Death of Indian Art Galleries

(An STD Booth in India)

In early 1990s, India underwent a total revolution; a revolution in telecommunications. Sam Pitroda, a visionary technocrat who came into the national attention with Rajiv Gandhi’s ascension to power was the chief architect of this revolution. Perhaps, Pitroda was the man who rang the death-knell of the Indian post and telegraph service, inadvertently. Indian people knew that a new change was in when they all could get a landline connection provided if they had the right documents and right connections. Another revolution was on via kitchen where millions of women belted out the sighs of relief when cooking gas connections became a reality; once again with the right documents and right connections. The ‘license-Permit-Quota’ Raj that had become the hallmark of Indian politics was refusing to go. People knew the communication revolution was in when they could make calls to their near and dear ones (even if against a racing ‘pulse’ rate) from the vertical and narrow yellow boxes sprang all over India. These boxes were called STD booths. These extremely poor cousins of Britain’s royal pay phone booths in red were low in style but high in demand.

The abbreviation, STD in the medical parlance was not something to be flaunted with pride. But when it came to the telecommunications, it attained a new status. Like many Indians who just do not know the expansion of certain abbreviations yet use them lavishly, the new STD too got currency in daily parlance without most knowing what it stood for (I just took the help of google to know what it is. It is Subscriber Trunk Dialing). But these booths that once played a pivotal role in changing India’s social as well as economic life fell defunct with the advent of cellular phones or the mobile phone by the end of 1990s and the unprecedented proliferation of it in the Indian sub-continent thanks to the competitive allowance of the private service provider companies in the market by the relaxation of government rules (which caused phenomenal corruption cases in Indian politics). The market for cellular phone became so expanded that even in the remotest areas in India, today it is difficult to see an STD booth. It was not just a communication revolution but the introduction of a new job sector. The collapse of it however brought in a new job sector providing jobs to millions of educated and semi-literate people with adequate income.

 (Sam Pitroda- the architect of Indian communication revolution)

This preamble is however is not to go further into the details of India’s growth potential in the mobile phone sector nor do I want to delve deep into the nuances of new age communication leaps that are fast making the existing communications systems rather crude if not defunct. But this example could be used to understand the gallery system in India and elsewhere. In our country, after the global melt down in 2008, the art market has not substantially gotten back to the tracks. Though there has been continuous soothsaying during the art fairs and auction days that the market has finally here, the truth is this: the market for Indian contemporary art is abysmally low all over the world. If you ask, I would say, this scenario has not affected the artists though it has affected the scale of the art that they have been doing. The real victims of this market collapse are the galleries. Though we could say that the better days would bring them back on track, my observations tell me that the gallery system in India or elsewhere will never be the same as before. Exactly the way the STD booths went out of existence, the galleries also would perhaps cease to exist. It is not really a doomsday prophesying but a reality check. Let me explain further.

Galleries are a 19^th century phenomenon and it is intricately connected with colonial power, economics of looting, growing of aesthetic finesse of the old time pirates and the post-industrial individualism and proliferation of capital that enabled the upper middle class and the middle class buy works of art for keep sake. The participants in the colonial project of various kinds had collected arts and artifacts from their subject countries and also had commissioned artists to make interesting works of art. These were shown to their guests in the galleries. The collapse of monarchies made the palaces into veritable museums where the art collections amassed for opulence and private contemplation were thrown open to the public. Galleries got their names from the architectural components in the palaces where the works of art were displayed in those days. Exactly the way, the sculptures liberated from architecture became ‘modern’ independent sculptures the galleries when plucked out of the museum parlance became commercial outlets from where one could buy the works of art based on personal choice. Buying art was at once a cultural partaking and an expression of aspirational behavior. Art as an investment came much later.

(An 19th century salon in Paris)

The establishment of galleries as commercial outlets invariably brings out the fact, in fact the other side of it, that galleries could exist only when there are buyers. If we see the same through the basic market logic, galleries are the results of the demand-supply logic. People wanted to buy art and they did not know where to look for. To cater to this growing demand, entrepreneurs started private salons where they could show the works of art to the prospective clients. The salons that are freed from larger organizational structures or the state itself became controlled private affairs where people could see and buy works of art at their own pace and leisure. The very same entrepreneurs soon understood to cater to the demand they need a steady supply of the wares/works of art. That was why they started looking for the alcoholic, deranged and even mad artists who lurked in the shady parts of the city (most of them could not afford to live in better places as they were not economically productive. Even today we could see why artists are gravitated towards economically viable areas as in a city) and converted them into real ‘modern’ artists. In those days, artists who were devoid of their erstwhile royal patronage and also less anchored by the doubts they had about religious and political establishments, they were also like the writers who did ‘economically unviable works’.

These pre-fine-tuned and pre-sophisticated days of galleries make one thing clear to us: if there are no buyers the very idea of supply collapses rendering the producers absolutely ‘useless economically’. The logic of existence as far as a gallery is concerned is based on the demand created by the buyer/collector and if the buyer/collector reduces the demand or rather finds other avenues to procure his wares, then gallery as an intermediary becomes automatically defunct. If we go by the telecommunication revolution logic, we understand that people have not stopped communicating with the advent of mobile phones, on the contrary the communications became multi-dimensional and paved the way for a very vigorous economic activity around it. The same is applicable in the case of art and galleries. The buyers and collectors have not stopped buying or collecting art. They are still doing it is the fact. But they have migrated to new interfaces from where they collect better products. One may doubt this argument citing the fact that now the contemporary artists are not selling that much as they used to during the market boom days. But the reality is different. During the market boom days, the investment potential of/on market was shown exaggerated therefore there was an increased activity in the economic side of art, which definitely was beneficial to the contemporary artists. But the increase in the number of galleries in those days was just an outcome of the increased demand not a natural growth in the organic state of the galleries (of such organic nature ever existed). 

(Lado Sarai, Delhi's art district)

Catering to the demand cannot be a reason for assessing the durability of any market for two basic reasons; one, the demand could dwindle at some stage, two, the demand could exist but its focus could deflect. For example, there could be an added demand for pineapple due to various health reasons or some new scientific finding that makes pineapple a very covetable fruit. Automatically there will be an excessive production of pineapples all over the world. New products and new outlets will come up. But this is possible only till the allure of the health benefits lasts. Over a few months someone irked person would come out and say that he did not get anything out consuming pineapples. In the worst scenario, another scientific establishment that wants to create a market for apple could trash the benefits of pineapple consumption and could prove that apple is better than pineapple. The systems that have been created for selling and buying pineapple cannot be used for selling apple though some kind of adjustments are possible for a short term basis but the sustainability of it is always questionable. That’s what exactly happened to the STD booths; they stayed on for some time before saying it quit. If galleries are staying on in India now it is because some economic activities are happening around them still.  

Ask a gallerist, she would say things are not bright. It is not her problem. It is the natural growth of the market. If understand the historical dynamics, then we would understand how the galleries have been getting out of use and purpose. Imagine a scenario with such outlets that could sell not only pineapple and apple but also all the kinds of fruits with proven scientific credentials. That means, to buy a bunch of strawberry, you perhaps would not go to an exclusive strawberry store. You would better go to a well-known supermarket with a lavish fruit section in it. In the worst case scenario or for convenience sake, you either buy from home deliverers or from the peddlers. Now, if you just jog your imagination a little, you could understand why people prefer to go to private museum to make choices and also to enjoy works of art. Or rather why they look at the auction results and instead of going to the single shop send a word around in the secondary market. What happens here is those galleries that could not upgrade themselves as little museums would eventually turn into peddlers and home deliverers, but with a difference.  We have seen suited and booted peddlers who sell knick knacks from the pavements by making themselves distinct with their attire. It is almost like big shops set up their temporary stalls in the streets during the festival times in India.

(Kiran Nadar Museum in Delhi)

Private museums are fast replacing the galleries in India and elsewhere. These larger than galleries are not really commercial outlets but more prestigious art hubs where a single patrons whims and fancies works as the logical thread of the collection that one sees at a given point of time. Definitely the single patron employs experts and curators to choose, display and negotiate with other museums, always to push the level of quality and brand up. This is an international phenomenon now. There an inter-museum exchange and also intra-museum exchange of ideas and artifacts. This has created a new scenario in which what is outside of these exchanges could look like less authentic even. If an artist’s work is collected in a private museum, then that artist’s value goes up then the galleries could do some business but with no negotiating power on its price or ‘aesthetical value’ as they used to do before because the benchmark is set by the private museums. In the hierarchy, you like it or not, the galleries are the new underdogs. Though it is not completely so, the galleries with a devoted client list still scrape through in business but in the demand-supply logic, the psyche of a client works in tandem with the graph of the brand value of the product. You could buy a Louis Vutton bag from an Indian showroom but when you say it that you bought from Paris, that makes all the difference.

Private museums do not directly enter into the market. However, they invigorate both the auction circuit as well as the secondary market. If a private museum bulk buys an artist, you could imagine that this artist and his works coming back to the scene mostly via some international private museum and through the established auction houses. This process sets the ball rolling in the secondary market where the dealers like rag pickers scramble through all the available and known collections to eke out the said artist’s works. To sustain themselves, the gallerists also join the gang, literally shutting down the activities of the galleries and rendering most of their devoted artists jobless and less of income. It was against this scenario the international acclaimed artist Damien Hirst decided to give his work directly to museums and auction houses rather than sending it via galleries. When art is turned into a pure economic activity, its sanctity has to be maintained at some level; that’s why most of the private museums are opened to the public, mostly free of cost because the works have to be in the ‘public domain’ before they turn into a commercial product. So the art viewing now has become more of a ‘seasoning and validating’ act of/by the public which reminds one of the marriages all over the world. Marriage is a private act between two individuals and their families. But the whole community is called to witness it because the sanctioning the sexual relationship between the bride and groom should not be questioned and shamed by the public. So public viewing of art in the private museums is a public witnessing ritual that makes certain nexus socially permissible.

 (Delhi Art Gallery)

If so what are these galleries going to do? To find an answer let me go to the opening example of the STD booths and mobile phones. As I said before, the people have not stopped communicating. They have started using new ways of communicating. Similarly, people have not stopped buying art or seeing art. Nor have the artists stopped making art. Things are happening as usual. But to make the economic activities stronger and faster, the galleries should find new strategies. The art scene itself has found new strategies and unfortunately the galleries have failed to catch up with these changes. People are looking at art as their desire to have something meaningful and beautiful will never cease to exist. But they are looking at different venues. They are looking at art in the virtual space; they are looking at the art in the social media. Via these new platforms, the buyers and collectors are coming into direct contact with the artists. The works are seen online and if need be, the buyers and collectors do not hesitate to travel to the studios of the artists or when they are showing in artists initiated exhibitions. They look at the auction results and buy from the secondary market. When they feel the need to collect art, they even get a few of the artists in camps. Industrial houses are still buying contemporary art via direct commissioning. Bulk buying is still done. More than before, the artists are at peace with themselves for there is no pressure on them from the greedy gallerists. In the meanwhile, galleries are getting closed.

Is there any future of galleries in India? I say there is but in an absolutely different way. A gallery in India would thrive only when it behaves absolutely like a sophisticated car show room. In a car show room, the owner would never come down to explain why this particular brand is good or important. The client relationship is handled by experts educated in client relations. An engineer is employed to tell what exactly the engine does. A wellness manager is employed to take care of the client needs. The brochures are written by the experts. The front desks are managed by smart young men and women. You get a complete experience when you come out of a car show room whether you buy one or not. Now you just imagine a contemporary art gallery. When was the last time someone greeted with you a smile when you visited an exhibition? I don’t say much, you make your own mental comparisons. I would say only this much, the collapse of Indian galleries are caused by gallery owners who instead of becoming good sellers became the ‘makers of aesthetic choices’.  They killed the experts in the field; art historians, critics, art writers, business experts, trained front desk handlers, archivists and so on. India has moved on. Indian art collectors have moved on. But the galleries stand where they have been thinking that their little spaces are the cradles of a civilization. Delusion has never been so strong before.

     

New Fat Jogger

On the final round of my daily jog

He stops me, curiosity in his eyes

“You look old but not that too old

Yet you look fit with a good gait,”

Says he with some smile and hope

“Not so fit, yet I try to do my bit

To keep things in one place,” say I

He moves his huge frame to side

Makes way for me to pass ahead

“Would you help me to run a round?”

Asks he again, forcing me to doubt

His intentions, yet I give him my ears

“Want to shed it,” says he showing

Me his growing paunch all around

“Like you,” he pants, I cover shyness

“Breath slow but steady, I tell him

Shut up your mouth and run on”

He now hangs all hopes in his pursed lips

And throws his extra weight all around

Each time he pushes himself up to me

He looks at me like a child seeking approval

My aching legs plough the track heavy

Already I know this cannot be too long

But I run all the way keeping pain aside

For at least he could feel better tonight. 

An Off Day Game: A Film for/of Our Times

(An Off Day Game publicity still)

Time-1970s. Location- A local reading room in Kerala. Camera-Start-Action. Five young men sit around a table and discuss Kafka, Camus, Freud, Marx, Kerala Politics, National politics and international politics. They argue vehemently on the merit of the recently published ‘Legend of Khasak’ (Khasakkinte Ithihasam) by O.V.Vijayan. Two boys strike at the carom board and two others sit in deep meditation on either side of a Chess board, contemplating the next move.

Fast forward. Time any time from 2000 to now. Location- an apartment or house or lodge or bar. Five men sit around with a few beer bottles and all other hot drinks that they could gather from the beverages shops. They discuss anything under sun without making any sense. Eat, drink and be merry is their motto. Politics, love, sex and literature come in between in their discussion but with no anchor. They do not know what they are doing or talking. Fights erupt, truce called, once again drinks are poured into glass till most of them black out.

(Director Sanal Kumar Sasidharan)

In the eyes of the Nobel laureate economist, Dr.Amartya Sen, Kerala tops both in education and health index. The fancy data tell that the living style and per capita income could match proportionately to the individual lives in the New York City. Malayalees are famous for their ability to speak in English, adopt new ways of life and for being intelligent and industrious. Yes, they have a ‘God’s own Country’ too to promote tourism. Young boys from the poor northern states migrate to this state and do all the jobs what once Malayalees used to do and they huge remittance back homes. In the meanwhile Malayalee do the same in the countries that they have migrated to. Rest of the Malayalee men who are left back in Kerala spend their time in political gossiping, in pornographic dreams, comedy movies and heavy boozing.

The tragic transition of the intellectual Malayalee or Intelligent Malayalee is almost complete for his vacant moments are spent in boozing. ‘Ozhivu Divasathe Kali’ (An Off Day Game), a Kerala State Award Winning movie for the year 2015, produced by Delhi’s Niv Art Movies and directed by the young filmmaker Sanal Kumar Sasidharan captures the tragedy of contemporary Malayalee society and its political and moral degeneration in no uncertain terms and interestingly by keeping the whole movie in the context of one single drinking session by five friends accompanied by a sixth side kick on an election day. They are there in an abandoned Inspection Bungalow near a river and their day’s agenda is just to drink and enjoy.

 (Geetha, the character)

Politics, sexual desire, conquest of women by using force and a lot of aimless jabbering enliven their session and the moment the issue of caste and complexion of skin is brought out for discussion (which happens as an aberration) suddenly the scenario changes. When a story written by the noted short story writer Unni R with the same title is made into a movie both the banality and poignancy of the uprooted and unanchored life of a contemporary Malayalee unravels before us sending most of us into the zones of discomfort. On that day there is an Assembly by-election in one of the constituencies in Kerala. These friends, who are good householders and law abiding citizens otherwise, decide to celebrate that day. The very decision is a pointer to the collapse of the political discourse in a state that claims total literacy. The joke that does the rounds in Kerala is that all the drunkards are the most disciplined people because they stand in a queue before the beverage shops without creating any ruckus. The film however unveils the other side of the discipline; once they are in possession of the drinks, they turn the worst specimens of human beings in a beautiful way.

Geetha, a young woman in her late thirties come to cook chicken for them. Each person has an on her and each of them take turns to seduce her in his typical way only to meet a firewall that burns out their advances. She is a no-nonsense woman, yet she is a pray. Her ability to choose to work and resist the sexual advances of strangers commands appreciation and at the same time it shows how pathetically the ‘literate’ Malayalee slips into sexual predation once a couple of drinks are consumed. Geetha does not want to kill the live hen and the responsibility falls on Dasan, a dark and stout youth who often becomes the butt of their racial remarks. Dasan, finding no way to kill the live chicken finally decides to execute it by ‘hanging’. The scene evokes laughter amongst audience and the very laughter sets the tone of the later catharsis.

 (A scene from the movie)

Popular Malayalam films, like the mainstream films made elsewhere in the world, have the tendency to strategically allocate caste and class identities to the heroes, heroines, villains and other characters. In a state like Kerala where religious demography is unsettlingly precarious with no religious denomination gets an upper hand in terms of demographic strength, the villainizing and trivializing of religious and castes are rotationally (and democratically too) done in the movies so that nobody’s sentiments are not easily hurt. In ‘An Off Day Game’ we have mostly a Hindu gathering with no substantial character from any other religion. The slow but steady and conscious self-exclusionary practice of the Hindu society is perhaps suggested but interestingly, the hierarchy with in the Hindu fold is subtly mentioned by the caste identities attributed to the main characters.

The equation is very precarious; on the one hand, the inclusion of a Namboothiri (Brahman) in the pack shows how Kerala has evolved caste-wise and is able to transcend the erstwhile caste exclusions within the Hindu fold. Dharman, who commands power amongst the friends as his money and muscle power, with his fair complexion stands out as an upper caste man. Vinayan and Prakash are understood to be from the middle castes (the OBCs in Kerala) while Dasan, by virtue of his name, physique and complexion is obviously from the lower caste. Dasan is made to do the menial jobs and we have to understand he is the only one amongst the friends who does not make any sexual move towards the similarly dark complexioned and tough Geetha.

(Story writer Unni R)

Egos fly while they drink. They try to talk politics and everything falls flat. Dharman’s effort to seduce Geetha is met with a violent retaliation from her. Vinayan’s views on seduction are logical and ‘democratic’ but Prakash believes in conquests via physical force. However, when Vinayan mentions Prakashan’s wife, who could also be a pray of such conquests of other men, Prakash loses his cool. The hypocrisy of the pack slowly unrolls and as expected it reaches to the level of someone making a direct reference to the ‘darkness’ of Dasan’s body. An emotional Dasan gets up and recites a poem in ‘English’. ‘When born I am black, When I grow up I am black, When I am sick I am black, When I die I am black. When you are born you are pink, when you grow up you are white, when you are sick you are blue, when you die you are brown, Yet you call me colored?’ This brings a deep silence and they all hang their heads in shame.  Dasan’s preference to English for reciting the poem should be noticed as it shows his educational reach which has not helped him transcend his caste identity.

To lighten up the scene, Prakash suggests a game. They make a lottery with names ‘King, Minister, Police and Robber’ and the one who gets ‘police’ should find the robber. If he points the wrong person, he could punish the police by caning. This is a four persons’ game but they are five. Hence, they introduce a Supreme Court judge and they unanimously select Namboothiri (Brahmin) as the Judge. The social selection is self-evidential in this choice. Prakash gets the lot of the police and he makes two mistakes. Each times he bribes the king who is hand in glove with the Judge. Finally Dasan turns out to be the one with the lot ‘robber’. Drunken with frivolity and hollowness (a la La Dolce Vita), they ask the Judge to declare the sentence and he does declare; Hang him until death. They hang him; the mock drama ends brutally.

 (Abhija Sivakala who essayed the role of Geetha)

With a shudder the audience realizes that it was Dasan who hanged the chicken and in a cruel game he is now hanged by his own friends. In the height of merry making, the friends accuse Dasan of sedition and they bray for his death. They tie his hands, strip him and use the same cloth to hang him from the balcony as if it was so natural to deliver justice in that manner. When the film was made India was not boiling with the issue of sedition. An Off Day Game becomes prophetic in many ways as less than six months after its release Rohit Vemula committed suicide by hanging and it is dubbed as a murder by an unkind state. Kanaiah Kumar became a traitor because he was ‘dark, short, backward and a communist’. The film is a political satire and at the same time, a real time documentation of the most degenerating society in India, Malayalee society. Perhaps, this film should be seen by each Malayalee with his or her family and hang their heads in shame. The victory of art can be proved only by such shaming, at times. 

Illustrious Expletives: A College Magazine and After

(The cover page of the controversial college magazine in Kerala)

College magazines are little tinder boxes of passion and righteousness. Two things feature prominently in them; love and revolution. Both these passions that the young generations value most all over the world especially when they are in the college campuses need not necessarily be expressed in the matured frame of mind. Ignited by the idea of establishing a world which is devoid of all censorships and creating a society that functions on the dictums of equal rights and justice for all genders, students bring forth college magazines, which are often circulated amongst the students, enjoyed, critiqued, trashed and at times archived. This is a romantic web which is created out of the fine threads of utopian thoughts and seen from the perspective of a student it is not a bad idea to be a part of the production of a college magazine.

 (The Editorial Board)

Abundance of revolution and romance never discounts a college magazine of its serious intent. There are several college magazines published in the world, meticulously handwritten and finely illustrated by the best talents of a given time in the campus and many cherish them for their content and production. Cheap production and printing technologies have changed the look and finish of the college magazines that often reflect the editor’s and the production team’s familiarity with the magazines that they admire or the magazines that cater to their political affinities. In the pre-internet days, college magazines were the avenues where the ‘silent and deceptive’ ones amongst the students came out with their real talents in writing poems, stories, essays and so on, though many of them would put their authors into pure shame in their matured years. At the same time, so many established writers too have done their debut publishing in the college magazines, handwritten or printed.

 (a page from the magazine)

In Kerala, handwritten magazines and college magazines have always been a craze. With the arrival of blogs and social media, almost every literate Malayalee with a facebook account attempts some kind of creative writing on a daily basis. Some of them almost take revenge on the college magazine editors who had discarded their ‘masterpieces’ when they were in college, while writing in the social media. However, in the days of intolerance, at least in Kerala, a college magazine has hurt the sentiments of the, yes, the right wing people. The controversial magazine has come out from the Zamorine Guruvayoorappan College in Kozhikode, North Kerala. A cursory google search tells me that the magazines that had come out of this college before too have rubbed many people wrongly. Today, anything that refers to Rohit Vemula, Death Sentence, Bharat Mata, Islam, Beef, JNU and so on could create some tension in the social sphere only because some sections of the Indian society feel that uttering these words are as good as sedition or as good as hurting the sentiments of some religious groups.

 (a page from the magazine)

The magazine in question is titled ‘Viswavikhyathamaya Theri’, which could be roughly translated as ‘Illustrious Expletives’ or Universally known Abuses. I would go by ‘Illustrious Expletives’. The crux of the editorial content of this magazine is how ideology has subordinated language into a sort of oppressive tool and derived expletives from the words that were once used to connote the downtrodden, Dalit and other fringe communities. India tops amongst the world countries in using expletives in daily parlance. In North India, each sentence that is exchanged between people both in the public and private domain is underlined by a word of abuse, which in fact refers to the subordinate position of women in the society. It is ironical that a dominant society that calls the country a ‘mata’ (mother) and even resorts to honor killing to protect the gene pool of the family through denying the women of their conjugal rights, turns its daily language into a basket of expletives that highlight the private parts and incestuous relationships of women absolutely objectifying them into usable and transferable commodities, by excluding them even from their physical agencies.

 (from the magazine)

Such naturalization has happened almost in all the societies in India and elsewhere where the male folks have taken the reigns of the society. Language is a primary tool of control and subjugation and Malayalam, the native language of the Keralites, is not different from such ideological and chauvinistic co-optation. The magazine deals with the history of such co-optations and analyses how this linguistic turns had taken place over a period of time by slow, steady but violent exclusion of the subject communities. The magazine analyses various such manifestations in the articles written by the student writers and some of them are written by in-house scholars. To be very frank, while going through essays and expressions, what I could gather was the passion and angst with which those articles were written and I should appreciate it. But if someone asks, whether they are the ultimate critique, well researched and well argued to establish the counter points, I would say,  most of them have failed miserably. But one should not avoid the passion with which these articles are written and they should be respected for the very intention.

 (from the magazine)

While I appreciate the choice of the content that includes the mandatory translation of Rohit Vemula’s last letter where he quotes Carl Sagan (that gives the dead a sort of super sensitive and imaginative qualities and his aspiration to become a poetic writer of scientific matters stands justified despite the absence of his such writings in the public domain for qualitative scrutiny), a debate on death row, a discussion on the Kodungalloor Bharani festival where songs created out of expletives are sung as a ritual, mandatory discussion on theatre and films. Etymological origins of certain words that are currently used as abusive words in Malayalam language also are brought into the ken of discussion to prove that it too has happened as a result of the linguistic apartheid. As a neutralizing point, I came across extremely ‘natural’ romantic poems, stories and notes which perhaps, I should say, did not have any literary merit. The illustrations go well with the sloganeering attitude of the articles but not so commendable when compared to the illustration that the Kerala populace is familiar with.

 (a page from the magazine)

I am surprised why the ABVP, the student wing of the BJP took this magazine as an offence to the public or private sentiments and even went to the extent of burning a copy of it within the college premises. Like the cases that are highlighted in the vigilant media dominated by the debate television, this magazine is lionized beyond proportion. It could have been avoided by sensible people even within the ABVP (right wing does not mean being dumb). A college is an expression of the general sentiments of the students who have elected a college union. Had it been an ABVP led union, the magazine would have been of a different sort and wouldn’t have even been noticed by many. First of all by making something like an ‘internal’ college issue into a public matter it at once causes a fruitless debate and also gives a lot of media space to the not so talented people. If ABVP thinks that a magazine like this could hurt them, then what about all the mainstream magazines published in Kerala? They are much more vocal and critical about the issues. A right wing party, though logic is the last thing that they would listen to, should heed to the apparent and visible fact that censoring by force will never suppress the rebellious thoughts generated in the minds of the young people who are instrumental in producing this college magazine. Amongst them, the really talented and rigorous ones would migrate into the mainstream politics, literature and academics. And they will demolish the illogical right wing sentiments, if not today, tomorrow. 

Dinner

Sounds get

Translated into

An inky silence

From downstairs

An alien language

Climbs up to the library

Just a glance, then

It walks out murmuring

Buddha complains

That he could have

Avoided enlightenment

Giving his begging bowl

And robe, he walks into

An ocean of nakedness

Wrongs that do not have rights

Rights that do not have wrongs

Stand trembling before the red light

Three….two …one

Time is the green light

That never comes alive

Don’t

Don’t salivate in words

When a platter of life is

Served on the dinner table.

Reading the Murals of K.G.Subramanyan: Enchantment and Engagement

(Prof.R.Sivakumar, author of Enchantment and Engagement)

In 2011-12, when K.G.Subramanyan decided to do a large mural on the walls of the polygonal building in the Kalabhavana campus in Santiniketan, a ‘little bit more permanent’ by nature than the previous ones that he had done in the same campus, thanks to the pressure of many friends and lovers of the institution, suddenly a group of traditionalists felt that the move was blasphemous for the building that was about to get a KGS touch was the illustrious ‘Mastermoshai’s Studio’. Master Moshai is none other than Nandlal Bose (1882-1966) who used to use a few of the seven cubicles in this building as his studio spaces. While preservation of a building touched by history was the prime motto of the people who opposed KGS’ mural making, KGS and his supporters felt that it was underlining a great lineage of art and aesthetic philosophy that made Santiniketan a vibrant space, without altering the architecture structurally. Despite the agitations and rumor mongering, the mural was finished and that too when KGS had already touched 90 glorious years of his life.

‘Moving hand writes and write on’ wrote Omar Khayyam in Rubaiyat. That was how the exactly most of the poets felt when they wrote poetry; it was a divine inspiration, we believe it or not. 19^th century literary critic Mathew Arnold while writing about William Wordsworth said, ‘nature seems to take pen from the poet’s hand and write for him’. Almost four centuries before Arnold, when Ezhuthacchan wrote his ‘Adhyatma Ramayana’, he invoked the Goddess of Learning saying that she should create words in him like waves in the sea. KGS painted, wrote, ideated, taught and did murals as if he were just a medium of the divine inspirations and sources. And he, even at this advanced age of 94, continues remain the divine medium of creativity. Perhaps, KGS would not agree with it. But textual analysis of his works proves that he knew about this that too from a critic like T.S.Eliot who wrote ‘Tradition and Individual Talent’ and furthered the notions of Arnold and it is not surprising a fact that KGS too has written books titled ‘Living Tradition’ and ‘Creative Circuit’ definitely resonating a few of the ideas expressed by Arnold and later carried on further by T.S.Eliot.

(KGS working on a Mural)

The Kalabhavana mural at Mastermoshai’s Studio was successfully completed and when Prof.R.Sivakumar narrates the making of it, we get to know the depth of the ideas that have gone into the making of such an ambitious process. Read ‘Enchantment and Engagement- The Murals of K.G.Subramanyan’ written by R.Sivakumar and published by the Seagull Books, we get a chance to travel through time and visit all those twelve monumental murals that KGS has done over a period of fifty years. Yes, that in other words is called ‘half a century’. When KGS came once again to Santiniketan to do this mural, he had already finished nine of his documented murals in different parts of the country and had even seen his Handloom board time textile murals coming up for sales in some auction houses, with a lot of amusement. But the making of this mural was a new experience for KGS. He chose the cow dung color for the stoneware tiles because he wanted to continue the Mastermoshai’s views on traditional aesthetical activities of people and the those of the academically educated artists; in other words, the intrinsic link between craft and art. Hence the color was evocative. As the technique was laborious, KGS limited himself to abstract patterns which have the resonances of/from the traditional crafts of India and elsewhere. First he drew them on the biscuit baked titles and then sent for final firing. It took a whole year for KGS to finish the work.

Sivakumar turns poetic when he writes about this particular mural. He captures the essence of the building with its new skin the way an impressionist painter would do with his canvas and colors: ‘This mural is like a landscape seen under a changing light rather than a work of art in a museum seen under constant illuminations. To know it mindfully and feel it fully, it has to be seen through the hours of the day and through the seasons, and attention has to be paid to the perpetual changes, not to the perpetual constancies.” (Page 29). KGS knew the effect of light and seasons on a mural because he had already had three encounters with another building in the Kalabhavana campus. In 1990, KGS came to Kalabhavana yet again and started working his famous black and white mural. He just wanted to reflect the surroundings (or the pace with which it was depleting) on the building so he chose the first tier and drew a lot of birds, monkeys and trees. Maintaining his post Expressionist style, which he has employed in his paintings, KGS worked on this mural and left it there only to make a revisit in 1993 to finish the second tier. While narrating the making of the present version Sivakumar says how he was coaxed into ‘mending and repairing the mural’ as the layers were coming off after a decade or so, instead of getting into that trap, KGS decided to ‘rub off or erase’ the existing mural and do a new one altogether!

(Mastermoshai's studio after the making of Mural by KGS)

In 2004, when KGS did this ‘redoing’ of the black and white mural, he had become more sensitive to the building and surroundings in a different way. The sylvan play and the pastoral metaphors that had enthralled the artist into the romanticism of the Santiniketan campus and even the sub-conscious demand of the artist to see the place as he had seen it during his student days, take a back seat in the third visit of the mural and in its place KGS brings complicated mythological narrative, which is entirely of the artist’s conjuration rather than the transportation of the existing ones onto a different medium, along with some traces of the early pastoral metaphors. The new mythology however is not completely out of the popular understanding. At the outset itself Sivakumar contextualizes murals as an art form and writes: “Illustrations and murals are firstly embellishments- they draw the viewers in, almost entice them in and then work upon them, make them read the message and ponder over it, and then through that perhaps connect with the physical and cultural world that surround them” (Page 6). KGS, while making it, was thoroughly aware of this ‘linguistic, communicational and aesthetic link’. Hence, we see a KGS creating a new mythology while drawing up a lot from the already popular mythologies but turning them around to his purpose in order ‘entice the viewer’ to weave a new fabric of narratives along with the artist.

KGS in his interviews with Sivakumar and other has said how he is impressed by his own making because the black and white combination which responds to the surroundings like a monolith having a different autonomy than the other building around it, changing the vehemence of presence according to the changing light. It is something when there is sunlight, something else there is rain and absolutely transforms into an ethereal thing on the moonlit nights. KGS however is not a fanatic who would vouch only for the black and white. His sand casting mural with three goddesses, turtle, fish and crocodile in Santiniketan stands apart in this case. Done in 1988, this mural is experimental and narrative at the same time. He not only takes the mythological narratives into one frame of reference but also incorporates geographical and topographical evolution of the place into the extended narrative of this mural. This is done in three frames, which perhaps is an interesting spatial technique for the artist. In most of the murals KGS uses polyptychs (multiple frames) to set up the narrative and Sivakumar says that this is not purely directional in function but is an attempt to provide multiple entries into the murals. In his latest murals like ‘Conflict to Conviviality’ (2010) and ‘War of Relics’ (2012-13) he uses multiple frames to create a larger narrative.

 (The book cover of Enchantment and Engagement by R.Sivakumar)

More than convenience, argues Sivakumar, the choice of multiple frames is meant as a ‘structural device’ to generate multiple meanings. He writes: “Most triptychs and polyptychs offer more than one reading; they have always been structural devices to generate multiple readings, and often for paired presentations of contrasting alternatives. Subramanyan uses the triptych here as a compositional device to present a complex situation rather than to signal a single reading of the scene. So it can also be read from right to left to suggest that the world has moved tragically from conviviality to conflict, or a little more hopefully , it suggest that the die is yet to be cast and it is for us to choose.” (Page 36=37). And the latest murals, as Sivakumar observes, draws the final points of a full circle where even if these two murals are done in canvas, KGS treats them like a mural on an actual wall whereas he had done his first mural in 1955 for the Jyoti Limited in Gujarat and he had treated it as a large scale painting rather than a mural.

KGS operated from the modernist frame work. For him creating a personal repertoire of linguistic elements was one of the prime motives than making them absolutely ‘communicative’. But at the same time he knew that without communication the art would perhaps remain a very private activity. KGS was not really for a purposeful communication with a message as done by his teacher Nandalal Bose. Sivakumar observes that KGS was more attracted towards Benode Behari Mukherjee and Ram Kinkar Baij who pursued their individuality with some strange sort of divine inspiration and automatically their art served certain social and aesthetic purposes without forcing it on the people. When KGS worked with Benode Behari Mukherjee while he was making the Medieval Saints mural in Hindi Bhavan in Santiniketan, he did not know what would be the purpose of this mural. But what he liked was Mukherjee’s wish to see things the way the Renaissance masters would have preferred to see the buildings around them. It was a great learning experience for KGS though he got only a chance to do a pair of Horse riders in the whole mural. Looking at it, Mukherjee told him, ‘Your Horsemen are too fleshy’. Sending his images for weight loosing was then easier for a young KGS because the admonition came in a Zen way.

(The King of Dark Chamber Mural in Rabindralaya, Lucknow, by KGS- Detail)

At the outset of the book itself Sivakumar says that murals happen within a shared linguistic concern. If the sharing does not happen they will just remain as mere embellishments without drawing or enticing the viewers into it. We live in times when the state itself sponsor mural in the name of public art, urban planning and city beautification. Many of these visual embellishments though remain as a part of the collective consciousness and part of the general visual culture, fail drastically to move the people towards the sublime of whatever sort mainly because they do not function from within the shared linguistic concerns. Banksy’s success and failure of several others in our country should be seen against this historical and aesthetical point of view. Sivakumar after citing the milestones in the world mural art like the Russian Avant Garde murals, Bauhaus and Mexican murals, says this: “Though the Russian Avant Garde, the Bauhaus and the Mexican muralists attempted to create such a meaningful traffic between the two, they were in the end, contrary to the general course of modernism, moments of aberration inspired by utopian social ideologies.” (Page 3). What Sivakumar says as the ‘traffic between the two’ is traffic between the artists and their audience’.

 (The Black and White mural in Kalabhavana by KGS)

KGS knew the trappings of this traffic and the lack of it. As a person initiated very early into the mundane ritualistic symbolism that brought an exclusive community into the same thread of communication and also as a young man who happened to witness the western religious symbolism in the abundance of churches and the socio-political symbolism of both the Gandhian and the Communist movements, KGS could discern between the Utopian symbolism that took birth within the studios and the vibrant metaphors and symbols that people lived both in their mundane and cultural memories. The artist just needed to poke them in order to facilitate communication. That was what he did when he created his ‘King of the Dark Chamber’ mural for the Rabindralaya in Lucknow as a part of the Birth Centenary of Rabindranath Tagore. Sivakumar explains how KGS brought not only multiple narrative and entry points to the mural but also how he incorporated two version of the same drama written by Tagore, its oral base and its theatre production variant in which he had a part as a set and costume designer. The cultural sharing of the story make this mural interesting though it is one mural that KGS had done before the building was finished!

 (KGS preparing for sand casting one of his early murals)

As a modernist and as an artist who sought linkages between craft traditions and art, KGS never got into the exploitative mode with which he could have absorbed the talents of many rural crafts people into the scheme of his own works. That does not mean that KGS kept them away from his works. While using their expertise and knowledge in the making of several of his mural where he extensively used sandcasting and terracotta, he never let them to transfer their metaphorical repertoire into his mural formats. So the question is whether KGS was using them just as technical assistants or was he using their support as crafts people? The answer is perhaps both but it was not just about using and throwing or making them stand behind the curtains as many of the artists do these days. KGS was bold enough to seek their support (Gyarsilal from Rajasthan who was an expert in Jaipur Fresco was his constant technical support for over three decades) and at the same time not letting them make a kichri out of his works. KGS believed making art with his hands, exactly the way his masters did and in this he found both tradition and individual talent merging into one. 

The Edginess of Faith: When Prabuddha and Dalrymple Meet

(From Prabuddha Dasgupta's Edge of Faith)

Alfonso de Albuquerque was a stumbling block somewhere in the high school history text books. The name stood out, sounding and tasting different, giving us a hard time in learning the spelling. Very few got it right. He was the one who established the Portuguese ‘empire’ in the Indian subcontinent, exactly in Goa. William Dalrymple, in his introduction to the photo book titled ‘Edge of Faith’ by the late photographer, Prabuddha Dasgupta, in his characteristic style explains how the Portuguese loosened their clutches from being the grand inquisitors who burnt the heathens at the stake for following their pagan beliefs and for not following the new Catholicism that they were trying to impose on the natives. Looking at the portraits of the Portuguese rulers from 1510 to 1961, Dalrymple says that from the booted giants, they moved to frilled dandies, letting people to enjoy life in their new found Catholicism.

In 1961, the Indian Government sent its Army, Air Force and Navy to ‘liberate’ Goa from the rule of the Portuguese. And the combined forces could liberate Goa easily for there was little resistance. Like in 1947 when the British left India, the citizens of the Empire had the freedom to migrate to Britain but a few left thinking that Queen Victoria was their real Queen. Those who believed in the freed ‘Bharat Mata’ stayed back building a new India. Exactly the same way, in 1961 too, the Goans had the freedom to migrate to Portugal and interestingly many Catholic did. And for many others it was difficult to leave their beloved Goa and they looked at India as a foreign land and in 1961 the invasion was complete. The Catholic minority has been taken over by the Hindu majority, which of late has been turning into extreme right wingers. The Catholics with Portuguese lineage still believe that the liberation that India performed was just the ‘liberation’ from ‘peace and harmony.’ ‘Indian’ politicians and the majority Hindu arrogance have changed the complexion of Goa.

 (Edge of Faith published by Seagull books)

Prabuddha Dasgupta’s ‘Edge of Faith’ is a very brooding Goan picture book. Published in 2009 by the Seagull Books, Kolkata, ‘Edge of Faith’ cannot be called a typical Goan photo book. There are no sunny beaches, sands, waves, bikinis and naked bodies. There are no pot smoking hippies or tattooed freaks. There are not even the typical Goan musicians both the underground and the over ground varieties, and the theatre actors of stereotypical characters called ‘Tiatriste’ as caricatured extensively by late Mario Miranda and photographed by Alex Fernandes.  There are no beer bottles nor are there some beer bellies. Yes, Prabuddha had taken some series on the accidental formations on Goan beaches as well as the supermodels posing with expensive ornaments, the former for his personal perusal and the latter for advertising campaigns. However, Prabuddha had always been an artist who looked out for something left out or left alone. Be it the photographs from Tibet or from Karnataka’s historical site Hampi, or even his celebrated series on Women, one could see this affinity for lone figures who are left to their own devices.

Loneliness in Prabuddha’s photographs does not translate itself into depravity or hopelessness. Loneliness is a protected state of being or even a method adopted by many for self-preservation. In Goa, while the celebrations are on 365 days in a year, what Prabuddha looked for were the lives of those lonely people or historically selected people who were destined to be lonely in their pursuits. He immortalized them in his pictures, as none had done ever before; even when Prabuddha was looking for frozen narratives, he was trying his best to avoid the human presence. What is present in his works always evokes what is absent there and vice versa. If there are some people who are deeply caught in the web of the past or history for academic sake, we definitely look for something that is left out by them. May be one beer mug held by an old female tavern owner speaks a lot about her life rather than the freckles and the wrinkles on her face would say. The abandoned houses, like the haunted ones that we see elsewhere, always come into the ken of Prabuddha, so are the covered scooters, rusting Fiat cars or discarded memorabilia. Each time we see such negligence by time, we remember those people who are still living the memories of a Portuguese rule.

 (Prabuddha Dasgupta)

Modern Goa has a cusp history, as Dalrymple narrates through several of the interviews that he has woven dexterously into an airy fabric that looks so exotically readable. The Portuguese who came and conquered Goa, after a series of proselytization efforts interestingly got converted into Indian ways. Similarly the Hindus who got converted into Catholicism forcefully let their former Hindu roots and rituals to flourish within the newly found faith. Despite the chidings of the priests, most of the new converts continued with their Hindu beliefs and also maintained their relationships with the non-converted family members which have been continuing ever since. Even in the famous Hindu temples in Goa, the converted Christians make offerings and come to pray, even involve in pagan rituals like ‘Evil-Eye’ dispelling. In the meanwhile the Hindus go en masse to the St Francis Xavier’s Church to pray as the Goan population in general believes in the power of Francis Xavier; they have forgotten the days of inquisition. One of the contemporary Catholic Goans says ironically that the Portuguese Goans who live in Goa today have turned a bit fundamentalists in their efforts keep themselves exclusive. She says that while the buses owned by Hindus flaunt the pictures of Francis Xavier and St. Anne in their dashboards along with the pictures of the Hindu deities, none of the Christian bus owners return the grace by accommodating a couple of Hindu gods in their dashboards.

 (Willliam Dalrymple)

It was not just the Hindus got converted into Christian Catholicism by force or by choice, but the Portuguese people also volunteered to convert themselves into Islam or some of them followed Hindu religion as a philosophy. Those got converted to Islam were doing it for making some extra wealth. They migrated from Goa to the neighboring empires where the Islam Kings ruled. By becoming ministers, advisors, traders, fighters and even by becoming mercenaries the Portuguese survived in different ways in India. Some of them even adopted the Hindu ways of highlighting the women’s modesty, keeping harems, slaves and servants and so on. They even wore the kinds of clothes that the Hindus used to wear inside their homes. But what Prabuddha looked at was not these scenes. But he was looking at the small niches of staunch faith where the Catholics lived as Catholics and perhaps lived in memories. Prabuddha also looked at those talented Goans who could integrate with the mainstream society of India in the post liberation years and become a part of the Indian ethos. The bedroom of Wendell Rodrick, the ace fashion designer is one fine example to it. There are so many small little mantle pieces where personal adulation and commemoration get mixed up with the vignettes of religious remembrance.

Prabuddha himself was an exile in Goa. He spent his last years in Goa with his young girl friend. Goa and its old setting somehow had charmed him into a romantic world where the horse driven carriages rattled over the cobbled stone paths, where lanterns threw the lights of earthy stars, where the taverns entertained the revelers and where the pious people focused at the crucified Christ from the ancient pews. Prabuddha loved to live in this world of faith. It was brittle though, the last ditch effort to hold on to the very idea of faith was so alluring to the artist that he never left Goa once he reached there. He knew the subtlety and the brittleness of faith both in religion and relationship. While pain increased the passion for religion perhaps in the case of relationships pain distanced people. Prabuddha held on not only at his camera but also at his faith in humanity. He sung the lines of Leonard Cohen and moved on, until the stroke struck rudely at the age of 56. Today, the writer Dalrymple has turned a photographer. When I look at his works, what I see is the embrace of Prabuddha’s soul on them. I feel that it is Prabuddha who writes the forward for Dalrymples photography exhibition, from a world where the Portuguese and the Indians laugh alike in an exotic Tavern in absolute bliss looking at the rusting crosses and tridents inside vitrine full of tears.