My Architect or Sex is Not Enough for Fathers: Our Efforts to Know our Dead/Living Fathers

(Poster of the film 'My Architect' a film by Nathanile Kahn 2003)

How do you call your father, if he is no longer in your life or has never been in your life or has left you at some point of time? May be it is very easy: if your father was a painter, you could refer him as my ‘painter’, the one who painted you. If he was a sculptor, you could qualify him as ‘my sculptor’. That’s how most of us refer the God, the ultimate father (feminists may take objection here for them the maker is always the mother. No dispute please. I too consider, at times, God as a woman, a very black woman; hey Mamma!!), the maker. The same hands that have made you have made the lowliest of creature in this earth too. So be humble. But what about the father, your father, who comes once in a while to meet you and then disappear for so many months, if not years? Why do mothers cry when fathers come back? Why do fathers look young and mothers old? What is this father and who is this father? I remember M.T.Vasudevan Nair talking about his father coming back from Colombo with a girl who faintly looked like him. Another friend tells me the story of his father who has taken him to a girl’s marriage. Why did she come and touch my father’s feet? Why did she look into my eyes before turning them to her bridegroom? Why her eyes were tearful?

I do not want to go into any Freudian discussion of father figure. Every son is not out there to kill his father for the fear of him getting at his mother. Every son is not sexually challenged by his father. It is one of the ways of looking at things. Theoretical tools, for sure. But what about the sons who go out looking for their father because he was not there at all in their lives while they were growing up. He is remembered by an occasional hug, a peck at the cheeks, some lunches together, some dinner together, a game of cricket in a play ground where he bowls at you and run behind the ball laboriously. Father reminds you of the fragrance of shaving cream, strong arms, hearty smile and glowing eyes. This man who disappears from your life has to be sought out. His reality should be dug out. He should be understood and if he is worthless, leave him behind. But the search should be on. Any son, who has challenged his father in Freudian terms or otherwise, should seek him out from obscurity. I remember Theodor Vel Wagner, the protagonist of O.V.Vijayan’s ‘Thalamurakal’ (Generations) coming back to Palakkad, from Germany to know the roots of his father. Oh good lord, where is my father? What would I call him?

(Louis Kahn and Nathanile Kahn)

Three of us sit there in a beautifully but subtly decked up drawing room, sipping small shots of the Balvenie single malt whiskey silently, feeling the heat of it tracing the inner routes of our self and contrasting the feeling with the raging cold outside. This moderately lit up room has one large glass window that opens to a little balcony with arm chairs and so many little curios culled from all over the world and beyond it there is a large garden where people, pigeons, dogs, cats and drivers relax. Along the frame of the window there runs an artificial wine with white leaves and white flowers. Each flower is a small little light and our host tells that it is brought from Japan. The lit up creeper adds to the feel of the room and it turns into a bower hanging between dream and reality. We set up a computer and projector and we are ready to see a documentary. And the name of the documentary is ‘My Architect’.

This Oscar nominated documentary is about Nathanile Kahn’s search for his father, to know his father and to understand him. This father had denied him the right to be his son though he gave him his family/surname. Nathanile father died when he was just eleven years old and his mother was his third wife. They lived in a remote forest edge in Philadelphia and occasionally his father visited them. His mother was a full thirty years younger to his father. His mother worked with his father in an architectural firm where she fell for his charismatic father. He was already married twice and was the father of two other children, who were around twenty years elder to Nathaniel. His father never wanted to break his first marriage and when the second woman was pregnant with his baby, and when she mentioned about the child and the physical involvement they had, he just said in his charismatic way that she should take it ‘philosophically’. She did not challenge the man nor did the third woman who became the mother of Nathaniel. But he craved for his father who died at the Penn Station in New York. He was seventy four years old. When the Police made the inquest and the following interrogations the identity of the dead man was revealed. His name was Louis Kahn, the world renowned architect.

(world renowned architect Louis Kahn)

Louis Kahn was born to a Jewish couple in a rundown building in Parnu, which is in present day Estonia. He studied architecture in the University of Pennsylvania where he became a professor later on. He met with a fire accident in childhood and his face was deformed. His father said it was difficult for him to survive but his mother said that he had an ugly face which would help him to be famous. He did become famous not for his ugly face but for the monumental buildings that he made in various countries including India (Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedaba) and in Bangladesh ()the Parliament building in Dhaka). No 20^th century architect could escape the influence of Louis Kahn. Be it Charles Correa, Balkrishan Doshi, Frank Gehry, IM Pei or Philip Johnson, they all were influenced by the architectural style of Louis Kahn. With all his five feet five inches body, Kahn stood tall as an architect genius and it brought people to him like a moths to a light. Many perished and many survived and those survived still speak of the burning, the sweet, cool burning they suffered at the flame of Louis Kahn.

(Bangladesh Parliament house by Louis Kahn)

Nathaniel Kahn grew up as an orphan and he wanted his father back. It was impossible to get a dead man from his tomb. Hence he decided to make a journey to the tracks that his father had travelled. He visited each and every building that his father had created. He met people and interviewed them. Many broke down when they came to know that Nathaniel was Louis Kahn’s son. They knew that there was a son like that but nobody knew where he exactly existed for Kahn did not want to acknowledge that relationship with his mother and son. Nathaniel came to India to visit the IIM at Ahmedabad. Balkrishna Doshi could not find words to express his feelings for the departed genius. And in Dhaka, the chief government architect cried when he spoke of Kahn. “We were the poorest country in the world. But Kahn gave us democracy through this building,” says the architect with tears rolling down from his eyes. The film ends there. Out there the night has thickened and has covered itself with the inevitable fog. We eat dinner in silence.

We three men, all who have lost their fathers in different phases of their lives. One has a father who was a great painter who made miniature paintings and meticulously catalogued each and every painting that he did. One has a father who was a teacher and a weaver of clothes; a self styled craftsman. One has a father who was a lost politician and a government servant and a devoted social worker. One has lost his father when he was in his twenties. One has lost when he was in his early fifties. One has lost his father when he was hardly fourteen years old. One runs a foundation on his father’s name. One recreates his father at every juncture of his life. One tries to capture his father in his words, each time when he writes about any father in the world. All three of us are fathers. We shudder at the sight of the imagined and possible plights of our sons and daughters. Our fathers have inscribed them in us, irrespective of their time and context of departure. Our efforts are to know them and may be whatever we do to know them finally take us to ourselves. ‘My Architect’ consolidates our love for each other. And we pay tribute to Nathaniel Kahn in silence and Louis Kahn is remembered not only for his architecture wonders but also for this son’s effort to know his father.

A Winter Note: Stray Dogs and Big Umbrellas

(Picasso holding umbrella for his girl friend Francoise Gilot)

Winter this year, I feel, is like a long expected guest who has sneaked into home when I was out for some quick work. I have been impatient, like many others in the city, looking at the calendar, watch, sun, moon, wind, stars and innumerable dress codes that adorn the streets of the city, searching for the signs of its arrival. It befooled me once again. I had just stepped out for a few days and by that time it was in. Once I open the door, winter jumps up at me calling out ‘surprise’, tickling me with its drizzle fingers. I embrace it rather reluctantly for I do not like surprises like this. These ghostly appearances within the darkrooms with faces glowing at the reflected lights of computer screens or television screens fill me with a sense of dejection. I try to present an easy face, hiding my discomfort in having encountered with a cheeky surprise. Winters have never been so before. They used to come dressed up for me; dark chiffon lined with fiery orange in the morning, grey gowns in the afternoon and red silk in the evening. Night they used to be natural, sending me inside the duvet unnaturally clad in several layers of woollen. Winter used to dance naked for me. This time it behaves like a rogue.

I come out of a metro station along with many scurrying towards workplaces, shopping ends and eating joints. I have a book to pick up from an upmarket book mart, which I had ordered a month back. Holding myself together I hit the street and it starts drizzling. In this city, people love water because most of the year it remains dry. Show the picture of a sea to anybody who is a natural inhabitant of this city, they will throw up their hands and run towards it. Anything that resembles more than a bucket of water, send the citizens here into a holiday mood. That is the sense of the citizens who lived in landlocked areas. While people from south run towards hills, people from north rush to sea sides. On the seashore, a north Indian adult is a child. You get to see men in skimpy underwear managing their enormous bellies while rolling along the retreating waves. Women get drenched in their hapless daily wears inviting more lechers than they would have had they been wearing swim suits. Art of art is concealing art. In beaches, in India it becomes true. Democracy ends where gender begins; that is the rule of seashore. I have digressed enough.

I look for a place of shade so that I can protect myself from getting drenched. But I think only I am looking for a shade, rest of the people are walking merrily as if they do not discriminate between sunshine and rain. Suddenly I realize this city street has no awnings. If at all they are there, the owners of the shops have rolled it up to their necks so that people will not over crowd before their shops barring the view of the street. I turn by body in forty five degree angle and walk along thinking that holding a palm over my head and turning the body sideways would keep me protected from the rain. It is a foolish belief that most of the people do, exactly the way they crinkle noses to prevent an ugly smelling from hitting the nostrils or cupping the palm over the ears to hear something clearly or even opening mouth while applying eye kohl. Some foreigners stand like cardboard cut out pasted against the walls wherever a little bit of awning is jutted out. I hurry past them and reach the book store and it seems to be a bit overcrowded for its size. Rain. Rain has brought more customers even to a bookstall, I imagine. The attendant in the shop greets me as he knows the purpose of my visit and immediately hands over the book. Your Radio Benjamin, sir. I thank him, make the payment and come out.

It is still raining outside. The cold has increased. I do not want to move my body sidewise again. So I wait in the corridor that leads to the inner lane of the market. Suited, booted, gypsied and pepsied people come pass by each one making a competition with the other in looks and affluence. Fat stray dogs taken care of by the shopkeepers and the animal lovers from the rich neighbourhood, sleep around wearing jackets firmly tied around their obese bodies. An one legged young boy approaches me with some bead chains and pleads with me to make some purchases. I tell him that I do not have any use of those chains. He hovers around me for some time and finding no kindness oozing out from me hops away from there. Another young man comes with two rotis and starts talking to the dog in jacket sleeping next to my feet. My mother has made it butter. Please eat it, he says. Then he breaks the bread into pieces and places it before the dog. The dog gets up unwillingly, smells the crumbs and goes back to sleep. He is too full and feels like a garbage bin. We exchange glances and go back to our worlds.

It is raining still. I see people holding very large umbrellas, under which you can start a wayside food stall. That big umbrellas. In our villages we hold small umbrellas. In cities people hold big umbrellas because they don’t want to get drenched at any cost from any side. There is a different psychology to it. It is a social marker. Big umbrellas show your bigness. You can carry a big umbrella in the boot of your car. Office going public cannot carry such umbrellas. Those who carry it show their affluence. Above all, big umbrellas occupy more space in public and big umbrellas and big cars serve the same purpose; occupy more space in the public domain so that you can show your importance. I see an umbrella shop at a corner. I go there and ask for the price of umbrellas. Shop attendant opens a big umbrella with a flourish by switching on a button. It slowly goes up and covers a four feet diameter. Rs.750/- He says. I shake my head. He opens a small one; the plebeian types. Rs.450/- I put my hand out under the sky and the drizzling has decreased. I do not want to make an invest in that umbrella. So turn my body once again in forty five degree angle and reach the metro station. Winter follows me like a shadow clad in greys. 

‘Bhen C***d’- the Catchword of Art Dealing

(A Painting by M.F.Husain. For representational purpose only)

A commotion in the drawing room wakes me up from reading. I had just arrived and was trying to settle myself, and the best way to settle down in a new place is to read something that helps you dissolve time-space disparities that often we feel after a few hours of journey. But reading could be a funny business too. A chronic reader in toilet, once found himself devoid of any reading material as he checked into a small hotel in a remote area, finally plucked out an instruction pamphlet of dos and don’ts from the door and took it to the washroom to read his heart’s or bowel’s content. Unlike that reader of lore, I am always equipped with books wherever I go, if not two at least one.

At the door there is this friend (in fact, my friend’s friend who has become a friend in due course of my previous stay here) who speaks only in high pitch amply iced and cherry-ed with the choicest expletives in Hindi. This adrenaline driven young man is so happy to see me back in Delhi and he wants me instantly out there in the drawing room for a couple of his friends have come to spend some time at home. My friend’s house houses a lot of interesting works of art both contemporary and modern, besides having designer furniture and antique wares. Even if he is away the day to day affairs of this house run smoothly as there are efficient boys who take care of things. But fortunately or unfortunately, this house is open to my friend’s friends any time in a day. Hence, my friend’s friend has now brought two of his friends for a couple of drinks. He has a minimum demand; it is New Year and I should sit with them for a drink.

I am horrified by the proposition. I am extremely uncomfortable in the company of strangers. To top it if the strangers or friends talk in high volume I cannot just stand them. But now, his persuasive powers are stronger than my weak efforts of resistance. Suddenly an idea strikes me. I tell him that I want to go to the washroom and would join him in a while. Then comes his question: Didn’t you take bath today? Is it necessary to take bath in this cold? I smile at him and run my palm over my belly. He understands and I retreat to the washroom with the book, thinking what to do next. I look for an escape route but the only let out in the washroom is fitted with an exhaust fan. I sit there for sometime thinking various ways of escaping from this friend and his friend. However, finally I emerge from the toilet, take a deep breath and go out to the drawing room and greet his friends.

(A work by Sukesan Kanka- For representational purpose only)

One is a sardarji and another is a cut sardarji (who does not wear a turban). First look tells me that they are property dealers and my intuition turns out to be right. Now my friend struggles to introduce me to them. Meet Mr.Johny sir. He is a PhD from London (I look for another opening to escape but take that qualification like a mild abuse and wait). He is an art promoter. He makes value of the artist. Iske haath laga to...bhen****t gold nikalega (if he touches-an artist- he will turn gold). I instantly feel like touching myself so that I could turn myself into gold. I know that my friend is making his position clear. He tells his friends indirectly, see man, I mix up with people. Sardarjis coax me to drink. I resist. It is New Year, please. For friendship’s shake (excuse me, are we friends yet?). Finally, I pour a small drink and with water that whiskey looks like gin- that light. It tastes like hemlock.

Soon the conversation turns to art and market. My friend points at one painting of a young artist on the wall and asks his friends to guess the price. They do some guess work and obviously it goes wrong. My friend tells them the actual prize (around four lakhs rupees) and both of them say ‘bhen***t’ in chorus. That is the way they exclaim. Enthused by the surprise and shock that he could cause on his friends he comes back with renewed force. Showing a two by two and half Husain drawing on the wall at the other end of the hall, he asks, how much, guess. The answer comes quickly from the friends. Ded lakh. One and half lakh rupees. My friend laughs to his heart content. His friends, as he expected, have gone by commonsense. If the other work, bigger than Husain’s could fetch four lakhs then a smaller work should fetch minimum of one and a half lakh. My friend laughs a vicious laugh. He declares then with an expansive gesture in such a voice that the Christie’s representative in Mumbai could hear that: Thirty five lakhs. His friends’ jaws fall. ‘Bhen***t’ thirty five lakhs!! Yes, it could go a crore in an auction, exactly the way we hike up price of property in the market, my friend says. Now his friends understand it.

‘Bhen***t’, shall we also put in money here? They ask. Obviously, you can my friend says dismissively. I look at him. This man who has heard a few tips from here and there from my friend about is now behaving as if he was a real art dealer, that too in my friend’s absence. Soon, the conversation goes in various directions and like real property dealers, his friends conjure up the works of art they have seen in their friends’ collections. Strange names and strange anecdotes regarding art and antiques come up. A few diamonds, emeralds, sapphires and gems also make brief appearance and vanish. Then it goes to the architectural wonders in Dubai and peters out into the price of a call girl in an international market. I sit and listen in silence with a smile that only a person with piles in his rear can paste on his face during a high level meeting. Then I get up to go. But charged with rupees dreams and my possible role in making it real, they coax me to sit and drink. I refuse. One drink enemy, two drinks friend, says one of them. Means, if I leave after one drink, the friendship is not consolidated. I like making enemies out of friends. But I do not want to make enemies of out strangers. They can do more harm than friends turned to foes. Then I become Jesus Christ. I use the strange alchemy of water and turn a few drops of whiskey into gin. They are happy. They talk about becoming art dealers very soon and my friend encourages them. I shake hands with them in less than five minutes and retire to my room and back to my writing. I am sure two more art dealers are born in the same evening. 

Thinking about Avijit Paul and Moumita Das in the New Year

(Avijit Paul and Moumita Das, the artist couple were killed in October 2014)

A year without you two. In October you are gone. In November we came to know about your departure. Many a tear was shed. So many words were written. A few condolence meetings. Yet, I do not know, you Avijit Paul and Moumita Das, how many of us remember you still. I was with a couple of friends yesterday night, drinking beer in silence and listening to a few old Rajesh Khanna songs in television. My New Year Eve was like that; without noises and shouting. Happiness was not overflowing and the shake hands at the strike of twelve at night were more obligatory and customary than out of pure intention. While listening to the songs from Amar Prem, a Rajesh Khanna and Sharmila Tagore starrer from late seventies, I was thinking about you two. I was thinking about you two so intently that I woke up with this feeling that I should write about you once again. But then people will call me a pessimist; someone who writes about the dead and gone on a beautiful New Year morning. So I postponed the idea of writing about you two, two innocent souls that were destroyed for no reason. Still I could not overcome you. I travelled from one city to another. And I am here tonight, sitting in a new place, in a new bed with a couple of boys to attend my worldly need of hunger. But I am still thinking about you. May be your parents and relatives and a few friends are also thinking about you at this moment. But be reassured, you are remembered.

There is a particular reason for me to remember you two so intently. I was one of those few people who had met in a place to do something towards commemorating you two. There were a few enthusiastic friends who knew you better. I had not even met you two when you were alive. But I thought it was my duty to be there and do something towards commemorating your lives. There were a few plans and they were really good. We wanted to declare an award in your names. We thought of setting up a few scholarships and funds for assisting young artists who needed support in fulfilling their education and international residencies. We had even thought of having a fund raising show to give some money to your families, not as compensation but as a gesture of togetherness. We wanted to tell your parents that we were with them and we would remain with them so long as we live. We wanted to tell them that we shared their pain. Everything was going smooth and I found my friends very enthusiastic. I suggested crowd funding for it. And I was sure that crowd funding would have worked better than forming a corpus fund through the contributions of selected donors. Everything was going smooth and I was hopeful. My friends looked earnest in their approach. I even wrote a concept note for the show that would earn some funds for your families. I did not want any piece of glory from it so I even I decided not to mention my name anywhere in the activities. My friends who are good at organising things promised me that they would do the needful.

Nothing happened. I kept on enquiring about it. One of them who took the initiative to organize the meeting that I had attended later told me that the friends who promised their help soon turned cold towards the whole thing. I do not know what happened. Was my approach wrong? Was my approach too patronising? I do not know. May be those who live, do not want to spend their precious time on the cause of the dead. But I am in a way guilt ridden because I thought that I was doing something towards commemorating your lives. But nothing happened and I feel that it was my failure in getting things done than those people promised their help. I think a lot about you people on the last day of last year and the first day of the New Year because I feel that I have further done something wrong to you by trying to initiate something which turned out to be a non-starter. I want to tell you sorry. I am sorry for doing that. And I do not know what my fellow travellers who came around to do something to commemorate you think about it now. But I cannot exorcise you two out of my mind. I think you will live along with me so long as I live because I understand the possibility of death in the mind of someone living. 

My 2014: I am Blessed by You

(A few years back I was at Dandi Seashore)

Getting up early in the morning and hitting at your work desk, seeing the same innocent faces next to you, smelling the same smells, anticipating the same outcomes of the day, writing your heart out, wistfully looking at your social networking sites, greeting the same people who have sent you messages, chatting up with new ones with pure as well as vile intentions, vacantly looking at the postings others have done, reading so many things that you really do not need to know yet you read fearing being left out from social discourse, eating the same breakfast made by the same hands, going out, getting into the same car or any mode of conveyance, chancing upon the same strange people who have grown familiar over a period of time during the daily grind in metro/bus/railways stations, attending the same issues that reappear in different shapes and hues at office or workplaces, creating, recreating, feeling happiness, sadness, despair, elation, getting back home in the evening and attending the same rituals of yet another union. Life may sound too boring if you analyse the days in a year in your life. But this repetitiveness gives a sense of security and grounding though most of us feel that greener pastures are at the other shores. But we remain in one place, making all efforts to be happy and content.

Facebook, the agency that reassures one’s self worth day in and day out through its clever programming this year, has brought us the cheerful moments culled out from our lives and presented for us. As we go through them, the pictures that impart the feeling us riding the crests of joy, fame and success, we feel that the year was not really bad. If we see a year as a novel that tells a tragic story, these pictures are like those marked out pages where only joyous incidents are narrated. Reading those chosen pages could make someone take the book for a comedy. But it is not a bad thing; Facebook wants all of us to be happy and to be positive to receive the New Year, which in fact is not different from the year or day that has just gone by. Still we feel good. Like a soothsayer, this social networking site makes us feel good about ourselves. If it really does, then we should welcome the move. These vignettes from the year that is going to be past are like a platter of assorted desserts. The main course has already been taken; the hot, cold, sour, pungent, sharp, cutting tastes are taken with eagerness. Now it is time to relax for a few minutes. The platter makes you happy; it looks so beautiful and tastes so good. Have it, please.

(In one of my previous incarnations)

Looking back, I find myself waking up from different beds and sitting at different tables to write or read, throughout the year. I wake up alone mostly; sometimes a little bit of dullness in the head which has accompanied me to bed along with an occasional drink I have taken the previous night. Sometimes I wake up with a dazed mind with tears and screaming still reverberating from a late night phone call I have received in the night. Most often I get up with a clear mind and then I see a choir or orchestra set up in the stage of my mind with musicians ready to strike the right chord at the cue of the conductor. When I wake up and sit at the computer I become the conductor, words flow rhythmically. I find it curious and smile to myself when I am sitting with the computer on a table or on my lap, sitting on the bed itself because the environs look strangely similar. Just pull the curtain apart, the world out there is different, the language spoken there is different. Then I remind myself that I am in a new place though the hotel rooms look same. Sometimes I am in a transit home set up by myself with the help of some kind friends. I feel a sense of security and think that I am going to be here for long. I write from that sense of security. Then it is time to go.

When I walk along the streets and lanes, alone seeing things, I get this feeling of déjà vu. I have been here, I have eaten from this restaurant and I know that boy in his dirty clothes, who smiles at me. He has served me. I avoid that Sardarji who runs a gym. I know that barber who has cut my hair, I know that small provision store owner because I have bought things from him, I know the cigarette shop man and I know that old woman sitting on a wooden platform, selling vegetables. I know those old men in the parks who greet me enthusiastically. For a moment I think that I am daydreaming. But I am not. They are real people and I have been to those places. I avoid that Sardarji because I have worked out in his gym for fifteen days and then I am gone! I know those old men in the park because I have walked with them in the park. Those who care amongst them have asked me about my identity. I have given them different identities; to some people I am a writer, to some people I am an artist, to some people I am a journalist, to some people I work for an NGO. Experience has taught me to place myself finally. I do not say that I am a journalist anymore because if I say that they would tell me the names of the leading newspapers and ask me which one I work for. I used to fumble in the beginning till I chose one of the top names. I no longer say that I am a writer because then they ask me what I write. But I have found out a mid way. I tell them, I am a former journalist now writing books. It raises the respect quotient. They want their lives to be heard and written about. They tell me things and I hear them out. Some people are relentless; they just want to know my true identity. For them now I am a businessman. What business? They ask. I tell organizing exhibitions. As in? Big cultural events. They are happy. But what mental picture they must be forming about my business, I wonder. May be a contractor who rents out chairs, electronic equipments, make shift pandals, platform etc. They are happy because they think that this guy from South makes good money. He does not look impoverished either. Good...good.

(in 2012)

I have lost the count of parks and streets I have walked. In Kerala, in Hyderabad, in Bangalore, in Delhi, in Mumbai, in Pune and in many other places, I walk just for the heck of it. Besides my morning walks in the parks or working out in gyms, I prefer to go for walking. In the beginning of 2014, I had decided to leave the security of my life for the second time by leaving home and hearth. I had done it first time almost twenty three years back when I decided to leave the place where I was born and brought up. This year I have been living in different places; at a friend’s place, at my sister’s house, in some dingy lodges, in some historically important bungalows, in artists’ studios, in hugely posh residences with two servants to attend me on, in moderate homes and an old school building. Looking back, people from different walks of life have come up to help me whenever I wanted help. This helps me understand that I have become an empty receptacle. Only in empty containers you can fill up things. I have learned, from the experience of this year to make myself an empty container; a person with minimum needs and minimum demands. What do I want for myself, I ask this question. A fresh pair of clothes, food to eat, a neat place to stay, books to read, a computer to write, an internet connection, a mobile phone, and....the list could be long. But I think I need only this much. Yes, I can hear you asking; MONEY. I have told you, when you do not have any demand, money too comes to you because there are other people around you who need you to make money for them. So money too comes. I am not exaggerating. I am blessed in that way.

I do not know whether you will believe me or not. I do not have anything that I could claim as my possession. I have learnt this lesson from this passing year; live the life you want and live happily. Be a receptacle and help as much as you can. Be free and be blessed. I am not a preacher or an evangelist to say this. But let me give my own example from this year. When I left the place where I thought I was living comfortably, I had taken my clothes, which amounts to a couple of  pairs. I had a shoulder bag that carries my laptop. And this laptop was given to me by an organization which I was working for in 2011. When I left it they did not ask for it. So that is with me even today! One friend looked for a small flat for me and some other benevolent souls arranged the household things. When I went there, it was a liveable home. As I knew I was not going to stay in that place for long I did not buy a fridge or air cooler or conditioner. I decided to run the fan only on ‘two’ speed in 45 degree temperature because I did not want the idea of ‘luxury’ come to my mind for I did not have any clue where I would be staying next. For three months I wore a loin cloth at home, cooked my own meals and ate alone. One friend gave me a couple of shirts, another one gave me a pair of shoes and all of them together give me the strength to pull on. When I decided to travel, I did not have any travel bag. A young couple gave their travel bag to me, which I am still using.

(New Year drinks that I may not open)

Throughout the year, I did not buy a single thing. All my clothes are gifted to me by friends. All my trips are arranged by my friends. I never asked for money or clothes or anything from anybody. They kept on coming and they still keep coming. Mostly I travel by flights; I know from where the tickets come but I never ask for it. I am always prepared to live in a five star hotel or a railway station because I do not have anything that could be stolen from me. I am always prepared to travel by a bus or a train without reservation. I can eat five star lunches that costs Rs.2500/- per meal to Rs.20/- per meal ‘Jan Ahar’ that you get outside metro stations in Delhi. I am not boasting. I do not make differences between these two. I drink Glenfidich or Glenmorangi and I do not have any problem to take Royal Stag or Old Monk. I can have a Corona beer in style and I do not feel lesser when I sip Kingfisher ultra. A few days before a friend came with a packet for me and I opened it to see a Mexican Tequila ‘Patron XO Cafe’, a bottle of Black Dog, one bottle of Jesterini and Brooks whiskey and one bottle of Ciroc Vodka, all for myself to celebrate the New Year eve. But I may spend the night with a glass of water, listening to some Malayalam songs in Youtube. By the way, I have not told you this: cars are at my disposal wherever I go. But I do not mind walking all the way, if there are no cars for me.

I have been telling you how my year was like. I have been blessed by friends and well meaning people. I do not want to take the names of the people who have been showering me with their blessings. I do not ask anything from them. But like Gods they know what I want or what I may want and they keep showering me with their gifts and love. But I keep myself empty always with my feet firmly anchored in reality and letting my imagination soar to the limitless skies. I am blessed because you, my reader, are with me. I live a life of emptiness so that you could fill me in with your love and care. I do not make any New Year resolutions because I do not have a vices to kick out. I kick out myself from myself every morning and every night so that your blessings could find a place to stay. I am not excitable and I am not easily susceptible to materialistic things. In high tide or low tide I want to be like this and I seek your blessings for that. I wish you a happy New Year and you stay blessed. 

Hope in Mumbai Local

I am lucky to have a seat in a packed ‘Mumbai Local’ as the time I have chosen is not the ‘peak’ hour. There are enough people inside to impart the feeling of the compartment being ‘packed’. Though I do not want a comparison between a Delhi metro ride and this one comes to my mind. In Delhi metro, even when it is packed you get a feeling of luxury. In a Mumbai local luxury is not even a seat; it is just a space enough to keep both your feet on the floor; your face away from some sweating bodies. Happiness is when you have seat, bliss is when you have window seat and sublime is when you have a window seat against the running direction. Wind that touches your face makes you feel good, you think positive things about life and you are all full of hope. Life is different when you are standing or just squeezed by other people and remain suspended in a position that you otherwise do not even practice during your morning yoga class. I get a window seat, against the running direction and I feel good. Neither bliss nor sublime because I am yet to experience the peak hour travel, which I feel that I would not do anytime in near future.

There inside the train I observe so many stickers. I have just written an article about graffiti art. I take interest in the posters on the inside walls of the compartment that due to the absence of so many people reminds me of the hull of a gunned down war plane. Red, white, black and yellow in colour, these posters tell me about the solutions of life problems. Right from marital issues to decimation of enemies, from having a boy child to exorcism these posters offer you different solutions. You just need to dial a number that is given in bold digits. For a moment I think of dialling it but I resist. Problems in life come as a package deal, solutions included. You need to read the manual of life carefully, that’s it. There is not a single problem in life that does not come with a solution. You just need to read the manual of your own life and act accordingly. There are people around us who want to enjoy problems permanently; they tear off the manual and throw it out through the window and enjoy the solutions flying away in shards like little spangles of lost hopes. As I decide not to dial the number, I keep watching other posters. There are job offers; technicians needed in a printing press, plumber needed etc. No poster says artists and critics needed. Galleries seem to have gone out of business. Even if they are in business they are not fools to paste posters on a railway compartment.

I am bored a bit of the ‘slow train’ travel. It stops in all the stops. And endless stream of humanity flows in while another rivulet flows out by the force of some invisible push. Mumbaikars know how to deal with it. I am not one yet and I do not know whether I would become one ever. I look up. Bored people look out or look up. Looking out is a bit troublesome. When you are hungry you do not want to see so many people defecating in a row. In your imagination, the possible food that you are going to eat sometime later gets contaminated by the visions of excreta. And another thing that puts me off is the sighting of the long phalluses that these squatting men display shamelessly. That causes some kind of insecurity in me. So I look up. By looking up you feel hopeful; optimistic. And suddenly I see more posters on the ceiling of the compartment than the ones that I have already seen on the sides of it. Those posters are not torn off. Nobody’s hands reach there. It is a safe place to stick your posters if you are an intelligent advertiser. It remains there and most of the people read it. Why because most of the people in a parked local train are looking for hope by necessity or by force. When your face is stuck right under somebody’s stinking arm pit, you do not think about deodorants but you definitely think about god. And you hope for some fresh air. For both, you have to look up. When you look up you see these advertisements and as you do not have anything else to do you read them carefully as if it was a sheet from a prayer book that you hold closer to your heart for solace.

In Delhi Metro nobody looks up. There is no need to look up because most of them have their mobile toys to play with. Whether you sit or stand you are not looking anywhere else. You are looking only into your mobile screens where you must be helping a robber to collect more gold coins or helping a bike rider to negotiate deep curves or even keeping fruits in place. Hence, there are not too many advertisements you see in Delhi Metro. Recently they have introduced side panels for advertisement. When Arvind Keijriwal or Narendra Modi need votes they place the pictures of a broom and lotus there. When elections are not there, real estate magnets try to sell apartments thinking that all the metro travellers would one day be buying apartments. And it is for them to start dreaming. If nobody wants these spaces, Metro pitches itself in and flaunts its ability to take you from Rajiv Chowk (Connaugt Place) to the International airport in twenty four minutes. You are hopelessly displaced to the suburbs like Rohini or Dwaraka Metro gives you hope to take you there in thirty minutes. Delhi abhi door nahin hai (Delhi is not that far). People have left hoping against hope in Delhi, instead they invest their time in playing games or listening to music. Mumbai people hope for the best. They look up and they see life solutions in the form of advertisements, up there at the ceiling. Of late, I have been seeing a lot of sky also. 

Clues to Find out the Artist/s behind Guess Who in Kochi

(work by Guess Who in Kochi- image- Deccan Chronicle)

Mr.Bean sitting pretty on an easy chair like a Karanavar (Grand Uncle in a Patriarchal society in Kerala), a Bharatanaytam dancer doing a ‘moon walk’ in MJ’s attire, legendary Malayalam film actor Late Prem Nazir posing like James Bond, the great gurus of Marxism, Karl Marx and Frederic Engels clad in the attire of two Sadhus (mendicants) and many more images like that, seen on the inconspicuous walls in India’s Biennale city, Kochi, have caught the attention of the international press. Signed by ‘Guess Who’ these stencilled graffiti works are done with a conscious blending of the regional and the global images and in an unmistakable ‘Banksy style’, which has been made international by the deliberate efforts of American Museums. The attention that the international and national press shower on these stencilled images especially came visible during a focused context of Kochi Muziris Biennale that celebrates local and global art is obviously because of the ‘glocal’ nature of these graffiti works. Had the same themes been done in another style, say for example in traditional Kerala Mural art style, it would not have generated such an enthusiasm around these works. Being global and local at the same time has done its bit for getting enough attention for these works. But a question that lingers the viewers’ mind is this: Why this artist or a group of artist leave their identity for guessing?

(work by Guess Who- Image- Ibtimes)

A BBC interview with the Guess Who artist which is currently available in the net suggests that the ‘authorship’ of these works has been owned up by ‘someone’. He/she speaks in first person singular and justifies his decision to be anonymous. Also he sermonizes why public spaces have to be aesthetically altered through adequate interventions. Besides, at the outset itself he clarifies that art cannot give so much of social messages. Hence, his act remains to be an aesthetical intervention that sets people think in a different direction. To put in other words, these are ‘image poking’. This was what exactly Banksy and so many of his tribe have been doing all over the world for the last few decades, until they get absorbed in the mainstream art market business and strategic systems. I have been using a male pronoun in order to qualify the name of the artist behind Guess Who to continue my writing though I have used a politically correct he/she in the beginning. Even if it may sound prejudiced, I would say, it is done by a He because the anonymity maintained by the artist so far cannot be possible if it was a woman artist. First of all, in the given social context of Kerala today where moral policing is rampant and holding hands or public kissing is abhorred like plague and those who do it are hunted down and are given rough treatment by both the right wing activists and the state Police, a woman artist cannot come out alone in the desolated streets in Kochi and do these elaborate graffiti works all by herself.

 (work by Guess Who- image Deccan Chronicle)

Now, let’s discuss the idea behind Guess Who. In fact, it is very easy to guess. In my observation, there is an advertising agency behind it. Though I have very solid inkling towards this agency, it would legally threaten my social position, if my guess work goes wrong. However, I insist that the Guess Who graffiti, which I would like to say, a copy of Banksy’s aesthetics with nothing new than punning the images and creating over visual overstatements and understatements that come quite naturally to a Malayali creative mind as it is the land that has produced the best of humour writers and cartoonists in India. From Chakyar Koothu to mimicry, from comic films to innumerable comedy programs in uncountable Malayalam television channels, from Bobanum Moliyum (Boban and Moly) to Tintu Mon comics, from youtube links to comedy apps, Kerala is always high on comic inventions and interventions. It could be a genetic modification of the Malayalis to transcend the tragedies of socio-political degeneration and to survive healthily in the given situations. Hence, these graffiti works of Guess Who cannot be discussed for its artistic merit nor can it be included as a part of a great art movement that is about to happen in Kerala. Why, because it is done by a male artist with a team of advertising professionals to back him up not only with ideas but also with sufficient machinery to produce elaborate stencils.

 (work by Guess Who- image Ibtimes)

Guess Who is done by an advertising agency, I repeat. And it thrives on improvisational aesthetics rather than innovative aesthetics. Advertising agencies, generally speaking, work on desire and familiarity in order to communicate an idea and sell a product. The desire quotient of a human being depends on his or her ideas on good, healthy and comfortable living. He needs familiar images in order to believe in what he buys to enhance his life style or living standard. When an advertisement tells you that you are not fair enough, it plays upon a familiar fairness, which could be the complexion of a famous actress who you are familiar with through films and photographs. So you have something familiar to identify with and the advertisement tells you that it is possible to gain that complexion if you really strive for it. And the product is a way to achieve that goal. That is the simple reason why an insurance company or a bank that offers loan uses ‘unidentified models’ to act out a character. The model makes you believe that you too are mortal like him and you too want a home like him, a moderate one. A film star like Shah Rukh Khan or Mohan Lal cannot sell an insurance policy to you because they look too immortal to be dying in an accident or illness. Again, most of the products that enhance your life as a human being in daily situation, are sold through advertisements that play up familial situations like family, office, hospital, street, restaurant etc. Guess Who works on everything familiar and in discourse; hence, I believe, these works are cleverly created by an advertising agency or a persona with an advertisement background.

 (work by Guess Who- image- New Indian Express)

Secondly, these stencils that are used to create the images that are hailed all over the world as the works of Guess Who, cannot be done without having a good team of professionals and equipments behind it. Too much precise and flawless like Banksy’s works, these graffiti works of Guess Who too betray the fact that they are done in a good studio with high quality equipments. A few graphic artists working for a few weeks or months have meticulously worked out on stencils under the strict directions of some advertising professional/professionals. Then a team goes out with them, equipped with spray cans or other painting materials, in vehicles, at least temporarily customized for this purpose, and done precisely during night hours not to keep anonymity of the artist but to have conducive working atmosphere. After execution, right before the beginning of Biennale, the team behind it has done secretly reaching out to the press or even open reaching out to the press saying that they have just found out a series of graffiti in Kochi. Then it spreads like wild fire. Now, those who question me on this should see ‘Exit through a Gift Shop’, a documentary directed by none other than Banksy himself.

(work by Guess Who- image- News Minute)

Finished in 2010, this Banksy film features the life and ‘art’ of Thierry Guetta, a French migrant living in the US. Guetta has this habit of video shooting anything and everything around him. He happens to see his cousin, a graffiti artist in Paris who goes under the name, ‘Space Invader’. Guetta goes around with him, documents the nocturnal activities of the underground and graffiti artists and in due course of time Guetta is introduced to Banksy. Surprised by the enthusiasm of this man, Banksy slowly becomes a friend of Guetta and they become thick friends during a US sojourn of Bansky for his first show titled ‘Barely Legal’. Soon Banksy finds Guetta going haywire so he advices Guetta to start his own graffiti works. Guetta takes it seriously and mortgages his business to start an elaborate studio and establishes himself as ‘Mr.Brainwash’, the graffiti artist. Today, he is one of the globetrotting graffiti artists who sell the works for millions of dollars. I wrote this gist for one particular visual/textual evidence available within the film. In this film, both Banksy and Guetta are seen working in their respective studios. They are plush studios with several assistants working on stencils and final prints. Also I have seen several graffiti artists’ documentaries where they are seen working with assistants. Those underground graffiti artists, who in fact now despise Banksy for compromising with the market, do not have such elaborate arrangements to produce their works and most of them remain obscure or known only amongst the peer group networks. When that is the case, it is very difficult to believe that one underground artist in Kerala decides to become another Banksy and comes with a thud during the Kochi Biennale.

 (work by Guess Who - image- Youthkiawas)

Coming to the issue of anonymity of the artists like Banksy or Guess Who, I would say, it is one of the most interesting make believe thing or illusion that the twenty first century art lovers or art community have decided to willingly stomach without raising a finger. Every year without fail spoof news reports on the arrest of Banksy do the rounds all over the world through viral transmission over internet. On the next day the Metropolitan Police send a disclaimer saying that they are still on the hunt and they are not yet successful. Here we are dealing with a man who has made the world to look at his graffiti, then had a solo show in New York, has a studio in London and perhaps travels all over the world with a passport. He is even seen documented in his studio with his face and voice deliberately blurred. Isn’t it a bit surreal and comic that the British Police of Interpol fail to catch such a con artist? We went into Abottabad to finish Bin Laden, we went into the bunkers of Iraq to catch Saddam Hussein. We know how to hunt down every rebel in the world. But our Police fail to catch one little artist called Banksy. Are you saying something seriously to me? The fact is that Banksy is an integral part of the art industry and keeping his anonymity intact is what makes his art and business successful. The state, its punitive and legal institutions, financial interests, world cultural leaders, museum directors and many others are in this chain of deception. They all work together to keep Banksy under cover. The day Banksy’s identity is revealed, the Banksy myth is lost and the Banksy industry is collapsed. It is just like a game that we used to play in childhood. We decide to pretend that one of our friends does not exist and he is invisible. Now, we make a network amongst our friends and all of them would react to him in the same way. He gets confused. But in the game the boy gets confused and in this Banksy game, he is just a willing participant.

 (work by Guess Who- image- youthkiawas)

Guess Who works on the same game. If we come to know who is Guess Who, the mystery is lost and we will call him a copy cat of Banksy’s aesthetics. The assumed anonymity gives these works and to the artist some kind of dignity and press space. Our spaces are under surveillance. Kochi is not different. Why do our CCTV cameras fail when our home grown Banksy goes out to do his graffiti? Is Kerala Police so stupid that they cannot catch this ‘artist’ who wants to be really anonymous? Now, graffiti according to universal definition of the word is an act of vandalism done on the public property using images or letters, which are objectionable to the dignity of a large public. Banksy’s graffiti started off as intervention which was later dubbed as vandalism by the conservatives. Once it became a part of the art market, graffiti art in general got an elevated status in the public eye. It became a part of the heritage of the city! Guess Who operates on this renewed idea of graffiti. His works in fact enhance the ‘beauty’ of the city and adds to the heritage of the Biennale city, Kochi. Hence it is not an act of vandalism. Since the first edition of Kochi Muziris Biennale in 2012, graffiti art has been treated as a part of the government policy. First of all Kochi Muziris Biennale is supported by the Government of Kerala therefore anything that is sanctioned by the Biennale should also be sanctioned by the state government. Secondly, the state government recently has taken a decision to fund a group of artists in Trivandrum to do ‘graffiti’ art on the major public walls in Trivandrum. In that case, Guess Who’s works are no longer interventionist art. They are works strategically created visual images placed in the public domain in order to grab attention towards the Biennale. That, in fact, is not a bad thing to do. But the hype and hoopla around it....looks a bit contrived.

Now, guess who is behind Guess Who.