Books: Jan Nordstrom's photo essays ~ Every breath we take

 

 

A book is a book is a book, did you say? I thought my definition of a book were formed enough, until the postman rang my doorbell some weeks ago  ~ and four books by the Swedish photographer-painter- poet Jan Nordstrom waltzed into my life, making me redefine what books are all about.  I’m still trying to figure out all that makes his books special. 

Jan’s books have his poems, and his photographs. But they are not glossy, touch-with-care coffee table books. Nor are they standard-sized volumes that you pick off a bookstore shelf, scan, then toss away.

For there’s a certain fine-tuned sensibility underlying his books that blew me away. Completely. This includes the brilliant photography, the edgy design, the focused intent, the subtle paintings, even the text in translation. It all comes together in undeniable harmony.

Take my favourite of the four, to begin with.

Freedom

Frihet (Freedom) teases me with its cover blurb in English translation: “The story of Erik, Mona and Ruben. For those who live close. About the people who nurse and help. For those who carry hope as an inner world.” 

I open the book. And I stumble upon Eric, just 10, in a wheelchair. He’s at Kalmar country hospital with his mother Marina and his baby brother Axel in a pram.  This is a poetic, pictorial document of his life from 2002-2004.

Eric has been battling leukaemia.  He has been through chemotherapy. He dreams, one day, of playing football with his friends again.  And so he does.

A few pages later, I enter the world of Mona.  A sweet, smiling couple dance in a living room.  Who are they?

In Jan’s words: “Tuesday, November 19, 2002./ The living room./ Dance for a while./ Love each other. / Mona Iveby, 59, and her beloved Bengt Ohlsson, 64./ Mona has neoplasm./ It can no longer be cured./ Only curbed./ Love and the will to live carry them now…”

Through sensitive, gentle pictures Jan makes us look through lenses we have never tried. We follow Mona’s journey. As a nurse helps Mona with a shot of morphine to tackle her pain. As Mona dabs on lipstick, a gesture of self-healing. As she paints every Wednesday, for little things gain great meaning as dusk comes knocking at life.  As the couple drive away to a fairytale island cottage on Oland. By 2003, Mona and Bengt fly away to a cottage in Madeira. It almost makes you believe in miracles in real time.

With courage, with infinite grace, Mona says, “I believe that you need to take risks if you want to live life to its utmost.”

And then there’s 79-year-old Ruben who, post-surgery, realizes, “So little is needed to make someone happy. A smile…”

Jan’s images speak even more eloquently than his text.  An unforgettable hug between Mona and her Bengt, their first in two years, his eyes closed in remembrance.  A part-portrait of Ruben rowing, the deep blue of the sky backdrop in sync with his eyes and his shirt. Eric, back with his peers, his infinity smile a promise of sunshine days to come.

This is a moving testimony to the human spirit ~ and to trained caregivers who heal with their gentle touch, their presence, their ability to understand.

I can understand the impetus for this book only because I’ve met Jan Nordstrom. Way back in the fall of 1999, at Kalmar in southeast Sweden, by the Baltic Sea, where he lives and swims in the icy waters at dawn. The city has a population of over 36,000.

We met when 20 of us from Asia, Africa and Latin America were chosen to participate in a seminar on ‘Women in Journalism’ in the idyllic small town.  Jan was the official photographer and course assistant  ~ and we returned home with portraits that we still look back on with wonder and tenderness.

Loveness

Karlekheten (Loveness) left me just as wonderstruck. For, through poetry, photographs and paintings, Jan evokes l-o-v-e.

I catch my breath over a semi –blurred, full-cheeked, soft-lashed baby in profile in the right-hand corner of a double-spread. He draws my eye in, as gently as a caress. On the blank page opposite, ant-like words crawl into the stillness:  “life cannot be put on hold.”

An image from 'Loveness'

 Jan’s books are as much about his personal talent, as they are about what we’ve come to associate with a Scandinavian sensibility: teasing minimalism, deliberate restraint, evocative layouts that enhance.

What illustrates this in Karlekheten?   

~ A faceless, dramatic black-and-white painting, with the words: ‘you touch my inner being/ in the dreams I have hidden.’

~  A hand emerging from a shirtsleeve, its fingers touching gnarled bark: ‘what do we leave behind?’

~ The love story of Astrid, 84, and Sven, 95, immortalized in a photo-essay, through arms wrapped protectively around each other as they lie side by side, through the tangible love in their eyes as his hand touches her cheek.

It is in the unspoken, the unwritten, the internally visualized that come to life through Jan’s visual and verbal prompts. Each enriches us in intangible ways. That’s what makes this book so precious, priceless beyond counting.

Glow

Glod (Glow) visually shares Kalmar’s luminous past, its glassmaking traditions. As Jan couches it, “So I returned/ Back to the land of glass./ To the knights and wizards of my childhood./ To those who blow life into glass./ To the pride in their eyes. / To the glow./ To the treasure of glass.”

The accompanying visuals are stunning. Black at the centre across a doublespread; to the left, a figure enters the building; to the right is a slatted gate in front of an orange wall, a street lamp lights all. A hand in focus between two fiery panels, as the molten glass is gathered.  Lush green leaves; in the top corner of the frame, a man in a red shirt sips from a glass. In the last quarter of a pitch dark frame, Michael blows the slender beginnings of a vase.

Each frame in this mainly non-textual book is lyrical, even painterly, culled with tenderness. This photo-essay truly glows from within with imagination and insight.  

Together

In Jan’s fourth book, “Tillsammansheten” (Together), I did not have the benefit of an English text. Over its pages, he follows Kalmar FF’s A-league footballers through the season of 2010-11. Being a football fan like him, I was enchanted by it.

For not a single frame would fit into a sports magazine or football reports in a daily. Dagens Nyheter , Sweden’s biggest morning paper, chose it as one of the best books of 2011. 

 Here’s a teaser trailer of what we see on his pages:

Black, hazy figures jumping in the air against a fogged skyline and skeletal trees…

A huddle of red-kitted heads with a pearl grey backdrop…

The toss onfield, viewed through a sea of football-boots with long socks on…

A tantalizing double frame: half a male face in profile looks in from the right edge; facing him is a smudgy maybe-face at the edge of the left. ..

A feathery blue sky; at its base is a tiny player in red; two balls bounce  ~ one above his head, one behind him…

The drama of the locker room, the nitty-gritty of coaching sessions…

The beautiful game comes alive in a million aspects through this poetic, singing tribute from Jan. The power. The joy. The glory. And the sadness of its flipside alike.

Until these books arrived at my door from Kalmar, I knew Jan Nordstrom as a gentle, caring soul, a fine photographer. But the sheer span of his undeniable talent has swept me off my feet.

Now I know for sure that a book is a book is a book, often predictable and recognizable, but not when couched through the eyes of Jan Nordstrom.

Skol to you, my friend Jan!

 *        *        *

More information on Jan’s books, mainly in Swedish:

www.jannordstrom.com

Art: K.G. Subramanyan ~ True seeker

(This interview dates back to 2005)


K.G. SUBRAMANYAN challenges you to think. As an artist, scholar and ideologue, he edges you out of comfort zones to upend established notions, as he has through his artistic oeuvre over six decades. 

He veers away from west-centric postmodernism, radicalising Indian contemporary art through a rooted approach, his interpretations seething with an underlying wit and wisdom that are individualistically his.

How has 81-year-old Subramanyan's art practice often defined the cutting edge within the contemporary Indian idiom, ranging from murals to reverse paintings, from enamels to sculpture? What makes him so unafraid to learn, constantly journeying both physically and intellectually, more so since his first teaching stint at Baroda in 1951? 

Why are his lectures, collected as "The Living Tradition" and "The Creative Circuit", revered by fellow artists and the uninitiated alike? Is he a seminal figure in the construct of Indian modernism? How did he mould his Santiniketan inheritance to dynamic practice, remaining conceptually rigorous, sidestepping an egocentric examination of his own achievements (except through imaginary dialogues with alter egos like the Japanese artist-monk Mu Chi)? 

Kerala-born Subramanyan, who recently relocated back to Baroda from Santiniketan, where he was Professor Emeritus, tantalises us by straddling the personal and public domains with equal felicity. 

He wears his honours with the lightness of being that becomes a true seeker. These include four major retrospectives of his multi-pronged artistic corpus, the Kalidas Samman in 1981, the Padma Shri and a D. Litt. from Rabindra Bharati. 

What inspired the tentative creativity of this student of economics at the Presidency College in Madras, first recognised by artistic giant D.P. Roy Chowdhury, who guided him to Kala Bhavan in 1944, where he imbibed Tagorean idealism at the feet of the masters — Nandalal Bose, Binode Bihari Mukherjee, and Ramkinkar Baij?

It was in search of more pertinent questions that we met in Bangalore on November 5, 2005, just before Subramanyan inaugurated a pan-Indian exhibition that launched Gallery Sumukha's redefined space.

Over an 80-minute interview, he reveals the range of his peripatetic mind, peppering his responses with wry humour, often self-directed.

Excerpts from our interview:

 You've taught for decades, yet you seem to still be in a constant process of inquiry, of learning. Am I reading you wrong?

PERHAPS not. The whole attitude of the people of my generation, I suppose, is to get to know of the world as it gets ahead, as much as possible. We grew up in an atmosphere of political and cultural change. We had to think twice before making our choices.

So, most of your life, you're a learner. Probably it's more about how you construe a situation or read other people's thinking, their words or expressions. For all our talk about traditions, the world is constantly changing.

Was yours a conscious decision to blur the artificial divide, to my mind, between the artist and the artisan? 

From the beginning, I probably had a certain talent for making toys and other things. I was impressed (when I was a college student) by Anand K. Coomaraswamy's "Medieval Singhalese Art". That's when I started thinking about cumulative tradition, where various activities helped each other to rise into a hierarchical structure, where the upper layers draw resource from the lower layers, at the same time influencing the lower layers. I realised that was the strength of our tradition.

When the classical became too decadent, then the folk entered and revitalised it. When the folk sphere became too trashy, the classical came in. Today, as I was going through the Bangalore museum grounds, I found two hero stones influenced by classical art, as good as any of the pediments in Halebid, while two others were folkish. Similarly, if a contemporary sculptor gets in touch with a folk sculptor, he might learn something.

 

What took you to the handloom sector in 1958?

While teaching at Baroda, I constantly felt I needed to know more about the practice of handicraft.

Of course, I couldn't last long with a quasi-governmental agency. I resigned after two years, which were very educative.

Apart from seeing how craftsmen suffer, how they are treated, how their issues are not being faced squarely, I had a glimpse of how craft expertise develops, how it is transferred between individuals, how even in a family with people of different talents, a minimum degree of expertise grows. That's interesting.

What counsel did you offer the government while you were with the Handicrafts Board?

My main advice was: "Don't treat our handicrafts and handlooms so lightly. Here are over 30 million people producing functional goods related to a way of life. In their practice they are close to artists, so they are aesthetising the whole environment. If you destroy that way of life in the interests of commerce, you are destroying an essential cultural situation."

How did your mentors at Santiniketan shape you? 

I can't spell that out. (Laughs). I can very gratefully acknowledge that many ideas I have matched with theirs. Nandalal, Binode Bihari and Ramkinkar excited our thinking in various ways, though I probably didn't agree with all of it. But I owe a lot to Nandalal.

He thought in terms of a corpus of activities that fed each other. Because of the interworking of the resources that he drew upon, each kind of art expression was respected. Each resource he drew upon had a language of its own. There was something to learn from each language before you thought of a language of your own. I still find that very valuable.

Did you pass on to your students some notions you had inherited from them?
 
You can only do what you do, and through that show there is a vision somewhere. That's what Nandalal and Binode Bihari did for me. Precept, not practice, was their main intent.

I had no plans. I never tried to teach. If you are too purposeful, you are going to kill yourself and your students. (Smiles, pausing) In fact, I was very nervous when I first began teaching at Baroda. My student contact hours were fairly limited. I'm told by various people that I was a successful teacher. I found that to be with young people, listening to their questions, is itself a great education. The enrichment came only when you thought about these questions.

What has Shantiniketan meant to you, as an artist and an individual? 

I joined Kala Bhavan at Shantiniketan in 1944, when it had not become a university.

In that sense, it means a lot to me. In terms of an institution of learning, even though it was not in its heyday,

I could visualize it as a creative community where students and teachers interact, concerned about making something out of this context. After it became a university, the whole thing changed.

Was it like a continuing conversation, an ebb and flow of ideas, before? 

In a way, yes. There were no definite categories of people taken in, no degrees given, only a diploma. This contact profited some people, not others. Most came to Santiniketan for a vocation, which is the way it should be.

Santiniketan today is only a vestige of what it was. Yet it has interesting facets. It's far away from the chaotic city of Kolkata. It's a small institution, with an academic community smaller than the population of an average college. And it has various disciplines. There's still a chance somebody can make something of that valuable vestige. But where is that somebody?

How does one sustain such an institution in the modern, competitive world? I have no answer to that. But probably there will always be the right solution when there is the right question.

Today, art is redefining itself through alternate means of expression. Where would you locate yourself within this framework? 

There are various kinds of art expression, just as there are various kinds of verbal, oral or written expression. There is a contextual necessity for each. Of course, you can overdo the differences, then make big theories out of it. Just because a few people in the west have thought of a postmodern movement, we follow without fully understanding what they meant.

Some artists are working towards the transformation of material definitions. That can be witty, quite nice, but it doesn't override all the other arts. You might build a sari out of beer bottle caps, but it wouldn't supersede the sculptures of Halebid or Belur.

But then, I'm not against it at all. (Impishly) If you think of folk art as a valid medium, perhaps this is the art of the modern folk.

Your artistic expressions have often been considered cutting-edge, created in the modernist idiom, but questioning westernised fundamentals all along. How would you gauge your engagement with art practice?

I'm not a controversial person. People often ask me: "Why don't you respond to certain questions?" I'd like to answer with an old fable that crops up in the children's books.

A centipede was walking one sunny morning, with its hundred feet or more. An ant, with only six legs, looked at it with annoyance, then asked, "Which one of your legs do you put forward first when you walk?" When the centipede started thinking of this question, it couldn't move!

If you ask an artist questions about how things work within himself, this might happen. (Smiles) So, I refuse to answer that question.



I've gained wonderful insights from your lectures/ writings, yet I feel you've been very cautious in your interpretations. Are there current issues in art that trouble you?

There are no pat answers. I'm still groping. And probably everyone else sees. But that's not to say I won't take a stance if there is a real issue. As a sensible man, I wouldn't want to be too cocksure about these things.

I'd be very disappointed if you were ... 

*      *       *

(The Hindu Sunday Magazine, 2005) 

Art: Achuthan Kudallur ~ The ache of abstraction

A CEREBRAL vibrancy. That’s the first impression communicated in a conversation with Achuthan Kudallur. His mind is restless, darting from Rabindranath Tagore to Picasso, delving into the microcosm of abstract art. His is a ceaseless search for raison d’etre. He adheres to a fundamental honesty, intolerant of cant. He speaks in muted cadences. Even in anger, he retains an inner quiet.

Born in Kerala in 1945, Achuthan’s desire for self-expression originally took the shape of Malayalam short stories. Opting for art in 1972, his self-taught medium has since run the gamut from landscapes and portraits through blazing abstracts to infinitely detailed drawings. Change, to him, seems intrinsic to life.

Achuthan’s earlier work summons up images of nudes that are raw, tantalizing, seething with urgency and a certain edge of courage. Blazing across outsize canvases, insistent upon attention, they intermingled poignancy and contemplation equally ~ despite still seeking footsure colour equations, despite the tentative quality of the drawing. From 1976 onwards, the imagery took on overtones of melodrama, sifted rather self-consciously, and shades of surrealism crept in.

But the ache of abstraction is at the core of Achuthan’s existence today. Shunning geometry, bypassing naturalistic representations, he has chosen to unravel the secret life of colours on canvas after canvas, as if caught in an irresistible continuum. Unlike practitioners of portraiture or figurative art, he compares the  very lack of discernible patterns in abstract art to the strains of Indian classical music, dependent more on tapestries of sound than on lyrics.

An abstract artist, Achuthan emphasizes, can execute realistic interpretations with ease, and does not consider his choice an escape from weak drawing or painting skills. The evidence? The sheer range of magazine and book jacket illustrations to the artist’s credit. Why else would Achuthan once try to capture the final moments of Kazantzakis’ Zorba the Greek, as the protagonist in the novel looks at the mountains beyond his window, his nails digging into the ledge, before he breathes his last? But realistic renditions failed to evoke the emotion he felt.

Though his one-man show at the local Max Mueller Bhavan in 1977 featured primarily figurative work, he felt stifled by the monotony of placing a figure or two against balanced spatial backdrops. Today, intuition guides him through his abstracts. If the feedback from the canvas proves negative, the artist often abandons his pursuit. And tries afresh, riddled with the anxieties of charting his course through the unknown, away from the security of formulaic paintings.  

His room, at a lodge in Madras’s bustling Royapettah area, reflects the man. An array of drawings cascade over the bed, offering images both private and primordial. Abstracts paintings in vivid oils, varied in hue and size, vie for space with earlier realistic compositions. Books on philosophy, literature and art are piled high on a shelf. Some crop up singly on window-sills and chairs. An abundance of creative talent assails the eye.

Achuthan’s present job in a government department allows him a means to his vital other life ~ in the realm of the paint, brush and canvas. One day, he knows for sure, he will be living his life in art full time. For that is his dream, his vision, his passion.  He has both the will to wait for this dream to be realized and the willingness to let life unwind to its own tune.

In Achuthan, a critic in Madras noted one who “enters into calm discussions of serious (pictorial) problems.” So he does, even in excerpted eloquence:

What drives you to engage with art?

I started sketching at a very young age. While teaching me the alphabet, my father drew a face and I copied it. I used to caricature all the people I knew. In my high school days, I didn’t have any colour sense, actually. My passion was literature. There was some discussion of literature in our household, and poets were revered. Naturally, I took to writing.

Perhaps like venom in a snake, it was somewhere within me, because when I started painting again in my twenty-seventh year, I found I was being dragged to the medium by its own power. I think my mood is better suited to painting than to writing because I can’t plan anything.

(Thoughtfully) Because I can’t be serious about two media at the same time, I can now say I have settled down to painting. Without art or any other creative activity, I may even commit suicide. I do not exist.

I am not saying this for effect. I have been doing this out of dire necessity. Even now, death and sex bewilder me a lot. So far, I have no answers to certain questions of life. So, I can even say art is an excuse. It is an escape from these questions.

How would you define a modern artist in today’s context?

I am against schools and granting a particular group of artists a particular label. It is the critics who demand such labels.

One can define a modern artist as one who searches for his own identity. As the world retina is looking at you, it’s important to belong to humanity, not to a nationality. I do not believe in patriotism and all that.

Are there any artists whom you admire in particular?

I can say I have a great love for Henri Rousseau, especially for his Sleeping Gypsy. I think that painting is a very great work. If I grow rich and if I can afford it, I will buy that work. There are also some very brilliant works by Paul Klee. And Chagall I like.

Pablo Picasso was a great disturbance because he touched everything and took it to an extreme, thus rendering most of his contemporaries derivative.

Rabindranath Tagore’s paintings came purely from the instinct of a highly sensitive mind. In a way, he revolutionized existing norms. For years, artists were governed by the rule of the Golden Section and the principles of harmony. But Tagore’s compositions stand out in a very different way. He was a not a dandy twiddling with his brush. I have seen the same freedom in the works of Sailoz Mukherjee.

Ravi Varma was a great misfortune in Indian art. His contemporaries just sat back and watched the royal man. He spoilt our concept of gods and goddesses by dressing them up in Kanjeevaram sarees and pearls.

Do you ever feel indebted to other artists?

I am terribly indebted. It is not a direct influence. I must thank all those who took the brush before me. When I take the brush, they must be turning in their graves. (Shyly) It is a great feeling to think, when I pull out a line, that the line has been taken by so many of my ancestors.

How do you feel about art in the social context? And censorship?

Art has no direct purpose. I don’t remember any work of art influencing the public. Art is not supposed to. It gives a brighter light. You start seeing better. But the world can do without art. You know, in China and Russia, you can’t find any modern art.

In fact, we are very fortunate to have freedom (in India). So, without being inhibited by anybody’s presence, I can create… (Passionately) I don’t understand why art is censored when there is uncensored science. No one censors the Theory of Relativity.

Actually, I’m anxious about whether I can exist in a changing society. If India veers to the left, and all abstract, modern work is censored, how much will my work be worth in a junkyard? I used to think it would be no more significant than a floor-tile removed from a mansion. I used to cry, thinking of that horror.

Can you justify the system of exhibiting art?

Fundamentally, I used to question the gallery-oriented system. It has become a ritual ~ hiring gallery walls and inviting some people, who are genuinely indifferent to my art. The critics come and write something. Then, bringing all the works back and turning them against my walls… For art, this is not required. I might as well paint in my room and keep quiet.

Yet, after I paint for two or three years, I exhibit for just five days. It is only for these five days that the paintings are alive. When I keep them in my room, they are totally dead even to me because I don’t remember painting them.

Do you have a strong stance on pricing a work of art and exhibiting to sell?

There is something unethical about selling. The pricing of a painting pains me. I can put on a price tag. If somebody buys the painting, I can get money to buy canvas and to meet part of my expenditure. But I can never impress myself by saying, “This is a good work. You take it.” Because it is something I have done for my own pleasure. There are some works I cannot bear to part with. There are others I don’t want to keep. If I sell these, a question arises ~ if I don’t like them, how can I sell them to others?

Somebody else may ask, “After all, it is four annas worth of paper. Why are you selling it for Rs. 400?” I reply, “It is the first time this is being impressed upon the human retina. For that alone, the work is worth a huge amount.” But in order to appreciate these things, one must belong to a visual culture.

How do you feel about the organised art set-up, especially the Lalit Kala Akademi? Is it a boon to artists?

The Lalit Kala Akademi began with great intentions, but it has become a degenerate body. It can annihilate isolated art activities in the country by collective neglect. It has never got to the grassroots. (Angrily) In a democracy like India, even now Mussolini’s children are living in the Akademi set-up. They are unapproachable. If you write, they will not reply. If you protest, they will send you a regret letter.

Its annual exhibition in Delhi is a major thing. Once you exhibit your work there, you are put on an electoral roll for their general council, exhibition committee, purchasing committee. In such circumstances, manipulation of the voter’s list gains more importance than the country’s art.

Personally, I have not benefited (from the Akademi). You might misinterpret this and say I am talking out of vendetta. But even if I am given an award, I will always be critical because, in the end, all academies pollute the set-up.

Why does the public response to art in India tend towards apathy?

I do not blame the public. The education system is to be blamed for this. At school, I studied Moghul history at least five times. Instead, if they had introduced one lesson on art or artists, it would have been helpful. Here, people talk about plastic heroes and film stars in daily conversation. No one talks of a painter.

Is art criticism and art writing relevant to your world?

Personally, no artist is benefited by criticism. In fact, the critic is a great nuisance, a peeping Tom. But when he writes well about me, I’m happy about it. (Laughing aloud) It affects my ego. When he writes adversely or ignores me, I think he is a ridiculous fellow. However, even when he praises me, I fear he is consecrating a particular approach to my art. I don’t want to be contained by any canon or dogma.

In the long run, certain critics have been helpful in creating a movement. And how would we know about the art being done in other parts of the world without writing on art?

Critics are always talking about technique. They can only see what is happening on the surface of an artist’s world. When a man pours out red on his canvas, it may be due to some personal tragedy. When the land under his feet erodes, something very vital happens to his art. This is dictated by the very source of his life, not by any external agency. The critic will never be able to understand the biological processes behind art.

(Reflectively) A funny thing happened last year. I was planning to write about my experiences as an artist. I wrote quite a lot. Then, I came across what Wassily Kandinsky had written on art. I found that 50 years ago, he had written all that I wanted to say. So, I tore up all I had written.

Do you consider your own work inspired?

Because I didn’t study under any particular teacher, I think all my works are inspired. I’m very lucky that I didn’t study anywhere. I have no regard for fine art being taught, and a degree being awarded for it. Fine art cannot be taught, though that may be required for other disciplines.

Would you like to talk about your recent series of symbolic drawings?

It is always a great test, how to control a thin line. In drawing, you cannot bluff. In painting, you can always do some patchwork. But a line is a very honest thing. (Intensely) It is something like your signature. You can’t correct it. You have only the strength of your line to guide you.

In the meantime, a lot of my dream images have surfaced. If I render my dreams as drawings, they will be just illustrations. I have tried to substitute a sense of order through stylization. If you see five or six scattered images, you immediately want to form a relationship between them. They form a certain pattern. The rhythm is always there. As I draw, forms emerge. I love these forms.

When I was young, I used to dream of a reptile that looked like a hydra. I do not know where these primordial memories came from. For years, it haunted me. But slowly I refined it. I trimmed it as a child trims paper patterns. Then, it resembled a reptile one could love.

What does this abstract phase in your work mean to you?

In 1977, I was working on a large canvas. I sketched the main figures. But when I was filling up the blank spaces with an eye to a beautiful composition, it came to me too easily. There was no feedback, except a whitewasher’s delight in covering up a surface.

I was at a loss. Then, life gave me a catharsis. I found myself entering an argument with colour. I followed my instinct, the need of the hour, pouring out reds and mauves and blues. I started talking to myself in small, inaudible whispers. That was the beginning of my abstract phase.

By abstraction, I don’t mean spoofing reality. (Pausing to think) The world and semblances are all forgotten. I worshipped at the shrine of colour. When one goes to the essence of colour, one enters the fringes of light. I tried to tame this light.

At one stage, I felt a feedback like a fish nibbling at a bait. You can pull in the cord, the fish and bait, all intact. But you can never hold the live fish in your hand. Either you tear its mouth or you set free the fish, the hook and the bait. Such is abstraction.

The best abstracts are never painted. They are held in the painter’s vision, casting a spell on all that he sees. In a painting, abstraction is a great ideal. I repeat myself till I am tired, like a great tree gone mad with flowers. A tree doesn’t count its flowers.

When I took to abstraction, I found that by a juxtaposition of certain colours a new harmony comes to the canvas. People point out that it doesn’t refer to anything. Then, what is the norm? In fact, there is no norm in abstraction. Abstraction is but a total disembodied reality. That is because painting is a very autonomous thing. It exists for itself. If it comes to a question of what guides me, I reply: my total visual sense.

But from the moment I took to colour, like a mighty river entering a gorge, I have felt the fullness of life within me. If I were asked to stop painting completely, I would sprinkle colour on a mountain stream and watch it flow.

(Indian Express, Madras/ Chennai, 1980)

Art- Design: Dashrath Patel ~ Of crumpled messages

'All my life, I've worked for people with a surplus. Today, for the first time, I am working for people who have nothing'

January 14, 1981. The central lawn at the National Institute of Design  (N I D) at Ahmedabad. It’s Makr-Sankranti. Students dot the green expanse. Colourful kites toss in the air. There’s spring in the air, a shedding of winter layers.

A man of 53 steps out of the ultra-modern brick-and-glass building. Medium height. Medium build. A shock of greying hair. He swings his camera bag to the grass. He joins a group of students, helps their red-and-white kite to soar. It cuts down another kite. His eyes light up behind his thick lenses. A gold tooth glints as he chuckles. A cheer goes up. He mingles with a second group of youngsters, then a fourth, and a sixth. More kites fall to the ground. More jubilation.

That’s Dashrath Patel. Man of energy.

February 12, 1981. Lalit Kala Akademi, Madras. Preparations are in full-swing for the Kumbha exhibition of pottery from all over India. A special section is to display Harappan originals from the local Government Museum. The security guards shuffle uneasily in a corner.

The bespectacled figure in a crumpled kurta carefully places an antique jar on a pedestal. He steps back a few paces to study the effect. Satisfied, he shifts the wooden bases around before deciding where to place the next Harappan piece. “I’m going to place a 2,000-year-old pot there,” he murmurs to someone standing by. The excitement and awe in his voice are barely contained.

That’s Dashrath Patel. Man of ideas.

March 1, 1981. The Skills design and media centre at Besant Nagar, Madras. He perches on a stool, intent on the model he’s working on. He holds a cardboard projector in his hands. Rudimentary, yet functional. Total cost ~ Rs. 10. It is part of his project in ‘liberating the media.’

‘It is my answer to people who have nothing,” he says, with deeply-felt emotion.

That’s Dashrath Patel. Man of the people.

Who is he? Does the man on the street in India know him? Is he a stakeholder in our daily lives?

Dashrath Patel is Gujarati by birth and accent, cosmopolitan by choice. A designer. A painter. A photographer. A multi-media person. A member of the prestigious Magnum circle of photographers. A contributor to Life magazine, with over 1,00,000 transparencies to his credit. He was honoured with the Padma Shri on January 26, 1981.

A diploma in painting from the Government College of Arts and Crafts, Madras. A post-graduate diploma in ceramics in Czechoslovakia. The first chairman of the faculty of Exhibition Design at N I D, which he joined in 1961, shortly after it was founded. He has impressive achievements to his credit: The Shringar pageant of Indian costumes, presented by Air India… the Agri-Expo ‘77 exhibition for the Indian Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation… the Asia ’72 exhibition in New Delhi for the Central Government to mark 25 years of Indian independence… The Nescafe container/ glass…

We sought out Dashrath Patel for some basic answers about design, a little understood concept in the Indian context today. The conversation darts in directions we had not foreseen, illuminating our world with ideas and sensitivities we had held at arm’s length all our lives. Over the hours, we gradually touch base with the person behind the persona. Here he is:

What is design?

Design is not decoration. Nor is it styling. In design, the form should derive from function. How many designs are based on our own needs? When something is really functional, it is ideal. You don’t have to make it elegant. Take the human body. When you trim off the excess, it becomes elegant anyway.

(Laughs) The object of designing is for people to use the result. It is not like the fine arts, where you can say, ‘I’ve painted this. If you don’t like it, go to hell.’ You cannot do that. Design is not an art. It is like pure science or engineering. If I design a shoe for you that pinches, you will not wear it. You won’t say, ‘I will wear it because I like the designer.’ There is nothing to be romantic about. With art, you only think that you’ve wasted your time or your money. It doesn’t directly hurt you. But if I design a bad product for you, it really hurts you. That’s the basic difference.

How do you look at the role of the designer in society?

There is a very important question in my mind. Whom are we designing for? The minority or the majority? We have to consciously make identifications.

That’s why I told some potters at Kumbha, ‘Don’t make the mistake of thinking that, as a craftsman, I’ll do artwork. That way, you’ll limit yourself from the many to the few. Instead of a whole village buying your pots for cooking, you’ll only have Dashrath Patel buying your art.’

After 20 years at N I D, we know that as designers, we have to go to the people. Otherwise, we are only involved in the activity of innovation. Take an instance. If somebody told me, ‘This is a tape-recorder. We want the latest model. Could you design it?’ I can just tinker a little, make a few cosmetic changes, and say it is a new model. Right? But if we want to design something for the people of the country, we have to first identify our values. We cannot design without values. (Passionately) We cannot…

Yet, architects talk in terms of two or three bedrooms in a house. And the man who buys the house seeks only four bedrooms and a garden. But they never talk about the quality of life to be led in the house. Standards of living differ with people. It cannot be stated in terms of bedrooms and bathrooms.

Has the dying out of traditions and the booming urban culture warped the fibre of personal life?

A designer cannot design a way of life. He can only try to understand it. The whole industrial system has brought about faceless products. The cities have brought about a lack of identity. That is why the quality of life is deteriorating.

If the potter in a village gives you a matka or pot, the point is that you have bought the matka from him, not whether the water in it is very cold or not. If a farmer gives me wheat in the barter system, at least I’ll know whether he has given me rotten wheat or good wheat. The personal equation is very important. But today, that phase is over. Human relationships are absent. When I design something, I don’t know who is going to buy it. So, I don’t worry much about the product.

What about the attitude of Indian industry to design?

Design has never been given its due anywhere in the world because industrialists, who produce the design products, are just brokers. They take a product to sell it. Industry has not understood that design has to focus on development. A lot of study is needed.

(Thoughtfully) But today, it is the market of the seller, not the buyer. We have to buy most things unquestioningly. Most industries operate from a profit-making base, not a competitive one. So, the quality of design matters little to them. When the question arises about basic changes, for instance dies or motors, they say, ‘Why should we change when the product is selling anyway? It costs money. If the cost can be recovered in the competitive market, we are willing to do it; otherwise not.’

I once had a letter at the N I D, asking me to design a car. I was thrilled at being given such an opportunity. But actually they just wanted me to change a front grill. They were more interested in mere styling, or the pretence of design, than in real changes…

What, then, is the contribution of a designer to a product?

A cassette player may be working a hundred per cent satisfactorily by engineering standards. But a designer can combine an understanding of the production effort and requirements from the machine with ergonomics or biotechnology to restate the product and make it more economical and acceptable to people. (Pushing back his hair) But we have never studied ergonomics, the human engineering of the Indian people. Even a lever should fit the hand like a glove.

Is the Indian education system responsible for the plight of design here?

Education should be our first priority today, not design. Our education system is rotten. (Angrily) It can never produce an inspired man. It is not meant for taking leadership. We never make decisions, we never make choices. But we have to put some thought into solving our problems. We have to make people think and be aware. We have to act as catalysts.

In Europe, design as a profession is old and established. Design is a very young profession here, hardly 20 years old. N I D has awarded diplomas to just 60 or 70 students so far. Most of the designing in this country is done by graduates from the schools of art. We don’t have enough trained designers. As a result, 90 per cent of the products here are imitations from catalogues. (Emotionally) But you cannot produce a Mercedes-Benz by looking at a Mercedes catalogue…

We have to search for the values of our country. Education has to be based on our experience. I think we’ve come to the stage when we have copied enough. We have to go back to our roots.

It is painful to know that if I don’t get a job in Ahmedabad, I can get one in Delhi or any of the other metropolitan cities. Or even in New York or Chicago. But with our education system, we won’t fit into any village in India, though we’ll be able to do something in any European village. Our education is so alien to our society.

To begin with, let’s talk about it. Let’s have a discussion. (Pauses to think) Design consciousness should begin with education. Instead of painting classes in school, product design can be introduced.

What about your personal experiences as a designer….?

I design because I like fun. (Explaining the Asia ’72 exhibition) During this project, I did the visualization,  the photography and the architecture. We also captured 25 years of free India in a 3 ½ hour film, telescoped into seven minutes, which cost Rs. 1 crore. Inspired by Kalidas’ Meghdoot, some of the shooting was done from a helicopter.

To me, India is sounds, not music. Technically, it was tough. At one point, I was shooting 360 degrees around, wearing nine Nikons on my head, like a hat. Totally computerised, the film involved 190 carrousel projectors to achieve a circarama effect at high speed.

But the AGRIEXPO project in 1977 was even more exciting. All the material we collected could have been turned into a museum of man as he is in an agrarian society. If we preserve everything, we preserve life ~ the way people cook, the way people store food, the way people grow things, the way people plough. The farmers gave me the most magnificent things from their day-to-day use ~ including 100 and 200-year-old ploughs. It’s a pity it’s all been put away in storage.

There’s a bullock cart at the N I D. It’s been in the possession of a family for a minimum of 250 documented years. Do you know what is unique about it? All bullock carts have axles that control the wheels, but this one has no axle at all. When the cart goes through the village, according to the track, the wheel goes out and comes back.

What a fantastic understanding of engineering! But I fear there will be a time when all knowledge will become antiquity. Say, if I can’t read Tamil…

What’s your approach to the ‘Ahmedabad: 2000’ project that you’ve undertaken for the Planning Commission?

I’d recommend that the city should not grow any further. Bombay has lost all its trees. Madras is not far behind. During my student life in Madras, I have seen Mount Road. There were banyan trees on both sides of it. They auctioned them for Re. 1 a tree. Does change have to be in this direction?

Change is not necessary for the sake of change. I don’t change my friends every third day. Nor do I easily change my camera or my house or my kitchen. Let me tell you, we change only what does not directly affect us.

What made you opt for a life in design?

When I was a child, I liked to pluck raw berries and mangoes with my small girlfriends. I could have been a textile merchant if I had known how to calculate because my father had a big business. But the highest I got in mathematics is 5 per cent! (Grinning) So, I had two other choices before me ~ to play or to draw.

If my work is going to remain after me, it will be my paintings and my drawings. I should not say so, but I have a bigger reputation as a painter than as a designer. From Madras, I went to France to study painting. I have a year of exhibitions there to my credit. I joined the N I D, the country’s first design school, because I had no better place to go. It always fascinated me to shift from one medium to another, and to meet people.

When I went to France, I met writers, painters, musicians. When I came an industrial designer, I met scientists, mathematicians, engineers.

I had a lot of dreams then. But now I feel I’ve been cheated. Under the pretence of involvement in social change (at the N I D), I feel we have missed the bus. But I learnt great things at the institute. They gave me magnificent opportunities. Whatever turns out ~ good or bad ~ I am a party to it. I’m not outside it.

What are you working on at Skills today?

All my life, I’ve worked for people who have a surplus. Today, for the first time, I am working for people who have nothing. And therefore, I feel I’m going to be saved by this experience in liberating the media. For instance, if you have a message to convey and need a projector, I will tell you how to make one yourself. So, that you can get rid of me.

When I talk about the cardboard projector, I’m talking about the man who has no means. On that level, it is an achievement. To a person who has seen a carrousel, it means very little. But for villagers who don’t have electricity, anything projected 3 ft. by 2 ft. is a great gain.

I’m not talking of quality. For a man who has never seen a projected image, where does the question of quality arise? I am trying to meet people on a personal level, village people who need a projector but can’t afford one. They can make the cardboard projector themselves.

I can thus liberate my knowledge. Maybe I can give it to people who need it to repair a window or organise a house or to communicate a message.

As a multi-media creative person, do you feel sad that a designer is always called in last on any project?

Are we interested in the letter or the envelope? Usually, the envelope is done first, and the letter or message is crumpled.

(First published in Indian Express, Chennai/Madras, in 1981)

Art: Jatin Das ~ Fanning the fires within

Jatin Das at Sarala Art Centre, Madras/ Chennai

IT’S IMPOSSIBLE to separate the public and private persona of Jatin Das. They shade into one another indivisibly. Whether gauged by his life or his art, he emerges as a larger-than-life, electrifying personality.  His paintings and drawings have a restless energy, an almost palpable flow of coursing colour, like blood  through the veins. His focus is Man. He crams into the human form all life, both within and without it.

His nudes ~ whether as supple line drawings or earthy oils on canvas ~ flow from reservoirs unseen, encounters uncharted, passions unquenched. His hunger for life, for experience, for rewarding relationships, is torrid, tangible and occasionally teasing. What fuels his burning pace? What music palpitates through his being? Can he cram all he wants to into a single, stratified life?

His paintings have proved to be best-sellers in New Delhi, where he lives. Every alternate interview he’s done has proved controversial ~ for Jatin does not mince words, whether about inter-personal relationships or sharing views on current politics or the commerce of art.

In person, this recurrently angry, middle-aged man’s interests flow into all matters that touch the human discourse.  His artist’s soul analyses subjects as diverse as Indian classical music, art education, the cut-and-thrust of living in real and surreal time. His pride in his Indian roots surfaces at the most unlikely times. Delta-like, Jatin encompasses as much as he can within the surge of a river in spate.

“Why can’t a drawing or painting be accepted for what it is? My work never has an agenda,” he protests, his hands agitating the air in a flurry of gesture. “I don’t set out to do anything. My work is not narrative. It’s not telling a story. I paint first, then draw the outline. I see something and just feel like translating that onto paper. That’s it.”

Jatin’s subject matter is derived from everyday inroads into life. From the intense colours of a sunset over his terrace. From the ecstatic shrieks and cries of children at play outside his door. From the captivating body language of sweepers, construction workers and domestic help.

“I take photographs of trivial things ~ when a tree is cut down, when new sprouts of sienna and shades of browns and greens appear on a dead log,” reveals Jatin the individual. “These photographs are just manifestations of my concern. They are never enlarged. I write a bit of free verse occasionally. I listen to a lot of music. I am open, willing and ready to be exposed anything and any influence which comes my way.”

But why is the human body a constant in his art? Is that an obsession? “I have been painting human figures for many years. So many works get cancelled in my mind. It is not the fear of death, but that the factual linear time is short. Every time I finish a work, I feel it is a starting point, and the feeling continues,” Jatin explains. “Usually, I like working on a single figure. Now and then, two figures together have periodically emerged unintentionally. Recently, I’ve become conscious of it as a series. I suppose I’ve become more and more conscious about human relationships and our predicament, with the man-woman relationship as the most complex of them all. But it’s in no way a documentary of anything.”  

Is the sheer physicality of his renditions deliberate? “I try to capture a mood, an emotion. And the body, the form, the physicality is accidential,” Jatin avers.

Jatin’s words flow torrentially, changing colour and direction in response to moods. He is as quick to disgust as to laughter. He enters the spark and fusion of discussion almost with glee. Phrases from Bengali, Oriya, Hindi and French dapple his conversation. The poetic, rather than the prosaic, is his chosen metier, whether verbally or visually. 

Winding through the diverse bylanes of his life, he recalls Mayurbhanj in Orissa, where he was born in December 1941: “A small town with mountains and rivers and ponds and fish and dance and music all around… a solid traditional and natural locale.” From there, he moved on to study art at the Sir J.J. School of Art in Bombay, to live and teach in Delhi, and to exhibit widely at home and abroad.

Here are fragments from Jatin’s world, in his own verbal strokes:

How would you render yourself through the prism of art?

I am a contemporary painter. The traditional painter did paintings or sculptures or etchings for religion or worship. He was the product of a homogenous society. The nawab or the king or the temple looked after him. It was a collective approach that was congenial to him.

Today, it is tougher because of the pressure of the industrial situation. Besides, there’s your ambition and the fight for survival. I work alone. My work is not religion-bound, but every work of art is bound by the spiritual.

Are working conditions in India conducive to your art?

In our country, compared to the rest of the world, we have a lot of freedom that we are not using. We do not have state patronage or pressures, like in the socialist countries, of what art should be. Know what kind of freedom I am talking about? Lack of concern. The indifference of society is a freedom in itself, na?

Our media is totally indifferent to the visual arts. Our government does not have a cultural policy. Any committed, serious-minded, involved artist here works in a state of vacuum. Whether you have a good write-up on your paintings or a bad write-up, whether you sell or don’t sell, whether you exist or don’t, nobody will worry. Uday Shankar died, a great genius; but nobody cared. In our country, you need sustaining power. You have to burn your own fuel and fall back on yourself because we do not have proper criticism.

There are many good artists here who realize we are the product of a bastard situation. (With mounting excitement) Who is aware that at Bombay and Calcutta and Madras ~ you know, the 150-year-old British schools ~ we learnt of Michelangelo and the Greek concept of sculpture and figuration that the proportion for a beautiful body is seven-and-a-half heads?

In our iconography, we have five-head, ten-head concepts. Fantastic! Concepts which have not dated. I’m surprised that few Indian artists are working with the virgin material available. I’m not talking of bringing in Indianness by copying, by aping it. I am talking about digesting or imbibing all this to do what you want to do.

I’m not saying this only as an Indian. I’m saying this as an artist.

What do you feel you have contributed to Indian art?

Oh my god! Oh my god! That’s such a heavy question! (Laughing aloud) I don’t think I have contributed anything at all to Indian art. No, no, I am purely responsible for myself.  All my work ~ good or bad, whether you like it or don’t ~ I don’t blame anybody or the situation or anything for it.

Mind you, many people think I am a painter, so I should be concerned about the sensibility of Pattachitra or Pichwai or Kangra miniatures only. Personally, I feel if Kumar Gandharva has arrived at such a stage that, when I listen to him I sit at the edge of my chair in the audience, I’m terribly envious that I have not reached there yet. He was lucky because Indian classical music has flowed like a river, uninterrupted, till today. Contemporary art has had no continuous flow. It has taken off from the colonial period, from Ravi Varma.

What I am saying is: contributing to Indian art is all bullshit. I haven’t done a thing. I’m just waking up gradually. I’m frustrated that I haven’t done enough. And so much has been done already. In any discipline of art or science, if you knew how much has been done, you would stop working. It’s only because you have a compulsion, for no reason, you paint or draw…

How do you select your themes?

The landscape (in my paintings) is now contained in the human form. In the past, if this was the format (hands block spaces in the air), there were landscapes and smaller figures. What has happened in the last 18 years or so is that the human form has enlarged and occupied full space in the canvas and the landscape has been contained within.

When anybody does a Ganesh, Shiva or Parvati, he is representing iconographic codification or simplifying it. When I paint a human form, I try to give it an attitude of charge or energy. Because my paintings are only bare human forms. They are not clothed. They are not naked. There’s no locale. There’s no architecture. There’s no vegetation around it. Just the minimal human body.

What’s the impetus for your art? Are you conscious of any outside influences?

When I paint a human form, why should I be influenced by a painter who is painting human forms? Why not by human beings themselves? It is a wrong notion that an artist has to be influenced by another artist. My experiences are also derived from theatre, music, dance, painting and poetry… and cobblers and basketry-makers.

There are many persons you have been carrying around with you to your bed or to your house. I don’t know much about how work evolves, but I do know some aspect of it ~ from eating, from drinking, from gardening, from making love, from taking a walk or from being concerned with other people or picking up the suitcase of an old lady who can’t carry it…

My work has evolved in different directions within the main current. I have not yet exhausted that direction. When I do, whether the public like it or not, I will go on to another. But I will go naturally; I will not force myself. Each canvas differs in terms of handling. But they are not very different because I am the same person. I have the same expertise in my fingers, in my muscles.

Now, I look back and find different rhythms at different periods. This rhythm is unknown to the artist and (vehemently) I don’t want to find out. It is not necessary. Believe me, all this analysis is meaningless… I don’t know my work fully well. By indirect observation, I find I am pre-occupied with the human predicament or charge and energy, that is the governing pivot around which the human being lives.

How important is technique to you?

I believe every medium has innumerable possibilities. It is the journey of the artist, what he or she discovers. The technique is just a vehicle. It’s your mind, the spiritual content of your work that’s important. Technique is not important, but the whole of the western world is caught up with the innovation of newer techniques for the sake of newness.

I am open and willing to try different mediums or techniques if I can make them my own, to say what I want to say.

Is this business of exhibitions important to you?

When I exhibit, it is a fraction of the total body of my work in the studio. The total body of studio work is a fraction of my total thinking. So, it is a fractional thing you are seeing. On the other hand, there are many paintings you may have in your mind that you just cancel in your mind. You never do them. How about that?

One is caught up in the vulgarity and basic dichotomy of modern living. I’m not living in the Himalayas and I’m not being looked after by society and the state. I paint and I sign on my paintings.(Furiously)  One has imbibed the western manifestations of a gallery and museum and selling and cataloguing and all that nonsense which, personally, I don’t believe in but, for my own survival, I have to be a part of.

When I paint, nothing matters. But it is also human that I should like people to see my work. I would like my work to be sold and written about, but I’m not ambitious at any cost.

How do you feel about the morality of selling paintings?

Everybody has to sell their commodity to survive. The only difference is I am not selling my soul. I am not making sweet, romantic Indian landscapes for foreigners and Indians to buy, those who will match their curtains and carpets with my paintings. My paintings pose a great problem for people to buy because they are stark and confront you. If you have one in your house, it will demand your attention. You can’t ignore it as a wall hanging.

I have given away my work free to very close friends. I have sold my work at half-price or in installments. Sometimes, I don’t sell or show a work to some people. (Sadly) But I have also learnt a lesson. I have given away drawings that are still rolled up or left on a shelf.

Now, I even want to price my lovely brochures nominally, so that you won’t throw them away. This is the modern situation. I am not living in the 18^th century or the 6^th century or whatever…

How do you relate to your viewing public?

Intellectual understanding is a nonsensical thing, a false western attitude. What is important is exposure and familiarity, not understanding.

In 1976, I was taking my drawings to the Kumar Gallery in Delhi in an autorickshaw for an exhibition. The rickshawallah said: “What are these? Can I see?” So, I took him along before the opening and he went around. He said, “It’s the first time I’m looking at such work.” And in his own simple Hindi, he realized that the figures were tense and full of energy.

Let me give you another situation. I was holding a show in England. People arrived. Just before entering the gallery, they asked me, “Are you a cubist? Are you an expressionist?” They want to term me, to place me. It’s like westerners expecting Indians to be snake-charmers or elephant-riders or, maximum, painters of miniatures and temple sculptors. (Indignantly) They are not ready to accept that contemporary Indian art exists.

How important is art education?

Our total education system is faulty. The British made a hotchpotch of it to churn out clerks, not to educate people. Schools and colleges should be centres where you are longing to go, to learn. The bridge between school and home and society, between art and science, should be deeply embedded in the system. All the allied arts ~ tribal, classical, folk, contemporary ~ should be shown to children at the primary level without force.

What is the point of going to Ikebana classes for a young, sophisticated lady who does not even water her plants at home? We are aping the superficial western world of the 1930s and 1940s. The government is doing nothing to curb video games. They don’t realise it will create generations with all kinds of aggression. It is vulgar. (With agitation) These days, people are buying real-looking plastic pistols for their children!

Does the art critic have a major role to play in the Indian context?

It is his role to bridge the gap between the artist and the viewer or listener, to put himself in the shoes of the artist and find his pulse. He should be educated, sensitive, ready, willing to travel with the artist. He should start out with humility, not with arrogance. Only if you have artists do the historian and the critic and the buyer and the onlooker come in.

The critic’s role is also to go in search of the artist. His personal viewpoint is of no consequence. He should be so enlightened that his personal viewpoint becomes a total viewpoint with a knowledge of the art world, the art situation, the social surroundings in which the artist lives.

Is there more that you’d like to share of yourself?

Sometimes, I’m so frustrated by my own situation that I feel I should give up painting and go and work in a village. But I’m not cynical. I still have the energy to bulldoze or fight. Or dash off a letter to the (Lalit Kala) Akademi or to the government blindly, to register my protest.

I’m concerned about everything. I go and spy if someone is beating up a child. My friends complain that I indulge too much, dissipating energy. That’s how I am and it’s too late in the day to change.

I’m also very impatient ~ not scared ~ that time is running out. There is so much one is capable of, that one hasn’t done. So much one wants to do that one hasn’t done…

(Originally published in Indian Express, Chennai/ Madras, in September 1983)