Imaging the Contemporary World from Historical Sites

(a scene from the Udayagiri-Khandagiri caves)

History silences you, not the kind of written ones but the remnants of it preserved by the state. For many, history and its preserved ruins are touristic opportunities and with the photographing devices in the hands of everyone they capture a piece of it, making it a backdrop of their mortal lives in a given point of time. The silence that one feels at the ruins of history slowly lifts and one understands how the purposes of it change with the perspectives of people. An edifice, a cave and ruin in whichever shape anywhere in the world tell us not just how they were during the times of their origin but how we are like this today. Climatic erosions mix innocently with political erasures over which burdened by the insignificance of their lives young and merry making visitors inscribe their names and phone numbers, a commemoration of the primordial instinct of the human beings to leave a foot print wherever they go, for the sheer desire of immortality. Standing there I feel contemporaneity so breezy and ephemeral; like an image consigned to the dustbin to make space for more flimsy images.

I am at the Udayagiri- Khandagiri caves in Bhuvaneswar, Orissa. Carved further to make forest refuges out of the natural caves that were available in the twin hills named Udayagiri and Khandagiri, the Jain Monks in 2^nd Century BC could manage thirty three caves altogether some elaborately carved with Jain parables and some with minimum architectural embellishments. The Buddhist and Jain monks used to take refuge in such caves during the monsoon months and did their studies, meditation and art. One cannot expect the monks carving out the caves all by themselves taking time off from their meditation schedules. That means there were craftsmen and architects among them or guilds with special skill sets to carve caves and narratives on rocks in remote hills with a strong faith in not only what they were doing but also in what they were doing it for, the religion. Involvement of artisans, artists, architects, labourers and so on automatically informs us about the itinerant societies that might have formed around the construction sites, definitely with women, children, service providers of many kinds including sex workers of both the genders, and above all the patronage as the monks were not wealth creators. While the history of such sites reduced into a few clumsy lines on the white letters on the indigo background information plaques placed by the Archaeological Survey of India tell us about the patrons, nothing is said about the people who had actualized the dreams of the kings as wells as those of the monks.

 (from Udayagiri)

Mobile phone cameras have already disabled the ability to ‘see’ and in its place everyone seems to have developed a capacity to ‘look’ for an impactful backdrop in anything, the historical sites are not such exceptions. Before the advent of mobile phone cameras also people used to take photographs as a part of their memory making. There used to photographable points in the historical and touristic sites which the rotigraphers (photographers who work from such sites offering interesting images that they claim to be impossible to capture by the amateur photographers, for a pittance) exploited for their livelihood liked the guides who add their own versions of history over the actual history (is there one?) at times completely presenting an imaginary narrative that would make the visitors to see the places as the abodes of divinity. Mobile phone cameras have made these ‘spots’ irrelevant by find more curious angles and backdrops with their mobiles phones propped up on selfie-sticks, which I prefer to call as ‘narcissistick’. Democratization of image making in a way has divested the very act of image making of its authority and made it mundane and irrelevant with ill conceived and aesthetically derivative images floating everywhere (including the social media). Perhaps, such liberal proliferation of images helps the aesthetically inspiring and sensibly taken pictures to live through time. In Udayagiri-Khandagir hills I see this unbearable enthusiasm for pushing oneself into every frame that he/she takes; a clear reflection of high capitalism in our country that makes everyone to indulge in excess, ephemeral, ego and greed.

I am taken to Orissa by Kshitish Das, an artist turned traditional art promoter who is instrumental in creating an organization called Raghurajpur International Art and Culture Exchange. Orissa is a land of culture and one could see it everywhere. Significant in India’s history in many ways including the great conversion of Emperor Asoka into Buddhism after the Kalinga War in 2^nd Century BC. One could see the appropriation of caves, temples and other edifices with Buddhist and Jain origins by Hinduism by the 10^th and 11^th century AE after Sankaracharya’s efforts to re-establish the primacy of Hinduism in the 9^th Century AE. A highly religious state but with limited fanatics doing their rounds in the streets, Orissa still has its costal glory with palm fronds and expanses of rice fields greeting you everywhere. The ugliest thing that destroys the beauty of the streets of Orissa is the humungous presence of blood red bill boards that advertise the 4G connection provided by the Airtel. The business war between the mobile service providers seems to have completely taken the streets with each company displaying its product through colour coded hoardings and billboards turning the streets into a war zone. Only thing conspicuous is the absence of an Emperor who would see the blood bath of telephony business in the streets and would convert himself and his people into a religion which prefers silence and endless hollow conversations.

 (a Jain temple excavated on the top of the Udayagiri hills)

Economics is a framework and a parameter that the societies perceive their lives, ideate and formulate their various aspirations. Though we know that economics is a part of social establishments and was resulted by the creation of societies, where it had played the role of social contracts that bonded people with the authority as well as divinity sooner than later it became the prime force that maintained the societies and helped them in evolving to the contemporary forms. This created various classes and also the distribution of economics/wealth differently among the people resulted into social hierarchies. However, economics was not the predominant ‘theme’ in the earlier societies. There used to be periods in the world history where religion, art, culture and so on had played the dominant roles that oriented people towards enhancing the cultural wealth than finances. But today we are living in a society which has no other point of reference than economics, and it is going to remain so. To create a difference in the thinking process of the people and to take them out of the tracks of economics and place them on a different plane where travelling is possible even without a vehicle, we need to rework on the very idea of a structured and systematic society. The moment one goes out of the system and functions differently perhaps a different life is born; the birth of a different life ushers in the birth of a new perspective which could realize itself with minimum dependency on economics. We say there is no free lunch but we have to move from there to say there is lunch. Only problem in the statement is the word ‘free’. When a lunch is ‘not free’ your existence itself is not free.

In Orissa, in the hotels people serve rice on your plates with their bare palms (not with spoons). Anybody who has a sense of minimum hygiene could revolt at the very sight of someone serving rice with hands. I too ate from someone’s hand, so were many other people around me in a wayside restaurant called Pipli Daba. I thought I would not enjoy it (I would not drink even a glass of water if someone’s finger touches the rim of the glass) but I did take the rice from his hand, ate and enjoyed it thoroughly. I just did not think that where he was keeping that hand just before serving me the rice. I could push that thought because of two reasons; one, many people were eating rice served by him with his bare hands and two, there is a tremendous amount of faith in that very act of eating the rice served by someone with his bare hand. Of course, he looked apparently healthy and clean. But I would like to give a great value to the faith aspect of it; a person is serving food and you are accepting it. That is the bond of faith and it highlights your level of acceptance and tolerance. You are eating something you are familiar with; the difference is the way it is served. If human beings could have faith in the other in a given situation and also they could show a higher level of tolerance and acceptance, every problem faced by our societies would evaporate. Moving out of a system is important which would transcend the ideas of economics and developing faith in human beings by becoming tolerant (to the beliefs and customs not really to certain irritating behaviours) are important not for the perpetuation of the society as we see today but for the inauguration of one that has been lying dormant in our minds for a long time or to put it in other words, for paving the way for the truth, faith and beauty in you to manifest in the world. 

Oormi would Never Return

(image source net)

Oormi stood there with her husband Lakhan. The morning was cold and she felt different from those milling crowds that have come to see the same God that today she is so keen to see.

Women. They outnumbered men. Impoverished and desperate, some with a sort of ecstasy that Oormi had never experienced. Where do they come from, she wondered at them. Suddenly she realised why she felt different.

The difference was out there stark and telling. Oormi had never felt such sort of ecstasy before any idol. She had lost it twenty five years back, the day she got married. She had conjured up an image of Lakhan, a god like image in her mind ever since she was betrothed to him. She did not want to think how she lost him somewhere inside her mind, home and in the world that she never wanted to comprehend.

Oormi was different because she had dressed differently. The silk sari that she chose to wear that day was a gift from her mother on her wedding day. She felt the smell of twenty five long years and the fragrance of her mother. It was mixed with stories, dreams and tears. An odourless fragrance, disembodied and impalpable that only daughters could feel it when they thought of their mothers.

These wretched of the earth were wearing the most sad looking clothes and yet they carried themselves so elegantly in them. They did not look awkward or shy. Many were not even wearing blouses to cover their upper body. However, the clumsy wrapping of those saris soiled with dirt, sindoor and turmeric powder covered their shame. There was no obscenity in it. Their parched and shrivelled bodies craved for something beyond that bodies could desires. Patiently they stood in the queue that snaked into the majestic temple. 

Ululating of those women woke Oormi up from her reverie. Something choked her. She wanted do the same and articulate the non articulated stories of those twenty five years through that primordial clarion call of women to their sleeping gods and goddesses. Oormi felt her vocal chords moving and tongue twisting but in silence. She had been talking all those twenty five years to Lakhan, to her sons, to her relatives, to the maid, to the grocery seller and to many people whom she had come across. To her surprise she realised that she did not remember a single thing that she had spoken all those years. She knew that she had lost her words. The only urge she had at that moment was to ululate. But she felt incapable, inadequate, spent and wasted. 

Oormi felt the cold floor touching her soles. Something moved inside her; in an inappropriate spot of the body that should not have agitated at a holy place like this. But Oormi did not feel shame. For the first time she felt elated but she hid her emotions for she had never allowed her face betray her real feeling before Lakhan. In those early days Oormi had to try; slowly it became a habit, then second nature and eventually her nature. She felt something inside her which like the undefinable fragrance of her mother was mysterious. A platonic shift? She wondered. She just could not figure out what went inside her at that moment. She struggled a bit to contain her excitement.

Lakhan was busy on his mobile. The temple does not allow mobiles to be carried inside. Oormi looked at the metallic glaze of his expensive mobile's cover. It glinted in the morning sun rays. Then she looked at the golden clutch that she was holding and the gold plated mobile inside it. She tried to memorise everything inside that clutch. A packet of wet tissues, platinum cards of a couple of premium banks, a few bank notes, a bunch of silver safety pins: she felt like a primary school kids taking a memory test. She tried hard to remember. Oh yes, an amulet that her father had given her when she was first sent to hostel during her graduation years. What else? She remembered something but the image that appeared in her mind was vague. She wanted to name it but in vain. Again something moved inside her. This time it was not in the inappropriate place in her body but she could not locate it. She felt the unease. 

Lakhan came near and she felt his body's warmth so close; a familiar temperature that had propped up a glacier inside her, a fire that transformed her into frozen lake in the mountains. She moved aside without really making an effort to do so; twenty five years of practice had made her a master choreographer of avoidance.

The mobile phones cannot be taken inside the temple complex.

Perhaps for the first time in their life together  they looked at the same direction so naturally as they did a few times in their honeymoon days. This time they were not looking into the horizon with hope but to the parking lot half a kilometre away. The coffee brown Mercedes Benz with a hard earned single number was parked there. As it was their twenty fifth birth anniversary Lakhan had decided to drive himself.

No driver. Walking back barefoot to the parking was unimaginable for Lakhan. Oormi looked at him. Lakhan thought for a moment.  "You go first and come back. I will wait here and once you come back I will go," he said.

It was their twenty fifth anniversary of marriage yet Oormi did not find his decision strange. Lakhan was the embodiment of practicality and she knew it. She also knew that it was their silver jubilee of strangeness.

Handing over her clutch to Lakhan, Oormi walked towards the tail end of the serpentine queue. She stood there like a misfit bead in a rosary of deprivation. The beads moved, slowly, consistently like an incantation made to walk on feet on the ancient granite slabs. 

Oormi turned her neck and looked at the spot where Lakhan stood. He was there firm but lost in his conversation to someone somewhere which Oormi never had cared to know all these years. The metallic frame of his mobile shone like a mirror. So was the studded rings on his fingers.

More than two hours passed and Lakhan was already through several calls. Now he was sitting on a stool that a tea stall owner had kindly given him. Lakhan kept staring at the huge carved wooden doors adorned with brass bulbs through which Oormi had passed into the temple a few hours back.

It was evening and the crowd had increased. Lakhan sat there and he almost knew what was going on. He did not call anybody. He considered informing the police but left it at there for he knew that Oormi would never return.

Women were going in and coming out through that huge door and the lights had come alive everywhere. Lakhan for the first time on that day thought of opening her clutch. He was reluctant but finally he unclipped it. 

Nothing was there inside except a damp vacancy. And in a corner of it Lakhan found an amulet like a promise of no return.

Troubled by Money? Practice Simple Living because it is Silent Rebellion

(Daniel Suelo, man who quit money)

Among the divine creations, only human beings think of money. It has become a part of our behaviour. We are not tired of talking about money as if money is something that makes us breath or alive. Today we are a country that thinks only about money. Human beings have created and nurtured a society that cannot function without money hence there is no point in repudiating the role of money in our existence. But what if this becomes an obsession? That means, we have defined our lives with money; life is something lived with money. We have almost taken it for granted that life is about purchasing things and satisfying our desires. The demonitization declared by India’s Prime Minister for a few hours at least has made people think about their currencies are mere valueless pieces of paper. Caught into the vicious system that can only function with money, people in India have already found ways to make a profit out of the demonitized currencies. Corruption is not about hoarding undeclared currencies or taking bribes. But it is about the concept of money.

Is it possible to live without money or rather is it possible to live with money that is just required for buying the basics? It is possible and many people have proved that it is possible. One could stay completely out of the monetary system provided they are ready to live on scavenging and using public facilities. When someone like Daniel Suelo proved that he could live out the monetary system, it was not just an act of parsimonious living but a way to challenge the government by not paying tax at all. However, Suelo is forced to use the government systems like public booths and internet, library and so on at times so he inadvertently enters into the system that he has been trying to challenge. But moving out of the system completely would be a sort of fundamentalism. In that case, one can make entries, exits and re-entries with the system without yielding to the diktats of it. In India there are so many Sadhus and Sannyasis practice such kind of life. Buddhism that propagated the idea of begging also entered the system minimally and used only just what they wanted to survive. Manusmriti, the much criticised text of Hinduism, written around 2500 years back also underlines the Spartan life style to be followed by the sages and scholars whose protection and nurturance, it says should be the responsibility of the state.

What has gone wrong then? When we have an alternative life style which is the most harmonious life style with the nature, why have we moved away from that and become slaves to the monetary systems artificially created by the feudal establishments and the governments? This is where we have to understand the value of human lives outside the monetary systems. The government, military and business conglomerates have created such a vicious trap for the unsuspecting human beings who from their birth to death toil indirectly to feed the systems with various kinds of taxes. Nature has abundance of materials and food for nurturing all the beings on the earth. It is free for all. But when the system comes into being, where feudal and governmental establishments take the role of directors, what the nature has given us for free becomes the sole property of these establishments. That’s why we have to pay even for the drinking water. The times are not far when we would be paying for a packet of fresh air. A total rebellion against this is impossible because the systems are evolved after a long time of experimentations, mutations and structural adjustments till it became fool proof in profit making as we see today. In that case, minimal life is the only way to prevent the system from making us the slaves of money.

Most of us have lost hope to lead such a life of freedom outside the system. But let me say that it is not yet time to feel despair and disheartened. If we wish to thwart the system and shrug off the shackles that it has forced us to wear by making each of us enter into the monetary system as if it was our nature, there is a way to do that. We just need to start living parsimoniously. Question will be flying thick and fast. What are we going to do with our cars, our airconditioners, water purifiers and so many other luxury things? I am not saying that a parsimonious life does not mean leaving all the creature comforts behind. Most of us have misinterpreted creature comfort as hoarding materials excess so that we could consume excessively or use it in future. So when we go to the shopping malls, we buy more than what we need. We buy things just because they are there and the makers of it tell us that its consumption would make us better human beings. We are worried about the sizes of our cars so in the next festival season we exchange it for a bigger one. We do the same thing with our mobile phones and everything. We keep on buying.

Stop buying one day. The economic system of a country would collapse. In fact it would not collapse but it would be interpreted as the collapse of the economy because with the abstinence of the consumers from the market would collapse the profit structures of the people who run all kinds of business. That means, when we consume less we make certain silent rebellions not only against our habits but also against the systems that have produced those habits. Once we make such silent rebellions, we move much closer to the nature. But the people who live in urban areas would ask whether it is possible to live such parsimonious life there because everyone or everything is connected to the market and the products that one consumes in the market including the services such as health and education. I would say, these are just compulsions that we have mistaken for habit or necessity. We could cut down everything and we could develop a state of mind which would elevate our own selves before our own eyes. We would not feel small before those voracious consumers who pack their trolleys with five bottles of soft drinks and a lot of chips. We could feel better and superior when we stop hoarding consumables and feeling simple.

I have heard people talking about their images in the eyes of the others including the neighbours. This is one of the most false concepts the society has developed for keeping people in the leash. By creating this false image about one’s own worth by consuming maximum people try to live up to the imaginary perceptions of the other people. We try to even satisfy the possible perceptions of the strangers whom we happen to meet in the public places. From the very beginning itself human beings are indoctrinated by the system to become its slaves. It often comes in the form of education and only by developing a counter education pattern one could unlearn all what has been learned in the schools. To achieve this counter learning one has to read and write, see and watch, develop an affinity for creative lives. When one’s creativity comes out through careful nurturing, one gets satisfaction in such creativity and one wouldn’t feel the need to satisfy oneself by consuming more and more. To develop this creativity one has to primarily shun the desires created by the market and the illusionary demands made on you by the system. There is no point in lamenting on being the victims of the system. The system could be defeated by living differently. But the decision has to come from within. If one is incapable of taking such decision would suffer from the system while thinking that the system is taking care of them.

(all images from net and for illustrative purpose only)

The Reasons Why India Does not Have Great Woman Artists

Responding to my article published on 8^th November 2016 (Why India does Not Have Great Women Artists?) a woman artist from Kolkata says that historically men are respected in the society more than women and men have freedom to see the world and women always belong to someone else which curtails her freedom to move considerably. She goes on to add that to be creative one has to have freedom and go deep into one’s own self. Whatever she has said is right and justified. But I find there is a huge problem in her statement as she seems to parrot the common refrain that women often express when it comes to their freedom (of expression). While accept the fact that Indian women are not yet free the way their counterparts are elsewhere in the world, I would like to ask a few disturbing questions regarding the initiative and agency that women need to take in order to come out free (or live in freely) and express whatever they want.

Those who say that women have been an oppressed class and a suppressed gender do not often speak about the replication of such oppressions and suppressions by women themselves within the system despite having enough education to understand what is going on with their lives. Education is one of the primary liberating aids that patriarchy had taken away from women in order to keep them inside homes/kitchens. When human beings where nomads and also when they became settled agricultural communities women were not discriminated the way we see today; for the perpetuation of the newly found societies norms there had been division of labour which women had accepted happily as the formation of hierarchies was not yet seen or felt. While women exercised power over procreation and household men might have felt a bit inferior therefore they introduced a hierarchy which gave more power to men in the running of households and societies, reducing women into nurturing agents. Introduction of hierarchy might have strategically planned by curtailing the physical movements of women outside homes as men found physical movement as the primary step towards education.

Curtailing physical movements not only around the places but also symbolically by making them wear neck elongating rings, movement controlling footwear and so on was one effective way to prevent women from getting educated because movement in the terrains brought new experiences which sooner than later converted into concepts, which demanded an active brain for comprehension, planning and execution. With limited mobility women found it necessary to depend on men’s views to understand their own world. Prevention of mobility is also a sort censoring of imagination, which is fundamental to recreate the world through refined expressions. The tribal communities still have women continuing with artistic traditions because among them such binding norms are not inflicted upon their women. In the societies that have received formal education, ironically we see more and more women getting pushed into the domestic sphere despite having formal education. These women, unfortunately perpetuate two things via education; one, the morality that women have to practice as instructed by their men who have constructed the societies. Two, this education dulls their faculties to imagine because of its accentuation on morality and domesticity. If that is the case of the educated women in modern societies, one could imagine the lack of imagination and agency that the women had felt and undergone when they were deprived of education.

Today, when we talk about the freedom of women in order to do anything including art, we cannot just lament on the fact that women are comparatively depended on other people (their men and men in general who wander freely in the society) therefore they are not able to do good art or assert their artistic subjectivity in the open. Who would give freedom to women (artists), if they are not able to gain it for themselves? All the emerging societies with a cosmopolitan outlook show how women are introduced to the public domain via education and also with the help of their male folks. We see most of the early woman revolutionaries and reformers getting support from their husbands primarily and later from other men who work with them as colleagues or co-travellers. Slowly we see women with more imagination and political will do deal with their own bodies and minds breaking free from the shadows of their husbands and doing things as they wish to do. This is even happening today. But the only disclaimer is that women have to undergo tremendous pressures, accusations and torture from various quarters to achieve this freedom. Social ostracism and out casting could be the rewards for being independent and creative. One should also remember that such discrimination for creative women would happen only when they choose to move out of the system and work independently.

That means there is a great sacrifice involved in becoming independent not only as an artist but also as an independent human being who could think and act for herself. The major fear that most of the women carry with them not about breaking a family or becoming a vagabond but it is about the perennial fear pertaining to their bodies which could be seen as a public property the moment it becomes independent and not attached to a male owner. Daring this social attitude is one of the prime needs in order to become an independent artist. When an artist or a human being takes her own agency of body and mind, she also makes sure that she no longer functions from within the norms of the society. To function in such a hostile society, she has to become absolutely a republic while aligning with similar republics elsewhere. That means women artists have to drop their innate hate for other women and women artists. The moment they hate their sisters for whatever reason, the independence that they flaunt becomes a false one as they simply perpetuate the patriarchal values practiced both in the public and private spheres. Establishing allegiance with their independent sisters or at least making mental connections with them is one of the pre-requisites to become a flourishing independent woman artist. I say this because if one functions from within the norms of the society, her art will be always an expression of her fears than her real self that celebrates her being alive. The jargons she would select to speak about her art would be different if she agrees with the society.

A real woman artist is like Akka Mahadevi or Mira Bai, the saints who had left the society behind for their soul pursuit. Their symbolic removal of clothes and the conscious choice of saffron attires respectively is a statement of their independence and pursuit. One cannot produce an Akka or a Mira from within the clutches of the social norms. To gain independence as an artist a woman has to identify her free self and she cannot say that it is under control because of the society. She has to break free. To understand this freedom lying within her she has to have imagination. When her imagination is free and clear, she can express it the way she wants. She need not shy away from a sexual imagery or a serene scene that she depicts. Her body is no longer a limitation but a possibility because both women and men have bodies; only thing that is lacking in the body is its own understanding as a vehicle not the journey or destiny itself. When women artists get entangled with their bodies and the bodily thoughts, they become slaves of the bodies; one group may use body to express themselves and the other group may completely deny the existence of it. It is understandable that because female body is the most contested entity, they have to reclaim it in their creative works at least.

At the same time, we have to also ask how long we are going to deal with this body especially when it comes to the works of the woman artists. The answer is already there; so long as the society sees women as mere bodies, the fight in art also should/would go on. True, but then I should say that it is never going to happen. Even in the most egalitarian societies as we see in the west, today women artists are still dealing with their bodies. That means they are still facing the bodily issues within the society. To go beyond it and to become independent, the woman artists should actually remove the society and social norms from their thinking and imaginary systems. They have to shun everything including television and media that make them slaves to the male imaginations and to the social systems. This need not necessarily be done by much fanfare and rebellion. It could be done silently. If a woman artist decides to break free and remain on her own, she has to go beyond the society and the systems that constitute the society. The moment she does that her art becomes clear and forceful. There may be oppositions; but the freedom comes with a price.

Woman artists generally do not dare to do such things because they are not only the slaves of male imagination but also they think they are economic slaves within the domestic sphere. If one woman artist believes in the society and accepts all the norms including the male imagination and economy, then she would not be able to become an artist with complete freedom. A partner or kids would not be the detrimental forces that prevent a woman artist from doing her works. It takes a lot of courage and investment of mind to gain such freedom. The moment one accepts the demands of the society that tells one to run a family in certain ways and insist that she remains inside the home looking after the kids, husband, in-laws and so on, she is not going to make it. The freedom is not about breaking the family and going against all what is accepted. The freedom is about recognizing one’s own imagination and facing them boldly and beyond that facing the consequence without using fake jargons. Orhan Pamuk, the Nobel laureate in his novel ‘Black Book’ writes about a woman’s secret garden where she allows nobody including her husband and kids. Nurturing one such garden amounts to nurturing imagination; and the society is afraid of imaginative woman (artists). From that zone of imagination a woman artist could create the best works in her life, works born out of freedom, imagination and courage. If a woman artist is not ready to take up this courage to imagine, she would keep on expressing ‘my femininity, the goddess in me, my Devi-hood, my spiritual revelations’ and so on. I do not say that these are substandard works, but I say, they are works of generic imagination catering to the social norms. Getting out of the system is the only way. Any takers?  

(All images from the net. For illustrative purpose only)

Why India does not Have Great Woman Artists?

Years back when I met a woman artist friend at her studio she found a good listener in me and unbundled her life before me. Sinking deep into a brown leather sofa and sipping an extra large glass full of salty lemon soda I gave her a patient ear. A story that covers a few north Indian towns and many continents, lonely journeys into the wintry mornings to hostile government institutions, false accusations, attorneys, legal tangles, extreme depression and wrench like grip on optimism would have made into a gripping novel had it been written down without adding an iota of imagination by the writer or it would have made into a great cross over movie. It was the journey of a lonely woman who had found her way to justice not only for her partner and kids but also for her own wronged self. Back in India, she decided to dedicate her life completely for making art; more than making art, she wanted to live the life of an artist. But she was restless. The reason was simple- whatever she painted turned out to be beautiful flowers. She tried again. Flowers made way to vegetations and from there to abstractions. It was then she decided to invite me to her studio to vent her aspirations and frustrations.

By the time the winding narrative culminated into a soulful reunion of the family, I had sunken further deep into the leather sofa and the huge glass was still half full with lemonade. I was at a loss for words as the immensity of her story had fallen on me like an existential weight which wouldn’t be mine even if I tried to emulate her life. I looked at her; she was mumbling something to herself while dragging at her cigarette. “Why my works do not speak anything?” she asked me. The works were already on display along the walls, between book shelves and on the floor in clumsy half opened rolls. Why, I too thought? Either she was avoiding the gruel experiences by painting vegetations and flowers or she was painting what was opposite to her experiences. Whatever be the case, she was not painting her own self. I could see the torment in her face. “If you could paint your life, may be people will understand and the recognition that you have been seeking would come to you easily,” I said. “But I can’t,” she said. “I do not want to reveal those private sufferings on the canvases. I want it to be within me, safe and sedated because I have overcome that trauma. I do not want to relive it,” she went silent for a long time after stating that.

My friend is still struggling with her art. She has not found her solace in art and as she has not found it in art, she is still on a search to find it there itself. Perhaps, her solace is not there in art. Or may be her frustration comes from the fact that she has all solace and comfort on the earth but she remains incomplete without doing art. But when she is at her canvas, she expresses what she is not. Each canvas is a denial and each moment she stands in front of a complete canvas is a trial by fire, never ending. Abstraction comes to her naturally because she wants her inner life to be hoodwinked by abstraction. Abstract art sometimes is a vessel into which one could pour any kind of meaning, mostly transcendental kinds. Or it could be her lack of craft in painting figures due to lack of practice. One wouldn’t accept this view if you prefer to tell an artist so. Ability to craft an object/image by paints or by chisel or by any other medium could be a curse at times because your skill to make it or spoil it would tell the truth to the world; even bad skill needs some sort of consistency to prove its status as a skilled style. Abstraction could be a boon for it could hide not only your inabilities but also your own inner self. What you need to do is to cover it up with transcendental jargon, which comes so cheap in Osho publications.

I did not judge my friend as I was listening to her story and looking at her works. Even today I do not judge her because it is her life and art and she is responsible for both. But I understand that she is not the only one; she is not the only one who refuses to address their own selves. Most of the artists are like that. Talking about the gendered selves in art, female artists suffer from this. They want to speak out and explore their own selves in their works. But they are afraid of the society, the family, husband, children and finally their own selves. Recently I came across a woman artist whose canvases had a lot of images that represent female genitals. I asked her whether she was celebrating her autonomy as a sexual subject. Upon hearing this question she gasped and blatantly refused her intention to create an autonomous subjectivity for herself. When I insisted that I could see female sexual organs in her works, she said it was just accidental formations and she never thought they looked like vulva. That was quite a disclaimer! May be art is in the eyes of the onlooker, one could say. If you are looking for a vagina in a woman’s canvas may be you will see one somewhere. But I was not looking for one. Women artists refuse to acknowledge their bodily autonomy in India due to many reasons including moral perceptions of the society and the replication of patriarchal values.

A few woman artists have acknowledged their physical as well as mental autonomy and by hook or crook, with good skill or without skill at all they all have made it in the market and in the intellectual circuits. If you ask why most of the women artists in India fail to earn a name (even if they earn fame they are temporal and lasting only till the end of the exhibition and page three appearances and a few paid writings here and there) I would say it is because of their fear to express their own minds. They are so worried about their domestic and social roles as daughters, wives and mothers that they want to replicate the patriarchal values that define a good woman. Right from Karwachot fasting to washing and powdering a wife beating husband they want to be perfect social beings first and artists next. And the moment they hit their studios or workspaces, they become rebellious and the rebellion takes the turn of complaint than bold statements through art forms. These complaining selves find the final vent in abstract art because this art language gives them social dignity (because it is sexless), modernity (because abstraction is a pure invention of modernity) and gender parity (because abstract art cannot be seen in gender terms because hardly there is something to identity as gender even if there are vaginal and penile appearances by chance or by design). Complaints also manifest in the form of moral critique on other successful women artists, often doubting their abilities to hop beds.

Another debilitating factor that Indian women artists (the majority) suffer from is their perceptions on feminism. As these women artists do not take any pain to understand their art or their lives (maximum what they do is to find a mentor who would be another abstractionist idiot or attending satsang and yoga classes) they view feminism as a marriage breaking ideology. Yes, feminists could break marriages and homes (depending on the emphasis that one gives on the reasons of such breakages) but at the same time we pretend not to see the number of marriages broken by non-feminists. If someone does a stock taking, one could see that maximum home breakings come from non-feminists women and men. Like they understand Communism as a foreign wife snatching ideology (along with land and socio-economic opportunities), feminism is understood by them as a spoiler of their own beliefs. They do not recognize the fact that there are feminisms and the slogan ‘personal is political’ comes from such varied possibilities of feminisms. Though many feminists have misused the ‘personal is political’ slogan for ulterior motives, feminisms is a relevant theoretical tool that has to renew itself at every turning of the annals of contemporary history as events unfold in breakneck pace. But our women artists seem to be absolutely unaware of all these. They are happy with their karwachots and fasting.

If one asks why there are no great Indian woman artists, the answer should be sought in the above cited points. Artists who are not able to take a position in their own art can’t be good or successful artists. It is applicable to both men and women. The histories that we have built around our women artists like Amrita Sherghil, T.K.Padmini, Nasreen Mohammedi and so on are juvenile histories. Amrita Sherghil was a seeker of opportunities. She worked when India’s nationalist struggle was in full swing and her imagination seemed to have untouched by all those struggles. Amrita Shergil did not create a feminine language of her own but what made her important was her European experience and lineage that gave her a larger edge in the art scene than even her male counterparts. T.K.Padmini is an artist who passed away before she could really evolve as an artist. What we have as her oeuvre is the embodiment of her urgency to be at par with the male colleagues of her time. At times, they do not even move beyond stylised illustrations. Nasreen Mohammedi is perhaps an over rated artist for her minimalism which could be read at par with the conceptual works of Sol Lewitt. As history was written from those quarters certain inclusions became imperative and also when there were no woman artists to reckon with, whoever showed the potentialities of becoming a bold artist got a permanent place in the modern art history of India.

India could have great women artists only when they are able to express their own selves freely. Quasi and shy approaches to self will never make a good woman artist. Even if we have a few names in Indian contemporary art scene who have transcended the boundaries to become international artists, their art is basically read and judged by the parameters created by the western art historians, theoreticians, critics and curators. Even in their bold attempts to politicize their stance and art languages one could see a tremendous amount of abstraction, means going from the concrete and particular to the generic which gives them an immediate recognition as ‘international’ art. When one of our woman artists scream it finds its resonances historically in the scream of Yoko Ono. When one artist cuts meat to write words, it becomes a surrogate Abromovic act. We have a few bold woman artists in India but they are not yet been included in the high profile shows. May be it takes a few more years for them to replace the sanitized women artists who do politically correct sanitized art now.  

(all images from net. For illustrative purpose only)

Woman Artists in Language and Scooty Seats that don’t Allow Splitting Legs

An imaginary dialogue between Rabindranath Tagore and Abanindranath Tagore, conceived and presented by R.Sivakumar, the art historian had caught the audience by force. The search for a lost language and the ways that the Tagores had chosen for that search were put across the audience convincingly by the professor. As an appreciation to his presentation, a woman artist from among the audience got up and said that the lives of Tagores should still be an inspiration to the ‘Kalaakaaranmaar’ (artists) of Kerala. I was chairing the session by default as Sadanand Menon, the cultural theorist had to leave for the airport and had invited me to take his seat. The word ‘Kalaakaaranmaar’ used by the lady prompted me to ask her why she used the word Kalaakaaranmaar that connoted male artists when a word ‘Kalaakaarikal’ (female artists) was available in Malayalam. I also asked Sivakumar whether Bengali language had separate words to connote male and female artists.

The lady said that using a gendered word to connote an artist would further alienate a few women who are working in the art scene in Kerala and she preferred the word Kalaakaaranmaar because she thought and felt that it was a gender neutral word. Sivakumar also took more or less the same position as she had, but from within a larger context than forcing it within the Kerala context and opined that new neuter gender words like ‘artist’, ‘actor’, ‘singer’, ‘poet’ etc are in parlance accommodating both male and female persons without really underpinning that ideological differences that a male and female person could fundamentally have on certain issues. Familiar to the middle course of consensus though, I insisted asking him whether the Bengali language had any particular word that differentiated between a male and female artist. ‘Shilpi’ is the common noun used for both the male and female artists, he said. In his vote of thanks, Lalit Kala Academy Secretary, Ponniam Chandran too poked me for raising that question. According to him, choosing/using a different word for woman artists could amount to fundamentalism and he almost intended that gender disparities in art have been erased in Kerala. 

In 2014, schools in Canada had dropped the words ‘he’ and ‘she’ for ‘Xe’ in an egalitarian approach to include the third gender into the academic parlance. Though the word Xe has not yet been a much preferred pronoun in Indian academies, I have been following the debates regarding the pronouns in both the academic as well as daily speeches and writing. Most of the feminists choose to use ‘she/her’ and the women in general even today use male common nouns to connote artists. As feminism is a multilayered theoretical discourse, insisting on the usage of one form of pronoun could amount to fundamentalism when seen from different contexts. For example, those women who think that the conscious categorization of a pronoun could go against the accepted linguistic practices and it could be capable enough to topple their own safe positions within the domestic and public spheres. Hence, not emphasising on a gender category could be seen as a survival strategy or pure ignorance. On the other hand there are women who take conscious position on using female pronouns to speak generic subjectivities like artists and poets and so on. There are feminists who demand parity in language by bulldozing ideologies down while accepting that the existing structures are hegemonic and by partaking in it would bring them the power they have been seeking.

Language is ideologically driven and ideology ridden. When we see a data that show a mere 3 % of the women participation in the art scene in the Middle East or in the Asian countries, what we apparently understand is the obvious minority of women artists. Such data makers fail to analyse the fact that it is not just in the art but the insignificant percentage is a reflection of the same condition of women in the given society in general. When this 3 % of women connote themselves with a male pronoun we should also understand that within the given context an artistic subjectivity is formed by the male ideas and male identities and women seem to take a very minor role in constructing the artistic subjectivity therefore they are forced to show allegiance with the prevalent language forms for the fear of being considered as intruders by framing their own subjectivities distinctively. Some languages have neuter gender pronouns or such neuter gender originates from the fact that those stipulated fields had been excluding women for a long time (the word ‘doctor’ connotes one such exclusive professional fields in the beginning and till early 20^th century women doctors were not given full doctor-ship and had to be happy with the title mid-wife doctor), where as we have easy female pronouns like seamstress, mistress, seductress and so on.

 (Wangechi Mutu, Kenyan artist)

The English word ‘artist’ is neutral gender like curator or doctor because making art was absolutely a male domain. Even if women had created art, their art was not considered art but hobby or pastime or filling the vacant moments. A much lenient society allowed some artistry to women and it was clearly demarcated within the domestic sphere of good housekeeping; mending, embroidering, crafting, beautifying and so on could be done without being called an artist. Art history as an academic discipline had not brought women artists in its purview for a long time and a practice of such exclusion had made Linda Nochlin to ask this question in her pivotal essay, Why there are no Great Women in Art? There are no great women in art because there are no words to connote great women in art. Nochlin pinpoints the economic structures that held the women down from raising their heads (like a Hydra) and its further analysis would reveal that no connotative word was produced in the language because of its socio-cultural and economic exclusion of women. In such a situation, fighting on a different word for ‘artist’ may sound hair splitting and useless. But if languages anywhere in the world have produced words that could connote women artists, then we should understand that in that linguistic group such women practices were a reality or allowed (by the patriarchal system).

When there is a word for it and even if it has not been in use for the fear of exclusion, the word has to be used by the practitioners of that gender. Parity feminists may not be addressing the underlying ideology of erasure of such words or even the very non-existence of such words. A utensil becomes out of use either when a modern replacement is brought into work or the ‘things’ that could demand the service of that utensil become unavailable or go out of fashion. We have several such things in our own memories. A word too shows such tendencies. A modern replacement can be possible only when an old word is in place. A word could become obsolete when the properties that have formed the word go out of use. In that sense, the world Kalakaarikal (female artists) could go out of use only when either a new word is brought in its place or women artists cease to exist in Kerala. I think women artists in Kerala should use the common noun Kalaakaarikal with pride.

Post script: As you know, every product has an ideology behind it. When the mopeds and scooties came to the market first, there was an objection from the male folk in India. They did not like their women sitting on it with obscenely split legs as men did. Slowly, the scooty design changed. Now look at the scooties; the seat has a slant (the body of the vehicle is designed in that way with a bulky back and a slender front) and none (including men) can sit with split legs on it. The design is done so cleverly that the thighs of the rider have to come close.   

(images source internet)

Burden of the Present

Early in the morning they drop me at the railway station. It is a state car with the emblem. As I get down from the back seat, as the young man who has escorted me to the station takes my bag out from the car's boot, people with their sleep ridden eyes look at me curiously thinking that I am someone from the government with a designated vehicle. This has happened to me before too. I understand each time the intoxication and high that authority could induce in one's mind.

I pick up my bag which has become heavier with the materials and books that the artists have given me, bid goodbye to the driver and the young man, avoid making eye contact with the curious people around and walk straight into the station. On platform number three my train has already arrived. Surprised I lug myself towards the overbridge that for a moment looks unsurmountable with the heavy bag in my hand. Panting and puffing, I climb the flight of stairs and alight at the third platform. Luckily the air conditioned chair car in which they have booked me is right there next to the foot of the bridge.

I go inside. I see weary faces of early morning passengers here and there. Just as they are bored they look at me with eyes deprived of sleep and then they go back to their day dreaming or into desperate efforts catch some sleep. I haul my bag and place it on the side racks above my head. I have a very bad cold. To add to my misery the air conditioner in the coach blasts down heavy loads of cold air on my head and neck. I feel sick. Then I do something that I have never done before. I open my bag and pull out a woollen shawl which I had packed when I left Delhi, knowing that by the time I return it would be winter. I cover myself with it and I feel strange. I have never covered myself in Kerala, that too with a woollen shawl.

The shawl and the notebook in my had give me a sort of avuncular look and obviously nobody these days write inside a moving train. If I had seen someone writing down something in a notebook, I would have definitely taken that person either for an old school writer or a member of some legislative body who had to prepare notes, while on the move during a busy schedule. I look absolutely retro. These days nobody uses a notebook and pen. Most of the people prefer to work on their computers, notepads, tabs or smart phones. Going back to a retro mode is deliberate and I cannot insist that everyone does it because as they we cannot set the course of history in reverse. If someone wants he could leave all modern technology behind and live a retro life. But that cannot be advocated; it should remain a personal choice.

Through the large glass window I could see the landscape slowly becoming visible as the first rays of the sun pierce through a reluctant darkness and the fog above the trees. The misty morning looks so alluring that I feel like walking into it. However, I warn myself: anything seen through a tinted glass will be  far removed from the reality. But I know the quality of the landscape on either side of the railway tracks. There are hardly any houses; what you see is the large expanse of lush green in different forms. Some run horizontally and melt into the horizon line. Trees with different contours look like individuals with different characters, standing sternly at their places, ignoring the people inside the passing trains. It is an ancient land. If you hark patiently you could hear the voices spoken by the trees. As if to transmit their secret whisperings to the winds, beyond one could see transmission towers of telephone service providers jutting out of the foliages, as anachronism of modernity.

The train passes over a small culvert with a clear brook running beneath. A white crane stands still. Up there along the electricity lines birds of different sorts sit and debate the course of the day.

Nature muted by a running carriage overwhelms me.I take out my phone and skim through it; mails, WhatsApp and Facebook. I take a selfie. Dissatisfied by my looks, I consign the picture to the delete box. In Facebook, people have posted so many things and a majority of it looks like latin to me as I am not tuned to the daily routine of sporadic updates by so many people who I hardly know. Then I look at some pages of certain journalists. Birds of a feather flock together, they say. In those pages I see the birds of the same species. I find them burdened by the Present. Whatever they have posted, though seems to have clear thoughts behind it, are apparently too close to our times and look shallow. They are debating very crucial issues. But all of them took a voyage on a paper-boat in a shallow sea. I fail to see the glimpses of historical depths.

For many of those who post those opinions and those who comment on them, it is a question of life and death. In their engagement, they look serious and sincere. They are so close to the issues that I wonder if they would ever be able to detach from those issues. Their innocence and verve makes me think of them as children in role play games; they pretend as their parents, teachers, shop owners, politicians, lawmakers, historians, scientists, and so on. This brings a smile to my lips. I look at the names and find most of the familiar. Soon they transform in front of my eyes and they become strange people with strange opinions and strange behaviour. I suddenly understand that they are simply doing what they are expected to do. They are just following their calling and path. I am the one who has been wandering in the woods of history, often lost or distracted.

Inside the train coach, I realise that I can never agree with the world around me. When he world is right, I am definitely wrong. If I am right, then he world should be wrong. How could I bring about the alignment with the world? The world is so fast and I am too slow to catch up with it. Ironically, I don feel the need to catch up with the world. Yet I feel pain when I see disparities among people abound around. I feel miserable when people connect even with the nature with the aid of technology. A scenery is no longer a scenery until it turns out to be a digital image which could be zoomed in and zoomed out. A reality is a reality only when it is debated in the social media. We have only mediatized realities now. The nature out there looks so close yet distant from this railway coach.


(Images courtesy Internet)