Sign Qua Non!

As with any written word, I am intrigued by signatures. My own has caused banks and other institutions much confusion simply because I 'forget' a turn or twist there, or am in such a hurry to put my stamp on paper that the pen overtakes, leaving behind unwanted slashes and mysteriously-placed dots.

Yesterday, while doing the needful, as the bureaucratic term goes, I decided to first give it a dry run. The back of a used envelope served as my zone of experiment. My work looked quite tidy, which surprised me, and fairly aesthetic, which did not!

So, how does it say anything conclusively about me? It is quite possible that my aesthetic sensibilities have become more compact. But, outside of the confines of a signature, I can appreciate the scattered, expansive, and bohemian as much as the minimalist. It could be in art, music, theatre, literature, or even everyday living by way of clothes and food.

Does a signature reveal or deceive, as in put you off the scent, to prevent forgery, to guard oneself?

The ‘messy’ signature of Jack Lew was in the news recently. President Barack Obama has nominated him as US secretary of treasury. If confirmed, his signature will be on every new dollar bill.

A report said, "Obama later added that Jack has assured him that he is going to work to make at least one letter legible in order not to debase the currency..."

While the "series of spirals" do look unusual, how would it debase the currency? Does anyone even look at it closely? In fact, its idiosyncrasy could well make it recognisable and prevent against fakes. The President did joke that had he seen this, he might have decided against the nomination.

I am told that some companies check on signatures when they hire people. Apparently, it is a good enough gauge of personality. Even if it is, individuals in a work environment need not be identical to 'who' they are as opposed to 'what' they are. Situations throw up challenges that test one's mettle and occasionally force one to go against type.

Not being an expert, and clueless about him, I'd still take a go at Mr Lew's signature in the spirit of fun.

To begin with, it looks like a pair of his own glasses reflected on a glass-topped table. He gives the impression of being gregarious, but soon clams up. Is ready to extend himself if there is a defined goal.

He seems to like eggs, curvy women, and perhaps Woody Allen films. He reads Harry Potter when no one's looking.

And chances are that he'd like seeing the Olympic rings in a laughing mirror than at a stadium.

Is this about Lew or about me? Or, a perception of a perception? I guess, it's time to sign off...

Mind It

Still from 'Life of Pi'

"He wants to see the actor's mind in a shot." Actress Tabu said this about Ang Lee who has directed her in 'Life of Pi'.

It was so beautifully put, but what does it really mean? Is the actor's mind reflecting the character or her/himself? Or, is one superimposed on the other? 

Can one see a thought? If so, then the actor contemplating the motives and behaviour of the character would be methodical rather than spontaneous. Is thought not instinct?

You might suggest that premeditated thought cannot be instinctual. But, is there no lapse between thought and action?

Say, we play several roles in life; some we 'perform' because we are directed to - by precedent, norms, or for specific reasons. Is our failure to do so adequately a failure of thought or of action?

Think about some disabilities where the mind is hampered by lack of motor movement. These are unfortunate natural or accident-induced circumstances. However, even those of us who are not so restricted find that we cannot always act out our thoughts. Our thoughts are dependent as much on the manner in which they are received as on how they are conveyed. So, do they remain our thoughts anymore?

If the other person could see our 'mind in the shot', going by Ang Lee's expectation, then would we necessarily be understood? How often do we tear our hair in frustration that what we seek to convey has either been misinterpreted or whooshed past without even a moment of being acknowledged?

Can you read my thoughts? Routine question. But are you reading your own thoughts while trying to decipher another's?

Recently, someone sent a message in response to a call I made. It said, "I wanted to thank the thought." Was my act removed from my thought? Or, does the thought hold greater validity? Had I not acted upon the thought, would a person know? Can there be more than one thought for our actions and many ways to act based on one thought? 

If you can see a mind, then you are probably seeing not just what is but what might have been and can be. Mind or minds?

(c)Farzana Versey

History Through Her Lens

Homai Vyarawalla was always described as the “first lady photographer”, and the thought of someone tiptoeing with a little camera, gently clicking flowers and princesses came to mind. But, when we place her in those historical times, then being a lady was about being many things. And she was.

There is a lot written about her, her photographs of leaders. It is like tracing a period without the need for any other crutch.

These two pictures of Jawaharlal Nehru exemplify this.

1. There is deadpan humour in this one, going where you are not supposed to go. Was there a political message?

2. Here, the image is reminiscent of Michaelangelo. Nehru is releasing the pigeon, but the sky is overcast. One does not know whether Nehru is letting go or wanting to hold on to it, or perhaps reach the sky. It comes across as a pensive, yet optimistic portrait. I’d say it captures the persona of the man and the politician.

And of course among the many others; this is how an Independence Day dance used to be like:

My fascination is with the way she treated her subjects. There is warmth and yet no obsequiousness. She seemed to be part of what was happening, but as a spectator. The black and white images, unfailingly adding a mystique, gave away quite a bit. It seems like a contradiction. It is not. The enigma was in the telling.

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Check out more images curated by NGMA

Mona Lisa in the Lion's Den

I always suspected that Mona Lisa was a bit of a wild cat. Something to do with the Cheshire cat smile. Oh, I know, it has been analysed to death – from toothache to the pleasure of labour pains to muscle dystrophy to sucking on a lozenge. Okay, that’s not been explored yet. Anyhow, New York artist Ron Piccirillo is a guy I’d like to go on a safari with. It is so difficult to spot tigers in the wild, and I am quite certain that he will. He can see them. Just like that.

Piccirillo has transformed a yawn moment into something exciting. Leonardo da Vinci’s subject is surrounded by animals, he believes. Most people look at paintings as they are meant to be, but our artist here turned it horizontally and found a leopard, an ape, a buffalo and even a crocodile or snake right near the subject’s right shoulder. I suppose da Vinci maintained an element of delicacy and refrained from painting Mona Lisa horizontally.

I have tried to notice all those animals and it is the lady who seems the most beastly, because she is primal. Those other figures look like mushroom clouds to me.

But let it not be said that Piccirillo has not attempted an indepth analysis. What started as a “Geez, that kinda looks familiar” moment has turned out to possess some history.

So, Prof. Hawking, how about hell?

Stephen Hawking says something quite ordinary and there is a reaction. The battle between science and religion is old and makes little sense. Although a non-religious person, I really don’t get excited about monkeys or the Big Bang theory. Does that mean there is a teeny-weeny bit of hope that I might be ready for some Edenesque idea or whatever the counterparts? To make it simple, I do not rule out possibilities, which is a scientific attitude.
In fact, most seekers who go to religion do so as an experiment. The main problem I have with Hawking is the statement that has been doing the rounds:

“I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”

This is facile in the extreme. While the brain may be likened to a computer, what about the software? There are several of those and they can be loaded whenever we want as per our requirements. The failure of the computer is technical, not philosophical or psychological. A brain-dead person, or one who suffers cardiac failure for that matter, is the end of life. It does not end the possibilities for the living.

Hawking’s problem is to see religion as a fairytale. It isn’t. Outside of organised religion, there are very many stories, and I have no idea how he concludes that these stories are for those who are afraid of the dark. By saying so, he assumes that death is dark and not as much of a happenstance as his scientific beliefs are trying desperately to convey. I wonder what he has to say about science fiction. It is hypothetical, it creates larger than life heroes with ‘god-like’ abilities. The scientist himself is considered some sort of miracle because he has survived despite a debilitating disease. Of course, it is science that makes him accessible to the world, but when he is applauded for his willpower, what is the scientific basis for it? Where does the urge to live against odds come from?

I am most certainly not alluding to a belief system, but to the philosophical dimensions beyond a computerised brain. It might be a wicked idea to posit the gravitational aspect of Newton’s discovery with the enticement of a serpent. It could have been an orange. Why did it have to be an apple?

It would be interesting to add here that almost all ‘religious’ fairytales are up for scrutiny on a regular basis and hypothetical questions are asked of them. It is true that the vast majority is made up of blind believers, but are there watertight compartments about scientific theories? Have they not been debunked or proven wrong?

I wonder why there has been no mention of hell, which comes as a package deal with heaven. Stephen Hawking should know that the devil is in the details.

Sabarimala: A Test of faith?

Pilgrims on the way

Every year, in some part of the world, in some pilgrim sites, people die. Tents burned, landslides, stampedes. Yet, year after year people continue to visit these places. As a non-practising anything, I can only tell myself that we don’t stop flying because of air crashes or driving because of road rage or indulging in risk-filled activities and eating the wrong foods knowing they are wrong for us.

However, where anything religious is concerned, both believers and non-believers alike start analysing faith: If there is a god, then why put the devotees through such things? We must understand that these are totally besotted people and they want to see miracles happen because they trust in them, blindly. They are not challenging the superpower; they are submitting to it.

I think such queries are too rational to understand religious faith or the god-mechanism. In fact, there is rarely rational explanation even for air crashes, because it is not always engine failure. It could be a bird hit. I mean a bird in the sky, that pretty feathered creature, can bring down a whole airplane. Turbulent weather can do so. These cannot be factored in by science. So, how can disasters at pilgrim sites?

The miracle light

On Friday, the 14th, 106 people were killed and several injured near the Sabarimala temple in Kerala. There were 200,000 people gathered there at one time. The shrine where the Makara Jyoti (celestial light) appears on its own thrice a year is a sight that every worshipper wishes to behold. There is talk of mismanagement, about how vehicles that are prohibited at the last stretch managed to get in, how there were few cops to man the area, how people had no choice but to push because parts of the rubble were falling on them.

A liquor baron had donated Rs. 18 crore to get the roof of the sanctum gold-plated. This sort of thing is done regularly by the rich in India, but no one bothers about basic infrastructure and, more importantly, management.

The state government has paid Rs. 5 lakh compensation and the Centre has chipped in with Rs. 1 lakh each for the families of the dead and there is money for the injured. This is done when there is large-scale calamity of this kind, but never when an individual is killed in a road accident due to the terrible condition of the roads. And who will take action against the cops who were not there? What about the vehicles when the drivers too are dead? What accountability can there be when there are no accounts?

I am beginning to appreciate these virtual rituals now. I think devotees should follow the rites they wish to and just watch the light or the idol on the internet or on television. And during Haj they can stone the devil in this manner, too, with some sort of interactive software. I know this sounds blasphemous, but I am sure the gods can take care of themselves; it is people who need to be protected.

And let us try and ‘unbrainswash’ them from believing that all this is because god is testing them. Given the way some of our lives go, even the atheists among us must then count as the greatest believers.

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I do have some memories of Sabarimala on my frequent visits to South India during a certain period of my life.

As we’d drive from the Kerala side to Tamil Nadu there would be people walking, often barefoot, in saffron robes mostly to meet Lord Ayyappa, the reigning deity. Women of a fertile age are not permitted in the sanctum because the sage was celibate.

One day I had to return urgently to Mumbai and since there was no night flight, I drove past midnight to reach Thiruvananthapuram airport before dawn to catch the hopping flight at 6.30 AM. There were two drivers, both Tamilians, to ensure that should one feel sleepy the other would be ready to take over. The guy at the counter said the flight was delayed and I could not purchase the ticket since it was not certain what time it would arrive or even if it would make the scheduled stop.

My two escorts, accustomed to an early breakfast, asked if I was hungry. No, I said. Realising that they were, I told them to go ahead. “Madam, you come also,” they said. We went to a small eatery and all eyes turned. I had just worn a loose T-shirt over tights and my lids were heavy from lack of sleep. There were only men in here. Once we settled in, no one cast a glance at all. A banana leaf was placed before us, that was to act as a plate, and all kinds of chutneys were dumped on it, arranged rather neatly though in corners and then arrived my paper dosa, crisp and golden. The two men had ordered half a dozen things. The coffee came in a steel tumbler with an extra one that it had to be poured into from a height with the arm at a right angle. I stopped trying this jugglery but watched with fascination. This cools the beverage and adds froth. The contents of my cup remained in repose.

I could hear the others murmur, if it is possible at all to murmur in Malayalam which is a language that requires one to make groaning and gargling sounds …but there was softness in their demeanour, and I am not romanticising. They had just returned from Sabarimala. Their long fast was over and they were headed back home. They had made it safely, feet calloused, but worth the walk.

I did not take the flight and returned. This time I slept on the drive back. It was fate. Or faith?

I have an opinion, so what's your problem?

“Have you been there?” “How well do you know about the place, the person, the idea…?”

These queries have beset me and, I am certain, several others in the writing and more specifically the journalistic field. It is a valid query if one is reporting from the ground. It goes without saying that when you are at the scene, then you would gather some basics by the mere fact of being there. Is this sufficient?

Often the questions are not arising out of curiosity, but to pin you down, to challenge not your knowledge but your opinion. When I had written about the Indian army, among the several responses there was one that assumed that I had never met an armyman in my life. I had, rather cockily, said that I had not met god and yet wrote about religion. In further areas I have been put on the mat for different reasons.

I would like to put myself through self-scrutiny. I do not write on subjects, even opinion pieces, of which I have no knowledge or very little. The financial area is one; technology is another; science is fascinating, so I try and understand some nuances. But, it is not possible to have first-hand knowledge about everything one opines about.

So, how does one form opinions? There are strong opinions and reasonable ones. There are opinions that are reactions or come from a strong belief. The responses to them are also opinions. We consider a viewpoint reasonable when it confirms our beliefs or when it ostensibly looks balanced.

I am mortified of balanced opinions; you can give two sides of a story but it is as you see it, not as it necessarily is. Therefore, the balance lies in sitting on the fence and watching both sides and it includes the experience of sitting on the fence and the sore-ass it causes.

A logical opinion is one where the person tries to string together the threads of disparate thought processes; it is essentially seeking to make sense of the noises in the head, but you’d never be able to tell! While we use the term loosely, ‘personal opinion’ is tautology. All opinions are personal, unless you are sponging on someone else’s views or relying on research even to form an opinion, which is the last refuge of the scrounger.

Now, there are some opinions that are considered kneejerk. As the recipient of this honorific often, I must say that such rashness is possible when you know you are entering where angels fear to tread. It is akin to a satanic rite of passage, perhaps the predecessor of the more honourable devil’s advocate that I love playing. There are certain subjects that one has internalised or understood or discussed before and what comes forth is impulsive and spontaneous, but it is also a reaction. To assume that a reaction put in words has no merit makes little sense; it springs from a strong feeling. Are feelings opinions? Indeed, they are. Belief or disbelief without emotion is mercenary. The expression of it need not be emotive, though.

So, how does one form opinions? I think conditioning plays a very minor part if you are highly individualistic. The environment is crucial not because it influences you, but it makes you respond to it for what it is and how it ought to be. In this ‘ought to be’ aspect lies one’s ability to chart a mental course. It could be a tried-and-tested formula or out-of-the-box thinking. Some people change their opinions according to what is convenient. These are chattels to the available material. However, if the alteration in perspective arises due to deep thought or disillusionment with an ideology, then it is not turn-coat behaviour.

This long but necessary preamble brings us to the queries posed to opinion-makers. There is much scientific endeavour expended on finding things from little tubes. Here, hypothesis is an opinion that is sought to be proved. An artist’s painting on canvas is an opinion of an event or an abstraction; s/he may have not been there in the first instance and it is not possible to do so in the other. A writer of fiction is expressing an opinion through the characters.

If you were to ask anyone what they think about a political event, party, figure or a film, film star or celebrities or even the person in the street, they will have something to say. 

Why then is the person writing in the newspapers made answerable? I have not been to Bihar, just as Manmohan Singh has never contested an election. One has to have some basic knowledge, some facts, some ideas formulated in the past to reach certain conclusions. We know about poverty, about the caste system, about crimes, about feudalism, about lack of basic facilities, about the economic elitist idea, about politicians…there is a process of transposition and an understanding that conjecture is based on some edifice or precedent. We can be on different sides but the basic facts remain. How we see those facts – whether we take them at face value or bore holes into them or hang them from a pole are opinions.

One may question opinions but not the existence of them. It is like wondering about dreams, but no one can deny the existence of sleep. Of course, it is possible to argue that daydreams are more potent. But that is just my personal opinion.

And, yes, if some people think I am opinionated as hell then they must thank me for giving a sneak preview of what they too have no clue about!

Venus and the Penis

The purists are puking. Venus has got a hand job and Mars can now boast of a nice little phallus. These ancient statues did not have the relevant body parts and had lived without them since 175 AD. Come end of 2010 and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has got them ‘restored’. This is not restoration. Any art work that had been altered from the way it was created is tampered with; restoration is a skill that stays pretty much loyal to the original.

The Italian PM is not known to be prudish, therefore these cosmetic additions seem surprising. Perhaps it has to do with the human idea of completeness. If he has to walk into his courtyard everyday, where the works are placed, and see a beautiful couple – the woman handless, the man penisless – perhaps it bothers him.

This raises the question about the perception of art in reality. What might be considered handicaps in life are often metaphorical or aesthetic statements in art. The license to distort is endemic in creativity. Unfortunately, such distortions in creation are looked down upon and rebuked.

Would the connoisseurs of such cut-off parts look upon people born with such disabilities as ‘complete’? I doubt it. I can claim to have an ‘eye’ and I understand at least to some degree the value of symbolism. My own conjecture about the handless Venus is to emphasise her beauty, exemplified especially in her other statue where she is lying in repose, curves accentuated, to concentrate on the feminine and only the feminine. A hand is genderless, so to speak. Regarding Mars, the god of war is probably considered so powerful that he can fight without a sword; his potency is not dependent on specific weapons.

Berlusconi has meddled with a work of art, but it is not unusual if we see it from the perspective of how art is perceived. The manner in which certain goddess figures have been decorously draped in our own temple sculptures, there has always been a progression-regression battle as to what is considered timely and timeless. What about the attempts to destroy certain works, maim them? Aren’t ruins a testimony to it?

There is in the realm of art also the question of how the real are portrayed. It is different from mythological figures. Do portraits of royalty necessarily reveal them as they were? What about the many ‘subjects’ that get iconoclastic status simply because they have been given a buildup over the years? Who were the people in Picasso’s distorted images?

Isn’t truth fabricated when famous works are replicated? Why, when a canvas is put behind fortified glass it loses much of its texture and becomes a mere desirable object. So, the purists need to ask and answer a few such queries. Meanwhile, since these parts that Silvio has ordered to be added are detachable, is there any scope of them being enhanced or inflated? Just wondering…

Pissing the point

Blood, perspiration, urine, tears. Another artist uses his bodily fluids. I can imagine the shock value, but they call it message. Or, Message.

The artist is not well-known, but even known names do indulge in gimmickry. Prashant Pandey wept and used exactly 20 tears for some works. Were they real tears of sorrow, of pain, of memory? Or did he slice onions? Then he collected 350 litres of urine, which must have been a bit at a time of course. Cigarette butts, expired chocolate are all there. He says:

“While these objects may be of no use to others, my work is about transforming them into social symbols and destablise opinions.”

Pakistani artist Tatheer Daryani who was in an arts college in India did pretty much the same thing. I had written earlier that I am all for such ‘subjective’ use in art and literature or any creative endeavour. I wonder, though, whether the avowed purpose truly manages to convey what it sets out to do. Blood and hair are universal, but would red paint and artificial hair not convey the same emotions. Had we not been informed would we even know?

Will the attention now not be on the artist’s blood and hair rather than the message she wishes to put forth? If it were about a personal journey, one can well understand. This is not to rebut such attempts but to question aloud about how much reaches how far. It applies to all of us who endeavour to do so.

The same would apply to Pandey’s works. Is the stench a reminder to us? Don’t we all live with our own smells and those of our surroundings? In a country like India what exactly is the purpose of such a wake-up call when we screw up our noses at the poor and homeless who have no choice to camouflage those smells since they have to urinate and defecate in the open?

Does anyone care to recycle their waste? There is plenty of it out there.

He has used a headless baby with expired chocolate to convey loss of innocence:

“Each chocolate square is a memory; it will keep melting and exposing the iron structure underneath.”

Chocolates can express memories, and expired chocolates are just those who have overstayed. What has the iron structure beneath got to do with it? I suppose it props up the sculpture in the gallery. You won’t hear this as a reason, though.

He has views on 9/11:

“It is sugarcane stalk that has been sucked off all its juices; this is how the victims and survivors of World Trade Centre attacks must have felt,”

What has been sucked off? It was an attack and human beings died. The survivors mourned the deaths. It isn’t that they stopped leading their lives. It is also pertinent to note that he comes from Gujarat where in 2002 the state government’s pogrom against its own citizens resulted in over 1000 murders (unofficial figures mention almost 2000) and large-scale displacement, and the culprits are still not arrested. He has no memorial sculpture for this.

I guess it would not be as internationally appealing. And a sheer waste?

Relief from belief

Stephen Hawking is baulking at the wrong evolutionary tree. He may choose gravity over God to rationalise the creation of the universe, but how does one explain away religion? Faith cannot be exclusive of creation, and it has provisions in it for the idea of destruction as well. Elemental and human factors come together to prop up holiness ...

Society gives no breathing space to those who do not believe in anything of a sacramental nature.

--> Full column at Express Tribune:

http://tribune.com.pk/story/47277/relief-from-belief/

Mars and Venus – ecstasy or Ecstasy?

If you did not look at the fruit, you would think it was all about love. Now David Bellingham, a programme director at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, says the fruit was overlooked and so was the subversive message in Botticelli’s painting:

“This fruit is being offered to the viewer, so it is meant to be significant. Botticelli does use plants symbolically. Datura is known in America as poor man’s acid, and the symptoms of it seem to be there in the male figure. It makes you feel disinhibited and hot, so it makes you want to take your clothes off. It also makes you swoon.”

Is there another way of reading it? Mars is lost but Venus is in her senses and fully clothed. Why would the man decide to get high and feel uninhibited if there is nothing to gain? If it is for him to be put into a stupor, then again Venus gets nothing out of it.

Take one operative phrase – removal of clothes. This is also a giving up of a part of oneself, baring oneself to the other. Exposure is not without its fallout.

The National Gallery description of the painting notes: “The scene is of an adulterous liaison, as Venus was the wife of Vulcan, the God of Fire, but it contains a moral message: the conquering and civilizing power of love.”

Is this also a message of guilt? Is the seduction incomplete? Did Venus seduce him or did they get intimate and this painting is the post-coital depiction, where she is sitting dressed up and unsure?

Though many paintings do show her in splendid naked glory - was she high on drugs then? Was it loneliness and not love that drove her to it?

Can Mars pretend that he was under the influence and therefore he is unclothed? If the fruit is capable of making people go mad, then the madness could be a metaphor for losing one’s senses as sublimation.

The fruit is being offered to the viewer. Is it to tempt us? Is the precursor none other than the Garden of Eden?

The idea of drawing the viewer in is also part of the voyeuristic exercise where art itself needs an audience; the painting has other characters in the sublime love story. The satyr’s apparent insignificance – or invisibility – conveys a delightful tension that exists in relationships, among artists and interpreters as well as the person and the Self.

Of course, we can settle for a most pragmatic analysis and imagine that this was supposed to be an aphrodisiac that ended up working as a sedative. I believe it happens.

Jaswant and Tharoor

Jaswant and Tharoor
by Farzana Versey
April 20, 2010

You had a stand-up comedian in your midst and you did not even notice. The beauty of Jaswant Singh is that he is so subtle he makes a snake look like a rope and even manages a rope trick or two.

Why did he tell Pakistanis that the Quaid-e-Azam was secular when they have to mention their religion in most documents? Transforming Jinnah into a sound byte was perfect timing. He threw a pebble in the puddle and asked you to see yourselves in it.

On the other hand, Shashi Tharoor is less ambitious. All he does is use his fingers to type 140 characters to announce to the tweeting world that visa rules must be relaxed because not everyone is a terrorist, knowing well that such a comment is patronising.

The two gentlemen might appear as different as chalk and cheese in demeanour and politics, but scratch the surface and you’ll get more surface. You will find no ideology. There is product placement.

Let us go beyond it. How many people have bothered to think about why Jaswant Singh stayed for years in a party whose manifesto right from the start has been to construct a good temple for the nation to pray in? He gave the spiel about his hands being tied. It was, in fact, perfect synchronisation and chances are that he was responsible for his own martyrdom. The BJP asked him to quit; the RSS, known to be the big boss, made it easy for him. They issued a diktat to infuse fresh blood. The main motive was to ensure that L.K.Advani was out and Modi became lord of the inner ring. Jaswant would remain the preserved heritage site.

After cribbing, “I am being treated like Ravana” (the epic demon king), he let his son contest and win elections for the same party and walked into the Sialkot sunset as a knight in shining armour. He chose to appeal to the larger enemy to lessen the heat on the lesser enemy.

Now he has got together with a band of boys, former Pakistani and Indian leaders, and this consortium of “collective wisdom’’ plans to find solutions to the Kashmir and water-sharing issues. This is seriously funny stuff. Is this the honourable Rajput of old Mughal courts or Birbal trying his smart act?

Tharoor’s honour rests on pretending to be the outsider who wants to change the way things work, when he does not even know how they work. As minister of state for external affairs he had nothing important to say about attacks on Indians in Australia or about immigrant issues in Britain.

He represents the complete disregard for diplomacy by making the right noises where action is needed. The social networking is not a device to connect him to the citizens but to get ‘followers’. It is a westernised feudalism. As an imported denizen from the grand UN, he thinks he is breaking the rules and shunning the typical.

What he has actually done is exposed the face of the dumbed down politician with a ‘just back from the sauna look in my open pores’ facile frankness. It is the deception of form that is disturbing. Both these men are the management gurus of politics. They appear to operate on their own terms when in reality they have their corporate images in place.

It works well with a segment of Indian society for whom facets are only a measure to rate diamonds with. Criticism is a mere tinkle of glasses and a huddle of whispers. Nuances are unexplored. Shashi Tharoor’s squeaky clean image has got a bit muddied, but that won’t affect him.

Suddenly, the prodigal became the man who had something to hide. It was a closet crucifixion. He may be a loser in the battle for stakes but, as with Jaswant Singh, his trickery is the treat.

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Courtesy Express Tribune

Memory

I remember best when I am in a state of turmoil. Then why are scientists saying that stronger and more lasting memories are likely to be formed when a person is in repose and the memory-related neurons in the brain do a little tango with certain brain waves?

I differ here, even if it goes against all scientific logic. Synchronisation requires harmony and often the management of material. Now suppose you recall every little detail of a turbulent experience, how do you sort it out? If it is sorted out, then it ceases to be a memory. Or turbulent. It loses its character and transforms into a linear ‘wave’ in the mind.

What perhaps a relaxed mind can do is memorise. Memorisation is not about memories. Memories are intangible and nostalgia makes you ache for the jerky ride.

Memories are apples bitten into that have left teeth marks; they are ripped open gift packages where the satin is frayed; they are stains that won’t go away and scars that don't fade; they are losses that you don’t count because you could not count on them when they were gains; they are moments that left with the wind and dust that settled in its trail.

Scientists may optimise the state of the brain and believe that relaxation brings about new information and improves memory. But all new information will be memory.

Will they be able to ask us to relax and remember the times we wish to forget?

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Memory – Barbra Streisand

When the swine get you swooning

Can you imagine Indian President Pratibha Patil saying that tur daal is good for mating or Asif Ali Zardari voicing his approval for magaz (brain) masala as aphrodisiac?

The Argentinean president has no such qualms. She is all for bacon in bed. Cristina Fernandez was speaking to what reports refer to as the “swine industry” representatives. So charged up is she over how pigs set the hormones aflame and the adrenaline to rush that she has even offered subsidies.

The climactic moment with hubby...when she became the first woman president

Her testimonial goes something like this:

“I didn’t know that eating pork improved sexual activity. It is much more gratifying to eat some grilled pork than to take Viagra.”

Now she knows through some pig-sty activity with her hubby, the former Prez, Nestor Kirchner. I think there is some feminist type lesson here. Men take Viagra. Therefore, it is men who will eat grilled pork. (I am assuming baked, fried, sautéed or raw are not as effective, or perhaps it is only a matter of taste.) Does the onus fall on men to not only perform in bed but also in the kitchen? If not, then does the woman cook it? Does she too partake of it? Having had their fill, both at the table and on it, is it possible that the male, being handicapped due to physical reasons, peaks less and the woman needs to channelise it elsewhere and finally does reach the top? Maybe even becomes president?

Just thinking aloud.

Argentina is traditionally a beef-eating nation and there are already discussions about how cows will be put to pasture and sheep will be left to graze, contributing precious little to the citizens’ culinary and carnal appetite.

The pork guys are happy. Said one of them:

“In Osaka, Japan, there is a village in which the people who reached 105 years old and ate a lot of pork had a lot of sexual activity.”

If the village is an example, it could mean that pork, like all red meat, adds loads of calories. But before the calories can make a home in the body, they are quickly burned off by sexual activity. Since people are kept busy and after a certain age do not have to worry about procreating, they enjoy themselves. There is less stress, more desire to live, so they live longer.

Can this module be replicated in other parts of the world? I mean, man on Wall Street downs a super large pork burger, calls up his partner at the university where she teaches who is slicing into a neat chunk of ham; they meet for a quickie, go back to stressful work, return late, down burger/chunk/whatever, try out some stunts, dream about the market crunch and academic crap. They are stressed as hell and will soon give up. On each other. Or, on the pork.

Sexy swines

It doesn’t quite work like Osaka. But it’s a nice thought that pigs may not fly, but could help humans to do so.

One more thing: Jews may be super rich and super smart and Islam may be the fastest-growing religion, but, sowy, being kosher will not get them far.

PS: Are the Viagra manufacturers going to announce a fatwa and place a price on the presidential head?

My name is Schezuan Khan!

Now when you see a Chinese face, think of your great-great-great-ad nauseum grandparents. The hakka noodles could well be Indian.

This is revealed by a study ‘Mapping Human Genetic History in Asia’ which concurs that the human population originally came from Africa. It disproves something based on fossil data. It seems like a nice thing to do given that we have people willing to play fossils.

A hundred thousand years ago the humans in Africa figured out they had to look around a bit. They were focussed on this country, like the world’s eyes are on India stuff going on now. I can imagine them saying that they were moving because of the fertile soil, the amazing culture, the opportunities, and the natural beauty. The canny ones might have even thought this was reincarnation the moment they spotted some thick foliage just like back home.

Then, due to some genetic jugglery they began to show differences. Probably the umbilical cord was being cut off by twisting and turning. They started pronouncing R as L and used sticks to eat. In one of the first uprisings that possibly took place in unrecorded history, they decided to leave. They had to walk for days in the sun, which perhaps lends them the marked features of rather small eyes slanted to avoid the glare. All races have some distinguishing physical aspects. Such as Indians nodding their heads by tilting them towards left shoulder and then the right one at a 30 degree angle to convey yes, no, whatever.

To return to the early departing population, they settled in what came to be East Asian countries. What I cannot figure out from this study is how these nations were already there as prêt-a-porter countries. Were they called China, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Philippines? Why did the first group go to Thailand? Was the place tough on them and is that why they mastered the art of massage? Does the thriving business in Bangkok having anything to do with the lessons from the Kama Sutra they imbibed? And why did the second lot move to Malaysia? Are today’s Pakistanis following Malaysian Islam rather than the Saudi one they are accused of?

Why do Singaporeans have strict penal charges against spitting on the roads? Are they trying to get rid of their Indian roots of spitting any and everywhere? Is the Japanese penchant for making small things and being minimalist a dissenting response to the ostentation of Indian ethos?

These are not questions that engage the 90 scientists who took a sample of 1,928 unrelated individuals from 73 populations in 10 countries. They are more concerned about how this research “is also significant for understanding migratory pattern of human history and furthering the research in medicine. It has great potential for collaboration with these countries in finding treatment to many diseases like flu, AIDS and other pandemics”.

So, if you have a bit of fever and are coughing madly, don’t just gulp down that sweet syrup and suck on lozenges. Think of how the Japs would do it. I assume the fact that they bow on any given occasion is a halfway touching of the feet gesture by the majority population of India; it also probably derives from how they coped with clearing their lungs. You know, bend a little and the kho-kho-kho subsides.

All your ailments will now be seen in the light of how they are faring. If you are about to faint, then make sure to ask them to pass some smelling ajinomoto, please.

- - -

An Indian has been chosen as one of the top ten foreign heroes in the past 100 years for contribution to China. This report came in before the research was made public.

Dr Dwarkanath Kotnis treated Chinese soldiers during the Sino-Japanese war of 1938. Mao Zedong was mighty impressed and when the doctor died, he said, “The army has lost a helping hand, the nation a friend. Let’s always bear in mind his internationalist spirit.”

How internationalist China is we all know, especially during those days, but he probably felt some tug of a common heritage. I think these researchers must be right.


Incidentally, Dr Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani was a film based on the life story of the doc. I am not sure how much of it was true, but in the celluloid version he cured the plague, was captured by the Japanese, fell in love with a Chinese girl and died, because of the plague not the girl. V Shantaram enacted the title role and Jayshree played the Chinese girl. All same-same, no?

Chith Dole - Dr Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani

Can you hear me, Mona Lisa?

Mona Lisa waves out?

I am not sure I’d like to have a little chat with Mona Lisa or want her to wave out to me like some movie star. This is not about purity in art but about purity in ways of seeing. Rather than humanising, it becomes robotic.

Beijing’s Alive Gallery is doing just that. It has got a whole series of famous art works that move and talk. The Mona Lisa, for example, answers questions. In a video clip when asked if she was married, she says, yes, and her husband loves her very much. What next? “I just finished chopping onions” and the Chinese wizards will show a few tears? Or, will she explain her smile with an, “Oh, I was stifling a yawn”?

How is this interference in art any different from the Russian woman who hurled a ceramic cup at the Mona Lisa at the Louvre Museum? Here was real frustration because she had failed to obtain French nationality. Her rejection was what made her hit out at a truly prized work of art. Interestingly, the artist Leonardo da Vinci is not French, nor do any versions mention the model being one.

I see this as a wonderful clash of identities – Russian, French, Italian – and the attempt to be one. The sense of seeking a space. What is more valid? A mute work of art that earns billions of euros? Or a woman escaping a life she does not want?

The painting is behind a bullet-proof screen. How accessible is it, then? For all its peasant appeal, it has indeed become a distant figure of admiration. That was in all probability not the intention. While many works of art are analysed on the basis of skill, historical relevance and the ability to make a statement of sorts, the Mona Lisa – ‘la Gioconda’, the laughing one – has been personalised. The backdrop, her past, her relationship with the artist, her stance, her look, her smile. It is she who has become a benchmark for this sort of ‘seeing’.

She has survived so many interpretations and infringements that she has become A Thing. Of beauty? A joy forever?

Perhaps that Russian woman’s ceramic cup must one day be able to move and talk and speak of its experience at hitting her. Forever and beauty both hurt. Yet, I wouldn’t want her to move for a fraction of a second even to hear an anguished sigh or the swish of silk or wind in her face.

Bringing Mona Lisa 'alive'

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Did V.P.Singh’s gambles pay off?

The Lonely Punter

by Farzana Versey

Countercurrents, 29 November 2008

He chose the wrong time to die. His timing was often bad. V.P.Singh, former Prime Minister of India, gave up the fight against several ailments that should have killed him 15 years ago on November 27. He was 77.

It was the wrong time because newspapers and the electronic media are covering the horrendous terrorist attacks in Mumbai. VP was not the kind to exit quietly; the Rajput in him cherished a bit of pomp and glory. To his credit, it constituted the superficial aspect, like a garment. It did not as much as scrape his skin, forget enter his soul.

As I scoured a couple of reports, the comments sections threw up the worst invectives. “He was a devil.” “The world will be better without him.” “Thank god he is dead.”

(The complete article has been uploaded on my other blog and is accessible at the website if you click the title link)

The French kiss and the American miss

You wouldn’t know Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio even if a whole bottle of Eau de whatever was emptied in your nose and glasses of Chardonnay singed your stomach.

Oui, oui, je joins le troupeau. Le monsieur has won the Nobel Prize for Literature this year.

The citation lauds him as the “author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization.”

Huh? Are not all departures new, unless you wish to reclaim the old in a contemporary setting? Isn’t all ecstasy sensual in that it appeals to the senses? I can understand humanity beyond, but what does humanity “below the reigning civilization” mean?

The good thing about such awards is that the author’s works get translated and become accessible. I do like what has been said about Désert, “the story of a young nomad woman from the Sahara and her clashes with modern European civilization”.

One of his works has been compared with Albert Camus. The French, and we might include Sartre, Andre Gide, Jean Genet, Guy de Maupassant, Marcel Proust, and Beckett (who also wrote in the language), have had a history of standing at the edge of existentialism. The writers were essentially exploring the idea of rebellion. France had been the hub of literary angst that invited outsiders, whereas the insiders were seeking to metaphorically escape.

Therefore, there is a bit of irony that the ruling class has often tried to co-opt them.

The NYT report states:

In a reminder that politics and culture are closely intertwined in France, the prime minister, François Fillon, said in a statement that the award “consecrates French literature” and “refutes with éclat the theory of a so-called decline of French culture.”

Consecrating anything spells its death, or rather celebrates it. And is culture relegated to literature? Literature is the product of culture; it isn’t the creator. As I have said before, it is a recorder. Culture could be cuisine. It could be a way of living.

Mr. Le Clézio once described himself in an interview as “a poor Rousseauist who hasn’t really figured it out.”

Just for that he stands tall. The moment you have figured it out and the questions stop, you will never find answers. And the Nobel Prize winner thinks so too when he says, “The novelist, he’s not a philosopher, not a technician of spoken language. He’s someone who writes, above all, and through the novel asks questions.”

- - -

A week before the announcement, the Swedish Academy’s permanent secretary Horace Engdahl rubbished the Americans:

“Of course there is powerful literature in all big cultures, but you can’t get away from the fact that Europe still is the centre of the literary world... not the United States.”

Europe has always been seen a culture snob, and its literature is no exception. Yet, I do not see the prudence of hemming in all of European literature under one roof. What would a German have in common with the English, or the French with the Spanish? Is ancient Greek literature to be held in reverence forever?

My knowledge of contemporary American literature is limited, but would the accusation that US writers are “too sensitive to trends in their own mass culture,” and therefore dragging down the quality of their work hold true?

Is sensitivity and intimacy with one’s environment not important enough to be able to critique the same mass culture? If the allegation serves to convey that American writers tend to fall prey to mass trends, then that is indeed the case with a limited number of people anywhere in the world.

Pop culture is a legitimate area of study, whether in fiction or non-fiction. Wasn’t consumerism the central theme of Death of a Salesman?

“The US is too isolated, too insular. They don’t translate enough and don’t really participate in the big dialogue of literature.”

Here I have to admit that I find US political policy and the great masses to be insular; there is an element of not being quite aware of what happens outside the super bowl of American life. However, artistes have tried to break the barrier.

David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, provided a response:

“And if he (Engdahl) looked harder at the American scene that he dwells on, he would see the vitality in the generation of Roth, Updike, and DeLillo, as well as in many younger writers, some of them sons and daughters of immigrants writing in their adopted English. None of these poor souls, old or young, seem ravaged by the horrors of Coca-Cola.”

Spirited as the rejoinder was, it did not examine that Coke is in fact a great leveller and hardly cause of the insulation. The cola has crossed the big divide and is chicken soup for many a writer dead-beat on a metaphor for ‘uncivilisation’.

Tonight, I shall shun the fizz as a mark of respect and drink to mine own eyes.

Obama's Hanuman, Hillary's hanky, McCain's nickel

I don’t know how the US presidential candidate would have reacted to a headline like Barack Obama seeks Hanuman’s blessings in race for White House!

It is gratifying to know that it isn’t only the ‘underdeveloped’ or ‘developing’ countries that are mired in superstition. Here is a list of the luck liaisons the various Amercian candidates carry or wear and my attempt to deconstruct what they could possibly mean:

Barack Obama

The bracelet belonging to an American soldier deployed in Iraq = I support the war in Iraq and this is at least in part my version of patriotism.

Gambler’s lucky chit = Trying to convey that he will take big risks based on past wins; nothing new.

Tiny monkey god (said to be Hanuman) = Will be a loyalist to those he considers his own, believes in saving a woman’s honour and is to be trusted; would have worked better as second-in-command.

Madonna and child = Besides religious connotations, might be a moralist, and believes that the baby and bathwater are a woman’s domain. The male is only a part of an immaculate conception.

John McCain

A lucky penny = Every penny counts, so prudent in terms of wealth management.

A lucky nickel = No macro outlook; it is the economy, stupid.

A lucky sweater = Likes things to be close to him; believes in staying warm and prefers to stick to things that have already been knitted. He won’t run after wool balls.

A lucky hotel room in New Hampshire = Would visit new things and places only if there is an assurance of steadfastness and familiarity.

Hillary Clinton (tends to keep things others have given her - no, not a stained dress)

A lucky coin = heads or tails, she don’t know.

A lucky handkerchief that a woman in Texas gave to her that she sometimes keeps in her pocket = No tissues needed for those well-timed tears.

A lucky bracelet = Conveying femininity; would be hands-on but with embellishment.

India and the Dalai Lama’s Middling Path

The Dalai Lama's famous 'middle path' is the biggest cop-out. It works only at the level of Hollywood art-house cinema and to make sure that Richard Gere remains the certified American gigolo of the movement.

India and the Dalai Lama’s Middling Path
by Farzana Versey
State of Nature

India is trapped. “This will be a ‘Tom and Jerry’ show. The cat may have powerful fangs but the mouse will ultimately win,” said Tibetan leader Tensin Tsunde.

- - -

The Tibetan Refugee Camp in Delhi was quiet. The stalls where they sold carvings, trinkets, and shawls and woolens in winter, were empty. They stood like cages, iron meshes separating one from the other.

Some monks were sitting on the wooden platforms. Young people in trendy clothes were walking about aimlessly. I spotted two young men in their late teens. For a month in March all shops were closed in protest. Wangchuk stayed here. The lodgings are very basic, but certainly better constructed than the hovels of the poor. Both these boys were attending college. One lived here; the other in a mainstream locality. The latter was far more forthcoming. What was Wangchuk afraid of?

“Not afraid. I just don’t want too much prominence. We are going through conflict.”

“With the Chinese?”

“Yes, but also amongst ourselves.”

At the centre of the discord is the Dalai Lama. At the time I was there last month he was sitting in an air-conditioned suite of a five-star hotel. The protesters had been shouting slogans. These two teenagers are tired. “For four days we sat there, it won’t achieve anything. People are going on and on about boycotting the Olympics. We don’t care about all that. We want complete independence.”

The Dalai Lama’s famous ‘middle path’ is the biggest cop-out.

It works only at the level of Hollywood art-house cinema and to make sure that Richard Gere remains the certified American gigolo of the movement. The Dalai Lama says that the recent aggression and riots that took place did not involve Tibetan monks at all. “They (Chinese soldiers) dressed like monks. So, for a lay person, they will look like monks. But the swords they had were not Tibetan, they were Chinese swords.”

Yet, he does not want a separate state but autonomy within China. It is time for him to visit his people as a political leader and drop the His Holiness garb. But that won’t sell. He has got a nice little resort to himself in India, a horde of celebrity endorsements and a typical Occidental support system. Steve Tsang, a China politics expert at Oxford University rightly asked, “How many people watching these images in the West will buy China's story? Instead, what you see are these heroic monks who are risking a lot for their cause. That is something your average Westerner is very sympathetic with.”

The average Westerner makes Chicken Soup for the Soul a bestseller. Monks are cute, and the Dalai Lama really enchants everyone. An Indian editor just could not rein in his excitement when the Tibetan leader slapped his wrist after every joke. Here is one such ‘joke’: “The Chinese accuse me of orchestrating the protests. I call for a thorough investigation. Let them investigate if I am responsible. Let them investigate any and everything—except my lungs, my stomach, my urine and my stool.”

I had once attended one of his lectures at an auditorium in Mumbai. Standing in the queue to enter the hall was quite a lesson. There were foreigners with backpacks, the usual activist brigade, a few chic ladies in summer wear, some were into the holistic healing fad, and there were the Tibetans in their orange-maroon robes.

When the gates opened there was a predictable rush. You could have been to a rock concert, but there was a silence punctuated by laughter that was echoing the Dalai Lama’s giggles. He laughed because he goofed up on his English and everyone laughed because he did. Charming, but that’s about it. He said India was their guru; he was only stating the obvious. He was barely audible let alone intelligible.

Besides, when the West is busy bashing up ‘Islamists’ for making a hue and cry about faith, why is their poster boy publicly airing his religious views?

He vacillates between international intervention and then insisting that “the real solution to the Tibet issue can only be found between the Han Chinese and the Tibetans and no one else”. Almost immediately he avers, “I appeal to the world to save the Tibetan nation, which has a unique cultural heritage and is facing extinction as a result of the cultural genocide taking place in Tibet.”

In one of those supremely confusing moments, he has said that culturally Tibetans were closer to India and politically to China.

To start with, the problem is political. Tibet was established over 2100 years ago by Raja Nathi Chenpo, the first king. Around the middle of the 20th century, October 1949 to be precise, Chinese aggression began. With the advent of Communism, the attempts became bolder, resulting in forcible entry into Tibet, the butchering and massacre of 1959 which finally made the Dalai Lama and millions of others seek refuge in India.

Very soon the refugees realised they shared many similarities with the people of the Himalayan regions. What the Indian government does not realise is that joining forces with Tibet is detrimental to India because China has laid claims to Arunachal Pradesh, did not recognize Sikkim as a part of India and has supported many separatist movements in the North East and continues to occupy Aksai Chin in Ladakh.

Some of us who are considered ‘concerned citizens’ got an invitation to join in the parallel torch relay two days before the Olympics torch arrived; it was sent by some Indian Opposition leaders. That we are still struggling with our own separatist issues does not seem to drive home a discordant note. Also, since the Tibetans and the Dalai Lama have been crying themselves hoarse that they do not have a problem with China hosting the Olympics, why is India falling into the rat-trap?

People like Wangchuk have begun to question the concept of the very culture they are fighting to save. “We are not blaming the older generation but how long can we wait? We believe in democracy that is the reason we quietly protest. It is unfortunately mistaken for being soft. So far we have not thought of arming ourselves because that would not be good for us either. Yet when people keep telling us that we are Buddhist and must therefore follow the path of peaceful appeals, we find it a little unnerving. Recent experience has shown us quite clearly that the sound of bombs resonates very loudly but not our voices.”

An elderly administrator, Teng Pasang, is worried about this call for complete independence. “That is why the Chinese should speak to the Dalai Lama. After he is gone it will be difficult. If the Tibetans want they can become terrorists overnight. They could have become like Kashmir.”

Did it not strike him as a bit unusual that for a people who live in refugee camps they have given up their means of livelihood for a month? “This is a small price to pay for the sacrifice of the Tibetans. Besides, most have made enough money and saved up.”

He is happy with how the international community is responding. “It is good, UK, France, America, all coming and supporting.”

They have never shown such support for Kashmir, Afghanistan or Iraq, I tell him. “See, I told you Tibetans are non-violent. They are not terrorists.”

The Dalai Lama’s own position regarding terrorism is rather interesting. He had told the Daily Telegraph some years ago that terrorists must be treated humanely or terrorism will spread, “If there is one Bin Laden killed today, soon there will be 10 Bin Ladens…The new terrorism has been brewing for many years. Much of it is caused by jealousy and frustration at the West because it looks so highly developed and successful on television.”

Clearly he watches a lot of television. Perhaps he is unaware that it was the West that made the Gulf war into the first reality soap opera. It is rather surprising that for someone who fled because of atrocities he does not understand the depth of dissent. Osama bin Laden was a highly successful ‘Harry’, much admired in the teakwood-paneled clubs of London. No terrorist movement is even remotely trying to ape the West or showing any evidence of materialistic aspirations.

Today, the walls at the camp are plastered more with announcements of music programmes rather than political slogans. What do they want? Their voices are asking to support the proposal to demilitarize and denuclearize Tibet and put a stop to Chinese aggression. They want India to raise the issue of Tibet’s independence. And finally they cannot see why His Holiness cannot be accorded the status of Head of State-in-exile. That will be a truly political statement.

As Wangchuk says, “We will not compromise.”

How long are they willing to wait? “Till the end, till we get what is our right. We have seen many difficulties in the past, so it is time for looking towards a good future.”

I am given a “Free Tibet” badge with some diffidence. I put it away in my bag. One of these should reach the Dalai Lama.