(Smell of Pepper and Jasmine by Ratheesh T, oil on canvas 7x8')
Are you on a look out for some ‘political art’ in India?
Then go to Galerie Mirchandani+Steinruecke in Mumbai where a show titled ‘Nine
Painters from Kerala’ is currently on. I may not qualify the show as a ‘political’
one just because it comprises of nine artists from Kerala, a state which is
hailed to be a politically charged one. Each state in India is political and
each artist has turned out to be political as the time demands such
politicization of artists and their art. Did I say art? Hmm…I have to make a
clarification here; most of the artists who are already politicized for right
or wrong reasons, to me, are not making ‘political art’ in a strict sense. In a
politically charged atmosphere any utterance cannot go free of political under
or overtones. In that sense many artists do what could be called political art
but the story ends there. Some are overtly political that often become
sloganeering in a sophisticated way to which one would find a befitting example
in an exhibition recently concluded in Delhi’s Vadehra Gallery. Titled ‘Holy
Shiver’ this exhibition had images of Dr.B.R.Ambedkar both in painted and
sculpted forms. But if you just take a metro from the Lajpat Nagar Station and
get down at the Central Secretariat, just out there you could see the recently inaugurated
Dr.Ambedkar Museum and Research centre and right in front of that massive
building the same images of Dr.Ambedkar and the Ashokan Pillar. You may decide,
which one is effective as ‘art’ in the eyes of the public that include public
intellectuals, just intellectuals and those intelligent people who survive with
their intelligence in an urban space.
(Artist Ratheesh T)
Here in this small article what I would like to articulate
is the political intensity of a single work from this ‘Nine Painters from
Kerala’ exhibition (Do not mistake that the gallery is overtly interested in
the aesthetics produced in Kerala. The simple reason for this show is this that
all these nine artists have been promoted by this gallery for over a decade).
The work is titled ‘Smell of Pepper and Jasmine’ a 7x8 feet oil on canvas work by the Trivandrum
based artist Ratheesh T. This artist has been doing some wonderful paintings
with the images that he has sensitively as well as cynically culled from the
immediate surroundings of his life. At times they become caricatures of a life
that has lost its regular reality and could exist only in a caricature form in
order to find relevance even in their marginalized lives. Ratheesh no longer
lives a marginalized life for the riches that the art boom had brought to him
have elevated his socio-economic position. But the fact of marginalization is
such that even the socio-economic sublimation through education and money often
does not erase the stains that a caste society has smeared on the faces of the
people who survived the fringe lives. Caste is such a powerful social classification
in India and only the articulation of it could remove the stigma attached to
it. What Ratheesh does as an artist is this articulation with a humorous vengeance,
the way Kunchan Nambiar used to do in the 18th century. There is a
tremendous amount of self loathing in it but that aspect is covered with a
sense of celebration which a so called ‘sophisticated society’ would abhor to
do.
(Mill Call by Ram Kinkar Baij)
In ‘Smell of Pepper and Jasmine’ Ratheesh while subverting
the beauty concept that is prevalent in Kerala, very strategically
problematizes the notions of purity, work, social surveillance and (sexual)
desire. The social relationships between castes and sub-castes have always been
a problematic in Kerala. The present upper caste, Nairs, was ‘Sudra’ in the
caste hierarchy. But with certain socio-political maneuvers Nairs reached the
upper echelons of the society, establishing anything ‘Nair’ as the desirable
position. Hence, today we see the Nairs still involved in Brahminizing itself
and all the other lower castes, which were out of the four tier system of
caste, by emulating the Nair codes of life create further caste divisions.
Hence, even some Dalit communities find it natural to emulate what the Nair
does and perpetuate the caste divisions and discriminations within their societies.
The Hinduisation of Kerala society using many a religious platform tries to
force out caste categories in order to homogenize them as ‘Hindus’ and in this
attempt establishes the ‘Nair’ habits as the standard habits of living
therefore desirable by all the lower castes. The Nairisation of Kerala society
has been happening for several decades and it has reached its pinnacle in the
recent years especially through the mainstream media and films. The homogenized
Hindu however has not yet become ‘Nair’ in Kerala in terms of social relevance
but has accumulated the burden of caste-ism perpetuated by the Nair caste. The
white Sari with a golden border and the participation in temple rituals by the
Dalits are the results of such Nairisation of the Kerala society, which in fact
has become so gullible before the intoxicating power of Hindutva.
(Mullappoo Choodiya Nair Vanitha by Raja Ravi Varma)
In Ratheesh’s work we see the protagonist is a dark (Dalit)
woman and it is clear that she is on the way back home after a temple visit.
There is something very comical about her that constantly makes her ‘non-belongingness’
obvious. Her body is dark but he wears a white sari with a golden border (a
must for religious occasions). She is happily oblivious about her surroundings
though her ‘body’ and the paraphernalia that embellish that body correspond to
the surroundings. She is as animated and happy as the women who are running to
the mills in Ram Kinkar Baij’s ‘Mill Call.’ The strain of her vigorous walk is
palpable in her tense thigh muscles of the left leg which is pushed forward.
The drapery is painted in such an animated order that they not only capture the
force of her bodily movement but also the wind that blows against her that
billows the pallu of her sari that conceals a ghostly presence who is walking
with her. I will come to this ghostly figure in a while. Before that let me see
the surroundings; it has pepper plants and jasmine plant on the other side. The
pepper smell could be the smell of a dark and sexually powerful body of the
young woman whose rawness is temporarily covered by the ‘Nair’ attire. But her
raw sexual appeal is as strong as the pepper and the jasmine that she wears on
her hair is once again a Nair attribute (about this later). The jasmine flowers
show the pure nature of her ‘self’ (which is often denied to a Dalit body) and
also the subtle ways of love she is capable of. Ratheesh gives iconic status to
a girl who is otherwise seen as a ‘thozhilurappu jolikkari’ or ‘Kudumbashree amgam’ (two government
schemes that assure job to women; though it is generally for women only Dalit
and OBC women go for it as these groups are seen as group of women who are
uneducated and good for no other jobs than menial work).
(work by Ratheesh T)
Who/What is that ghostly presence behind her bellowing sari
pallu? Clearly that is a man and is obvious from the muscled legs and a
vascular palm tensed in an act of grabbing. In that moment of pure oblivion, this
unidentified presence is crossing that girl and he looks back at her. We do not
see his face as the whole of his upper body is covered by the edge of her sari.
A very superficial reading could lead us to believe that this presence is that
of any man who is about to molest a poor girl going back home alone. But
thinking of it in a more ‘religious or rather theological’ sense we could see
Ratheesh suggesting the presence of an evil angel titillating her into some sin.
Or could it be a suggestion that the girl is already sinned and the sin is
constantly crossing her looking back in absolute glee? What is that sin that
the girl has committed? In my view, the sin could be the voluntary submission
of her body to the forces of the upper caste ideology/aesthetics. She in her
utter innocence has de-politicized her otherwise political body. She has just
become an instrument of perpetuation. While she remains apolitical, for the
viewer her body becomes the contesting field of various socio-political and aesthetical
demands that subject her dark/Dalit body for their ends. Hence, Ratheesh’s painting
is to be seen more as a warning to the marginalized women rather than a
celebration of their newly assumed ‘upper caste’ identity.
(JohnyML in front of Smell of Pepper and Jasmine by Ratheesh T)
The presence of Jasmine is pivotal in this work for various
reasons; first of all jasmine flowers symbolize erotic passion and sexual
desire. This could make our protagonist lady into a desiring and desirous
subject. She is like a bomb/vedi, in the common parlance, a qualification which
is never given to a Nair woman under the same circumstances but is definitely
attributed to a dark/Dalit girl in whatever good dress. But the presence of
Jasmine is more than that. This painting as a whole is a great critique of Raja
Ravi Varma. Interestingly Ratheesh also hails from Kilimanoor, the birth place
of Raja Ravi Varma. And more ironically, despite the presence of so many Dalit
families around Ravi Varma’s palace, who were the workers in the sprawling
paddy fields just in front of them, not in a single occasion Ravi Varma had
felt the compulsion to paint a working class/Dark/Dalit woman. He painted only
fair skinned Nair women and the only exception was when he painted his mother
in law in dark complexion. He achieved some major award from national and
international exhibitions for his work titled ‘Mullappoo Choodiya Nair Vanitha’
(Nair Lady with Jasmine Flowers in her Hair). Here Ratheesh introduces a Dalit
woman with Jasmine flowers in her hair. By doing this he indirectly asks why
the body of a Nair woman doesn’t become sexually desirable/available and it is
so when a dark complexioned girl wears flowers in her head? When we see the
whole painting in these terms, the White Sari with golden borders becomes an
aesthetic reclamation of such rights from Raja Ravi Varma by a contemporary
painter who happens to hail from a marginalized caste. The Jasmine flower gets
a different value and the painting of drapery adds to the strength of that
reclamation. Ratheesh subverts all the existing aesthetical norms created out
of Ravi Varma’s paintings, using the very same techniques (oil on canvas) and
does it quite effectively. Political art is not painting Ambedkar’s portrait
and exhibiting in A-class galleries.
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