elders opposed it fearing the corruption of their village culture. But the youngsters, who were looking for jobs and better lives were all for it. Today the whole of Hodka village support the project and they treat the visitors as their family members.

Four months, beginning from November to Feburary are active months for this resort. Rest of the year, thanks to the acute heat and winds, the resort remains closed. The annual income from the activities is estimated as Rs.24 lakhs. The amount is equally divided for maintenance, salaries and for generating corpus fund. Today this village is self sufficient and education is imparted to the young generation.

A deep silence engulfs you once you are there. Take your cots out and lie on your back and watch the sky up there- billions of starts wink at you from up. The cool breeze embraces you and you don’t feel like talking. You just be there, one with the nature. From a distance you can hear sounds- of a dog barking or a bell ringing- that must be coming several kilometers away.

Here, in this resort we are going to have an art camp. We will be going there with 20 young artists from all over India. And we are going to ask them to produce the works of their choice, inspired or mediated by the atmosphere. One cannot escape this silence and stillness, this vastness and this beauty of barrenness. It is minimal. It is inescapable. It is going to be non-alcoholic.

It is meditation. To be here and look at the setting sun behind nothing but vast expanse of earth is something ethereal.

To be one with nature is a clichéd expression. But you cannot be dual in your mind here.

Still in Baroda, Thrill in Baroda- A Report

‘Thrilling, Chilling, Killing’, Rekha Rodiwittiya selected the words carefully from the collection of stickers that she brought in her work bag. The small little glittering tigers came off from their temporary abode of sticking papers and started roaring from the walls. Rekha took them one by one and made them to behave. She worked around first slowly, then fast along a tongue in cheek sticker work pasted on the wall by the young artist Bhrigu Sharma. Slowly, Bhrigu’s ‘Spot the Difference’ work became an island and around it Rekha made the ocean of god heads from different religions, Christianity, Sikhism, Hinduism and Islam.

Rekha was working at the ‘Still in Baroda, Thrill in Baroda’ project conceptualized by me at the Art Home Studios, directed by Asit Shah in Baroda. The sticker work created by Rekha was an emphasis on the unity in diversity philosophy adopted by the city of Baroda; a city that became an abode of artists and cultural communities. There was a tangential comment on the pogroms that Gujarat had witness during the yester years. But the call was for harmony and unity, through the language of art. One could read out the tigers as tigers in political maneuverings and as the ferocious creatures that accompany her protagonists. The comment was subtle but effective.

The sticker project that attempted to look at Baroda as a city of artistic attractions, a place that defines the features of Indian contemporary art, an abode of many artists and cultural activists, above all the seat of one of the prime art institutions in India. Since morning artists started coming in and they began using the industrially produced stickers collected by the Art Home team and choosing to create their comments on the city of Baroda. I am not an artist. But I selected the images of the rabbit and tortoise from the host of stickers and stuck them on the wall. I wrote on it, ‘A Parable of Art and Art Criticism- Who will win the race?’

It was a playful act. But soon the artists were at work. A day before, Alok Bal had done a work that emphasized his involvement in the game of football. He has a football club called XYZ Club in Baroda. The first sticker became a connection between the art of art and art of football. Somu Desai did a Banyan Tree graphically out of stickers. Minal Damani selected the frames of the used stickers. Preksha T, Lochan U, Shilpa, Pramesh Surti, Bhrigu Sharma, Heena Mistry, Nabneeta, Namrata Shah, Chintan, B.V.Shweta, Amarnath, Sanket, Chetan, Probal Ghosh, Amarnath Sharma, Sheetal, Danashree, Malvika Rajnarayan, Sajeev Visweswaran, Rajesh, Apurba Nandi, Sushma Shekhon, Shiv Varma, Jitendra Bowni, Piyush Patra, Sona Tina, the XYZ Football team members and many more did their works. Soon the Art Home Studio filled with sticker work and more works.

By 6 pm, it was the time to do the formal release of ‘Untitled’, a documentary on veteran artist Jeram Patel directed by me. Rekha Rodwittiya spoke a little about the sticker project and her association with the city of Baroda. Jyoti Bhatt officially released the documentary by giving a copy to Jeram Patel. The function was attended by the luminaries like Prof.Gulam Mohammed Sheikh, Nilima Sheikh, Jyotsna Bhatt, Nagji Patel, Surendran Nair, Vasudevan Akkitham, B.V.Suresh, Nandu Bhai, Jayaram Poduval, Prof.Ajayakumar, Manisha Doshi, Gargi Raina, Naina Dalal and many others. The young artists came in groups from all over Baroda. Later the documentary was screened for a host of four hundred strong crowd.

Liminal Figures: Portrait of KSR as an Artist and Man

Some men are born to become artists. Some are born to become good human beings. Rare are those become good artists and good human beings.

I have been lucky to find such rare ones in my forty years of life.

Some men are born with a fatherly aura around them. I should have said ‘big brotherly aura’. But after Orwell ‘big brother’ has a different connotation.

A father figure, who never judges you, could play a great role in your life, especially if you are person who has lost the father at a very vulnerable age.

When I met K.S.Radhakrishnan, he might be 37 years old. And now I know how a man feels like at the age of 37.

If I am talking about all those emotional churnings and confusions, I never felt a bit of those vibes from him. Calm, well poised, full of humor and captivating energy, Radhakrishnan was young and old at the same time.

Famous photographer, Prabudha Dasgupta has been Radha’s favorite photographer anytime. Dasgupta had taken several portraits of Radha for his catalogues. In all those you see a Radhakrishnan who looks like a doyen, many years elder to his actual age.

In one of the catalogues published by Art Alive Gallery, New Delhi, we see a photograph of Radhakrishnan, seen through the limbs of his sculptures, clad in a heavy shawl.

Like his sculptural protagonist, Musui, Radhakrishnan hosts a ‘character’ in his physical appearance. The character is that of an emblematic sculptor; a sculptor who is not physically frail, but somewhat aged with existential angst and blessed with visions of hell and heaven.

Heavy tomes in his studio show the pictures of Rodin and Giocometti at work. They are emblematic sculptors of all times. Radha’s personality is that. He likes to be like that. He works in bronze.

In the abundance of materials, Radha is not a fool. He knows his life’s mission.

That’s why when I was going through the worst moments in my life, thinking about leaving everything behind to start a different life elsewhere, Radha said, “Realize your life’s mission. Dig the same place till you find water.”

There is a sufi in Radha’s works. There is a wise fool in his figurative sculptures. There is a saint and a devil. And they are Radha’s incarnations. Only the wise fool in Radha could speak about digging the same place.

It could be as absurd as the works of Sisyphus or Naranathu Bhranthan. But there is a deeper meaning to that toiling. Dig, dig, dig.

Today, I drink from the same well that I dug. Each time I quench my thirst I remember Radha’s words.

First time Radha came to meet me in his white Ambassdor car. That was almost sixteen years back. Now that car lies rusted near his studio in Chattarpur, South Delhi. Radha owns several expensive cars now.

Before Radha bought an apartment in Delhi, he built a studio first in Kirkhee village and then in Chattarpur. As a young post-graduate from Santiniketan, he knew the necessity of a studio. He came to Delhi from Santiniketan and got the Lalit Kala Akademy scholarship. He taught in a school for a while and left it altogether to work in a garage offered to him by a foreign patron who held a diplomatic office in Delhi.

When Radha earned money from his works, he invested all that into the making of a studio.

This studio had been a place for all of us. Most of the successful contemporary artists of these days had spent sometime in Radha’s studio. Old Monk rum, barbequed chicken and vegetables, music from a stereo, rented out mattresses- the studio used to host a lot of parties during the winter days.

Today, with most of the artists having their own studios and homes in Delhi, they don’t get time to travel to Chattarpur. But the doors of this studio still remain open to all whoever wants to work in clay and bronze. Radha’s efficient team helps whoever wants technical help- of course for NO FEE.

Radha bought his ‘first computer’ for me. We together experimented with internet. Today Radha is a gadget freak. You name any latest computer technology, he has it and he knows how to operate it.

Born in a joint family in Kerala, Radha spent his formative years in Kottayam district. As a young boy, without no moustache and beard, Radha stepped out of the train at Santiniketan station. From the same compartment came out was another boy from Kollam district in Kerala.

They spoke to each other for the first time. The other boy was R.Sivakumar. Now he is one of the most revered art historians in India. Currently he heads the Kalabhavan in Santiniketan.

Radha’s friendship with Sivakumar is legendary. They share their works regularly. Whenever Radha has a show, Sivakumar finds time to write the essay. In 2004, Radha’s first monograph written by R.Sivakumar was published. I was in the editorial team throughout and I contributed towards the detailing of works, which constitute second half of the book.

Today, Rahda is having his solo at LKA Galleries in Delhi. This show titled ‘Liminal Figures Liminal Space’ had already been showed in Birla Akademy, Kolkata, 2008. With a few changes, Radha presents these works again for the Delhi audience. This show would travel to Baroda, Mumbai and Kerala in the coming months.

Becoming the Salt of Our Land: At Dandi

(Morning at Navsari)


(Somu Desai at the steps of Saifee Villa, Dandi)


(JohnyML, Anubhav Nath and Somu Desai with Panchkaka nee Vadi members)


(JohnyML at Dandi Seashore)


(Anubhav Nath at Dandi Seashore)


(Gandhi Memorial Sculpture in front of Saifee Villa at Dandi)


(Salt Satygraha Memorial at Dandi)


(Acharya Dhirubhai Patel of Vinay Mandir, Dandi)


(Gandhiji's headquarters at Karadi. It was from here Gandhiji was arrested)


(Akshay Bhai Naik, JohnyML and Anubhav Nath with local kids at Salt Satyagrah Memorial at Dharasana)


(Anubhav Nath collecting salt at Dharasana)


(JohnyML and Anubhav Nath at a Salt Heap in Dharasana)


(Anubhav Nath driving a Tractor at Dharasan Salt Plant)


(Sunset at Dharasana)

5th November 2009. Navsari. Today is a big day for us. Dandi is a few kilometers away. For Gandhiji, and now for us too, this is a transit space. Before reaching the remote Dandi, Gandhiji had visited two more villages next to this diamond trade centre, namely Vijalpur and Matwad.

There is something called destiny, whether you like it or not. From the hotel room window, I and Somu Desai look down at the street. On our front, behind a few blocks of buildings, we get a birds-eye-view vision of a huge building, which is a Parsee School.

Navsari is one of the first few places the Parsees in early 16th century made their homes. I remember my encounter with a ghost in the Parsee dominated Oliver Street in Mumbai, the FALCAT camp that I conceptualized in Parsee settlement in Udwada. It seems that destiny is taking me and my friends to the places which fall naturally into our research interests.

As I said in one of the earlier postings, Navsari is a traditional trade centre of diamonds. The adjoining Surat is a textile centre. A few kilometers from Navsari, there is another village called Bardoli, which according to Akshay Bhai Naik is a ghost town. Most of the people from this village have migrated to western countries. They all have contributed to their home lands by building concrete mansions all over. They are all vacant now. Once in a year they come back, spend a few weeks here and go back to the lands of their choice.

In India there are several places like Bardoli now. Udwada is one prime example. So is the interim village between the north and south of Partapur in Rajasthan, where the Bohra Muslim community ‘lives’. All the streets in this village too are lined by thickly built building, but all permanently abandoned by its owners who have migrated to foreign countries. In Kerala, on either sides of the highway that takes you from Kochi to Kottayam, you see several huge mansions, which are totally vacant and waiting for their owners to come back. There is a difference between the NRIs in some parts of Kerala and the NRIs from other parts of India. While the NRIs from other parts prefer to keep their houses empty, in Kerala, if these buildings are located near tourist spots, they rent it out as temporary/seasonal guest houses and make money out of it. Goa, Jaipur and the townships around the metros in India too are developing this tendency of building mansions and leaving them for annual visits in the name of investments.

Later we would realize that Dandi too has become a NRI backyard for dumping their money as concrete and enamel monstrosities.

**

Akshay Bhai Naik has already arranged our visit to some important ‘Gandhi spots’ in Dandi and its neighborhood. We are told that we would be accompanied by a Gandhian activist in our onward journey.

Panchkaka nee Vadi is one place where Gandhiji rested and gave a speech just before reaching Dandi on 5th April 1930. This small piece of land with two old buildings now houses a few Gandhian residents and a khadi co-operative society.

Late Dilkush Bhai is the founder of Panchkaka nee Vadi. Educated in West, Dilkush Bhai became interested in Gandhian principles and started working towards the propagation of Khadi and Gandhian philosophy. He spent his life in this campus and met politicians and other visiting people and spoke to them relentlessly on Gandhian principles. Now one part of the humble building from where the co-operative society functions is converted into a Dilkush Bhai Museum. Through fading photographs and panels written in Gujarati, this museum tells the story of Dilkush Bhai Diwanji and his involvement with Gandhism and freedom struggle. From the pictures we understand all the notable personalities who gained us our independence had visited this humble dwelling.

We meet Gosai Bhai Patel, Vallabhai Manilal Shah and Komuben Ambelal at Panchkak nee Vadi. When we reach there, they have already taken their position under a huge mango tree.

Gosai Bhai Patel is an ex-MLA from the region. A staunch Gandhian throughout his life, Gosai Bhai, watched Gandhiji from a distance in 1930. He was just 11 years old then. But the memories are still vivid. While growing up, though attracted in Gandhian non-violence principle, Gosai Bhai involved in a few violent attacks against British rule. He recounts how he and his friends successfully attacked a police station and released the captives. Once, he and his friends tried to blow up a railway bridge. But thanks to ‘lack of technological know-how’ the explosion made a sound but no bridge was fallen. Later Gosai Bhai became a strong follower of Gandhism. He writes booklets on Gandhism and is still active in social work, despite his failing health.

Vallabhai Shah is a freedom fighter. But he does not carry an official record on that. He is a die-hard Gandhian. At the age of 85, a bit hard at hearing, Vallabh Bhai gets up at four in the morning and after prayer he spends one hour at charkha making yarn. This has been on for ages. According to him India’s problems stem from the abandoning of Gandhian principles. While demonstrating yarn making for us, he severely criticizes the current Narendra Modi government in Gujarat. ‘Call Gandhi Back’, that is the motto of Vallabh Bhai. He too writes booklets on Gandhian ways of life in Gujarati language and lives in Panchkaka nee Vadi.

Another occupant at Panchkaka nee Vadi is Komuben Ambelal. Born in Baruch, Komuben became an active follower of Gandhiji when she was in her college. She courted arrest several times and led the women in her region to non-violent resistance programs. She too works on charkha every day and spends time in doing social work.

**

Karuna Ben is our guide for the day. Born to a Khadi activist, she was called to Panchkaka nee Vadi after her education and ever since she works for the co-operative Khadi society near Navsari and lives in Panchkaka nee Vadi. She must be in her early forties but she has the aura of an elder sister and she keeps talking about things.

We head for Dandi Beach, where Gandhiji did his famous law breaking on 5th April 1930.

Anubhav Nath breaks into Vaishnav Janato. Karuna Ben looks at him with curiosity and love. Raju Bhai, our driver smiles through the rear view mirror. He has become accustomed to our antics. Somu Desai trains his camera at the sights of his liking.

There are two pictures/narratives in history that are juxtaposed to create a single narrative about the law breaking act of Gandhiji in Dandi. On 5th April 1930, he reached Dandi beach with his 78 followers. Thousands of people had already come from different places. On the same day, Gandhiji did not make salt from the sea water. He took a dip in the sea and spoke to the people. Then he walked a few meters towards east where Saifee Villa was located. Saifee Villa belonged to the leader of Dawood Bohra community, Syedna Taher Saifuddin Shaheb. Gandhiji stayed there for the night and his followers stayed in the tents and makeshift huts along the beach.

It was in front of Saifee Villa Gandhiji made salt on 6th April 1930. The famous photograph of Gandhiji bending over and picking up salt is actually clicked just outside the courtyard of this villa. However, Gandhiji’s dip at Dandi beach and his picking up salt near by on the next day are fused into one narrative in most of the historical writing.

Why Gandhiiji did not make salt at the beach? Reason is simple; practically it is impossible as the beaches have moving waters.

Salt pellets are deposited only when the saturated saline water from the sea is stored in some places and left there for evaporation for a considerable amount of time.

Dandi village had several creeks at that time. During high tide the saline water from the Arabian Sea rushed into these creeks and remained there for months. Once the evaporation is over these creeks were filled with salt crystals. In front of Saifee Villa there was a salt creek. Gandhiji picked up salt from there.

The same spot from where Gandhiji picked up salt as a symbolic gesture of breaking law now has an engraved marble memorial and on the right side of it, there is a life size sculpture of Gandhiji picking up salt. The sculpture does not look aesthetically done at all.

After Mahatma Gandhi’s death in 1948, Saifuddin Shaheb requested the first prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru to receive his villa as a donation to the nation. He wanted the villa to be converted into a Dandi memorial museum. Today this building houses a museum full of photographs and footnotes from the life of Mahatma Gandhi.

We take a dip in the sea. We enact the juxtaposed pictures from history by bending over the waves and picking up wet sand.

Inside Saifee Villa, along with the wind laden with the fragrance of sea we inhale history. Anubhav is silent for a while. His pyjama is all wet and he keeps trying to roll it up to make his movement smoother, but in vain.

**

Vinay Mandir is a famous educational institution with girls as day scholars and boys as resident scholars. Run by Dandi Namak Satyagrah Smarak Trust, with Rajmohan Gandhi as the Chairman and Acharya Dhirubhai Patel as Secretary, this school imparts education to all the village kids from Dandi and surrounding villages.

We have our lunch from the school mess. The food is simple and tasty. Karuna Ben has already brought her lunch box, which she shares with all of us. In such occasions we are comfortable in self helpings. But Karuna Ben does not allow us to move. She serves us, pours water in glasses and keeps chatting.

After lunch, Acharya Dhirubhai Patel meets at the prayer hall. At the age of 79, Dhirubhai Patel exudes the energy of a fifty year old man. Born in 1930, exactly the year his village witnessed the pivotal incident in the Independence Struggle of India, Dhirubhai got his formal education from Gujarat Vidyapeeth, Ahmedabad. After education, he came back to Dandi, and worked towards establishing Vinay Mandir. His efforts were not in vain, as one can see how this school has become a thing of pride for every villager.

“The whole of Gujarat coast line has got high saline saturation. Why did Gandhi select Dandi as his destination? Before going into that why did he choose salt as a medium to break the British law?” Dhirubhai Patel asks us with a benevolent smile on his face.

Perhaps, we have some answers after so much of reading on Salt Satygraha. But the answers Dhirubhai Patel gives us reveal interesting nuances.

First of all the choice of Dandi- Thanks to the presence of too many creeks and the regular saline deposit on earth, it was impossible for anything to grow in Dandi. Considered to be one of the most backward areas in India, Dandi had only two pucca building around, of which one is the Saifee Villa, where Gandhiji stayed.

A totally barren land in Dandi had forced the people to migrate to other places. Only a few handful of people stayed back in the village and they lived in makeshift huts. Many had migrated to South Africa. During Gandhiji’s stay in SA, he became acquainted with several of them and heard a lot about this place. On his return to India in 1915, many from this region had followed him back to India. For Gandhiji, in this way, Dandi was a right place for his experiment.

When Gandhiji came calling, Dandi was just a barren land. In 1951, a check dam was built to prevent the sea water entering in the mainland. That made all difference. All that greenery you see here today is post 1950s phenomenon. However, despite the changes, people still migrate to other countries. Dandi is currently going through a real estate boom. With the Heritage Road, the story is going to change completely.

Why salt? It was not just the reason that salt was used by everyone and the tax on it was 2000 times more than the actual production cost. Dhirubhai tells us a different story: Primarily, the British Government levied tax heavily mainly because they wanted to continue a tradition. A strange tradition.

When the East India Company was established, many ships used to come to Indian shores to collect spices and other materials. But an empty ship sailing across turbulent seas would have ended in shipwreck. Hence to balance the weight of the ship, the English people used to fill the hull of the ship with salt from England. They unloaded it in Indian shores. They did not want to waste the salt they brought. They wanted to sell it. But in India salt was the cheapest consumer item. To make the English salt cheap and capture the market, the British administration raised the price of the Indian salt and automatically the English salt became cheap.

Even after the ships changed technology, the salt pricing continued as if it were an unchangeable tradition. Gandhiji wanted to challenge this.

Jawaharlal Nehru and many other compatriots had expressed their doubts regarding the choice of salt as a symbol of breaking the British law. Their doubt was founded on the fact that salt making was possible only in the coastal region and in other land locked areas it would become a problem to ‘make’ salt. The skeptics thought that mass mobilization would have become impossible if salt had been the symbol.

According to Dhirubhai, this emphasis on salt was Gandhiji’s political strategy. He knew that if a centralized symbolism was not available, and other symbols were chosen for different regions, the non-violent nature of his movement would have been flouted by the masses with no proper leadership that understood Gandhiji’s principles to the core. Secondly, he wanted to control the movement completely for a greater purpose. He had trained his satyagrahis. And he knew that the Indian masses were not prepared to take up non-violent modes the way Satyagrahis did. It was imperative to control the situation either by practical means or by emotional symbolism. Gandhiji chose both and controlled the movement from Gujarat shores. It was interesting to see the people in Delhi and elsewhere making salt on the same day, with salt water made out of the salt bought from the market and boiling it in cauldrons in streets and households.

We become silent before the immensity of history and the nuances of it. Anubhav breaks the silence with a question.

“You studied in Gujarat Vidyapeeth, where making khadi yarn in charkha still is a part of the syllabus and practice. Do you train your students in Vidya Mandir also on this? And what is future of khadi as a symbol?”

“Khadi keval vastr nahin, khadi ek vichar hai (Khadi is not just cloth, it is a philosophy,” Dhirubhai smiles. “Gandhiji was not emphasizing on non-cooperation with the British Raj, using Khadi as a medium and boycotting the mill clothes from Britain. He was looking at the economic aspect too. Depending on khadi cloth would have helped at least eight families to share the profit in successive layers of production and consumption. Even today it is possible. Khadi is not turn into an industry even today. It is still in co-operative and small scale industry sector. If it could be made into an industry, if every citizen in India buys Khadi along with other clothes, it would have major economic results in the poor sections in our country. Khadi and its proliferation should be seen as a philosophical move,” he concludes.

We don’t know how to thanks to this man of experience and vision. Humbled by the meeting, we say goodbye to Dhirubhai. His smile is still etched in our minds.

**

Karadi is a few kilometers away from Dandi. It was here Gandhiji set up his temporary office to manage the ongoing salt satyagraha. At Karadi, Gandhiji made a small hut and lived there for twelve days.

The British authorities did not want to arrest Gandhiji immediately after the Salt law breaking. They were taking time. Sensing the mood of the country, they knew for sure that an immediate arrest Gandhiji would end up in mass violation of law and order. Hence, the British wanted to give the impression that they were still watching but okay with the situation.

Gandhiji lived in a small hut. The basement of it is still present there. Every year, during the winter season the authorities re-make the hut in order to evoke Gandhiji’s memories.

On 22nd April 1930, at mid-night, the Frontier Mail Express stopped near Karadi, though there was no railway station. It was a planned move. Gandhiji was arrested in the mid night and without disturbing the villagers’ night, the authorities took Gandhiji into the awaiting train. The train again stopped at Borivili station in Bombay and from there he was taken to Pune by a taxi. No public statement was made on the arrest of Gandhiji. By day break, he was sent to the Aga Khan Palace and from there to Yerwada Jail.

Now at the spot from where Gandhiji was put into the train, there is a railway station adequately named as ‘Gandhi Smriti Railway Station.’

I and Anubhav sit at the basement of Gandhiji’s hut. On our left there is a huge architectural monstrosity designed by some government architect, which now houses a gallery of photographs. It is closed for renovation and we are denied entry.

**

From Karadi we leave for Dharasan, near Dungri station. This place with full of salt fields was selected by Gandhiji for continuing with his law breaking movement. But he could not go there as he was arrested.

However, Gandhiji had made arrangements for continuing with the struggle. Abbas Tyebji, the veteran Satyagrahi, was anointed by Gandhiji as the leader of this movement in the eventuality of an arrest. By the time Sarojini Naidu had joined the team at Dandi. Once Gandhiji was arrested Abbas Tyebji and Sarojini Naidu proceeded to Dharasana and mobilized the people.

Though there were a few incidents of breaking salt law at Dharasana, the authorities did not allow it to continue. They arrested both Sarojini Naidu and Abbas Tyebji. These arrested heralded the closure of salt satyagraha officially. But it was the beginning of a huge movement, which as Gandhiji had envisioned, yielded the independence of India.

Sarojini Naidu and Abbas Tyebji lived in a hut at Dharasana. Now there is a small memorial structure.

Kids from the neighborhood collect keys of the memorial and open the door for us. A structure that reminds anybody of a memorial tomb of Mughal tradition is now collapsing from inside. The boys apply a lot of force to open and close the door.

We drive towards the Dharasana salt plants. Anubhav collects a bottle of salt pellets from a heap. Then we walk across the vast fields where some laborers prepare the ground for collecting sea water.

Anubhav and Somu go near the workers and discuss the ways of making salt. From a distance I could see Anubhav graduating from his Mercedes to a tractor. He drives it and Somu clicks several of those Kodak Moments.

By January end and February beginning, the salt plants will be full of salt, the way snow covers higher altitudes during winter.

Sun goes down behind the salt fields. We become silhouettes of moving bodies. We walk back to our car.

**

For us this visit is all about looking for avenues of aesthetic mediation and interpretation of events, places and history.

Gandhiji has always been a part of aesthetic debate in India. Dandi March is one of the wide reaching symbols/metaphors that Gandhiji had created.

Here our aim is to bring that metaphor a bit closer to the living contexts of our contemporary artists. We want the artists to leave their studios for a few days to travel along the same routes Gandhiji had taken for Dandi March.

Dandi was an experience for us, which I have tried my best to translate into verbal terms here. But when artists visit the same areas, they would see it differently.

This would result into a new visual discourse on Gandhiji. We don’t want to connect our project with any propaganda. We don’t want to take any abstract position or notion by calling our project as ‘Satyagraha’ or something like that. To our surprise, while on the road, we realized that the project would fall in the 80th anniversary of Salt Satyagraha. It is quite a coincidence. No deliberations meant at all.

Contemporary art has a tendency to overtake history with a lighting pace. But we want the contemporary art to take this lighting trip through the actualities of our history, perhaps of the stories of it too.

We don’t want to justify or condemn Gandhiji. Our intention is not to say that Gandhiji is the only example to be followed. Our intention is to see Gandhiji again, feel the ways he walked and experience the people whom he met.

There would be a new discourse, we are sure, outside the written history or established aesthetic discourse on Gandhiji, with this visit.

We want to strike the same route again, this time with the artists, sometime in January/February 2010.

We want to taste the salt of our land. We want to become the salt of our land.

(Pictures by Somu Desai)