She asks me why she is not mentioned as the disciple of a
particular guru, in my essay written for her catalogue, as I had mentioned a
few others so in their catalogue essays, again written by me. I ask her whether
it was a complaint or a compliment. She says, neither. Still she wonders, why.
I tell her that if she really wants to be qualified so I could add a line or
two to that effect. But she says, no.
I feel that I owe an explanation to her. So I tell her that
whenever I see the works done by students under that particular art guru, they
all tend to work like him. That’s quite natural, I add. But it becomes really
curious when female students also work in the same way; masculine bodies, male
point of views, dark backgrounds and so on. Is there a woman’s visual language
and man’s visual language, she asks. I say, yes, there is. As language, visual
or verbal, is a medium of expression the gender gets inscribed within the body
of the text. What about the neutral subjects like still life and compositions,
she probes. Even those genres could have gender inscriptions, I tell her. She
looks at me with her unbelieving eyes.
I tell her the story of another artist who had come to meet
me a month back with her works. She too was from the same school and taught by
the same guru. She paints household utensils, vegetables, bathroom taps and so
on as her predominant imageries. I find it interesting because she stands quite
distinct from other disciples of the same guru. She told me that she was quite
meditative. And for her meditation does not mean sitting in one place or
concentrating on something. She found peace and harmony when she worked in
kitchen, tidied up the rooms, washed clothes, cut vegetables, looked after her
infant baby and painted at night when the baby slept.
Even if she had not told me about all these, I would have
still made out that the works were done by a woman. There is a different
sensitivity about a woman’s language, visual or verbal. V.S.Naipaul recently
made a statement that he could tell the gender of author by reading a first few
lines of a text. He received flak for his comments because he said it in a
condescending fashion. He thought women were inferior writers. When I say that
I could sense the gender of the author of a visual text from the embedded
gender specification, I do not make a condescending statement. I congratulate
myself that at least I could discern the sensibilities expressed in the visual
text.
But I find it a problem when women artists work like male
artists. Speaking strictly from the perspective of a visual language, one need
not give much attention to the inscribed gender within the expression. Most of
the artists argue that they are not here to produce a male language or a female
language. They produce a language which is gender neutral. But no language is
gender neutral. If some women artists are employing the language of a male
guru, then I would say, that the students are not able to transcend the rules
of teaching. In Zen stories it is said that one could use a boat to cross the
river, once crossed it is not necessary to carry the boat on the shoulders; may
be one could keep the memory of it with some amount of gratitude.
My artist friend says that she is not influenced by her guru
therefore she is not reproducing his language. I tell her that even that is a
false argument because the primary principle about learning is the amount of
influence that one gets from his/her teacher or from the immediate surroundings.
She tells me that when she joined the institution she was absolutely a novice
and did not know how to do a composition decently. Hence, she started looking
upto the guru for the perfecting of language. He is a perfectionist, she says.
I agree and ask her whether she has seen the works of other gurus to which the
answer is a no. I ask her to see more gurus so that she could transcend the
teaching of the first guru. Also I tell her that the idea of perfection or
perfect language is just illusionary on the one hand and on the other, it is
quite relative. It depends on how much you are exposed to the world of
linguistic perfection. And for me perfection is something comes with an
awareness of defect; awareness does not mean that one should be conscious of
the defect outweighing the assumed perfection. Perfection becomes appealing
when the awareness defect adds a virtual value to it. At times, may be an
apparent defect could also heighten the sense of perfection.
She asks me if it is a problem to aspire for that language
of perfection and I tell her that there is no problem to it. But the issue is
that once you learn the grammar you should be able to perform a language
without its grammar also. Pushing the possibilities of the grammar and almost
making it look like without any grammar is the success of any art. But the
primary requirement is knowing the grammar well. When you are stuck with the
beauty of grammar what you could become maximum is a grammarian and even the
best grammarians in the world start their thesis with an apology that I am not
a grammarian, because grammar is a rule and it also presents the possibility of
breaking that rule and coming back to its safe havens. It is exactly like a
musician with a genuine felicity to sing. He/She may belong to a particular
school (gharana) of singing. But he/she becomes a distinct music personality
only when he/she breaks the grammar and comes back to its protection off and
on. It helps the language to flow, grow and flourish.
Are you trying to question my guru, she asks. I say, no.
There is no problem with the guru. Guru is supposed to be like that and that is
why he is called a guru. Guru is a person who has been grounded in his own
language. He has moved enough till he decided to roost in one place. So he does
not have any problem to be a guru. Is there a problem with the disciples, she
continues. I say, there is no problem with the disciples either because the
schools and gurus ask the disciple to function from within the grammar and idea
of perfection. And the gurus at the same time know that only when the disciple
breaks the grammar without asking for permission he/she becomes and independent
artist. So it is guru’s job to show the way, but it does not come under his
prerogative to push you out of the way. It is your job. Then there should be a
problem with the school, she says. I tell her that don’t worry about the school
either. The school in itself is not a problem. School exists because there is a
guru and disciples. When guru vanishes school also vanishes. When disciples
vanish, then also a school vanishes. Hence, it is a three pronged relationship.
Guru, disciples and school, they together make the problem and the solution
also is embedded in the problem itself. Once you come out of it, once transcend
the boundaries, once you break the rules of grammar, and once you kill the guru
in you, you are liberated to reach your language.
I do not know whether
she is convinced or not. She looks at me and smiles. I look at her and smile.
She pays for my time and energy and takes leave. Then I get a phone call from
another artist friend. She is in a Eureka mood. She has finally found out her
problem. She has been an imaginary invalid all these years. Now she has found
the root cause of her pain. She says that she is helped by a plastic surgeon
turned psychologist; in fact his book. While reading it, she tells me, she
found out there were three kinds of people; one, who attached their
personalities with the defect they have, like a mole, wart, or a pair of protruding
ears or a bulbous nose. These people, once the defects are removed by plastic
surgery, gain a lot of self-confidence and become new people. Two, the people
who attach their personalities with the defects and still remain the same
bitter people after getting the defects removed by plastic surgery. Three, the
people with no defects but still behave as if they have some defects and mold
their personalities according to the defects. She says, she has been there in
the third category all these while. Now she could come out of it as she
realized that there was no defect in her.
You too belong to the third category, she jokes. I say, no.
I am like God, perfect with an awareness of defect that makes me complete. She
says, no, you are Amitabh Bacchan, the angry young man. I say, then I would be
stabbed at stomach when I am at the peak of my career. She suddenly goes
silent. I could listen her breathing. Then we laugh as if life was more
interesting than art.
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