It's been an action-packed two days. Yesterday I managed to wake up a whole thirty-minutes earlier than usual in order to get a start on the day, because there was going to be a guest for lunch. As some of you may know, I VERY rarely have anyone over to the house because of the peculiar manner in which I live -- the carton-based decor, the minimalist style of hospitality (" ... I can offer you plain tea, Nescafe or hot water ..."), the deadlines which mean I don't like going out at night or having anyone over for dinner -- but this guest has been here before and seems to have survived the dismal setting of our chats, so I wasn't worried.
I've had a lot on my plate currently -- there are two books I'm working on (the DoubleTalk collection for Penguin and the illustrations for a book of three funny stories by me, for Puffin) -- and I also have been helping to get Billy Arjan Singh's book "A Tiger's Tale" published in time for an award-giving ceremony scheduled for the first week of March. In the midst of this, I've also been running a sort of minor line of greeting-cards, printed in silk-screen at my favourite print-shop-cum-photocopier, in Khan Market, called Punjab Store. So I'd just sent off my Boy Friday to K.M. with a CD of photographs for Billy's book and art-works for the cards, had a shower and was getting ready for my guest, when E's cell phone rang. I didn't catch it in time, and he was out of the house, without having taken his phone with him. When my cell phone rang too, a few minutes later, I guessed it had to be someone who was willing to talk to either of us.
My phone has an answering service -- and I've got the ring-cycle set so that it only rings twice before switching to the message-mode. I listened to see if there was a message -- and OH WOW! It was from E's good buddy Ian, calling from Delhi, having arrived UNANNOUNCED from Turkey that very morning (i.e., yesterday)! It's not possible to describe the vast range of stories, associations and amusements connected to Ian in the collective lives of Me and E, so I'll just mention here that (a)we've not seen him since 1997 and (b) we think of him as one of our favourite pals -- and I'm NOT using the royal plural, I really do mean that both E and I like him separately and perhaps even equally.
Even as I called back on the number from which he'd called -- a small guesthouse in Nizamuddin, i.e., barely 10 minutes from where we live -- the door bell rang and there was my lunch guest. Let me reiterate -- I am NOT a practiced hostess, so the idea of suddenly having two people in for lunch was quite a shock to my system, even aside from one of them literally dropping out of the Turkish void without warning and even though I don't cook, but have a Genie in the kitchen to whom I have only to murmur that there's an extra plate for lunch. But it was a happy shock in this case. Anyway, I sat my guest down, explaining that I was about to have someone else in for lunch, so we had best discuss whatever needed discussing right away before he came because once he was here, all other topics would be washed away in a tidal wave of catch-up communication ...
And so it came to pass. Fortunately my guest was able to ride along the swell of squeaks and shouts of delight which attended Ian's arrival. E, when he returned, was completely flabbergasted to find Ian in the house -- anyway, we spent the rest of the day talking up a storm -- the traveller was so tired, he said, after a 17 hour journey which normally takes only 4 that he really couldn't fall asleep. Nor do we have space for a live-in guest any more because I am using the second bed-room as my work-space. So anyway, we muddled out a situation -- Ian slept in the same room as E while I shifted into my workspace -- and then talked into the wee hours.
This morning once more I had an "early" start -- all right, I confess, this means I wake up at 8.30 instead of 9.45 -- because I had an appointment to go to the All India Radio studios to record a short story plus interview that they had set up some weeks ago. I'd got my story ready a couple of days ago -- an existing story, but unpublished except for a one-time magazine debut -- and was showered and shod when I glanced at my cell-phone: a message had arrived early in the morning. When I read it I saw that my niece, who has been pregnant for the past nine months had gone into labour at 3.00 a.m.
I messaged back -- there isn't all that much to say under such conditions -- just a general what-ho and to say I'd be out of contact for a couple of hours. But by eleven, a call came through -- yes! She'd delivered a big baby girl, all of 8 pounds and from my sister's account, INSTANTLY feisty, with her eyes open, big billowy cheeks and bad-tempered, by golly! MAITREYI is her name, and I must say I like it. Got a nice, double-edged, slightly mystical, interestingly unusual sound to it. Names have become rather dodgy things these days, in case some of you haven't noticed. Some parents seem to really trawl the outer reaches of the mythos to scrape up names that have never before seen the light of day, full of weird consonant-combinations and sneezy sounds. But Maitreyi? NICE! I like it.
It'll be a while before I see her (I'm not a baby-friendly person and tend to shy away for some years until they are walking around and able to discuss the comparative virtues of Tintin versus Asterix), but this doesn't mean that I'm not very glad and relieved for my niece. A whole new person in our family, wow! What a challenge.
The car from A.I.R. arrived half an hour late, and took 45 minutes to get to the studio which is out in the wilderness at the Western-most margin of Delhi. The strange thing about the boondocks in India is that they do literally look like boondocks. This studio is only a year and a half old, but it looks like a film set left over from Dr Zhivago -- the summer palace episode, adrift in this case, not in snow but dust. But the program director was a sweet lady, soft-spoken and warm. She took me in to meet my interviewer, a young PhD student called Shubhra Ray. I rather like Shubhra -- but this hardly surprising because it's VERY hard to dislike someone who has made one's (i.e., my) work part of her doctoral thesis! We've been in correspondence for a while though we've met only once before I think.
It was all quite painless. Shubhra had done her homework well and so all her questions were easy to answer, after which I read out my story -- and we were done! Only one fumble, and that was from me, while reading the story. It's a very short one, just under 2500 words, and about my favourite subject, i.e., our friendly neighbourhood apocalypse-to-be. The title I used for this reading was "THE INCIDENT" but in print I had called it "THE DESTROYERS". It's really not worth describing -- just your every day, standard issue doom and gloom, with a very tiny, barely noticeable lift at the end. I think most people will miss the lift altogether, in which case it'll just be doom and gloom, pass the mustard gas please.
Amazingly, this session dragged on till late in the afternoon -- and I only got home at 4.30 -- and found it awash in men: Ian, E, and our mutual Ladakhi friend, P (some day I may explain why I hide some identities and not others, but today is not that day). In my absence I discovered E and Ian had shifted my workspace around so that the bed had gone into the large central space in the house, once an elegant drawingroom -- the one that's filled from floor to ceiling with cartons and variegated junk ranging from old tyres to used porcupine quills -- and a large pile of dusty junk had taken its place. This was because Ian couldn't appreciate the quality of E's snoring and needed his own space.
It might be imagined that I was upset about this sudden turnabout but ... no, not me. I've been trying to root that bed out of my workspace for, ohhh ... seven years? And now it has come to pass, smoothly and without even my participation. I did NOT despair over the junk that had replaced the bed in my room and instead just rearranged it tastefully elsewhere in the house until ... ta-daaaaa! My space is now magically roomier and less cluttered.
And so it goes. It took most of the evening and some part of the night for the four of us to tire of discussing books, politics, the wretched state of the world and our plans for improving it (annihilating the human race was amongst the better schemes that came up for consideration). It is now 2.30 a.m. and I'm the only one left awake. No energy left for proof-reading this post, alas! I'm going to send it out onto the web in all its ungrammatical and misspelt glory.
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Saturday, January 22, 2005
One Hour Photosurrealism
Last night (i.e., Friday) we watched a Robin Williams movie called ONE HOUR PHOTO, on the Star Movie channel. I'd seen a vague description of it in the TV guide, and thought it was going to be a mildly SF movie about a guy who works at a photo-processing counter. It turned out there was no SF angle, it was a straight film which weirded out around mid-way.
Williams' character Sy is elderly, sympathetic, just slightly tending towards obsession and very lonely. His internal voice-over tells us that he's the kind of man who LOOKS at the photographs that cross the counter at which he works, at his supermarket. One particular family interests him -- mother, father, young son. He sort of loves them -- he's watched the couple grow over the years and he's had mild fantasies about entering their lives, being part of their pictures.
Then the twist -- a young woman hands him a roll of film to develop and uh-oh! It shows her entwined romantically around the father of the family that Sy has privately bonded with. This burns him up. Meanwhile -- is it just bad luck that this happens at the same time? -- the store manager informs Sy there have been serious discrepancies in the record of photos sold and photos printed. Sy denies complicity, but it turns out that yes, he has indeed been skimming prints away, from the rolls of the small family, for his own pleasure. In his home, he has the whole collection displayed as a huge montage on one wall.
He is fired from the store. On his way out, he removes a hunting knife from one of the store's locked shelves. At home he scratches the father's face out of all the photographs on his display wall. It goes on and on -- the entire build-up of events leading to his finding the adulterous couple in their hotel, forcing them to perform for his camera, trying to run away from the police -- all the scenes we're shown lead us to believe that Sy kills the couple after taking his nasty pix.
But no, that's not the REAL twist. It turns out he didn't do anything vicious -- he merely pretended to take pictures of the pair, to frighten them. When he talks to the police officer who takes his statement he explains (in a suitably reversed manner, so that it doesn't come out as a bald here's-why-folks) that he couldn't bear it that people who had so much, such a wonderful life, such a happy family -- things he, in his loneliness had never had -- should throw those precious assets away for just a bit of fun in a hotel room.
La,la,la. Here's what annoyed me: the unstated suggestion that elderly loners are pretty much bound to be twisted. Even though Williams' character turns out to be less vile than we're led to believe he is, the drama works on our expectation that it simply isn't normal to be so alone or to care so much for non-family members -- and that merely to be that way (since we have no idea of his past) makes it safe for us to assume he could be perverted. I suppose the intention of the film was to root for Family Values (i.e., it was an attack on philanders, anyone who threatens stable, secure families) but what I got from it was that a stranger cannot EVER afford to have or to express any warm feelings for the people he encounters in the course of his work or else WHO KNOWS WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN.
Williams' performance was subtle, nuanced -- all that stuff -- but it was still embedded in a film that played on cheap, sensationalist emotions. Brrr, ah-NOYing. I would've preferred it if there was no tragic-macabre element at all -- maybe a sticky-sweet movie in which an elderly, twinkly-eyed photo-mechanic finds a way to re-engineer lives by messing with the chemicals in the film processing unit ... maybe a magicomic story in which he enters the pictures and lives happily ever after in a Kodachrome universe ... something which allows us to accept the idea that being old and being lonely do not lead inevitably to monsterhood.
MEANWHILE -- just for contrast -- I also want to mention the utterly bizarre bit of information learnt on Animal Planet some nights ago. There was a program about bees -- I entered it late -- and according to the film ... Okay, I've got to start a new sentence. We were shown two different types of bees -- African and Cape, both being bred in hives in South Africa. It turns out that these two species of bees inhabit different territories in S. Africa and seemed to prefer to remain separate when initial attempts were made to introduce them. However, when these efforts were stepped up, and hives containing the two varieties of bees were placed in close proximity, a very bizarre thing began to happen.
The Cape bees infiltrated the African bees' hives. Many were repelled but a few got through. Those who got through began to mutate -- instead of remaining sterile female workers, which is of course what they were in their home hives, they all gradually became queens and laid their own eggs in the cells of the African bees' hive. Because these eggs had not been fertilized, they instead produced larvae that were clones of the false queens who had laid them. The confused African workers were tricked into feeding these clone-queen larvae royal jelly and in the meantime, turned on their own queen and killed her. Without a real queen, to produce new workers, the original inhabitants of the African hive weakened and died. The hatchlings were all queens and hence unable to provide food for themselves. They soon flew off to infiltrate fresh hives of Africans ...
The result was that all the hives thus affected had to be destroyed and all their inmates put to flame. Isn't it totally freaky? It's as if the Cape bees mounted a feminist-type revolt which resulted in no honey for anyone. GRIMB*!! (*that's GRIM with a bee added to it, as the sting in the tale)
Williams' character Sy is elderly, sympathetic, just slightly tending towards obsession and very lonely. His internal voice-over tells us that he's the kind of man who LOOKS at the photographs that cross the counter at which he works, at his supermarket. One particular family interests him -- mother, father, young son. He sort of loves them -- he's watched the couple grow over the years and he's had mild fantasies about entering their lives, being part of their pictures.
Then the twist -- a young woman hands him a roll of film to develop and uh-oh! It shows her entwined romantically around the father of the family that Sy has privately bonded with. This burns him up. Meanwhile -- is it just bad luck that this happens at the same time? -- the store manager informs Sy there have been serious discrepancies in the record of photos sold and photos printed. Sy denies complicity, but it turns out that yes, he has indeed been skimming prints away, from the rolls of the small family, for his own pleasure. In his home, he has the whole collection displayed as a huge montage on one wall.
He is fired from the store. On his way out, he removes a hunting knife from one of the store's locked shelves. At home he scratches the father's face out of all the photographs on his display wall. It goes on and on -- the entire build-up of events leading to his finding the adulterous couple in their hotel, forcing them to perform for his camera, trying to run away from the police -- all the scenes we're shown lead us to believe that Sy kills the couple after taking his nasty pix.
But no, that's not the REAL twist. It turns out he didn't do anything vicious -- he merely pretended to take pictures of the pair, to frighten them. When he talks to the police officer who takes his statement he explains (in a suitably reversed manner, so that it doesn't come out as a bald here's-why-folks) that he couldn't bear it that people who had so much, such a wonderful life, such a happy family -- things he, in his loneliness had never had -- should throw those precious assets away for just a bit of fun in a hotel room.
La,la,la. Here's what annoyed me: the unstated suggestion that elderly loners are pretty much bound to be twisted. Even though Williams' character turns out to be less vile than we're led to believe he is, the drama works on our expectation that it simply isn't normal to be so alone or to care so much for non-family members -- and that merely to be that way (since we have no idea of his past) makes it safe for us to assume he could be perverted. I suppose the intention of the film was to root for Family Values (i.e., it was an attack on philanders, anyone who threatens stable, secure families) but what I got from it was that a stranger cannot EVER afford to have or to express any warm feelings for the people he encounters in the course of his work or else WHO KNOWS WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN.
Williams' performance was subtle, nuanced -- all that stuff -- but it was still embedded in a film that played on cheap, sensationalist emotions. Brrr, ah-NOYing. I would've preferred it if there was no tragic-macabre element at all -- maybe a sticky-sweet movie in which an elderly, twinkly-eyed photo-mechanic finds a way to re-engineer lives by messing with the chemicals in the film processing unit ... maybe a magicomic story in which he enters the pictures and lives happily ever after in a Kodachrome universe ... something which allows us to accept the idea that being old and being lonely do not lead inevitably to monsterhood.
MEANWHILE -- just for contrast -- I also want to mention the utterly bizarre bit of information learnt on Animal Planet some nights ago. There was a program about bees -- I entered it late -- and according to the film ... Okay, I've got to start a new sentence. We were shown two different types of bees -- African and Cape, both being bred in hives in South Africa. It turns out that these two species of bees inhabit different territories in S. Africa and seemed to prefer to remain separate when initial attempts were made to introduce them. However, when these efforts were stepped up, and hives containing the two varieties of bees were placed in close proximity, a very bizarre thing began to happen.
The Cape bees infiltrated the African bees' hives. Many were repelled but a few got through. Those who got through began to mutate -- instead of remaining sterile female workers, which is of course what they were in their home hives, they all gradually became queens and laid their own eggs in the cells of the African bees' hive. Because these eggs had not been fertilized, they instead produced larvae that were clones of the false queens who had laid them. The confused African workers were tricked into feeding these clone-queen larvae royal jelly and in the meantime, turned on their own queen and killed her. Without a real queen, to produce new workers, the original inhabitants of the African hive weakened and died. The hatchlings were all queens and hence unable to provide food for themselves. They soon flew off to infiltrate fresh hives of Africans ...
The result was that all the hives thus affected had to be destroyed and all their inmates put to flame. Isn't it totally freaky? It's as if the Cape bees mounted a feminist-type revolt which resulted in no honey for anyone. GRIMB*!! (*that's GRIM with a bee added to it, as the sting in the tale)
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
Drama & Good Fish (in that order)
Just returned from a pleasant evening, with Kaybe, visiting from NYC. First a play -- Habib Tanvir's AGRA BAZAAR at the Kamani, followed by dinner at "PLOOF", a restaurant I went to for the first time two weeks ago and liked a LOT.
So, the play: it was two-and-a-half hours long and a bit like travelling in time -- mythic-time, that is, not real-time -- the happy never-neverland, before those nasty, red-faced colonials with all their horrid rules and railways came in and made a mess of India. It was quaint and likeable, a slice-of-life in the bazaar, in Agra, rather like seeing a museum diorama come to life. I didn't understand a whole lot because it was in Urdu-ized Hindi and since I don't understand much Hindi at the best of times, most of the dialogue went whizzing past my comprehension centres. On the other hand, the form of the play makes comprehension a minor asset, as it is accompanied by songs, dancing and -- in one section -- an agile contortionist's performance. At the high point of her act she -- OUCH! -- picks up a pair of darning needles using only her eyelids ... while arching over backwards, supported on her hands and feet.
There wasn't much in the way of plot. It was a celebration of the flow of life, so beginnings and endings weren't the point -- just BEING THERE was enough. The performers were so authentic that I found it impossible to think of them as actors -- as I explained to Kaybe later -- they looked and behaved like indigent people who were merely doing on stage what they do in real life -- and of course, that's extremely unlikely. At the same time, I think in the case of at least some of them, they really are people who used to be street-performers, now performing to a theatre-going audience, through the intervention of the sprightly and white-haired playwright who came on stage to take a bow at the end of the show. I know too little about him to write with any authority, except that of course he's been one of the cornerstones of Delhi theatre, amongst its best-known names and a person who believes in retaining the "folk" in folk-theatre.
Maybe because I couldn't enter the language of the play, I found my mind wandering while watching the performance, thinking about the messages I got from it, despite not following the dialogue. One of the messages was the sense that this past -- in which nothing either very awful nor very wonderful happens, in which even the authority figures are only mildly cruel, in which men might while away whole lifetimes in contemplating rhyme-schemes for words like "cucumber" and "laddoo" -- is the fantasy world that Indians return to as an antidote to the casual savagery of our collective today. There were no cars in this idyll; no electricity; no TV. The whores had sweet-voices and pliant personalities. The hijras were always smiling, never offended by gender-bending jokes, always ready to jerk their hips suggestively for a dance. The beggars were dignified and golden-voiced. Even the communal riots ended happily, in a shared song or two.
It was a static world presented in the form of play in which everyone remained exactly where they were at the end of the play as at the beginning, except for the addition of a poem or two to their repertoir. It was also a world in which women appeared only as ornaments to the "norm" -- i.e., to men. It's a world we don't see today -- at least, not in films or on TV -- a place where the normal condition of men is to be companionable with one another, joking, laughing, discussing the world and conducting their business. In such a world, there was no space for the presence of women as companions -- they were part of the entertainment, the consumable aspect of life, in the form of courtesans, singers, dancers etc. and also, presumably, as wives, sisters, mothers -- that is, as part of the invisible, unquestionable superstructure of the lives of the men -- but in this play we really only saw "public" women, not private ones.
Of course what made the play so very gracious (for me, at any rate) was that the prevailing aesthetic was Islamic. The language, the costumes, the sensibility was of an otherworldly form of Islam, in which the graceful arabesques of the written script were a perfect facsimile of everything about that life -- beautiful languid curves and mysterious, poignant dots. So yes -- it was exotic and possibly that's why I liked it. But only at a distance. It's not a world I could ever inhabit. What would I be in it? Nothing! I would have no part to play -- a woman who does not live a woman's life -- I could only be a curiosity, exhibited perhaps like the little bear (i.e., a small child dressed as a bear) that appears during the play, as part of the oh-so-charming street entertainment.
And so to dinner -- nice! "PLOOF" according to the printed message on the placemats at the restaurant is the sound made by a stone when it falls in water. Errm, right. If you ask the waiters for an expanded explanation, they waggle their eyebrows charmingly and say, "Madam, it is the sound made by a stone ..." And if you persevere, they look a little put out and explain that the owners thought of the name and ... what would Madam like to drink, please? But the ambience is -- surprise! surprise! -- coolly sophisticated, with no overkill elements like cut-glass chandeliers or imported Spanish-speaking chefs just ... pleasant, interesting, well done. The food is fish-accented -- and this is how you can tell it just HAS to be a good place -- coz I DON'T like fish, and rarely ever order it. But in this restaurant it's fresh, tasty and attractively presented. So I have twice ordered fish dishes and twice enjoyed them. They don't have a liquor licence yet, which makes it all the more amazing that they are well-supplied with customers (though not bursting, as they would be, if they DID have a licence). It's not cheap, but then again, it's not unbearable.
Okay -- enough of the food & beverage tour -- I'll conclude by saying that it's got a bathroom better than most hotels can offer. There. Aren't you absolutely dying to run over right away? You won't regret it.
So, the play: it was two-and-a-half hours long and a bit like travelling in time -- mythic-time, that is, not real-time -- the happy never-neverland, before those nasty, red-faced colonials with all their horrid rules and railways came in and made a mess of India. It was quaint and likeable, a slice-of-life in the bazaar, in Agra, rather like seeing a museum diorama come to life. I didn't understand a whole lot because it was in Urdu-ized Hindi and since I don't understand much Hindi at the best of times, most of the dialogue went whizzing past my comprehension centres. On the other hand, the form of the play makes comprehension a minor asset, as it is accompanied by songs, dancing and -- in one section -- an agile contortionist's performance. At the high point of her act she -- OUCH! -- picks up a pair of darning needles using only her eyelids ... while arching over backwards, supported on her hands and feet.
There wasn't much in the way of plot. It was a celebration of the flow of life, so beginnings and endings weren't the point -- just BEING THERE was enough. The performers were so authentic that I found it impossible to think of them as actors -- as I explained to Kaybe later -- they looked and behaved like indigent people who were merely doing on stage what they do in real life -- and of course, that's extremely unlikely. At the same time, I think in the case of at least some of them, they really are people who used to be street-performers, now performing to a theatre-going audience, through the intervention of the sprightly and white-haired playwright who came on stage to take a bow at the end of the show. I know too little about him to write with any authority, except that of course he's been one of the cornerstones of Delhi theatre, amongst its best-known names and a person who believes in retaining the "folk" in folk-theatre.
Maybe because I couldn't enter the language of the play, I found my mind wandering while watching the performance, thinking about the messages I got from it, despite not following the dialogue. One of the messages was the sense that this past -- in which nothing either very awful nor very wonderful happens, in which even the authority figures are only mildly cruel, in which men might while away whole lifetimes in contemplating rhyme-schemes for words like "cucumber" and "laddoo" -- is the fantasy world that Indians return to as an antidote to the casual savagery of our collective today. There were no cars in this idyll; no electricity; no TV. The whores had sweet-voices and pliant personalities. The hijras were always smiling, never offended by gender-bending jokes, always ready to jerk their hips suggestively for a dance. The beggars were dignified and golden-voiced. Even the communal riots ended happily, in a shared song or two.
It was a static world presented in the form of play in which everyone remained exactly where they were at the end of the play as at the beginning, except for the addition of a poem or two to their repertoir. It was also a world in which women appeared only as ornaments to the "norm" -- i.e., to men. It's a world we don't see today -- at least, not in films or on TV -- a place where the normal condition of men is to be companionable with one another, joking, laughing, discussing the world and conducting their business. In such a world, there was no space for the presence of women as companions -- they were part of the entertainment, the consumable aspect of life, in the form of courtesans, singers, dancers etc. and also, presumably, as wives, sisters, mothers -- that is, as part of the invisible, unquestionable superstructure of the lives of the men -- but in this play we really only saw "public" women, not private ones.
Of course what made the play so very gracious (for me, at any rate) was that the prevailing aesthetic was Islamic. The language, the costumes, the sensibility was of an otherworldly form of Islam, in which the graceful arabesques of the written script were a perfect facsimile of everything about that life -- beautiful languid curves and mysterious, poignant dots. So yes -- it was exotic and possibly that's why I liked it. But only at a distance. It's not a world I could ever inhabit. What would I be in it? Nothing! I would have no part to play -- a woman who does not live a woman's life -- I could only be a curiosity, exhibited perhaps like the little bear (i.e., a small child dressed as a bear) that appears during the play, as part of the oh-so-charming street entertainment.
And so to dinner -- nice! "PLOOF" according to the printed message on the placemats at the restaurant is the sound made by a stone when it falls in water. Errm, right. If you ask the waiters for an expanded explanation, they waggle their eyebrows charmingly and say, "Madam, it is the sound made by a stone ..." And if you persevere, they look a little put out and explain that the owners thought of the name and ... what would Madam like to drink, please? But the ambience is -- surprise! surprise! -- coolly sophisticated, with no overkill elements like cut-glass chandeliers or imported Spanish-speaking chefs just ... pleasant, interesting, well done. The food is fish-accented -- and this is how you can tell it just HAS to be a good place -- coz I DON'T like fish, and rarely ever order it. But in this restaurant it's fresh, tasty and attractively presented. So I have twice ordered fish dishes and twice enjoyed them. They don't have a liquor licence yet, which makes it all the more amazing that they are well-supplied with customers (though not bursting, as they would be, if they DID have a licence). It's not cheap, but then again, it's not unbearable.
Okay -- enough of the food & beverage tour -- I'll conclude by saying that it's got a bathroom better than most hotels can offer. There. Aren't you absolutely dying to run over right away? You won't regret it.
Friday, January 14, 2005
A Friendly Reading
Last Monday, with the generous help of friends Nilroy, DD, Zigzackly and Kaybe we had an informal reading of my play, THE ARTIST'S MODEL. There were just the five of us, and the venue was Nilroy and DD's home in Nizamuddin even though -- and this is where the generosity is particularly marked -- they were in the throes of shifting residence. The reason they/I chose to have the reading anyway is that Kaybe (New York) and Zigzackly (Bombay) are both itinerants, and I was keen to involve them while they were both at hand.
It went well, I think. The play is about three artists stuck in an improbable situation -- it explores what they might do and say, with side-swipes at today's art milieu. I wrote the play about ten years ago, and have never heard it read except once, a couple of days after I finished the first draft of the script, with one another friend and me alternating voices. The play has changed a little bit since then, but not significantly. It's been read to an audience, in NYC by Salaam Theatre, but I wasn't present, so I don't know what it was like.
Meanwhile, since Penguin India is going to publish a collection of my plays (five: LIGHTS OUT, THE MATING GAME SHOW, THE SEXTET (actually six short skits), A.M. and HARVEST) -- I am not including HIDDEN FIRES, published last year by Seagull, because to earn revenues from it would be to go against the spirit in which I wrote it (five monologues about the 2002 riots in Gujarat). I have been very keen to listen to pre-publication readings of the two -- MGS and AM -- that had not, till recently, been performed in any sense. Of course, MGS had several readings in its previous 5-hour versions, but its current stripped down slim-line edition was something I heard for the first time in 2004 in Nilroy's friendly abode and also in NYC in September. It is vastly preferable to publish a play only after it's been performed on stage -- but since that's not likely to happen, I've had to settle for readings, and am very grateful for the help I've had in this regard.
Take Monday's reading for example -- as a result of hearing the play read in three voices (Nilroy, Zigzackly and Kaybe, initially, with DD chipping in towards the end because K had to leave) with me reading the directions, I had, for the first time, a firm sense of what the play is saying -- WHETHER it's saying something at all, and also whether it's WORTH saying. Like I explained just before we began, since I've got used to the idea that the plays will be published anyway, despite not being performed, having a reading was a luxury that I was glad to afford but was not crucial to the publishing history of the piece. The purpose of the reading was in that sense truly about quality control -- if I could get a feeling for the directions in which I can tweak it, to improve it, I would. If I felt it would be best to leave well enough alone, I'd do that too.
So the post-reading discussion was really the best part, for me anyway. It's hard to repeat the discussion in detail without describing the play -- which would be rather tedious, I think -- so I'll cut to the chase: the main comment was that the situation presented in the play could be enhanced if I introduced the sense of time passing, instead of presenting it in real time, i.e., the events of the play corresponding to the time elapsed while performing the play. I realized, from this response, that I had perhaps written the play in a more flippant mood than its final form could support. I hadn't really wanted to commit myself to a realistic exploration of what the three characters in the situation might do -- but the reading helped me consider the idea that it would be worth making that effort (that is, of introducing realism to the structure of the situation).
I like this idea! I plan to re-work the play now, with this new element in place. What really helped was to hear from my friends that the play works as a concept -- that gives me the confidence to move forward with it, to take it further along the path that it is already upon. Until actually hearing the dialogue, I couldn't know whether or not it has enough internal consistency to be interesting. While printing out the script just before the reading, reading it again myself as I went along, I really couldn't decide whether it was a load of mildly risible garbage or whether it had "bite". Hearing it in three voices has made all the difference -- I believe I can discern a certain amount of "bite", but can see a fair amount of flab too. Which is great. One can't begin to remove flab until one can see it clearly (this can't, of course, be said about body flab, alas ...).
And in other news ... Monday was also the day I went over to Penguin with a rough version of the cover for the forth-coming collection of the DOUBLE TALK strips -- a reprint in book form of the Bombay avatar of Suki. I hope this will be fun -- I always preferred the Bombay strips, even though my drawing style, especially in the early days, was really quite atrocious, particularly the lettering in speech bubbles!! No doubt I'll have to re-do some of it. Still, it always brings on a shuddering nostalgia in me, looking at those early art-works -- I thought I had all the original drawings but apparently a large number have fallen by the wayside. It's hardly surprising: I was 25 years younger, I've moved home at least a dozen times since then, my life as a paying guest in Bombay was precarious to the max -- I often had less than the minimum balance in my bank account, and the minimum those days was FIFTY RUPEES (i.e. ONE DOLLAR at today's exchange rate)! -- and I often produced the strip with minutes to spare before press-time, in colour, with no time for photocopies or back-ups of any kind. Ay me. A desperate era.
And yet more: I am finally working on the drawings for an odd little book -- three children's stories about three weird little girls -- which got written rather to my surprise in the middle of 2003 and to my even greater surprise got liked by Sayoni, at Puffin. The drawings, incidentally, are being done free. Penguin/Puffin can't pay for them (i.e., if they did, I'd be insulted by the sum they'd offer and therefore wouldn't do the drawings) so ... rather than send the book out without drawings, I'm doing them for free. This means the book will be lavishly illustrated -- only in b/w -- but I'm planning to have fun doing them. I am SO tired of being unable to be an illustrator just because no-one's willing to pay ... It's been the bane of my life and now, considering I'm surely not going to live another fifty years, I'm beginning to feel I'd better just do whatever I can while I can still do it rather than wait for that never-never moment when I actually get a good price for what I do.
In the meantime, I must note in passing that a buyer in Bombay has bought a complete set of all my prints as a result of the show in Madras -- multiples of some -- meaning 60 pieces in all! This is rather nice. It makes up for the faint sadness I always feel whenever I look back on my working life -- so much failure! So many smoking ruins in the background!
Ah well. Gotta keep moving onward, onward ...
Oh -- and an essay by M.J.Akbar in the Asian Age, Sunday 9th January is really worth reading, re the tsunami's aftermath and the world's approach to compassion: pls click on
Asian Age then look for By-line M.J. Akbar and the name of the piece is "Conscience-Management". There's no link specific to the piece, so you have to go to the main page and click your way in.
It went well, I think. The play is about three artists stuck in an improbable situation -- it explores what they might do and say, with side-swipes at today's art milieu. I wrote the play about ten years ago, and have never heard it read except once, a couple of days after I finished the first draft of the script, with one another friend and me alternating voices. The play has changed a little bit since then, but not significantly. It's been read to an audience, in NYC by Salaam Theatre, but I wasn't present, so I don't know what it was like.
Meanwhile, since Penguin India is going to publish a collection of my plays (five: LIGHTS OUT, THE MATING GAME SHOW, THE SEXTET (actually six short skits), A.M. and HARVEST) -- I am not including HIDDEN FIRES, published last year by Seagull, because to earn revenues from it would be to go against the spirit in which I wrote it (five monologues about the 2002 riots in Gujarat). I have been very keen to listen to pre-publication readings of the two -- MGS and AM -- that had not, till recently, been performed in any sense. Of course, MGS had several readings in its previous 5-hour versions, but its current stripped down slim-line edition was something I heard for the first time in 2004 in Nilroy's friendly abode and also in NYC in September. It is vastly preferable to publish a play only after it's been performed on stage -- but since that's not likely to happen, I've had to settle for readings, and am very grateful for the help I've had in this regard.
Take Monday's reading for example -- as a result of hearing the play read in three voices (Nilroy, Zigzackly and Kaybe, initially, with DD chipping in towards the end because K had to leave) with me reading the directions, I had, for the first time, a firm sense of what the play is saying -- WHETHER it's saying something at all, and also whether it's WORTH saying. Like I explained just before we began, since I've got used to the idea that the plays will be published anyway, despite not being performed, having a reading was a luxury that I was glad to afford but was not crucial to the publishing history of the piece. The purpose of the reading was in that sense truly about quality control -- if I could get a feeling for the directions in which I can tweak it, to improve it, I would. If I felt it would be best to leave well enough alone, I'd do that too.
So the post-reading discussion was really the best part, for me anyway. It's hard to repeat the discussion in detail without describing the play -- which would be rather tedious, I think -- so I'll cut to the chase: the main comment was that the situation presented in the play could be enhanced if I introduced the sense of time passing, instead of presenting it in real time, i.e., the events of the play corresponding to the time elapsed while performing the play. I realized, from this response, that I had perhaps written the play in a more flippant mood than its final form could support. I hadn't really wanted to commit myself to a realistic exploration of what the three characters in the situation might do -- but the reading helped me consider the idea that it would be worth making that effort (that is, of introducing realism to the structure of the situation).
I like this idea! I plan to re-work the play now, with this new element in place. What really helped was to hear from my friends that the play works as a concept -- that gives me the confidence to move forward with it, to take it further along the path that it is already upon. Until actually hearing the dialogue, I couldn't know whether or not it has enough internal consistency to be interesting. While printing out the script just before the reading, reading it again myself as I went along, I really couldn't decide whether it was a load of mildly risible garbage or whether it had "bite". Hearing it in three voices has made all the difference -- I believe I can discern a certain amount of "bite", but can see a fair amount of flab too. Which is great. One can't begin to remove flab until one can see it clearly (this can't, of course, be said about body flab, alas ...).
And in other news ... Monday was also the day I went over to Penguin with a rough version of the cover for the forth-coming collection of the DOUBLE TALK strips -- a reprint in book form of the Bombay avatar of Suki. I hope this will be fun -- I always preferred the Bombay strips, even though my drawing style, especially in the early days, was really quite atrocious, particularly the lettering in speech bubbles!! No doubt I'll have to re-do some of it. Still, it always brings on a shuddering nostalgia in me, looking at those early art-works -- I thought I had all the original drawings but apparently a large number have fallen by the wayside. It's hardly surprising: I was 25 years younger, I've moved home at least a dozen times since then, my life as a paying guest in Bombay was precarious to the max -- I often had less than the minimum balance in my bank account, and the minimum those days was FIFTY RUPEES (i.e. ONE DOLLAR at today's exchange rate)! -- and I often produced the strip with minutes to spare before press-time, in colour, with no time for photocopies or back-ups of any kind. Ay me. A desperate era.
And yet more: I am finally working on the drawings for an odd little book -- three children's stories about three weird little girls -- which got written rather to my surprise in the middle of 2003 and to my even greater surprise got liked by Sayoni, at Puffin. The drawings, incidentally, are being done free. Penguin/Puffin can't pay for them (i.e., if they did, I'd be insulted by the sum they'd offer and therefore wouldn't do the drawings) so ... rather than send the book out without drawings, I'm doing them for free. This means the book will be lavishly illustrated -- only in b/w -- but I'm planning to have fun doing them. I am SO tired of being unable to be an illustrator just because no-one's willing to pay ... It's been the bane of my life and now, considering I'm surely not going to live another fifty years, I'm beginning to feel I'd better just do whatever I can while I can still do it rather than wait for that never-never moment when I actually get a good price for what I do.
In the meantime, I must note in passing that a buyer in Bombay has bought a complete set of all my prints as a result of the show in Madras -- multiples of some -- meaning 60 pieces in all! This is rather nice. It makes up for the faint sadness I always feel whenever I look back on my working life -- so much failure! So many smoking ruins in the background!
Ah well. Gotta keep moving onward, onward ...
Oh -- and an essay by M.J.Akbar in the Asian Age, Sunday 9th January is really worth reading, re the tsunami's aftermath and the world's approach to compassion: pls click on
Asian Age then look for By-line M.J. Akbar and the name of the piece is "Conscience-Management". There's no link specific to the piece, so you have to go to the main page and click your way in.
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Energy Matters
At the time of the Population Conference in Cairo, ten years ago (well eleven, now) I was fascinated to read a highly condensed view of the world, based on comparative energy usage. I made a chart at the time, reproduced below, based on the figures in that quote. Originally, I used a Venus symbol to symbolize the unit for each group of citizens. I can't seem to find a web-version of the little ankh-like character that looked like a very tiny person, so I've had to fall back on the rather boring "§" symbol from MS WORD.
These figures were widely publicized when they first appeared, but I'm guessing the world has moved on since then. Is there an up-dated version of this list anywhere? I tried Googling the opening line of the quote, which only results in locating the source. I also thought it might be worth knowing what exactly "… each child born in North America" translates to, in terms of energy consumption. It no longer seems right to identify the villains of consumerism rigidly in North America – not when we have big spenders in the Third World too, e.g., people willing to host weddings at the Eiffel Tower, including flying all their glamourous guests to the bash.
I'm not pretending that I've spent a whole lot of time looking for up-date information – my sloth-genes get in the way too much for such energetic activities. But if anyone knows how I can get more accurate information, I'd be much obliged. Meanwhile, such as it is, here's that old chart:
COMPARISON OF ENERGY CONSUMPTION WORLDWIDE
====================================================================
"Each child born in North America consumes as much energy as …
§§§ … three Japanese
§§§§§ § … six Mexicans
§§§§§ §§§§§ §§ … twelve Chinese
§§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§ … 33 Indians
§§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§ … 147 Bangladeshis
§§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§ … 287 Tanzanians or
§§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§ … 422 Ethiopians."
--–- UNEP Executive, Elizabeth Dowdeswell of Canada, at the Cairo Population Conference in 1994. (as published in The Pioneer, New Delhi, 1994)
These figures were widely publicized when they first appeared, but I'm guessing the world has moved on since then. Is there an up-dated version of this list anywhere? I tried Googling the opening line of the quote, which only results in locating the source. I also thought it might be worth knowing what exactly "… each child born in North America" translates to, in terms of energy consumption. It no longer seems right to identify the villains of consumerism rigidly in North America – not when we have big spenders in the Third World too, e.g., people willing to host weddings at the Eiffel Tower, including flying all their glamourous guests to the bash.
I'm not pretending that I've spent a whole lot of time looking for up-date information – my sloth-genes get in the way too much for such energetic activities. But if anyone knows how I can get more accurate information, I'd be much obliged. Meanwhile, such as it is, here's that old chart:
COMPARISON OF ENERGY CONSUMPTION WORLDWIDE
====================================================================
"Each child born in North America consumes as much energy as …
§§§ … three Japanese
§§§§§ § … six Mexicans
§§§§§ §§§§§ §§ … twelve Chinese
§§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§ … 33 Indians
§§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§ … 147 Bangladeshis
§§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§ … 287 Tanzanians or
§§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§§§§ §§ … 422 Ethiopians."
--–- UNEP Executive, Elizabeth Dowdeswell of Canada, at the Cairo Population Conference in 1994. (as published in The Pioneer, New Delhi, 1994)
Sunday, January 02, 2005
Happy This-Moment
... and may you have many more such moments to follow.
Earlier today, while wishing a friend happiness in the New Year I was struck (anew -- this has been happening several years in a row. It must be age) with the falsity of it all. I don't mean that it's false to wish someone well, just that a year is an utterly arbitrary unit of time. The earth goes around the sun, ooookay. But our days and moments aren't really circumscribed by planetary time. Today is no different in texture to three days ago, in old 2004. For some people it will be a better year, for others it will not, while for most it will be more of the same. Is this just crankiness? I'd rather aim for the idea that happiness or the lack of it has nothing to do with years, just our specific circumstances/neuro-chemicals. So ... ummm ... enjoy, or not. As always.
Meanwhile, for all those of you who have either been in touch with me by e-mail and are wondering why I haven't replied or are wondering why I haven't been in touch regardless of whether you've written to me, the reason is that my Hotmail account has unaccountably gone into coma. I can't get into the in-box at all now -- till this morning I could at least check to see who'd written and could, with a great deal of prodding and coaxing, force one or two messages to open up. Now I can't do anything at all except initiate a sign-in that goes nowhere. I'll wait a few days before ... well, of course, there ISN'T anything to be done about it, and I can't even get my addresses out now (though I have most of them stored elsewhere, so it's not a major catastrophe at that level). Till it clears up, the e-account to write me at is the one associated with this blog, i.e., marginalien@yahoo.co.uk.
And one more item, this one aimed specifically at those of you who play Spider Solitaire on your PCs: have any of you come across lay-outs which DON'T resolve themselves successfully? I only ever play the two-suit lay-out and my experience so far has been that every single game can be made to work out successfully -- believe me, I've played mega-dozens of games, so I know whereof I speak -- that is, until two days ago, when I caught a game that after innumerable re-starts I STILL cannot solve. If anyone knows a site or a player who has deep knowledge of Spider Solitaire, I'd appreciate being directed to it/him/her. If it turns out that some games really DON'T resolve successfully, I'll stop trying (and frankly? I'd really like to stop trying right away. But I HATE giving up).
Earlier today, while wishing a friend happiness in the New Year I was struck (anew -- this has been happening several years in a row. It must be age) with the falsity of it all. I don't mean that it's false to wish someone well, just that a year is an utterly arbitrary unit of time. The earth goes around the sun, ooookay. But our days and moments aren't really circumscribed by planetary time. Today is no different in texture to three days ago, in old 2004. For some people it will be a better year, for others it will not, while for most it will be more of the same. Is this just crankiness? I'd rather aim for the idea that happiness or the lack of it has nothing to do with years, just our specific circumstances/neuro-chemicals. So ... ummm ... enjoy, or not. As always.
Meanwhile, for all those of you who have either been in touch with me by e-mail and are wondering why I haven't replied or are wondering why I haven't been in touch regardless of whether you've written to me, the reason is that my Hotmail account has unaccountably gone into coma. I can't get into the in-box at all now -- till this morning I could at least check to see who'd written and could, with a great deal of prodding and coaxing, force one or two messages to open up. Now I can't do anything at all except initiate a sign-in that goes nowhere. I'll wait a few days before ... well, of course, there ISN'T anything to be done about it, and I can't even get my addresses out now (though I have most of them stored elsewhere, so it's not a major catastrophe at that level). Till it clears up, the e-account to write me at is the one associated with this blog, i.e., marginalien@yahoo.co.uk.
And one more item, this one aimed specifically at those of you who play Spider Solitaire on your PCs: have any of you come across lay-outs which DON'T resolve themselves successfully? I only ever play the two-suit lay-out and my experience so far has been that every single game can be made to work out successfully -- believe me, I've played mega-dozens of games, so I know whereof I speak -- that is, until two days ago, when I caught a game that after innumerable re-starts I STILL cannot solve. If anyone knows a site or a player who has deep knowledge of Spider Solitaire, I'd appreciate being directed to it/him/her. If it turns out that some games really DON'T resolve successfully, I'll stop trying (and frankly? I'd really like to stop trying right away. But I HATE giving up).
Thursday, December 30, 2004
Tigers and Havens. Also, regretfully, Tsunamis
The night before we were due to leave on our journey, I managed not to sleep at all. I didn't think I was running out of time till it was 3.30 a.m. and I still hadn't packed. Not that there was much to pack -- clothes for five days, with an extra just-in-case set, and no need for formal wear of any kind. My approach to cold-weather clothing is to change only the under-layers so there wasn't much bulk. But I took an extra bag to hold the few gifties I was taking along for Christmas. That took till four and then there didn't seem to be much point in even trying to sleep then. So I made tea to fill into the two flasks we were taking along with us -- and by the time I finally got the proportions right, it was time to jump into my travelling socks and leave.
We set out at 5.45 a.m., in our friend J's Pajero, J driving. The fog (for non-Delhi-wallahs: this time of year the temperature hovers around the 5-9 centigrade mark and dense fogs swaddle the northern plains of India) was kind to us -- we had about 50 yards visibility and were soon speeding along. Nine-and-a-half hours later, speeding through squalid towns and hamlets, past brilliant yellow mustard fields, overtaking toiling bullock-carts and grossly overloaded lorries, scattering squadrons of monkeys foraging on the roads and catching fleeting glimpses of tall, graceful Sarus cranes with their neat gray bodies and long crimson necks, we were there.
J's uncle, Billy Arjan Singh, a legend in his own time, lives on the banks of a pale tan river (the Sohaili) that partly defines the margin of Dudhwa Sanctuary, partly winds through it. I had never met him before, but had of course heard of him. More specifically, I'd read of his extraordinary relationship with a tigress called Tara, whom he later successfully released to the wild. My memories were hazy and so, when I saw him, a dignified nut-brown man, seated at a tea-table, wearing dark-glasses and a plaid golf-cap, I didn't have expectations. Over the course of the stay, my impression of him changed to include what must have been his earlier self: a body-builder and a strong personality, the kind that's more at home taming big cats than tending to city-guests, yet warm and welcoming towards us.
He lives alone with a family of retainers to look after the house and himself. Tiger Haven is a collection of low, white-washed buildings constructed as the need arose, with an accent on functionality. In front of the house is an open yard, with a couple of tall ficus trees, bare-branched as it happened -- on account of the floods earlier in the year, said Billy -- but starting to fill out with leaves again. Beyond it, agricultural fields. There was a standing crop of bushy-headed sugarcane waiting to be harvested. Along the horizon, trees. To the right, a wattled-fenced area, with a thatched roof or two showing above the fence, where the staff live.
Amongst the first questions Billy asked us was, "Will you have a bath now?" It took me by surprise: later I realized that the question triggered a memory of arriving home to my mother whose first command always was "Have a bath!" -- regardless of whether I'd just returned from day-school or come home for the holidays from boarding.
In the event, we had tea first, sitting in the porch in front of Billy's room, with cake and cookies as accompaniment. I poured tea, pleased to see the silver sugar-pot rising up on four spindly little legs, like a very tiny, friendly lap-dog; the sugar scoop with its handle shaped like a hockey-stick, to commemorate a club trophy whose details were inscribed on the front and back of the spoon's bowl; and the milk jug with its beaded veil to ward off flies. All familiar, yet so rarely met with these days that it was like entering a fondly detailed Merchant-Ivory production. A peacock appeared, stepping forward in its tentative way, looking for a hand-out. One of the retainers fed it scraps of chappati, which it gobbled up with unseemly haste. In the distance, its more wary companions watched but did not approach.
E and J went up for baths while I tried to resist. The fact is, I don't like water and I bathe only when physical discomfort or fear of my mother's censure dictate that the time has come to face the inevitable. However, I succumbed later just before going to bed, using a bucket of hot water that had been thoughtfully left in the bathroom -- there's no running water, so hot or cold, supplies must be carrried up in buckets, except for the toilet, that flushed normally.
Pre-dinner, we joined Billy in his cosy drawing-room, a fire already crackling cheerily in the fire-place with its white-washed mantelpiece and the walls hung with photographs of Tara and the other felines who have enriched Billy's life. We watched a video film called "The Leopard Who Changed Its Spots" about the superbly elegant Harriet, the cat who preceded Tara and the one Billy named in a magazine interview as the one true love of his life. The narrator of the film was David Niven. Amongst the amazing footage shown, was an encounter shot in Sri Lanka, between a family group of wild boar and a stalking (unknown) leopard -- ending in a rout for the leopard! Two of the boars were apparently so outraged that a predator would dare to threaten their piglets that they just rammed into the cat, literally turning it upside down and sending it scurrying off with a decided kink in its tail!
The dining table was alongside the drawing-room, and we helped ourselves to food laid out on the side-board: deep-dish minced meat with writhing whorls of mashed potatoes artfully piped onto the top of it, two types of veggies, and fresh salad. For dessert, vanilla ice-cream, poached apples and Hershey's chocolate fudge sauce! If this is jungle-living, I'm pre-hooked.
Yes, there's electricity -- from a grand old generator thrumming in the yard, as well as from the Govt. The yard supply gets switched off around 10.30 p.m., after which there may or may not be enough juice in the wires to run the lights. By then, we were variously tucked up in our separate rooms, Billy downstairs, J in one of the rooms above his, E and me in the "guest" quarters a hop-step away. Billy's sister-in-law, who spends some part of the year at Tiger Haven sees to it that all the niceties are maintained -- bare floors are covered with warm dhurries, the cots are three layers deep in blankets, cotton-quilts and clean sheets.
We went into the sanctuary (or one of its relatives) on each of the four days of our stay. It was the wrong season for seeing animals because the grass is tall and the weather cold. But it was a thrill each time -- the sense of hidden possibilities lurking in every shadow, the silence, the soaring trees. There were spotted deer of course, and once a rather forlorn little boar shot across the road, as if forced to make an appearance just to prove that others of his kind WERE after all residents in the forest. We saw pug-marks -- tiger footprints -- here and there in the loose soil alongside the roads, and several very clear ones in the wet clay by the riverside at the Kishenpur waterbody. That's also where we saw swamp deer posing regally, multi-tined males posturing for the attention of a single female, in the great distance across the water. And a group of three barking (also known as muntjac) deer, a rare find these days.
E and I went for a three-hour elephant ride through the rhino-enclosure, with a six-year old baby elephant in tow because his mother (on whom we sat) wouldn't budge without him. His father was a wild tusker and already the little one had foot-long tusks. He had his own mahoot sitting on top of him, to control him. At one point, he was being encouraged by his mahoot to pick up a piece of plastic garbage from the trail we were on, and he resisted, first by refusing to do it and then by bellowing loudly for Mom -- who turned around immediately -- it was amazing, an animal of such size and bulk, swivelling around in the tall grass like a four-footed ballerina pivoting on one foot -- and bellowed back in response. After much thumping, clucking and coercing, we were headed around the right way again and once more on our way. No rhinos to be seen -- but the ride was dreamlike and magnificent, deep in the bosom of the forest.
There were water birds aplenty, a fishing eagle or two, black-necked storks and the dearest little jungle owlet, like a well-rounded stuffed toy, blinking at us from the safety of a tall tree as we picnicked near it on the last day of our stay. Billy's farm had a number of resident peafowl and jungle fowl, but also a charming shrike whom E was delighted to see because it is many years since he saw one in Delhi. Oh -- and a racquet-tailed drongo -- much to E's chagrin because we'd been told to look out for it on our very first visit to the sanctuary and yet when it finally flashed across our combined paths just as we were leaving Kishenpur, he looked the wrong way and missed seeing it altogether. The rest of us ribbed him mercilessly -- it is indeed a handsome bird, black as a moonless night, with the long split-tail that other drongos have, but embellished by two further, graceful extensions, ending in the rounded "racquet" from which it gets its name.
All through our stay, the conversation returned repeatedly to the crisis affecting the wild areas of the country and the world. Billy is a passionate conservationist -- but these words do not capture the man. He is bowed by his 87 years and needs a cane to walk, he's a little hard of hearing and says that his eyesight is diminished since he had cataract surgery. Yet he's lit from within, he's a furnace of idealism -- to sit in his presence is to be warmed by that rage to reach beyond the limits of one lifetime, to go beyond the ordinary boundaries of human endeavour.
I have a private theory that the reason so many millions of people are incapable of achieving very much during their lifetimes is their fixation on getting their daughters married. Look around and what do you see? People running around like witless little ants, either attending marriages, scheming towards them, recovering from them, scraping together their life's savings for them, murdering their unborn daughters to avoid them, or (worst case scenario) burning one daughter-in-law in order to procure another, more productive one. Whichever way you look at it, the relentless pressure to pound everyone under the mill of marriage seems to crush all individual initiative, all idealism, all creativity ...
Oh okay -- I'll stop my rant. It won't change anything, I know. Lemmings will be lemmings.
But Billy -- he's no lemming. He's a crusader, a fighter, an idealist and (this is how I see him) a sculptor. He sculpts reality around him, using the tool of his personal energy, to get others to do his will. He's a shaper of lives and destiny. He causes light to bend around him, he has gravitational weight. He has a favourite photograph he likes to show, of himself hugging Tara. The shot's taken from behind him, showing his back, with Tara's striped furry head cuddled over his left shoulder, and around his right side, her huge paw, holding him. What a guy.
Meanwhile, the tsunami.
We missed the news when it happened, hearing about it only Monday night, with the newspaper's arrival. My family wasn't in any danger, as the house is far from the coast, but of course it was shocking to imagine the colossal scale of the disaster. My cellphone lost its signal en route to Tiger Haven, so we were out of touch until mid-morning Tuesday, when I got a signal again. I really only caught up with my sister Geeta the next day -- believe it or not, she was actually at the seaside when the wave struck! They'd gone to visit their small beach-side plot on Sunday morning, she and my brother-in-law. They'd all felt a mild tremor in the morning but dismissed it. They were on the highway when the wave actually struck but had no idea that anything was amiss until they reached the turn-off to their property and were shocked to see a river of water flooding up the incline towards the highway ...
G says she saw water bizarrely fountaining UP out of the soil, as if the force of the wave first drove water into the beach, then surfaced some distance upland, where she could see it frothing out. She called the newspapers on her cell-phone, just as, on Marina Beach in the middle of Madras a wall of water crashed down on hundreds of morning walkers and fisher folk, dashing cars and fishing vessels against the walls of venerable old Queen Mary's College, where my mother did her BA.
G was unharmed, and so were the small caretaker family that lives on the plot -- they saved themselves by the simple expedient of running up towards the highway, rather than out towards the sea-shore to gawp at the odd spectacle of the sea withdrawing itself for over a kilometer. There was a good two hours between the quake and the strike -- if anyone had been alert, if only others had remembered those lessons we learnt in geography class of the typical warning sign of an impending tidal wave (the unnaturally receded sea) -- maybe thousands of lives would not today be lost, at least in India, Sri Lanka and Somalia, all of which had time to react.
It's going to be a long and terrible time, recovering from the disaster. For news, links and information, please visit Kitabkhana and Zigzackly, listed to the right.
We set out at 5.45 a.m., in our friend J's Pajero, J driving. The fog (for non-Delhi-wallahs: this time of year the temperature hovers around the 5-9 centigrade mark and dense fogs swaddle the northern plains of India) was kind to us -- we had about 50 yards visibility and were soon speeding along. Nine-and-a-half hours later, speeding through squalid towns and hamlets, past brilliant yellow mustard fields, overtaking toiling bullock-carts and grossly overloaded lorries, scattering squadrons of monkeys foraging on the roads and catching fleeting glimpses of tall, graceful Sarus cranes with their neat gray bodies and long crimson necks, we were there.
J's uncle, Billy Arjan Singh, a legend in his own time, lives on the banks of a pale tan river (the Sohaili) that partly defines the margin of Dudhwa Sanctuary, partly winds through it. I had never met him before, but had of course heard of him. More specifically, I'd read of his extraordinary relationship with a tigress called Tara, whom he later successfully released to the wild. My memories were hazy and so, when I saw him, a dignified nut-brown man, seated at a tea-table, wearing dark-glasses and a plaid golf-cap, I didn't have expectations. Over the course of the stay, my impression of him changed to include what must have been his earlier self: a body-builder and a strong personality, the kind that's more at home taming big cats than tending to city-guests, yet warm and welcoming towards us.
He lives alone with a family of retainers to look after the house and himself. Tiger Haven is a collection of low, white-washed buildings constructed as the need arose, with an accent on functionality. In front of the house is an open yard, with a couple of tall ficus trees, bare-branched as it happened -- on account of the floods earlier in the year, said Billy -- but starting to fill out with leaves again. Beyond it, agricultural fields. There was a standing crop of bushy-headed sugarcane waiting to be harvested. Along the horizon, trees. To the right, a wattled-fenced area, with a thatched roof or two showing above the fence, where the staff live.
Amongst the first questions Billy asked us was, "Will you have a bath now?" It took me by surprise: later I realized that the question triggered a memory of arriving home to my mother whose first command always was "Have a bath!" -- regardless of whether I'd just returned from day-school or come home for the holidays from boarding.
In the event, we had tea first, sitting in the porch in front of Billy's room, with cake and cookies as accompaniment. I poured tea, pleased to see the silver sugar-pot rising up on four spindly little legs, like a very tiny, friendly lap-dog; the sugar scoop with its handle shaped like a hockey-stick, to commemorate a club trophy whose details were inscribed on the front and back of the spoon's bowl; and the milk jug with its beaded veil to ward off flies. All familiar, yet so rarely met with these days that it was like entering a fondly detailed Merchant-Ivory production. A peacock appeared, stepping forward in its tentative way, looking for a hand-out. One of the retainers fed it scraps of chappati, which it gobbled up with unseemly haste. In the distance, its more wary companions watched but did not approach.
E and J went up for baths while I tried to resist. The fact is, I don't like water and I bathe only when physical discomfort or fear of my mother's censure dictate that the time has come to face the inevitable. However, I succumbed later just before going to bed, using a bucket of hot water that had been thoughtfully left in the bathroom -- there's no running water, so hot or cold, supplies must be carrried up in buckets, except for the toilet, that flushed normally.
Pre-dinner, we joined Billy in his cosy drawing-room, a fire already crackling cheerily in the fire-place with its white-washed mantelpiece and the walls hung with photographs of Tara and the other felines who have enriched Billy's life. We watched a video film called "The Leopard Who Changed Its Spots" about the superbly elegant Harriet, the cat who preceded Tara and the one Billy named in a magazine interview as the one true love of his life. The narrator of the film was David Niven. Amongst the amazing footage shown, was an encounter shot in Sri Lanka, between a family group of wild boar and a stalking (unknown) leopard -- ending in a rout for the leopard! Two of the boars were apparently so outraged that a predator would dare to threaten their piglets that they just rammed into the cat, literally turning it upside down and sending it scurrying off with a decided kink in its tail!
The dining table was alongside the drawing-room, and we helped ourselves to food laid out on the side-board: deep-dish minced meat with writhing whorls of mashed potatoes artfully piped onto the top of it, two types of veggies, and fresh salad. For dessert, vanilla ice-cream, poached apples and Hershey's chocolate fudge sauce! If this is jungle-living, I'm pre-hooked.
Yes, there's electricity -- from a grand old generator thrumming in the yard, as well as from the Govt. The yard supply gets switched off around 10.30 p.m., after which there may or may not be enough juice in the wires to run the lights. By then, we were variously tucked up in our separate rooms, Billy downstairs, J in one of the rooms above his, E and me in the "guest" quarters a hop-step away. Billy's sister-in-law, who spends some part of the year at Tiger Haven sees to it that all the niceties are maintained -- bare floors are covered with warm dhurries, the cots are three layers deep in blankets, cotton-quilts and clean sheets.
We went into the sanctuary (or one of its relatives) on each of the four days of our stay. It was the wrong season for seeing animals because the grass is tall and the weather cold. But it was a thrill each time -- the sense of hidden possibilities lurking in every shadow, the silence, the soaring trees. There were spotted deer of course, and once a rather forlorn little boar shot across the road, as if forced to make an appearance just to prove that others of his kind WERE after all residents in the forest. We saw pug-marks -- tiger footprints -- here and there in the loose soil alongside the roads, and several very clear ones in the wet clay by the riverside at the Kishenpur waterbody. That's also where we saw swamp deer posing regally, multi-tined males posturing for the attention of a single female, in the great distance across the water. And a group of three barking (also known as muntjac) deer, a rare find these days.
E and I went for a three-hour elephant ride through the rhino-enclosure, with a six-year old baby elephant in tow because his mother (on whom we sat) wouldn't budge without him. His father was a wild tusker and already the little one had foot-long tusks. He had his own mahoot sitting on top of him, to control him. At one point, he was being encouraged by his mahoot to pick up a piece of plastic garbage from the trail we were on, and he resisted, first by refusing to do it and then by bellowing loudly for Mom -- who turned around immediately -- it was amazing, an animal of such size and bulk, swivelling around in the tall grass like a four-footed ballerina pivoting on one foot -- and bellowed back in response. After much thumping, clucking and coercing, we were headed around the right way again and once more on our way. No rhinos to be seen -- but the ride was dreamlike and magnificent, deep in the bosom of the forest.
There were water birds aplenty, a fishing eagle or two, black-necked storks and the dearest little jungle owlet, like a well-rounded stuffed toy, blinking at us from the safety of a tall tree as we picnicked near it on the last day of our stay. Billy's farm had a number of resident peafowl and jungle fowl, but also a charming shrike whom E was delighted to see because it is many years since he saw one in Delhi. Oh -- and a racquet-tailed drongo -- much to E's chagrin because we'd been told to look out for it on our very first visit to the sanctuary and yet when it finally flashed across our combined paths just as we were leaving Kishenpur, he looked the wrong way and missed seeing it altogether. The rest of us ribbed him mercilessly -- it is indeed a handsome bird, black as a moonless night, with the long split-tail that other drongos have, but embellished by two further, graceful extensions, ending in the rounded "racquet" from which it gets its name.
All through our stay, the conversation returned repeatedly to the crisis affecting the wild areas of the country and the world. Billy is a passionate conservationist -- but these words do not capture the man. He is bowed by his 87 years and needs a cane to walk, he's a little hard of hearing and says that his eyesight is diminished since he had cataract surgery. Yet he's lit from within, he's a furnace of idealism -- to sit in his presence is to be warmed by that rage to reach beyond the limits of one lifetime, to go beyond the ordinary boundaries of human endeavour.
I have a private theory that the reason so many millions of people are incapable of achieving very much during their lifetimes is their fixation on getting their daughters married. Look around and what do you see? People running around like witless little ants, either attending marriages, scheming towards them, recovering from them, scraping together their life's savings for them, murdering their unborn daughters to avoid them, or (worst case scenario) burning one daughter-in-law in order to procure another, more productive one. Whichever way you look at it, the relentless pressure to pound everyone under the mill of marriage seems to crush all individual initiative, all idealism, all creativity ...
Oh okay -- I'll stop my rant. It won't change anything, I know. Lemmings will be lemmings.
But Billy -- he's no lemming. He's a crusader, a fighter, an idealist and (this is how I see him) a sculptor. He sculpts reality around him, using the tool of his personal energy, to get others to do his will. He's a shaper of lives and destiny. He causes light to bend around him, he has gravitational weight. He has a favourite photograph he likes to show, of himself hugging Tara. The shot's taken from behind him, showing his back, with Tara's striped furry head cuddled over his left shoulder, and around his right side, her huge paw, holding him. What a guy.
Meanwhile, the tsunami.
We missed the news when it happened, hearing about it only Monday night, with the newspaper's arrival. My family wasn't in any danger, as the house is far from the coast, but of course it was shocking to imagine the colossal scale of the disaster. My cellphone lost its signal en route to Tiger Haven, so we were out of touch until mid-morning Tuesday, when I got a signal again. I really only caught up with my sister Geeta the next day -- believe it or not, she was actually at the seaside when the wave struck! They'd gone to visit their small beach-side plot on Sunday morning, she and my brother-in-law. They'd all felt a mild tremor in the morning but dismissed it. They were on the highway when the wave actually struck but had no idea that anything was amiss until they reached the turn-off to their property and were shocked to see a river of water flooding up the incline towards the highway ...
G says she saw water bizarrely fountaining UP out of the soil, as if the force of the wave first drove water into the beach, then surfaced some distance upland, where she could see it frothing out. She called the newspapers on her cell-phone, just as, on Marina Beach in the middle of Madras a wall of water crashed down on hundreds of morning walkers and fisher folk, dashing cars and fishing vessels against the walls of venerable old Queen Mary's College, where my mother did her BA.
G was unharmed, and so were the small caretaker family that lives on the plot -- they saved themselves by the simple expedient of running up towards the highway, rather than out towards the sea-shore to gawp at the odd spectacle of the sea withdrawing itself for over a kilometer. There was a good two hours between the quake and the strike -- if anyone had been alert, if only others had remembered those lessons we learnt in geography class of the typical warning sign of an impending tidal wave (the unnaturally receded sea) -- maybe thousands of lives would not today be lost, at least in India, Sri Lanka and Somalia, all of which had time to react.
It's going to be a long and terrible time, recovering from the disaster. For news, links and information, please visit Kitabkhana and Zigzackly, listed to the right.
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
"EVERYONE"
Quick -- what kind of picture flashes in your head when you hear/see the word "EVERYONE"? This is a question whose answer interests me. Many years ago, I began to format my brain in order to ensure that I would ALWAYS see ... well, I'm going to delay my answer till I know you lot have given the matter just a little thought. If you feel like you can share your reponses in a comment. I'll say what my mental image is, in a comment, to start you off.
And in other news, I am going to be away from my cyber-post for six days (eeeeeeeek), starting Thursday the 23rd morning. I, E and a friend are off to see the Wizard -- he IS a sort of wizard, when you consider that he pretty much kick-started India's tiger conservation effort 'way back in the last century -- "Billy" Arjan Singh. We're spending Christmas with him and returning on the 28th. I am told there will be nothing to see in the way of striped carnivores and that it will be so cold in the shadow of the foothills that I may as well start regretting the trip right away. It's going to be a 10-hour journey by road, but since I am driving-challenged, I will be in charge of entertainment and light repartee en route. The car is a Paj and I can report from our earlier trip this year to the hills, it is a seriously comfortable vehicle in which to engage with the nation's highways.
Four amazing items seen on TV's Animal Planet recently -- honestly, is there ANY other channel worth watching? -- two on David Attenborough's programs and two elsewhere. From Attenborough's "Life of Birds" series I saw (a) an astonishing record of a British hedge sparrow couple's response to the all-too-human situation of marital infidelity. Here's what we saw: Mrs Sparrow has a lover on the side. We see her engage with her spouse and then, not much later, succumbing to the charms of Mr X. Mr Sparrow, initially appears to be unaware of Mr X, but then, in an astonishing display of conjugal jealousy apparently confronts Mrs Sparrow. There were no translators to tell us exactly what was said but the lady very quickly obliges her mate by ejecting the interloper's sperm!! The couple accomplishes this -- what shall we call it? Pre-emptive abortion? -- by the female presenting her rear end to the male, who pecks peevishly in the vicinity of her unfaithful bum, resulting a quick expulsion of a tiny white speck, which (we assume) the researchers have confirmed is Mr X's sperm.
This is not an isolated instance, but has been observed as typical hedge-sparrow behavior. Why? According to the researchers, the system ensures that the interloper can also be co-opted in the care of the young, because he thinks that some of them MAY be his. And sometimes they are. Meanwhile, he is free to form serious and meaningful relationships with other compliant females, who in their turn may entertain flings on the side ... The result is that the species as a whole survives better and the phenomenon is tolerated.
Attenborough (b) was about a species of hummingbird (alas, I didn't catch the name, and so cannot repeat it here) which lives in the high Andes. Like all hummingbirds, its extremely high metabolic rate, occasioned by the astounding speed at which its tiny wings whirr(could it possibly be 70 times a second? I think that's what I heard but it's really quite hard to believe), permitting it to hover, as it flits from flower to flower, requires it to feed practically continuously. But at night, there are no flowers open for it to feed from. Its solution? It goes into hibernation -- EVERY NIGHT!! Its pulse-rate, blood-pressure and breathing all but cease altogether. In the morning, with the heat of the sun, it gradually warms up and is soon off on its rounds again. I don't know about you, but this blows me away. Like I wrote to a friend immediately after seeing this, it's a trick I would gladly learn specifically to cope with international travel. Just check in, belt up and aestivate for 28 hours straight. Wake up in NYC and head straight for the nearest Haagen Dazs (sp?) supply station. Joy.
The other two films were about mammals. One showed a troupe of monkeys in Sri Lanka, macaques of some sort, but we began watching too late to hear their full name. They looked quite a bit like the familiar Rhesus in India, but their social life is remarkably different. I don't know if the film crew happened to encounter an exceptional group, but what we saw was a complete reversal of animal behavior as recorded in other films I've seen on TV. I'm cutting a longish story short here, but let's just say that it's fairly typical of simian life for an alpha male to dominate the community for a period of three or four years until a rival arises who fights him and takes his place. What we saw in this film was an alpha leader who apparently had wonderful social relations with his group, being deposed by a male who was not merely more aggressive but also (apparently) of a cruder mentality than him.
In other films of this sort (there was one about black-faced langurs in Jaipur, for instance), this is completely standard. After the old male is vanquished, all the females of his harem are subjugated by the new incumbent, raped and ravished, rendered pregnant and soon enough, everything returns to normal. But in this Sri Lankan group, the group was apparently outraged by the new alpha male. Not only did they seek out the body of the previous leader, who fell by the wayside and died, but, after engaging in what certainly looked like a quiet and dignified mourning ritual (they all sat around the body and some of the females wiped flies away from his face), but one by one they began to reject the new alpha in favour of the old one's loyal lieutenant!!
I realize that there are dozens of ways in which a film can be manipulated to show us what the film-maker want us to see in terms of an interpretation. All I can say is, the cinematography was non-intrusive and certainly appeared to be honest. Another astonishing sight we saw in this film was this group of monkeys foraging for food UNDERWATER. They swam and dove extremely well, and seemed completely at home underwater. It was an amazing sight -- I don't believe this kind of behavior has ever been seen before amongst primates (other than us, i.e.). Mothers with tiny babies just ducked underwater completely heedless of the fear of drowning their offspring -- who in turn seemed entirely unperturbed.
And finally, this evening, there was a repeat of a film about a monastery in northern Thailand where a group of monks has raised wild tigers whose habitat was being threatened by development -- and everyone is thriving -- the monks treat the tigers with an astonishing mixture of reverence and commonsensical love, and the tigers (ten, according to the film, and breeding successfully) responding with affection and calm, non-aggressive behavior. I hadn't seen the film before, but E had described it to me fairly thoroughly -- even so, it brought tears to my eyes (okay, I admit, I become a warm slushy puddle at the sight of animals looking happy), because it was just so unbearably beautiful. A vision of life as it so rarely is, with the monks practically aglow with this extreme demonstration of absolute compassion at work. And the tigers ... well they glow ANYWAY, don't they? Can't help themselves.
And in other news, I am going to be away from my cyber-post for six days (eeeeeeeek), starting Thursday the 23rd morning. I, E and a friend are off to see the Wizard -- he IS a sort of wizard, when you consider that he pretty much kick-started India's tiger conservation effort 'way back in the last century -- "Billy" Arjan Singh. We're spending Christmas with him and returning on the 28th. I am told there will be nothing to see in the way of striped carnivores and that it will be so cold in the shadow of the foothills that I may as well start regretting the trip right away. It's going to be a 10-hour journey by road, but since I am driving-challenged, I will be in charge of entertainment and light repartee en route. The car is a Paj and I can report from our earlier trip this year to the hills, it is a seriously comfortable vehicle in which to engage with the nation's highways.
Four amazing items seen on TV's Animal Planet recently -- honestly, is there ANY other channel worth watching? -- two on David Attenborough's programs and two elsewhere. From Attenborough's "Life of Birds" series I saw (a) an astonishing record of a British hedge sparrow couple's response to the all-too-human situation of marital infidelity. Here's what we saw: Mrs Sparrow has a lover on the side. We see her engage with her spouse and then, not much later, succumbing to the charms of Mr X. Mr Sparrow, initially appears to be unaware of Mr X, but then, in an astonishing display of conjugal jealousy apparently confronts Mrs Sparrow. There were no translators to tell us exactly what was said but the lady very quickly obliges her mate by ejecting the interloper's sperm!! The couple accomplishes this -- what shall we call it? Pre-emptive abortion? -- by the female presenting her rear end to the male, who pecks peevishly in the vicinity of her unfaithful bum, resulting a quick expulsion of a tiny white speck, which (we assume) the researchers have confirmed is Mr X's sperm.
This is not an isolated instance, but has been observed as typical hedge-sparrow behavior. Why? According to the researchers, the system ensures that the interloper can also be co-opted in the care of the young, because he thinks that some of them MAY be his. And sometimes they are. Meanwhile, he is free to form serious and meaningful relationships with other compliant females, who in their turn may entertain flings on the side ... The result is that the species as a whole survives better and the phenomenon is tolerated.
Attenborough (b) was about a species of hummingbird (alas, I didn't catch the name, and so cannot repeat it here) which lives in the high Andes. Like all hummingbirds, its extremely high metabolic rate, occasioned by the astounding speed at which its tiny wings whirr(could it possibly be 70 times a second? I think that's what I heard but it's really quite hard to believe), permitting it to hover, as it flits from flower to flower, requires it to feed practically continuously. But at night, there are no flowers open for it to feed from. Its solution? It goes into hibernation -- EVERY NIGHT!! Its pulse-rate, blood-pressure and breathing all but cease altogether. In the morning, with the heat of the sun, it gradually warms up and is soon off on its rounds again. I don't know about you, but this blows me away. Like I wrote to a friend immediately after seeing this, it's a trick I would gladly learn specifically to cope with international travel. Just check in, belt up and aestivate for 28 hours straight. Wake up in NYC and head straight for the nearest Haagen Dazs (sp?) supply station. Joy.
The other two films were about mammals. One showed a troupe of monkeys in Sri Lanka, macaques of some sort, but we began watching too late to hear their full name. They looked quite a bit like the familiar Rhesus in India, but their social life is remarkably different. I don't know if the film crew happened to encounter an exceptional group, but what we saw was a complete reversal of animal behavior as recorded in other films I've seen on TV. I'm cutting a longish story short here, but let's just say that it's fairly typical of simian life for an alpha male to dominate the community for a period of three or four years until a rival arises who fights him and takes his place. What we saw in this film was an alpha leader who apparently had wonderful social relations with his group, being deposed by a male who was not merely more aggressive but also (apparently) of a cruder mentality than him.
In other films of this sort (there was one about black-faced langurs in Jaipur, for instance), this is completely standard. After the old male is vanquished, all the females of his harem are subjugated by the new incumbent, raped and ravished, rendered pregnant and soon enough, everything returns to normal. But in this Sri Lankan group, the group was apparently outraged by the new alpha male. Not only did they seek out the body of the previous leader, who fell by the wayside and died, but, after engaging in what certainly looked like a quiet and dignified mourning ritual (they all sat around the body and some of the females wiped flies away from his face), but one by one they began to reject the new alpha in favour of the old one's loyal lieutenant!!
I realize that there are dozens of ways in which a film can be manipulated to show us what the film-maker want us to see in terms of an interpretation. All I can say is, the cinematography was non-intrusive and certainly appeared to be honest. Another astonishing sight we saw in this film was this group of monkeys foraging for food UNDERWATER. They swam and dove extremely well, and seemed completely at home underwater. It was an amazing sight -- I don't believe this kind of behavior has ever been seen before amongst primates (other than us, i.e.). Mothers with tiny babies just ducked underwater completely heedless of the fear of drowning their offspring -- who in turn seemed entirely unperturbed.
And finally, this evening, there was a repeat of a film about a monastery in northern Thailand where a group of monks has raised wild tigers whose habitat was being threatened by development -- and everyone is thriving -- the monks treat the tigers with an astonishing mixture of reverence and commonsensical love, and the tigers (ten, according to the film, and breeding successfully) responding with affection and calm, non-aggressive behavior. I hadn't seen the film before, but E had described it to me fairly thoroughly -- even so, it brought tears to my eyes (okay, I admit, I become a warm slushy puddle at the sight of animals looking happy), because it was just so unbearably beautiful. A vision of life as it so rarely is, with the monks practically aglow with this extreme demonstration of absolute compassion at work. And the tigers ... well they glow ANYWAY, don't they? Can't help themselves.
Sunday, December 19, 2004
Spermicons
Okay, so this is something I thought was funny about four years ago. I may have been sniffing chocolate at the time. But I looked 'em over again today and thought ... ehh, they're so silly I might as well share 'em. I am not sure they'll look as god intended on different browsers/screens -- in particular, I have no idea whether Mac users will see something utterly weird and incomprehensible. Of course, it's very likely that they really ARE weird and incomprehensible -- for instance, even I cannot see the point of "Coiled Sperm".
Ah, the anguish of being a misunderstood artist.
SPERMICONS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~O
(Basic Sperm)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~O
(De Gaulle sperm)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^O
(coiled sperm)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@
(sperm attack)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~%
(sperm looking sideways over its shoulder)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~X
(cross (i.e., angry) sperm)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~:-)
(happy sperm)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~$
(mercenary sperm)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~$$$$$$
(sperm bank)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~BC
(old sperm)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ZZZZZZZ
(sleeping sperm)
Ah, the anguish of being a misunderstood artist.
SPERMICONS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~O
(Basic Sperm)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~O
(De Gaulle sperm)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^O
(coiled sperm)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@
(sperm attack)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~%
(sperm looking sideways over its shoulder)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~X
(cross (i.e., angry) sperm)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~:-)
(happy sperm)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~$
(mercenary sperm)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~$$$$$$
(sperm bank)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~BC
(old sperm)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ZZZZZZZ
(sleeping sperm)
Thursday, December 16, 2004
An Anti-Carol
In a fit of perversity brought on by having seen Maureen Dowd's post-Election version of the "Twelve Days of Christmas" once too often (a friend sent it to me by e-mail and this morning I saw it in the Asian Age), I felt compelled to write my own childish and mean-spirited version of the song. It's quite funny if sung, though. My family will attest to the fact that I CAN sing it and frequently DID on all those endless trips by road, all the way from Bombay to Madras, all those many years ago in the last century. Here it is:
THE TWELVE DAYS OF (ANTI)CHRISTMAS
On the first day of Christmas my true hate gave to me
... a gargoyle in a dead tree.
On the second day of Christmas my true hate gave to me
... two brutal shoves and a gargoyle in a dead tree.
On the third day of Christmas my true hate gave to me
... three flesh wounds, two brutal shoves and a gargoyle in a dead tree.
On the fourth day of Christmas my true hate gave to me
... four warm beers, three flesh wounds, two brutal shoves and a gargoyle in a dead tree.
On the fifth day of Christmas my true hate gave to me
... five rotten eggs! Four warm beers, three flesh wounds, two brutal shoves and a gargoyle in a dead tree.
On the sixth day of Christmas, my true hate gave to me
... six snitches snitching, five rotten eggs! Four warm beers, three flesh wounds, two brutal shoves and a gargoyle in a dead tree.
On the seventh day of Christmas my true hate gave to me
... seven ghouls a-gorging, six snitches snitching, five rotten eggs! Four warm beers, three flesh wounds, two brutal shoves and a gargoyle in a dead tree.
On the eighth day of Christmas my true hate gave to me
... eight lawyers lying, seven ghouls a-gorging, six snitches snitching, five rotten eggs! Four warm beers, three flesh wounds, two brutal shoves and a gargoyle in a dead tree.
On the ninth day of Christmas my true hate gave to me,
... nine beggars whining, eight lawyers lying, seven ghouls a-gorging, six snitches snitching, five rotten eggs! Four warm beers, three flesh wounds, two brutal shoves and a gargoyle in a dead tree.
On the tenth day of Christmas my true hate gave to me,
... ten hags a-whoring, nine beggars whining, eight lawyers lying, seven ghouls a-gorging, six snitches snitching, five rotten eggs! Four warm beers, three flesh wounds, two brutal shoves and a gargoyle in a dead tree.
On the eleventh day of Christmas my true hate gave to me,
... eleven muggers mugging, ten hags a-whoring, nine beggars whining, eight lawyers lying, seven ghouls a-gorging, six snitches snitching, five rotten eggs! Four warm beers, three flesh wounds, two brutal shoves and a gargoyle in a dead tree.
On the twelfth day of Christmas my true hate gave to me,
... twelve hackers hacking, eleven muggers mugging, ten hags a-whoring, nine beggars whining, eight lawyers lying, seven ghouls a-gorging, six snitches snitching, five rotten eggs! Four warm beers, three flesh wounds, two brutal shoves and a gargoyle in a dead tree.
THE TWELVE DAYS OF (ANTI)CHRISTMAS
On the first day of Christmas my true hate gave to me
... a gargoyle in a dead tree.
On the second day of Christmas my true hate gave to me
... two brutal shoves and a gargoyle in a dead tree.
On the third day of Christmas my true hate gave to me
... three flesh wounds, two brutal shoves and a gargoyle in a dead tree.
On the fourth day of Christmas my true hate gave to me
... four warm beers, three flesh wounds, two brutal shoves and a gargoyle in a dead tree.
On the fifth day of Christmas my true hate gave to me
... five rotten eggs! Four warm beers, three flesh wounds, two brutal shoves and a gargoyle in a dead tree.
On the sixth day of Christmas, my true hate gave to me
... six snitches snitching, five rotten eggs! Four warm beers, three flesh wounds, two brutal shoves and a gargoyle in a dead tree.
On the seventh day of Christmas my true hate gave to me
... seven ghouls a-gorging, six snitches snitching, five rotten eggs! Four warm beers, three flesh wounds, two brutal shoves and a gargoyle in a dead tree.
On the eighth day of Christmas my true hate gave to me
... eight lawyers lying, seven ghouls a-gorging, six snitches snitching, five rotten eggs! Four warm beers, three flesh wounds, two brutal shoves and a gargoyle in a dead tree.
On the ninth day of Christmas my true hate gave to me,
... nine beggars whining, eight lawyers lying, seven ghouls a-gorging, six snitches snitching, five rotten eggs! Four warm beers, three flesh wounds, two brutal shoves and a gargoyle in a dead tree.
On the tenth day of Christmas my true hate gave to me,
... ten hags a-whoring, nine beggars whining, eight lawyers lying, seven ghouls a-gorging, six snitches snitching, five rotten eggs! Four warm beers, three flesh wounds, two brutal shoves and a gargoyle in a dead tree.
On the eleventh day of Christmas my true hate gave to me,
... eleven muggers mugging, ten hags a-whoring, nine beggars whining, eight lawyers lying, seven ghouls a-gorging, six snitches snitching, five rotten eggs! Four warm beers, three flesh wounds, two brutal shoves and a gargoyle in a dead tree.
On the twelfth day of Christmas my true hate gave to me,
... twelve hackers hacking, eleven muggers mugging, ten hags a-whoring, nine beggars whining, eight lawyers lying, seven ghouls a-gorging, six snitches snitching, five rotten eggs! Four warm beers, three flesh wounds, two brutal shoves and a gargoyle in a dead tree.
Saturday, December 11, 2004
Return to Delhirium
One of the things I did while in Madras was attend one evening of the week-long Other Festival, a privately funded presentation of variegated performance arts. It's been on the events-calendar of the Southern Capital for seven years now and was the brainchild of a powerhouse of human energy called Ranvir Shah. Write that down: his name will one day be synonymous with many things cultural.
Oh and did I mention that he's been my most loyal and consistent patron, having bought my work (paintings and drawings, i.e.) since the early eighties? Yep. Most recently, he commissioned a mural 90 feet long for an interior wall in his house, to be carved in granite by the stone sculptors of Mahaballipuram based on a design by me. On Friday I went over to examine the evidence and was most charmed: after three or four draft drawings, the final result is a discrete number of carved panels set in amongst unadorned grey stone blocks.
My motif, at Ranvir's request, was little cavorting monkeys and I set them amongst lily pads, with a few trailing fronds of some unnamed palm tree. Vikram Phadke, the interior decorator, was responsible for the placement of the motifs along the wall, which borders a long blue-tiled swimming pool. Sunlight entering the open-to-the-sky central courtyard, glances off the water and projects glittering reflections up against the granite. Meanwhile real monkeys cavort in the trees leaning in over the house from the streets around it. Glass doors ensure that nature remains at a discrete remove from the interior. Lunch was outstanding: vegetarian, Gujerati and yum.
Anyway, to return to the Other Festival, the piece I saw was by the actor Arjun Raina -- a highly effective solo performance with supporting media called -- oh darn, I've forgotten the name, but will insert here the next time I log in. But it was, loosely speaking, about call centres: a young man living in New Delhi who earns a living at night by calling US customers of a credit card company to get them to pay their dues. Raina describes his performance as "stand-up tragedy" -- though he might have taken the term a little further along its path and called it "sit-down tragedy" instead, since he is mostly seated. It was an hour of powerful evocation as Raina takes on various accents (well, Indian and Indian-American) and roles to tell a provocative and plausible story of cultural cross-connection.
Must stop here ...
[later today, back at base camp. I never seem to have much luck with those bold tags, huh? Well I think I've quelled 'em for the moment]
Okay, so the name of Raina's performance is "A Terrible Beauty is Born". If any of you get a chance to see it, you should grab it. I liked it as much for what it said as for its method which managed to be effective despite my low threshold for performances by Indians putting on American accents. Raina's accent is passable but if it had been better the piece may have been less effective. Some part of its effect lay in being somewhat rough-hewn. It heightened the impression he gave of being a man walking along the outer edge of an unpleasant new world, the one that's just beyond our doorsteps and will soon be (already is) inside our homes the first chance it gets.
Other culture-notes from Madras, now that I'm no longer there: it's a city where the Olde Worlde and the Industrial Revolution lie side-by-side on the mouse-pad of Today. Flower-sellers still go around door-to-door delivering their ration of strung jasmine chaplets to households which maintain a daily puja, while bare-chested priests ride about on scooters with their dhotis flapping about their legs, racing against moped-riding Brahmin ladies in their silk saris, dropping their long-plaited daughters off to college.
Every day I spend in my mother's house feels like a Japanese art film -- I have to call it a Japanese and not an Indian art film because my mother wears a kimono-like garment at the start and finish of every day and there are certain angles from which, framed in a doorway against the light, leaning on her walker, moving only slightly faster than the minute hand on my Swatch, I can just about hear the sound of a samisen(is this what I think it is? I mean one of those nasal-sounding instruments one hears exclusively in Japanese films). Indian art films move at a different pace. Just as slow, perhaps, but all the action is ultimately about reproduction. Whereas in my mother's world, the story is about fighting for dignity, just as any Samurai might, with every muscle straining and every nerve polished to a mirror-finish. One day, not very long from now, she will lose the fight. She knows this and so she fights ever more valiantly. That's what makes the film both sad and very beautiful.
Ah yes, and that reminds me of another cultural experience I had in Madras, courtesy my computer and a CD. While browsing at the local bookstore, an Amazon.com sort of place called LANDMARK, I came across what I took to be a CD of Mussorgsky's PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION. Hmmm, I thought to myself, THIS is apt! And so I bought it. I first heard PAAE as a rock album by Emerson, Lake & Palmer during the last stone age, and only later became a fan of the classical (original) version. I have loved it ever since but have never owned my own copy of it. Thinking I was remedying this situation -- and feeling pleased on account of the pictures up at MY exhibition -- I bought what turned out to be a DVD.
When I played it on my 'puter, ta-daaaaaa! Pictures. AND music. And very nice they were too. Some thoughtful and market-savvy person has apparently dreamed up the notion of music videos for classical music -- mind you, this can and has got out of hand, as I will explain in my next paragraph -- which results in being able to listen to Mussorgsky while watching various thrilling Russian scenes. One big complaint: Night on Bald Mountain is unaccountably NOT included. Grrr.
I went back and bought three more DVDs. One of them is by Yo-Yo Ma. He shows us, first, a Kabuki dancer and female impersonator performing while he (Y-YM) plays Bach's unaccompanied cello and second, while he plays the cello in NYC's Times Square like any ordinary busker, with the Torvill & Dean ice-dancing couple performing in a studio setting, interspersed with an actor presenting scenes from JSB's life. Hmmmmm. Well. What can I say? There's that word that rhymes with "twitch" hovering just outside hearing range. And yet Y-YM is SO earnest and SO talented ...
I shoulda just stopped while I was ahead, with the Mussorgsky.
Oh and did I mention that he's been my most loyal and consistent patron, having bought my work (paintings and drawings, i.e.) since the early eighties? Yep. Most recently, he commissioned a mural 90 feet long for an interior wall in his house, to be carved in granite by the stone sculptors of Mahaballipuram based on a design by me. On Friday I went over to examine the evidence and was most charmed: after three or four draft drawings, the final result is a discrete number of carved panels set in amongst unadorned grey stone blocks.
My motif, at Ranvir's request, was little cavorting monkeys and I set them amongst lily pads, with a few trailing fronds of some unnamed palm tree. Vikram Phadke, the interior decorator, was responsible for the placement of the motifs along the wall, which borders a long blue-tiled swimming pool. Sunlight entering the open-to-the-sky central courtyard, glances off the water and projects glittering reflections up against the granite. Meanwhile real monkeys cavort in the trees leaning in over the house from the streets around it. Glass doors ensure that nature remains at a discrete remove from the interior. Lunch was outstanding: vegetarian, Gujerati and yum.
Anyway, to return to the Other Festival, the piece I saw was by the actor Arjun Raina -- a highly effective solo performance with supporting media called -- oh darn, I've forgotten the name, but will insert here the next time I log in. But it was, loosely speaking, about call centres: a young man living in New Delhi who earns a living at night by calling US customers of a credit card company to get them to pay their dues. Raina describes his performance as "stand-up tragedy" -- though he might have taken the term a little further along its path and called it "sit-down tragedy" instead, since he is mostly seated. It was an hour of powerful evocation as Raina takes on various accents (well, Indian and Indian-American) and roles to tell a provocative and plausible story of cultural cross-connection.
Must stop here ...
[later today, back at base camp. I never seem to have much luck with those bold tags, huh? Well I think I've quelled 'em for the moment]
Okay, so the name of Raina's performance is "A Terrible Beauty is Born". If any of you get a chance to see it, you should grab it. I liked it as much for what it said as for its method which managed to be effective despite my low threshold for performances by Indians putting on American accents. Raina's accent is passable but if it had been better the piece may have been less effective. Some part of its effect lay in being somewhat rough-hewn. It heightened the impression he gave of being a man walking along the outer edge of an unpleasant new world, the one that's just beyond our doorsteps and will soon be (already is) inside our homes the first chance it gets.
Other culture-notes from Madras, now that I'm no longer there: it's a city where the Olde Worlde and the Industrial Revolution lie side-by-side on the mouse-pad of Today. Flower-sellers still go around door-to-door delivering their ration of strung jasmine chaplets to households which maintain a daily puja, while bare-chested priests ride about on scooters with their dhotis flapping about their legs, racing against moped-riding Brahmin ladies in their silk saris, dropping their long-plaited daughters off to college.
Every day I spend in my mother's house feels like a Japanese art film -- I have to call it a Japanese and not an Indian art film because my mother wears a kimono-like garment at the start and finish of every day and there are certain angles from which, framed in a doorway against the light, leaning on her walker, moving only slightly faster than the minute hand on my Swatch, I can just about hear the sound of a samisen(is this what I think it is? I mean one of those nasal-sounding instruments one hears exclusively in Japanese films). Indian art films move at a different pace. Just as slow, perhaps, but all the action is ultimately about reproduction. Whereas in my mother's world, the story is about fighting for dignity, just as any Samurai might, with every muscle straining and every nerve polished to a mirror-finish. One day, not very long from now, she will lose the fight. She knows this and so she fights ever more valiantly. That's what makes the film both sad and very beautiful.
Ah yes, and that reminds me of another cultural experience I had in Madras, courtesy my computer and a CD. While browsing at the local bookstore, an Amazon.com sort of place called LANDMARK, I came across what I took to be a CD of Mussorgsky's PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION. Hmmm, I thought to myself, THIS is apt! And so I bought it. I first heard PAAE as a rock album by Emerson, Lake & Palmer during the last stone age, and only later became a fan of the classical (original) version. I have loved it ever since but have never owned my own copy of it. Thinking I was remedying this situation -- and feeling pleased on account of the pictures up at MY exhibition -- I bought what turned out to be a DVD.
When I played it on my 'puter, ta-daaaaaa! Pictures. AND music. And very nice they were too. Some thoughtful and market-savvy person has apparently dreamed up the notion of music videos for classical music -- mind you, this can and has got out of hand, as I will explain in my next paragraph -- which results in being able to listen to Mussorgsky while watching various thrilling Russian scenes. One big complaint: Night on Bald Mountain is unaccountably NOT included. Grrr.
I went back and bought three more DVDs. One of them is by Yo-Yo Ma. He shows us, first, a Kabuki dancer and female impersonator performing while he (Y-YM) plays Bach's unaccompanied cello and second, while he plays the cello in NYC's Times Square like any ordinary busker, with the Torvill & Dean ice-dancing couple performing in a studio setting, interspersed with an actor presenting scenes from JSB's life. Hmmmmm. Well. What can I say? There's that word that rhymes with "twitch" hovering just outside hearing range. And yet Y-YM is SO earnest and SO talented ...
I shoulda just stopped while I was ahead, with the Mussorgsky.
Thursday, December 09, 2004
Exhib Update!
Well the show opened last night and ... only 15 people turned up!! This would normally have been an unmitigated disaster except for the very pleasant fact that they all apparently loved the work and by evening's end, 20 pieces had been bought (that includes the three that were red-dotted in Delhi thanx to our friend Amro). So the gallery and I are feeling pleased -- though disturbed about the lack of attendance. Apparently it was a busy night on the social circuit (weddings, mostly. Now you know why I detest weddings -- they get in the way of all worthwhile endeavours, such as gallery openings). Twenty paintings out of the fifty (well, 49) on show represents a little over a third, so ... I'm happy.
Anyhow, I thought the most appropriate thing to share at this moment is the "concept note" I prepared for the show. Here it is (the name of the show is "YES" -- have I mentioned this before somewhere? It's been one of my themes for a long while, and is the name of one of the squiggle-paintings too):
YES An Exhibition of Prints and Collages by Manjula Padmanabhan, December 2004, ARTWORLD
The prints were made at Atelier 2221 in New Delhi, from mid-1999 to early 2003. Most of them are zinc-plate etchings with a small handful of lithographs. The crucial difference between graphic art prints such as these and commercial reproductions such as art museum posters is that prints are processed by hand in limited editions of usually between 20 and a hundred impressions while museum reproductions are printed photo-mechanically in the thousands. It is for this reason that prints have sometimes been called “multiple originals”. Despite the effort taken to ensure that each print in an edition is the same as every other, small variations inevitably occur. In that sense, each one really IS unique and original.
These etchings and lithographs were made possible because of the excellent facilities at Delhi’s Atelier 2221, owned by artist and print-maker Pratibha Dakoji. The great pleasure of print-making is that it permits an artist to multiply the effect of one piece of art over several different buyers. Since the cost of a print is usually considerably less than a painting or drawing, it is also a medium through which younger buyers and collectors can buy genuine originals without going broke.
My subjects for the prints are those that have interested me over the years – animal and human figures, depicted in a whimsical manner. There is frequently, in my work, a suggestion of stories, fables and myths underlying the images. But I did not have any particular stories in mind when I created these combinations of heads and bodies. I prefer to leave the viewer free to make up stories to suit the drawings rather than the other way around. These pictures don’t belong to any specific tradition or culture – yet they are recognizable as peacocks or women, cats or carpets. In my view, there is a global language, which most city-dwellers understand, of familiar shapes and forms. These drawings are visual stories told in that language.
The collages, on the other hand, arise from a completely different source. A better name for them might be “hybrids” or “squiggle-paintings”. I began working in the medium maybe a year ago, initially using the paint (a type of acrylic) directly on coloured foam-boards. I think of these pieces as celebrations of form and colour, only loosely related to objects in the real world. There are two or three basic themes. One, for instance, is the idealized sunset: a line separating two colours with a single element representing the sun or any other celestial object (e.g. RED FIELD, LINEAR MOONRISE). Another theme is of an object such as a head or a rock or even two rocks, filling the frame (e.g. ROCK, FACE, PIGEON). A third theme might be called “refraction” – one element, such as a line or a squiggle, is shown passing through some other medium, such as glass or water, and is transformed by it (e.g. GOLD RAIN, RED SHIFT).
A final theme, common to all these squiggle-paintings, is nonconformity. Despite the many repeating patterns of dots, squiggles and lines, not a single element is identical to the others around it. Similar but not the same – to me, this principle reminds us that we are all distinct individuals and ALSO part of a pattern. We ourselves are built from patterns of common elements (atoms and organic chemicals), yet the sum of our millions of tiny similar parts is utterly unique. There are many different patterns represented in these collages. Some are more regular and others are less so. In some, being irregular is the pattern! Looking for patterns, finding them and also attempting to break away from them – this is what I have enjoyed while producing these pieces and what I have hoped to communicate through having this show.
Anyhow, I thought the most appropriate thing to share at this moment is the "concept note" I prepared for the show. Here it is (the name of the show is "YES" -- have I mentioned this before somewhere? It's been one of my themes for a long while, and is the name of one of the squiggle-paintings too):
YES An Exhibition of Prints and Collages by Manjula Padmanabhan, December 2004, ARTWORLD
The prints were made at Atelier 2221 in New Delhi, from mid-1999 to early 2003. Most of them are zinc-plate etchings with a small handful of lithographs. The crucial difference between graphic art prints such as these and commercial reproductions such as art museum posters is that prints are processed by hand in limited editions of usually between 20 and a hundred impressions while museum reproductions are printed photo-mechanically in the thousands. It is for this reason that prints have sometimes been called “multiple originals”. Despite the effort taken to ensure that each print in an edition is the same as every other, small variations inevitably occur. In that sense, each one really IS unique and original.
These etchings and lithographs were made possible because of the excellent facilities at Delhi’s Atelier 2221, owned by artist and print-maker Pratibha Dakoji. The great pleasure of print-making is that it permits an artist to multiply the effect of one piece of art over several different buyers. Since the cost of a print is usually considerably less than a painting or drawing, it is also a medium through which younger buyers and collectors can buy genuine originals without going broke.
My subjects for the prints are those that have interested me over the years – animal and human figures, depicted in a whimsical manner. There is frequently, in my work, a suggestion of stories, fables and myths underlying the images. But I did not have any particular stories in mind when I created these combinations of heads and bodies. I prefer to leave the viewer free to make up stories to suit the drawings rather than the other way around. These pictures don’t belong to any specific tradition or culture – yet they are recognizable as peacocks or women, cats or carpets. In my view, there is a global language, which most city-dwellers understand, of familiar shapes and forms. These drawings are visual stories told in that language.
The collages, on the other hand, arise from a completely different source. A better name for them might be “hybrids” or “squiggle-paintings”. I began working in the medium maybe a year ago, initially using the paint (a type of acrylic) directly on coloured foam-boards. I think of these pieces as celebrations of form and colour, only loosely related to objects in the real world. There are two or three basic themes. One, for instance, is the idealized sunset: a line separating two colours with a single element representing the sun or any other celestial object (e.g. RED FIELD, LINEAR MOONRISE). Another theme is of an object such as a head or a rock or even two rocks, filling the frame (e.g. ROCK, FACE, PIGEON). A third theme might be called “refraction” – one element, such as a line or a squiggle, is shown passing through some other medium, such as glass or water, and is transformed by it (e.g. GOLD RAIN, RED SHIFT).
A final theme, common to all these squiggle-paintings, is nonconformity. Despite the many repeating patterns of dots, squiggles and lines, not a single element is identical to the others around it. Similar but not the same – to me, this principle reminds us that we are all distinct individuals and ALSO part of a pattern. We ourselves are built from patterns of common elements (atoms and organic chemicals), yet the sum of our millions of tiny similar parts is utterly unique. There are many different patterns represented in these collages. Some are more regular and others are less so. In some, being irregular is the pattern! Looking for patterns, finding them and also attempting to break away from them – this is what I have enjoyed while producing these pieces and what I have hoped to communicate through having this show.
Saturday, December 04, 2004
Yup, I'm still alive
For all those who may be puzzled about my silence in recent days ... well, I'm in Madras now and despite three computers in the house, am less than usually able to dial-up. My laptop caught a virus the last time I dialled up and I had to reformat the hard-disk -- which was okay and fairly painless but it's left me with an unwillingness to use it for dialling up any more. My sister's machine, the one I'm using now, is upstairs and hence not available to me on tap 'coz I'm downstairs from it. Also, she's a busy journalist and needs to use her machine a lot. My niece's laptop, which she very kindly loans me when I'm visiting, has developed a tic in Internet Explorer, so it no longer permits me to browse.
So there we are. Limited access. Weird, huh? Two years ago, I'd go into shock if I couldn't dial up every half hour or so. And two years before THAT, I used to wander down to the local cyber cafe -- what my mother misheard and consequently used to call "The Khyber Pass", causing her friends to look at me strangely whenever I returned home, wondering how come I travelled so swiftly back and forth from Afghanistan -- all day long. But today, I'm almost calm about it.
Of course part of the reason for that is the continuing focus on my show. I was over at the gallery yesterday and am happy to report that all the pictures are framed and up on the walls. I think they(the collages) are looking rather sweet -- all the little ones are the same size, i.e., 12"x12", so they look like a sort of running border on the walls, just at head-height. The prints are mostly all on a wall to themselves and look rather sober and serious by comparison to the collages which I have started to refer to as "hybrids" and/or "squiggle paintings", take your pick. Both names are appropriate. They ARE hybrids in the sense that they are neither wholly collage nor really painted at all and they DO employ a large contingent of squiggles in various colours and textures.
The show hasn't opened yet, but a few reactions have been registered, mostly positive. There are five red dots up already! Nice.
And Hurree: yes, I blush and confess that a mere two days after telling you that I was still too repressed to allow you to visit for a viewing at my home, I DID allow Someone Else (who visits this blog) not only to view but to buy. Arrgh. Well there's nothing I can say in my defense except that there's a tipping point -- if I'm still technically "finishing" the work, I won't want to anyone to see it regardless who has come to visit. But past that point, gradually the veils begin to drop away and I am okay with it. Still, I should have signalled to you when I knew that point had been reached ... You are hereby free to whip me upto fifty times with a large soft feather(both peacock and ostrich feathers are good for this). Or deprive me of chocolate cake upto my next three visits at your home. Or both.
Three more days before the show opens. The gallery owners, Sarala and Bishu Bannerji are extremely friendly and seem almost as pleased with the work as I am -- which is unexpected, considering that, like most artists, I feel rather like a cat with kittens (funny how frequently I find analogies between myself and cats. Must be the combined influence of my sister Su's Siamese Callas and Hurree's marmalade Tiglath) when I gaze upon my stuff, now framed between black and gold borders, on the walls of their gallery. Anyway, they are the first gallery owners with whom I feel comfortable -- they seem to really enjoy dealing in art, even though they've had their share of burns from unscrupulous artists.
And so to close. I'm still doing some of my homework -- making up lists of names to send invitations to (yes, STILL! Apparently no-one comes anyway, but you've got to send the invitations out, even if they reach the recipients only on the day of the opening) and all the names of the items on view, plus prices and a bit of bio-data for myself. *yawn*
So there we are. Limited access. Weird, huh? Two years ago, I'd go into shock if I couldn't dial up every half hour or so. And two years before THAT, I used to wander down to the local cyber cafe -- what my mother misheard and consequently used to call "The Khyber Pass", causing her friends to look at me strangely whenever I returned home, wondering how come I travelled so swiftly back and forth from Afghanistan -- all day long. But today, I'm almost calm about it.
Of course part of the reason for that is the continuing focus on my show. I was over at the gallery yesterday and am happy to report that all the pictures are framed and up on the walls. I think they(the collages) are looking rather sweet -- all the little ones are the same size, i.e., 12"x12", so they look like a sort of running border on the walls, just at head-height. The prints are mostly all on a wall to themselves and look rather sober and serious by comparison to the collages which I have started to refer to as "hybrids" and/or "squiggle paintings", take your pick. Both names are appropriate. They ARE hybrids in the sense that they are neither wholly collage nor really painted at all and they DO employ a large contingent of squiggles in various colours and textures.
The show hasn't opened yet, but a few reactions have been registered, mostly positive. There are five red dots up already! Nice.
And Hurree: yes, I blush and confess that a mere two days after telling you that I was still too repressed to allow you to visit for a viewing at my home, I DID allow Someone Else (who visits this blog) not only to view but to buy. Arrgh. Well there's nothing I can say in my defense except that there's a tipping point -- if I'm still technically "finishing" the work, I won't want to anyone to see it regardless who has come to visit. But past that point, gradually the veils begin to drop away and I am okay with it. Still, I should have signalled to you when I knew that point had been reached ... You are hereby free to whip me upto fifty times with a large soft feather(both peacock and ostrich feathers are good for this). Or deprive me of chocolate cake upto my next three visits at your home. Or both.
Three more days before the show opens. The gallery owners, Sarala and Bishu Bannerji are extremely friendly and seem almost as pleased with the work as I am -- which is unexpected, considering that, like most artists, I feel rather like a cat with kittens (funny how frequently I find analogies between myself and cats. Must be the combined influence of my sister Su's Siamese Callas and Hurree's marmalade Tiglath) when I gaze upon my stuff, now framed between black and gold borders, on the walls of their gallery. Anyway, they are the first gallery owners with whom I feel comfortable -- they seem to really enjoy dealing in art, even though they've had their share of burns from unscrupulous artists.
And so to close. I'm still doing some of my homework -- making up lists of names to send invitations to (yes, STILL! Apparently no-one comes anyway, but you've got to send the invitations out, even if they reach the recipients only on the day of the opening) and all the names of the items on view, plus prices and a bit of bio-data for myself. *yawn*
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
That Locked-Into-A-Shower-Cabinet Feeling
Every time I have an exhibition, I am amazed anew at how much hard work goes into a show. I don't know whether that's just because I haven't had very many. The one I've been preparing for, in Madras, is perhaps my ninth or tenth(I haven't been keeping track over the thirty-plus years from the time of the first one).
By hard work I DON'T mean the exhibits themselves but all the other stuff. The getting-the-work-ready-for-show stuff. The invitations. The guest list. The list of artworks. Recording the works on film (CD, now) so that I don't lose them forever in case any of them get sold. A brochure (I am not planning to print one -- I never have, so far. Too expensive. But there's got to be an "artist statement" accompanying the price list or else the reporters who wander in to stare uncomprehendingly at the work have no material to print up in their paragraph or two of press coverage. Left to themselves, they write descriptive passages such as: "There are some coloured patches on the walls") Just the sheer girding-of-neurons for putting the work on display.
Of course, I could greatly ease my burdens by choosing to have shows in the city of my residence. But that would be tooooo simple. So instead, I keep choosing to go ELSEWHERE, which involves not only packing the work but having to decide whether to frame the pieces before despatch or after. If before, it means that every item weighs three times as much as it might without the frame, and I increase the price of the work by the cost of the freight AND face the stress of traveling with large bits of unwieldy luggage. If after, it means shredding my nerves with tension, as the framing gets done in the five minutes between the time of my arrival in the city of the show and the show's opening. So far, I've gone for a mix of options -- framing some pieces before the show and others at the last minute, depending on size. For this show, however, all the frames are going to have to be done after arrival ... arggh. My nerves are pre-shredded.
Maybe other artists consider all of this as part of the territory of art. I feel towards it like a cat feels when it has been locked into a shower cabinet, with the hot water ON. But there's no option: if I produce work, I have to show it. The only artists who can get away with not having shows are those who are so successful that the world snatches their work wet off their canvases. And the route by which they get to be that successful is by having shows relentlessly, year in, year out, seducing reviewers, bullying patrons, bending over like contortionists until they reach the promised land of infinite saleability.
Meanwhile ... I've still gotta pack my pieces and fly away, on Friday morning. So far, I've got all the work completed -- aside from my prints, of which I will show around thirty pieces, there are 29 of my new stuff, what I'm going to be calling "hybrids" or "squiggle paintings" in my mission statement -- 24 in the 12"x12" size and five in the 18"x24" size. Their formal name is "mixed media collages" but so far everyone to whom I have said that has looked blank -- and well they might, because it doesn't say very much, does it? Neither does "hybrid" but at least it indicates the neither-fish-nor-fowl nature of the little critters and "squiggle paintings" give you a fair impression of one of their lead features -- i.e., very many coloured squiggles.
A few friends have been over to see them. Of them two have said they love them -- and one bought three right away! Of course I can only release them after the show but STILL ... it's very encouraging (oi, you! In case you're reading this, take a bow, please!). On the other hand, since this particular friend is an unusual person, unique in several ways, perhaps his tastes are a bit otherworldly ... ? Only kidding! Another friend, however, was disapproving. She felt I had neither explored the medium enough for it to be authentically funky, nor do the pieces have enough finesse to be fully valid as art.
She was frankly disappointed and we have spent a couple of hours trying to talk ourselves through this difficult patch. There are uneasy moments to be negotiated, like slippery patches of ice on the sidewalk, when a friend can't say she/he likes the work one has shown to her/him. On the one hand, I believe a friend has the absolute right to be unimpressed. On the other hand, the sense of having failed is usually painful to deal with. I can remember one moment, a very long time ago, when I had just finished a canvas -- it was still literally wet, and I was very pleased with it. It represented a distinct departure in style, something that I still think of as a turning point (it was aconceptual portrait of my niece, then about nine years old). But a friend walked in the door of my room that very morning, the first morning of its life, saw the painting, wrinkled his nose and said, "Yuck. Not good."
Oo!! That was hard. A punch straight to the SOULar plexus. He was being honest, but brutal too, under the circumstances. I never quite forgave him. It would have been okay a few days later, and perhaps in softer words. Or perhaps it would never have been okay ... I don't know. I am not particularly sensitive and react fairly cheerfully to criticism. But I have some issues with timing. In general, I avoid showing work when it is still in progress or when I'm trying something out for the first time. I really do hate being watched at work -- I don't even like to be asked whether I am about to start working on a drawing/painting -- it feels like ants crawling on the underside of my skull, yow. Just the thought of it right now is NASTY. Once I'm finished, though, I'm usually very calm and accepting of whatever people might say -- it's a bit like closing the door while changing clothes, but not caring if people boo when you come out wearing a glitter-bra over a khaki-coloured nun's habit.
Anyway, with the current work, I am happy to report, the issue of pain doesn't seem to arise. It's hard to say exactly why. Maybe it's because these things are sort of informal. Light-hearted. I am thrilled with them, but I realize there are many others who will not be. I know from my mother's reaction -- she saw four of the initial pieces I took with me to Madras on my visit of two months ago and said, "But where is the art in this?" -- that my friend of last week, the disappointed one, is not alone in her opinion. I am so sure of her motives however (I mean, I know that her disappointment arises from her desire to wish the best for me) that I can look upon her reaction as a kind of innoculation against all the rough moments that are the typical fallout of a show, even the low-key type I have. There will be annoying reporters and relatives who will look disturbed and long periods during which nothing at all happens except the thud of each minute following the next, with no new visitors and that cold, empty question hanging in the air: "Why don't I go home, drown my sorrows in KitKat and forget about being an artist?"
Ah well. More next week! The show is scheduled to begin on the 8th.
By hard work I DON'T mean the exhibits themselves but all the other stuff. The getting-the-work-ready-for-show stuff. The invitations. The guest list. The list of artworks. Recording the works on film (CD, now) so that I don't lose them forever in case any of them get sold. A brochure (I am not planning to print one -- I never have, so far. Too expensive. But there's got to be an "artist statement" accompanying the price list or else the reporters who wander in to stare uncomprehendingly at the work have no material to print up in their paragraph or two of press coverage. Left to themselves, they write descriptive passages such as: "There are some coloured patches on the walls") Just the sheer girding-of-neurons for putting the work on display.
Of course, I could greatly ease my burdens by choosing to have shows in the city of my residence. But that would be tooooo simple. So instead, I keep choosing to go ELSEWHERE, which involves not only packing the work but having to decide whether to frame the pieces before despatch or after. If before, it means that every item weighs three times as much as it might without the frame, and I increase the price of the work by the cost of the freight AND face the stress of traveling with large bits of unwieldy luggage. If after, it means shredding my nerves with tension, as the framing gets done in the five minutes between the time of my arrival in the city of the show and the show's opening. So far, I've gone for a mix of options -- framing some pieces before the show and others at the last minute, depending on size. For this show, however, all the frames are going to have to be done after arrival ... arggh. My nerves are pre-shredded.
Maybe other artists consider all of this as part of the territory of art. I feel towards it like a cat feels when it has been locked into a shower cabinet, with the hot water ON. But there's no option: if I produce work, I have to show it. The only artists who can get away with not having shows are those who are so successful that the world snatches their work wet off their canvases. And the route by which they get to be that successful is by having shows relentlessly, year in, year out, seducing reviewers, bullying patrons, bending over like contortionists until they reach the promised land of infinite saleability.
Meanwhile ... I've still gotta pack my pieces and fly away, on Friday morning. So far, I've got all the work completed -- aside from my prints, of which I will show around thirty pieces, there are 29 of my new stuff, what I'm going to be calling "hybrids" or "squiggle paintings" in my mission statement -- 24 in the 12"x12" size and five in the 18"x24" size. Their formal name is "mixed media collages" but so far everyone to whom I have said that has looked blank -- and well they might, because it doesn't say very much, does it? Neither does "hybrid" but at least it indicates the neither-fish-nor-fowl nature of the little critters and "squiggle paintings" give you a fair impression of one of their lead features -- i.e., very many coloured squiggles.
A few friends have been over to see them. Of them two have said they love them -- and one bought three right away! Of course I can only release them after the show but STILL ... it's very encouraging (oi, you! In case you're reading this, take a bow, please!). On the other hand, since this particular friend is an unusual person, unique in several ways, perhaps his tastes are a bit otherworldly ... ? Only kidding! Another friend, however, was disapproving. She felt I had neither explored the medium enough for it to be authentically funky, nor do the pieces have enough finesse to be fully valid as art.
She was frankly disappointed and we have spent a couple of hours trying to talk ourselves through this difficult patch. There are uneasy moments to be negotiated, like slippery patches of ice on the sidewalk, when a friend can't say she/he likes the work one has shown to her/him. On the one hand, I believe a friend has the absolute right to be unimpressed. On the other hand, the sense of having failed is usually painful to deal with. I can remember one moment, a very long time ago, when I had just finished a canvas -- it was still literally wet, and I was very pleased with it. It represented a distinct departure in style, something that I still think of as a turning point (it was aconceptual portrait of my niece, then about nine years old). But a friend walked in the door of my room that very morning, the first morning of its life, saw the painting, wrinkled his nose and said, "Yuck. Not good."
Oo!! That was hard. A punch straight to the SOULar plexus. He was being honest, but brutal too, under the circumstances. I never quite forgave him. It would have been okay a few days later, and perhaps in softer words. Or perhaps it would never have been okay ... I don't know. I am not particularly sensitive and react fairly cheerfully to criticism. But I have some issues with timing. In general, I avoid showing work when it is still in progress or when I'm trying something out for the first time. I really do hate being watched at work -- I don't even like to be asked whether I am about to start working on a drawing/painting -- it feels like ants crawling on the underside of my skull, yow. Just the thought of it right now is NASTY. Once I'm finished, though, I'm usually very calm and accepting of whatever people might say -- it's a bit like closing the door while changing clothes, but not caring if people boo when you come out wearing a glitter-bra over a khaki-coloured nun's habit.
Anyway, with the current work, I am happy to report, the issue of pain doesn't seem to arise. It's hard to say exactly why. Maybe it's because these things are sort of informal. Light-hearted. I am thrilled with them, but I realize there are many others who will not be. I know from my mother's reaction -- she saw four of the initial pieces I took with me to Madras on my visit of two months ago and said, "But where is the art in this?" -- that my friend of last week, the disappointed one, is not alone in her opinion. I am so sure of her motives however (I mean, I know that her disappointment arises from her desire to wish the best for me) that I can look upon her reaction as a kind of innoculation against all the rough moments that are the typical fallout of a show, even the low-key type I have. There will be annoying reporters and relatives who will look disturbed and long periods during which nothing at all happens except the thud of each minute following the next, with no new visitors and that cold, empty question hanging in the air: "Why don't I go home, drown my sorrows in KitKat and forget about being an artist?"
Ah well. More next week! The show is scheduled to begin on the 8th.
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
... and in other news
Just because I've been in a creative frenzy doesn't mean that I've left off fretting about the US election results. And neither have several of my friends. Here are two thought-provoking links sent to me/us by friends:US Election Results 2004, by IQ and
Sorry, Everyone.
Two other friends sent longer documents, one of which is worded in the kind of paint-stripping language which isn't ideal for a nice little blog like this one(but I will send it along to those who ask politely for it, if they can assure me that under-age eyes will not be exposed to it). Here's the other one, sent by friends in Rhode Island:
California letter of Secession
Dear President Bush,
Congratulations on your victory over all us non-evangelicals.
Actually, we're a bit ticked off here in California, so we're leaving you. California will now be its own country. And we're taking all the Blue States with us. In case you are not aware, that includes Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, all of the North East States, and the urban half of Ohio.
We spoke to God, and she agrees that this split will be beneficial to almost everybody, and especially to us in the new country of California. In fact, God is so excited about it, she's going to shift the whole country at 4:30 pm EST this Friday.
Therefore, please let everyone know they need to be back in their states by then. God is going to give us the Pacific Ocean and Hollywood. In addition, we're getting San Diego. (Sorry, that's just how it goes.) But God is letting you have the KKK and country music (except the Dixie Chicks). Just so we're clear, the country of California will be pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, and anti-war.
Speaking of war, we're going to need all Blue States citizens back from Iraq. If you need people to fight in Falujah, just ask your evangelical voters. They have tons of kids they're willing to send to their deaths for absolutely no purpose. And they don't care if you don't show pictures of their kids' caskets coming home.
So, you get Texas and all the former slave states, and we get the Governator and stem cell research. (We would love you to take Britney Spears off our hands, though. She IS from the south, right?)
Since we get New York, you'll have to come up with your own late night TV shows because we get MTV, Letterman, the Daily Show and Conan O'Brien. You get ... well, why don't you ask your people at Fox News to come up with something entertaining? (Maybe you should just watch Crossfire. That's a really funny show.)
We wish you all the best in the next four years and we hope, really hope, you find those missing weapons of mass destruction.
Seriously. Soon.
Sincerely, California
Sorry, Everyone.
Two other friends sent longer documents, one of which is worded in the kind of paint-stripping language which isn't ideal for a nice little blog like this one(but I will send it along to those who ask politely for it, if they can assure me that under-age eyes will not be exposed to it). Here's the other one, sent by friends in Rhode Island:
California letter of Secession
Dear President Bush,
Congratulations on your victory over all us non-evangelicals.
Actually, we're a bit ticked off here in California, so we're leaving you. California will now be its own country. And we're taking all the Blue States with us. In case you are not aware, that includes Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, all of the North East States, and the urban half of Ohio.
We spoke to God, and she agrees that this split will be beneficial to almost everybody, and especially to us in the new country of California. In fact, God is so excited about it, she's going to shift the whole country at 4:30 pm EST this Friday.
Therefore, please let everyone know they need to be back in their states by then. God is going to give us the Pacific Ocean and Hollywood. In addition, we're getting San Diego. (Sorry, that's just how it goes.) But God is letting you have the KKK and country music (except the Dixie Chicks). Just so we're clear, the country of California will be pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, and anti-war.
Speaking of war, we're going to need all Blue States citizens back from Iraq. If you need people to fight in Falujah, just ask your evangelical voters. They have tons of kids they're willing to send to their deaths for absolutely no purpose. And they don't care if you don't show pictures of their kids' caskets coming home.
So, you get Texas and all the former slave states, and we get the Governator and stem cell research. (We would love you to take Britney Spears off our hands, though. She IS from the south, right?)
Since we get New York, you'll have to come up with your own late night TV shows because we get MTV, Letterman, the Daily Show and Conan O'Brien. You get ... well, why don't you ask your people at Fox News to come up with something entertaining? (Maybe you should just watch Crossfire. That's a really funny show.)
We wish you all the best in the next four years and we hope, really hope, you find those missing weapons of mass destruction.
Seriously. Soon.
Sincerely, California
Thursday, November 11, 2004
BEING AN EXHIBITIONIST
Ever since I returned to Delhi from Madras, I've been whirring like a bumble-bee, producing exhibits for an art show I expect to have in Madras, in December this year.
I'm going to be showing two types of work: one, a series of etchings (including a couple of lithographs) and the other, a series of small collages in hand-made paper and acrylic paint. The show will be held at ARTWORLD, a pleasant family-owned gallery, run by Sarla and Bishu Bannerji.
I've shown the etchings before and so am not terribly worried about how they will be received -- I know they are at least competent at the level of drawing. It's the other ones, the collages, that will represent very new work for me and I am curious to know how they will be received.
My work is normally easy to recognize for what it is -- as an illustrator, I tend toward black-and-white line-drawings, clearly representational, with decoration worked into the clothes and background. My etchings are an extension of this work. Most of them feature figures of people and animals or combinations thereof.
The new collages, however, are explorations in colour and texture, almost wholly abstract. I began playing around with hand-made paper about a year ago, entirely because I happened to visit a wonderful store filled from floor to ceiling (well, okay, not QUITE the ceiling) with thrilling colours and textures of paper. I have always had a lurking fondness for pure colour-fields, and have always liked the early cubists for their starkness and purity. Of course the sad (and obvious) feature of their work is that once you have seen one all-red painting, you've pretty much seen every all-red painting: the surprise -- the "hook" -- that type of art uses can't be repeated very often before becoming repetitive.
In my current work, I am not pretending to any terrific new insights -- truly, all I have is bits of paper and some paint, combined together in very simple arrangments -- but I've had so much delight making these pieces that I feel the need to share them. This is, for me, a sharp departure from the way I normally work. Perhaps because of my years as an illustrator, when I draw, I am usually very concsious of how the result will be interpreted by another observer -- an illustrator NEEDS to be conscious of the third-person perspective, because the usual purpose of an illustration is to augment or illuminate (literally -- the word suggests the meaning of "bringing light to") some other thing, most often a piece of text.
While working on my etchings, I continued in the same basic vein, though I was no longer embellishing some text. I was amused to see the images that emerged. There is a range of familiar themes -- people of one sort or another, slightly stylized and in some cases distorted -- presented with an edge of whimsy: the bull with the man's head and the dogs with bird-faces; the carpet-couple and their trio of child-rugs; the faintly smirking lioness; all in clean lines on plain paper. I could not break myself of the habit of drawing with unseen observers hovering just behind my shoulder so in a sense, when people respond to my work, I half-anticipate whatever they might say.
With the collages, by contrast, I cannot sense any presences beside me. I am alone and playing with the paper, feeling almost surprised to be reduced to this child-state of pleasure. I smile when I have cut a broad stripe of knobbly turquoise blue and placed it hot against a dense, fuzzy black sheet, shot through with wriggling bits of satin thread. It is a very simple pleasure, completely unrelated to the very familiar pleasure of completing a drawing while knowing that it is, for its type of drawing, accomplished.
There is a certain undeniable sense of ambition and conquest in the second pleasure, an element of competition (i.e., with other talents and forces in the world). With the first there can't be anything but just my own, private, inarticulate delight. There's no way to share it -- like (for instance) the wholly internal pleasure of ice-cream -- except by inviting someone else to try it, and to HOPE that they will experience the same pleasure ... There is, after all, no way of knowing for sure.
Each time I have completed a piece -- most of which are small: 12 inches square -- I stand back, trying to imagine if anyone else, seeing it, might get the same pleasure as I do when I look at it. So far (since I haven't shown these pieces to more than a couple of people) I haven't had much to go by in the way of response. The few people who have seen these new ones have said they like them, but then, since these respondents have been my close family, I don't really expect objective responses (though they would FIERCELY deny any partisan feelings!!). I am not very hopeful, but at the same time, I am undeterred. How odd it is, and how different from my usual working methods, to be unconcerned what the observer -- The Observer -- is going to think! Is this it, then? Is this what it feels like to be an artist?
I will eventually post pix at my currently defunct Magnoliazone web-site, whereupon I will also post a link here to the site.
I'm going to be showing two types of work: one, a series of etchings (including a couple of lithographs) and the other, a series of small collages in hand-made paper and acrylic paint. The show will be held at ARTWORLD, a pleasant family-owned gallery, run by Sarla and Bishu Bannerji.
I've shown the etchings before and so am not terribly worried about how they will be received -- I know they are at least competent at the level of drawing. It's the other ones, the collages, that will represent very new work for me and I am curious to know how they will be received.
My work is normally easy to recognize for what it is -- as an illustrator, I tend toward black-and-white line-drawings, clearly representational, with decoration worked into the clothes and background. My etchings are an extension of this work. Most of them feature figures of people and animals or combinations thereof.
The new collages, however, are explorations in colour and texture, almost wholly abstract. I began playing around with hand-made paper about a year ago, entirely because I happened to visit a wonderful store filled from floor to ceiling (well, okay, not QUITE the ceiling) with thrilling colours and textures of paper. I have always had a lurking fondness for pure colour-fields, and have always liked the early cubists for their starkness and purity. Of course the sad (and obvious) feature of their work is that once you have seen one all-red painting, you've pretty much seen every all-red painting: the surprise -- the "hook" -- that type of art uses can't be repeated very often before becoming repetitive.
In my current work, I am not pretending to any terrific new insights -- truly, all I have is bits of paper and some paint, combined together in very simple arrangments -- but I've had so much delight making these pieces that I feel the need to share them. This is, for me, a sharp departure from the way I normally work. Perhaps because of my years as an illustrator, when I draw, I am usually very concsious of how the result will be interpreted by another observer -- an illustrator NEEDS to be conscious of the third-person perspective, because the usual purpose of an illustration is to augment or illuminate (literally -- the word suggests the meaning of "bringing light to") some other thing, most often a piece of text.
While working on my etchings, I continued in the same basic vein, though I was no longer embellishing some text. I was amused to see the images that emerged. There is a range of familiar themes -- people of one sort or another, slightly stylized and in some cases distorted -- presented with an edge of whimsy: the bull with the man's head and the dogs with bird-faces; the carpet-couple and their trio of child-rugs; the faintly smirking lioness; all in clean lines on plain paper. I could not break myself of the habit of drawing with unseen observers hovering just behind my shoulder so in a sense, when people respond to my work, I half-anticipate whatever they might say.
With the collages, by contrast, I cannot sense any presences beside me. I am alone and playing with the paper, feeling almost surprised to be reduced to this child-state of pleasure. I smile when I have cut a broad stripe of knobbly turquoise blue and placed it hot against a dense, fuzzy black sheet, shot through with wriggling bits of satin thread. It is a very simple pleasure, completely unrelated to the very familiar pleasure of completing a drawing while knowing that it is, for its type of drawing, accomplished.
There is a certain undeniable sense of ambition and conquest in the second pleasure, an element of competition (i.e., with other talents and forces in the world). With the first there can't be anything but just my own, private, inarticulate delight. There's no way to share it -- like (for instance) the wholly internal pleasure of ice-cream -- except by inviting someone else to try it, and to HOPE that they will experience the same pleasure ... There is, after all, no way of knowing for sure.
Each time I have completed a piece -- most of which are small: 12 inches square -- I stand back, trying to imagine if anyone else, seeing it, might get the same pleasure as I do when I look at it. So far (since I haven't shown these pieces to more than a couple of people) I haven't had much to go by in the way of response. The few people who have seen these new ones have said they like them, but then, since these respondents have been my close family, I don't really expect objective responses (though they would FIERCELY deny any partisan feelings!!). I am not very hopeful, but at the same time, I am undeterred. How odd it is, and how different from my usual working methods, to be unconcerned what the observer -- The Observer -- is going to think! Is this it, then? Is this what it feels like to be an artist?
I will eventually post pix at my currently defunct Magnoliazone web-site, whereupon I will also post a link here to the site.
Thursday, November 04, 2004
Waking Up To Reality
It's almost a relief. All these weeks of suspense, imagining there was a chance that the Democrats could win the US presidential election when the cards were stacked so heavily against them, have now ended. We can resume life as we know it, extracting tiny scraps of meaning from the great blocks of brutishness and stupidity that surround us.
I will admit that the early hours of Wednesday were grim -- it was awful to see the numbers crawling up, never quite crossing the mark and then ... ahhhh. Knowing that Bush actually won the popular vote this time makes it all the more disheartening, though, like I said, it's a weird kind of relief, a negative relief. It's better for those of us who believe in freedom, democracy, human dignity, respect for all living things, respect for the planet, to KNOW the truth about the rest of humanity, than to live in ignorance of what the majority of our species is like. It helps us to be on our guard and it keeps us alert. It makes it impossible for us to pretend that something like a single election in just one of the world's nations -- even if that nation is the most powerful one, currently -- would be enough to turn our species off the lemming-path it is currently racing along.
So after an initial morning of melancholia, I have slipped back into my normal life -- as, I am sure, have most of us. No doubt the Republicans are wriggling about in their pleasure-palaces, like leeches in a blood bank, feeling obscenely thrilled with themselves. But they're on the same planet as the rest of us, and when their shameless excesses rebound on everybody, they will suffer too -- EVENTUALLY.
This is cold comfort, of course. But what else is there to think about now? After all: if you and I can afford to spend a small part of our lives on the internet, surfing non-essential websites such as this one, it means, most likely, that we spend only the tiniest part of our working day fretting about environmental and political realities. By contrast, there are millions of fellow-humans for whom there is no stepping back from the crisis -- they do not say, "Oh, things are bound to get worse!" because for them there is nothing worse than what they live with TODAY.
So it occurred to me, as I fretted in my genteel, armchair-ridden way, that there's no genteel approach to solving the world's problems. The day will come when there will be no armchairs, and no leisure time, not even for the wealthy. This is already true in some parts of the world, but until it's true for everyone, the chances are ... we'll do what we can to maintain the status quo to suit wherever we're at.
This is a bleak thought, yes. But I was thinking about the Black Death today (there's a sort of reason for it -- I mean, aside from the Republican victory -- some months ago, I posted small note-papers in different rooms in the house, with historical events listed per century on them. It's supposedly a method of remembering what happened in which century. Today, standing in the 1300s, which happens to coincide with the kitchen, I caught a glimpse of my note-paper, peeping out from behind a shelf-door, where it had been hidden for some months) and I was thinking about the almost inconceivable horror of those times: the darkness of ignorance competing with the nightmare scourge whose cause and remedy were to remain unknown for countless decades ahead.
Quite possibly, we are sliding towards another type of cataclysm, along different lines perhaps, but surely just as horrific. Knowing this may not save us from the slide. Then again, maybe we can become more conscientious about conserving those things that are good and worth saving so that whenever next humankind heaves its way up out of the slime again, our era will be interpreted accurately. Books, I think, are the best way to preserve a record of what we have known of reality -- I don't think electronic data will be retrievable as readily as books.
Stone would be better, of course, but a trifle bulky.
I will admit that the early hours of Wednesday were grim -- it was awful to see the numbers crawling up, never quite crossing the mark and then ... ahhhh. Knowing that Bush actually won the popular vote this time makes it all the more disheartening, though, like I said, it's a weird kind of relief, a negative relief. It's better for those of us who believe in freedom, democracy, human dignity, respect for all living things, respect for the planet, to KNOW the truth about the rest of humanity, than to live in ignorance of what the majority of our species is like. It helps us to be on our guard and it keeps us alert. It makes it impossible for us to pretend that something like a single election in just one of the world's nations -- even if that nation is the most powerful one, currently -- would be enough to turn our species off the lemming-path it is currently racing along.
So after an initial morning of melancholia, I have slipped back into my normal life -- as, I am sure, have most of us. No doubt the Republicans are wriggling about in their pleasure-palaces, like leeches in a blood bank, feeling obscenely thrilled with themselves. But they're on the same planet as the rest of us, and when their shameless excesses rebound on everybody, they will suffer too -- EVENTUALLY.
This is cold comfort, of course. But what else is there to think about now? After all: if you and I can afford to spend a small part of our lives on the internet, surfing non-essential websites such as this one, it means, most likely, that we spend only the tiniest part of our working day fretting about environmental and political realities. By contrast, there are millions of fellow-humans for whom there is no stepping back from the crisis -- they do not say, "Oh, things are bound to get worse!" because for them there is nothing worse than what they live with TODAY.
So it occurred to me, as I fretted in my genteel, armchair-ridden way, that there's no genteel approach to solving the world's problems. The day will come when there will be no armchairs, and no leisure time, not even for the wealthy. This is already true in some parts of the world, but until it's true for everyone, the chances are ... we'll do what we can to maintain the status quo to suit wherever we're at.
This is a bleak thought, yes. But I was thinking about the Black Death today (there's a sort of reason for it -- I mean, aside from the Republican victory -- some months ago, I posted small note-papers in different rooms in the house, with historical events listed per century on them. It's supposedly a method of remembering what happened in which century. Today, standing in the 1300s, which happens to coincide with the kitchen, I caught a glimpse of my note-paper, peeping out from behind a shelf-door, where it had been hidden for some months) and I was thinking about the almost inconceivable horror of those times: the darkness of ignorance competing with the nightmare scourge whose cause and remedy were to remain unknown for countless decades ahead.
Quite possibly, we are sliding towards another type of cataclysm, along different lines perhaps, but surely just as horrific. Knowing this may not save us from the slide. Then again, maybe we can become more conscientious about conserving those things that are good and worth saving so that whenever next humankind heaves its way up out of the slime again, our era will be interpreted accurately. Books, I think, are the best way to preserve a record of what we have known of reality -- I don't think electronic data will be retrievable as readily as books.
Stone would be better, of course, but a trifle bulky.
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
FEMINALIEN
A young M.Phil student has made my work the subject of her dissertation. We corresponded by e-mail earlier this year and met a couple of times. Last month, she was kind enough to send me a CD containing the dissertation. I can't tell you its title or her name yet but will hope to, some time in January next year. For the purposes of this post, I'll refer to her as "M.Phil.". And yes, it's all been rather fun.
She's focused specifically on two stories from "Hot Death, Cold Soup" -- the title story and Stains -- and on "Getting There". It was particularly satisfying for me to see a close reading of GT. At the time I wrote the book, I had hoped it would be picked up for its comments about feminism and the protagonist(i.e., myself)'s difficulties in relation to the movement at least as much for its description of my ill-fated trip to Holland.
Alas, with reviewers like Anita Roy dismissing it as "chick lit"(though I think she meant it as a compliment), there wasn't much chance of that -- it got its scattering of chuckles and raspberries, before being forgotten. I felt suitably put in my place. My editor did try to warn me that the book would do better if positioned as a "novel", but I couldn't stomach that idea. The whole point of writing the book (for me) was to produce a sort of confessional, even though it's a very mild one as confessionals go. No way I was going to pass it off as fiction!
So it reached the market looking neither like a novel nor a panties-off memory-download. I hated the cover (a cheap rip-off of an Air France ad) and felt that the publisher (Picador UK) had lost confidence in the book, which in turn meant that I lost confidence in it myself. I wished -- and STILL wish -- they had agreed with me, that one of my drawings on the cover would have made all the sense in the world. *sigh* The book wouldn't have done any better on the market, but at least it would have looked stylish or, next best, weird.
Given this history, it is certainly VERY gratifying that someone has bothered to give the book serious consideration. M.Phil's point of entry is feminism, an ideology that she subscribes to and has made the focus of her work. My initial response to her, when she wrote to say she was going to be looking at my work through feminist spectacles was that I don't call myself a feminist any more, which may make it rather difficult for her to proceed. But she persevered. The result, I think, is quite interesting.
I continue to maintain that I'm not a feminist while M.Phil. believes, regardless of what I say about myself, that my work is surely irrigated very liberally by streams of feminist thought. And yes, I would agree, it is. Does this mean I can never cease to be a feminist? Or are we allowed to switch off our ideological orientation in mid-life? And if we do, does that mean we are doomed to drift, rudderless, through the rest of our lives? Or that we cannot be trusted to maintain any set of deeply cherished truths? Or is it possible to find other, equally great or greater, truths in mid-life (and beyond)?
I don't know.
Between the ages of 17 and 30, I would have definitely described myself as a feminist, even though I was starting to fall off (as described in GT) the platform in my mid-twenties. By my mid-thirties I was uncomfortable being included in feminist forums, but was still okay being connected with Kali for Women, the publisher who brought out "Hot Death ..". By that time, in 1996, I was 43 and had confessed to Urvashi (Butalia, co-founder, with Ritu Menon, of KfW) that I no longer called myself a feminist. She said it was all right, she didn't mind(though I think Ritu may have). I felt guilty: I was and still am very grateful to Kali for publishing my stories and I continue to think that the printing of Hot Death was easily my most pleasurable publishing moment. Nevertheless, even at the time it came out, I think it may have been more honest to say that I was actually uncomfortable being FEMALE, not just a feminist.
This is a statement that I make with boring frequency even though I know I'm never taken very seriously. It's an irritating statement, because it's like someone saying she wants to run away from her own shadow. It can't be done -- and that being the case, it makes much better sense to enjoy what there is, than to be forever trying to run away from it. I know this. Still and all ... I run.
It's not that I'm interested in becoming or being some other sex(once upon a time there were two sexes, then three, then some time in the eighties it was reported that there were seven recognized sexes -- sexualities, perhaps is the better term -- but now, news just in from the front suggests there are at least thirteen. And growing). All regardless -- and perhaps because I am routinely asked to participate in feminist programs or co-opted for inclusion as a woman-artist or woman-writer (I turn down most invitations of this sort) -- I find myself butting my head against the familiar old walls, finding the familiar old bumps and bruises.
Speaking to M.Phil and reading her dissertation brought all the territory up once more. Once more the lurking, whisper-in-the-gut guilt -- there's a sense in which being a lapsed feminist is like breaking a sacred trust -- like saying "I don't believe in fairies!" out loud, and immediately flashing mental video of Tinkerbell, fluttering in distress ...
I believe that feminism is an ideology which works very well -- is perhaps crucially important -- for young women. Given the tough options life offers them, it becomes really useful to have something gender-specific to hang onto, to believe in and to build confidence. It's later on that it becomes harder to believe seriously in the idea that men and women are on a par or that there's justice and fair-play in the world.
Those of us (women) who have relatively pleasant and stress-free lives, when we look around -- how is it possible to ignore the wretchedness of other women's lives? How is it possible to sever the link between their female condition and their fate? I mean: is it possible to maintain the view that men and women "can" live as equals when we can see that equality between the sexes is by no means the norm anywhere in the animal kingdom, including amongst our species?
I have for a long time toyed with the notion that the problem (i.e., MY problem) with feminism lies in the defining label -- that is, the word "feminism" is what bothers me. It suggests that it's specific to women, whereas perhaps -- and this is only a trial-idea -- a better term would be one that suggests a grand general freeing up of humans from the trap of their birth-condition so that they can achieve whatever is the maximum of their potential. Or at any rate, just be happy.
She's focused specifically on two stories from "Hot Death, Cold Soup" -- the title story and Stains -- and on "Getting There". It was particularly satisfying for me to see a close reading of GT. At the time I wrote the book, I had hoped it would be picked up for its comments about feminism and the protagonist(i.e., myself)'s difficulties in relation to the movement at least as much for its description of my ill-fated trip to Holland.
Alas, with reviewers like Anita Roy dismissing it as "chick lit"(though I think she meant it as a compliment), there wasn't much chance of that -- it got its scattering of chuckles and raspberries, before being forgotten. I felt suitably put in my place. My editor did try to warn me that the book would do better if positioned as a "novel", but I couldn't stomach that idea. The whole point of writing the book (for me) was to produce a sort of confessional, even though it's a very mild one as confessionals go. No way I was going to pass it off as fiction!
So it reached the market looking neither like a novel nor a panties-off memory-download. I hated the cover (a cheap rip-off of an Air France ad) and felt that the publisher (Picador UK) had lost confidence in the book, which in turn meant that I lost confidence in it myself. I wished -- and STILL wish -- they had agreed with me, that one of my drawings on the cover would have made all the sense in the world. *sigh* The book wouldn't have done any better on the market, but at least it would have looked stylish or, next best, weird.
Given this history, it is certainly VERY gratifying that someone has bothered to give the book serious consideration. M.Phil's point of entry is feminism, an ideology that she subscribes to and has made the focus of her work. My initial response to her, when she wrote to say she was going to be looking at my work through feminist spectacles was that I don't call myself a feminist any more, which may make it rather difficult for her to proceed. But she persevered. The result, I think, is quite interesting.
I continue to maintain that I'm not a feminist while M.Phil. believes, regardless of what I say about myself, that my work is surely irrigated very liberally by streams of feminist thought. And yes, I would agree, it is. Does this mean I can never cease to be a feminist? Or are we allowed to switch off our ideological orientation in mid-life? And if we do, does that mean we are doomed to drift, rudderless, through the rest of our lives? Or that we cannot be trusted to maintain any set of deeply cherished truths? Or is it possible to find other, equally great or greater, truths in mid-life (and beyond)?
I don't know.
Between the ages of 17 and 30, I would have definitely described myself as a feminist, even though I was starting to fall off (as described in GT) the platform in my mid-twenties. By my mid-thirties I was uncomfortable being included in feminist forums, but was still okay being connected with Kali for Women, the publisher who brought out "Hot Death ..". By that time, in 1996, I was 43 and had confessed to Urvashi (Butalia, co-founder, with Ritu Menon, of KfW) that I no longer called myself a feminist. She said it was all right, she didn't mind(though I think Ritu may have). I felt guilty: I was and still am very grateful to Kali for publishing my stories and I continue to think that the printing of Hot Death was easily my most pleasurable publishing moment. Nevertheless, even at the time it came out, I think it may have been more honest to say that I was actually uncomfortable being FEMALE, not just a feminist.
This is a statement that I make with boring frequency even though I know I'm never taken very seriously. It's an irritating statement, because it's like someone saying she wants to run away from her own shadow. It can't be done -- and that being the case, it makes much better sense to enjoy what there is, than to be forever trying to run away from it. I know this. Still and all ... I run.
It's not that I'm interested in becoming or being some other sex(once upon a time there were two sexes, then three, then some time in the eighties it was reported that there were seven recognized sexes -- sexualities, perhaps is the better term -- but now, news just in from the front suggests there are at least thirteen. And growing). All regardless -- and perhaps because I am routinely asked to participate in feminist programs or co-opted for inclusion as a woman-artist or woman-writer (I turn down most invitations of this sort) -- I find myself butting my head against the familiar old walls, finding the familiar old bumps and bruises.
Speaking to M.Phil and reading her dissertation brought all the territory up once more. Once more the lurking, whisper-in-the-gut guilt -- there's a sense in which being a lapsed feminist is like breaking a sacred trust -- like saying "I don't believe in fairies!" out loud, and immediately flashing mental video of Tinkerbell, fluttering in distress ...
I believe that feminism is an ideology which works very well -- is perhaps crucially important -- for young women. Given the tough options life offers them, it becomes really useful to have something gender-specific to hang onto, to believe in and to build confidence. It's later on that it becomes harder to believe seriously in the idea that men and women are on a par or that there's justice and fair-play in the world.
Those of us (women) who have relatively pleasant and stress-free lives, when we look around -- how is it possible to ignore the wretchedness of other women's lives? How is it possible to sever the link between their female condition and their fate? I mean: is it possible to maintain the view that men and women "can" live as equals when we can see that equality between the sexes is by no means the norm anywhere in the animal kingdom, including amongst our species?
I have for a long time toyed with the notion that the problem (i.e., MY problem) with feminism lies in the defining label -- that is, the word "feminism" is what bothers me. It suggests that it's specific to women, whereas perhaps -- and this is only a trial-idea -- a better term would be one that suggests a grand general freeing up of humans from the trap of their birth-condition so that they can achieve whatever is the maximum of their potential. Or at any rate, just be happy.
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