Art: Altaf and Navjot ~ Leaning left, painting right

 (I did this interview in Bangalore in 1997)

Altaf

IT SEEMED like a puzzle to begin with. Jigsaw-like groups of small canvases linked thematically, titled Workers or The Landscape or Behind the Curtain or The Life-death and so on. A maze of picture-sentences, their alphabets in constant evolution. It made sense, until the eye stopped at blank, black spaces at random corners. Was this part of the artist’s spatial overview, we wondered. Or had certain works been left behind at the recent showing at the Jehangir Art Gallery in Mumbai, where a massive single wall had been crammed with ‘works in small format,’ over 200 of them, like a never-ending pan shot or a panoramic roll of thoughts, not an everyday art show?

“It’s just that some of those smaller works were sold at the Jehangir. And the buyers didn’t want to wait until the show travelled from there to Delhi (in late February) and then back,” explains Altaf, the Marxist thinker as artist, whose works were recently on view at the Sakshi Gallery in Bangalore. And he laughs. A sound that ripples through the air. Through the exhibition space and into the ether beyond.

Navjot

For ideas permeating the ether warm Altaf’s world. As does the parry and thrust of dialectics. Both come naturally to Altaf and Navjot, coupled together by art and marriage, committed to the path of leftist doctrine, following its dictates in both their personal and artistic lives. They have worked with Ekta as artists grouped against communalism in the riot-torn Bombay of 1993, shown their work to aid the Latur earthquake victims, been active with the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust and youth groups like Proyom (Progressive Youth Movement), a cultural group which had students and teachers from various colleges and universities, including artists, writers and poets to raise questions concerning political and cultural issues in the early 1970s and to mobilize the youth. They took their work to schools, colleges and slums through Proyom.

In a bid to demystify the elitist world of contemporary art, Altaf ~ who studied art in London in the early 1960s ~ has taught art and done landmark projects with the socially disadvantaged children of the New Habib High School in Bombay’s Bhendi Bazaar, including a ‘History of India through the Arts,’ covering 1,000 paintings in 1982. Equally committed to exploring new horizons, Navjot ~ a product of the Sir J J School of Art in Bombay ~ has been involved with various similar activities and will soon be interacting  with Adivasi artists working in wood at Kondagaon in the Bastar district of central India to question and understand the stereotypical notions of art and craft. Later, their creative output will be exhibited side by side, to be viewed as contemporary, at both informal and gallery spaces.

Painting by Altaf

 

Navjot is sparkling and spontaneous, willing to engage herself with activities to cast aside social shackles. Softly but firmly, she makes her point. Altaf, gentle and affable, is defined by his ideological stances, accepting obvious contradictions as reality.

What does their leftist ideology mean to them? How does it shape them? At what cost? Has it affected their artistic success? A freewheeling recent conversation while they were in Bangalore offers an overview of this artistic puzzle. Here are excerpts from the interaction:

There is a popular notion of artists as faraway creatures, quietly at work in their studios. But artists are an intrinsic part of society, aren’t they?

Altaf: Any artist working today has to be a part of the reality they are interacting with. After all, they are interpreting imagery that is based on a part of their environment. It would be terrible if the artist was isolated from this reality. Initially, I react in a very subjective way when I’m trying to interpret that onto my canvas. Later, I try as far as possible to objectify that reality so that I can communicate with a much larger audience.

Art by Navjot

Navjot: Artists are intellectuals.  Their political positions are reflected in their works and actions. They like to associate themselves with thinkers from other disciplines. The common man may feel that artists are above the masses, but they are a part of it. They cannot close themselves in ivory towers to create if they choose to take positions, to side with the marginalized and neglected sections of society.

How does that apply in terms of real life events and your work?

Navjot: Consciously, I attempt to make statements about issues and events that affect the progressive political perspective, both as a social and creative being. As I have said earlier, a creative person with a conscious political stand does not want to escape certain responsibilities, and constantly tries to speak through his or her work.

After the 1993 riots, this myth or belief about Bombay being a cosmopolitan city was shattered. Rightwing fundamentalists instigated the riots and then, under the guise of communal tension, builders and the underworld took advantage to grab prime land by destroying certain slums and the properties of the minority community who had been living in the city for generations. I believe it is only when people speak critically about such events that it makes a difference.

You will be amazed to know how active certain organizations and Bombayites were in organizing relief work for the affected. Artists joined in peace marches. SAHMAT organized a Kabirvani and street theatre. We got together to paint a 100-foot canvas at Marine Lines. It’s important that people speak their minds, rather than keeping quiet. It has happened throughout history. Intellectuals have taken up political or critical positions all over the world. Take Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, for example.

Altaf: Sartre and Beauvoir had a critical commentary, but there were other intellectuals in France at that time who felt they should not get involved in something alienated from their field. Similarly, in India, we have intellectuals who do not want to get involved in issues, though committed people do. ‘Intellectual,’ I think, is a bad word. We should say committed thinkers or artists.

Navjot: Since creative people ~ like writers, poets and painters ~ are normally self-employed, they can speak about issues more freely than those who choose to work with the establishment. But it’s not that the masses cannot take a position.

To what degree have these commitments affected your art?

Altaf: When I was studying art in London, we didn’t recognise political consciousness as part of a creative process. We thought of it as something separate, not interconnected. It was only when I started working in a factory in London after my father discontinued my allowance that I met a group of young Marxists ~ Pakistanis, Indians, Sinhalese, East Pakistanis (there was no Bangladesh then). Another student, who was secretary of the Young Communist League, influenced me a lot.

When I returned to India around 1967, there was fantastic turmoil ~ the student movement, the Naxalbari movement, political waves because young people wanted to change a lot of things. On my return, I also met some university professors and students. We had study groups and talked about the left movement in general.

I was painting, but not as much as I would have otherwise. I was confused. I was questioning the whole importance of the act of painting when the social and political situation was in such a flux. It was inevitable that my paintings showed a strong political bias ~ workers, strikes and factories; the contradictions between the management and the workers. Very graphic interpretations. I think, over the years, these have become more subtle. Besides, there are personal and social problems ~ the contradictions a person with my background faces, the alienation we feel as individuals. My art took on a more social context, but the political context has always been there. Only, now I don’t do what would be called Marxist paintings, but I do paint with a Marxist consciousness. I think another artist would tend to look at the same themes very differently.

Painting by Altaf

Navjot: At art school, we were not encouraged to associate ourselves with any political groups or to take strong positions, but my introduction to Marxist philosophy through Altaf at this stage made me aware of the function and relevance of the arts in a society. I had been brought up with the Sufi and Kabir kind of values of humanism, which speak of how to be a good human being by drawing from different religious and cultural values. But it did not really deal with caste or class issues. Marxism has taught me to question, analyse and look at situations in relation to one another.

Like Altaf said about the Marxist consciousness, within that one is constantly questioning. When one has a perspective, one has a clarity about what one wants, which helps in making decisions concerning one’s art practice as well.

In India today, there’s an open debate about art as commerce. It’s often a question of spiralling prices or which names sell. Has your ideology affected you in the art market?

Navjot: Should one say that such art does not sell because in its content it is critical of the establishment and lots of people may have problems with it? Or that works which are non-political in their content do well in the market?

Many of my paintings, which have been sold for high prices, deal critically with political issues. What does affect sales is when collectors feel that a work does not have a resale value ~ such as installation art, video art or art made of fragile or unconventional materials. It is true that many artists who have had strong political stands have had their paintings sell very well but have received little support, after making shifts in their art practices. I have been confronting this problem since I shifted to installation art.

Altaf: Artists have to deal with this contradiction because we all, after all, live in a semi-capitalistic society. We would still like to operate within an organised system, which is controlled by the very people we are critical of. So, this contradiction is part of our struggle as painters.

You are right in saying that art collecting has become a fad. Art collecting has become a social status symbol. But I’d like to believe that there are certain collectors who, in spite of paintings which they find critical of them, look at it in terms of how seriously the artist is working, how deep his commitment is, or how the artist has grown. They’re now looking at artists very differently from what they did ten years ago. That’s a positive thing among the negative things that have happened.

Negative? For instance, artists have gone into status consciousness ~ I mean all of us have ~ thus losing sight of trying to objectively evaluate ourselves. Of course, after the (much-hyped art) auctions, a completely superficial market came up. Many artists got carried away. They put artificial prices to their works, taking advantage of the situation. The young artists especially became so aware of the good market value that, though they’re very talented, their questioning was on a different level ~ like making a good catalogue, rather than the issues they needed to deal with themselves. Now that the market has settled down, I think artists will again start thinking about the issues they need to.

In the Indian context, artists have to be a part of the existing social system. If you could redefine the system your way, how would you do it?

Altaf: If artists didn’t have to work under these economic pressures, we could work on a more collective basis. That would be ideal. Today, everybody is so conscious of individuality, an idea that capitalism has brought in. Yet it is impossible to really be an individual in that we all borrow, take in influences. In society, it’s inevitable that we all interact with others. The Russian thinker Plekhanov said, ‘Art can only become really universal, it can only really go down to the people, when artists disappear.’  

But it was once like that. Look at our temples, our traditional sculptures, the miniature paintings. We don’t know these artists, who worked collectively to produce great works of art. I think capitalism brought in the notion of individuality because they wanted to marketize art. Even in the West, art was initially commissioned by the church or the nobles, usually a mural done on the ceiling or the walls. It’s interesting ~ only after art became a commodity did they start making works that could be transported from one place to another.

Today, we’re trying to follow the West. Many of our art critics and historians are very impressed by them. I think it’s good to categorise; that’s why we have a bio-data in each of our catalogues. To democratize art would be the ideal way, but I think we’re leaning more and more away, becoming more individualistic, more into ourselves.

Wouldn’t the democratization of art mean its popularization to an extent? Has it worked in your lives?

Altaf: On my return from London, I had the option of working in my brother-in-law’s factory or with children. Because of my ideological commitment, I chose the second. The schools I worked with were mostly from a very poor strata, in Bombay’s Bhendi Bazaar. I tried to make my students feel the importance of art in relation to their own reality, but I don’t think I had much success. Art wasn’t really a subject they had to pass. And they had too many other problems to cope with. So, we had fun. I even played cricket with them. But they did some amazing creative work.

Later, when I returned to the same school as a project officer, not an art teacher, I did three major projects in three years. The first was the most important ~ a history of India through the arts from 5000 BC to 1947, for which I collected 1,000 paintings to show their importance visually as social, cultural and historical documents. Later, the State Education Ministry sent notice of it to all the schools in the locality and over 15,000 students saw the project.

Navjot: It’s a relevant point and we did try dealing with it in the 1970s by taking our works outside galleries through Proyom. But in the absence of any such art movement and support, it is very difficult to function on one’s own outside the gallery system, especially if one is showing paintings and sculptures. Also, since we have no real tradition of visiting galleries to see contemporary art, it becomes important to have more public spaces like the Jehangir in Bombay and Triveni in Delhi to generate interest in viewing art. 

Sculpture by Navjot

With the installation art I’m engaged with now, it is possible to move away since there is a relationship between the concept of the work and its place of production. So, no single site may be suitable for different installations by the same artist. I like the possibility of viewers’ participation in installation art. I had intended this with ‘Links Destroyed and Rediscovered,’ a collaborative work.

There’s also the issue of affordability…

Navjot: I personally dealt with this in the 1970s and 1980s. I did black-and-white drawings on Norway tracings to make silkscreen graphics. Signed prints were made available for Rs. 25 or 50 each, and students, journalists, teachers, artists could afford them. I remember buying a signed screen print by Vivan Sundaram for Rs. 5 in 1972 or 1973.

Artists still make good photographic works or xeroxed reproductions. People need to become aware that if they want a work of art, it does not really matter if it is a reproduction and not a canvas or a water-colour. I’d personally prefer to live with a good reproduction than without any work of art.

Has leftism, Marxism in particular, helped the artist community?

Navjot: Philosophy could help an artist to understand the nature of the social set-up that he or she lives in, and the function of art in its historical context. It helps one understand that nothing is static and change is inevitable. But in the context of art practice, the moment an artist problematizes his or her works, by taking risks in breaking away from the expected norms, he or she feels isolated. Philosophy can help analyze how an artist chooses to situate his or her practice. I believe that art lovers and supporters too need to educate themselves to understand the changing needs and shifts in art-making processes. Otherwise, there cannot be a parallel growth.

Has your political stance affected reviews of your work?

Navjot: Critics who understand my stance or believe in a dialogic process have been able to review my work from that perspective. Otherwise, you know what John Berger has said, ‘The way we see things is affected by what we know or what we believe in.’ And to look is an act of choice.

(Sunday Herald, Bangalore, 1997)

 

Poetry: Benjamin Zephaniah ~ From the Rasta road, with love

RANGA Shankara, Bangalore. March 17. Benjamin Zephaniah, the charismatic British performance poet, is on stage. A banner backdrop cues us in to him: “Poet. Prophet. Activist.” 

The dreadlocked Rastafarian of Jamaican origin offers dramatic poetry that seethes with politics. Every word connects with his concerns – the Iraq war, animal rights, the body beautiful and macho men, race, class and gender. Most deeply, a quest for co-existence and love for Planet Earth. In a trice, we all bond with him. No wonder he has been one of the British Council’s most popular cultural ambassadors since the 1980s, equally beloved in China and India, Fiji or Argentina, South Africa or Australia. Or even at schools across Britain.

On his twelfth Indian visit and fourth tour, Zephaniah touches Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Chennai and Kolkata, en route to Sri Lanka. He shies away from Queen’s English and pucca public school conformism. He celebrates the spoken word, the lively language of the British streets. What the spotlight misses is the secret Zephaniah. The one who learnt kalaripayittu near Kochi or is moved to tears because a feral cat in an English garden is put to sleep because it isn’t a pet!

Zephaniah was shortlisted for a fellowship at Cambridge University, and later for Oxford Professor of Poetry. His poem, “The London Breed,” has found a place of honour in the British Museum: “I love this concrete jungle still/ with all its sirens and its speed/ the people here united will create a kind of London breed.”

His journey to reluctant celebrity has been long and hard. A troubled childhood, dealing with a violent father in Handsworth, “the English capital of Jamaica.” Dropping out of school at 13, learning to read and write at night school at 21. “I got my education from travelling, from talking to people, debating and asking questions about their society. That really excites me. All these observations about life make fascinating poetry,” Zephaniah  says.

A far cry from Shakespeare or Shelley, who figure on his icon list, Zephaniah is “an equal opportunities poet.” His working class poetry is attuned to slavery, racism, bigotry, and every possible battle for justice.

What triggered his creativity? “I just love playing with words. When I heard people talking, I didn’t just hear the words, I heard the rhythm. I was surprised one day when somebody told me it was poetry. I didn’t know there was a word for it! My mother says I started doing poetry when I was about five years old, as soon as I was able to put words together,” Zephaniah recalls in an interview in Bangalore.

Taking in the current British performance poetry scene, embracing Asians, gays and lesbians alike, Zephaniah adds, “I create poetry to reach people, whether they are kids sleeping on the streets of Kolkata or those attending a literary seminar at Cambridge. Or friends from Jalandhar, who don’t even know I’m a poet. I play football with the kids there.”

He has vivid memories of poetic activism, though. Of reciting ‘Free South Africa’ at a rally in Trafalgar Square in front of South Africa House. It became a rallying cry against apartheid. “When another unpublished poem was chanted back to me by thousands of people, I remember thinking: It’s been published in their hearts. That’s the kind of publishing I’m interested in,” Zephaniah adds.

Yet, he has made the grade as a published poet including The Dread Affair (1985), Inna Liverpool (1990), Rasta Time in Palestine (1991), City Psalms (1992), Propa Propaganda (1996), and Too Black, Too Strong (2001). The exuberant non-conformist has edited The Bloomsbury Book of Love Poems (1999), and written three novels for teenagers.

Can an artist today be apolitical? “I think you could, but you’d be doing your art a disservice,” responds Zephaniah. “If there’s a platform available, black people would make a statement. Writing about the personal is probably what I haven’t done as much as I should have done. I feel people in Iraq or Sri Lanka are more important than me.”

What sets his poetry apart? Paraphrasing Nobel laureate Derek Walcott, the globe-trotter says, “When we Caribbean poets write, we always write with a voice in our heads. When we put it on the page, we’re trying to capture that voice. I think he extended that to Asian writers as well. It’s a poetry of sound. When you read it, I want you to hear it.”

A poet who is recognized in British TV studios, hotels or brand outlets, Zephaniah continues to be anti-establishment. He declined an Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2003. He even has refused to front a British police campaign to recruit a more multicultural force after constant trouble with ‘institutionalized racism.’

Today, with a flat in Beijing, and a country house in Lincolnshire, what makes him tick? “I’ve always been a very independent thinker. I once argued that paganism is the only true world religion,” Zephaniah says. “In the Eighties, I travelled to pilgrimage sites like Jerusalem and Jordan. I came away feeling close to god, but less religious. But I’m still an animal rights hardliner. I still won’t consume or wear anything from an animal. If they’re putting makeup on my face for a TV programme, I check that it’s not animal-tested.”

How does being British fuel his poetry? “I’m living in Britain. I’ve got Jamaican rhythms going around in my head. I’m listening to bhangra music. I practice martial arts like kung-fu. Before we start, we do Chinese chanting, play some Chinese music. I would be a brick if I wasn’t taking in all these influences,” he confesses.

In an introduction to Too Black, Too Strong, Zephaniah wrote, “I live in two places, Britain and the world, and it is my duty to explore the state of justice in both of them…  speaking my mind as I go, ranting, praising and criticizing everything that makes me what I am. But this is what Britain can do. It is probably one of the only places that can take an angry, illiterate, uneducated, ex-hustler, rebellious Rastafarian, and give him the opportunity to represent the country.”

That was the gift that Zephaniah bore to us in India. From the Rasta road, with love.

(Originally in The Week magazine, 2007)

Theatre: Naomi Ackerman ~ A word war against violence

Naomi Ackerman: `Art is a good way to social change.'

NAOMI Ackerman stands tall. Bright-eyed and alone on stage, she seems at once powerful and vulnerable. Both as an actress who transcends worlds beyond Israel, and as a woman whose heart embraces the family of mankind.

As U.S.-born, Tel Aviv-based Naomi unfolded her dramatic monologue on domestic violence — titled Flowers Aren't Enough — at the J.S.S. Auditorium on May 13 and the St. Joseph's Evening College auditorium the next day, she touched a universal chord across continents, generations, and cultures. With 600 shows in Israel, Australia, New Zealand, the U.S., India, and other locations behind her, it unravels the dilemma of young Michal, an ex-officer in the Israeli Army, the daughter of a wealthy family, a well-schooled woman, who finds herself trapped in an abusive relationship.

The crescendo and diminuendo of Naomi's powerhouse performance of Michal's story found resonance in every home where hands have been raised in violence, where voices have grown shrill with abuse, where relationships withstand heavy artillery. Originally commissioned by the Israeli Ministry of Welfare five years ago, based on encounters with the inmates of a women's shelter, the theatrical piece researched, scripted and performed by Naomi, has the impact of a blow to the solar plexus.

Naomi, a graduate of the Nissan Native Acting Studio, encompasses dimensions beyond the stage, beyond musicals, films, and television. For, she is a trained clown, street performer, and stilt-walker. And a mediator and conflict resolution specialist, who has held workshops for the Peres Centre for Peace.

"I believe strongly that art is a good way to social change," confesses Naomi. "I feel I've brought about more change with socially-charged productions than through the rallies I marched in when I was younger." 

Laughing, she adds: "In my frustrated days at not winning an Oscar or not living in Hollywood, I try to remember that what I do is what I believe in."

On earlier trips to India, Naomi attended the Mumbai International Film Festival with a documentary film about the Arab-Jewish group of actors she performed with. In January 2003, she performed for sex workers in Mumbai and a rural women's human rights group in Pune, an experience that made her weep. On her recent three-week tour through Baroda, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Chennai, Pondicherry, and Bangalore, sponsored by the Consulate-General of Israel in Mumbai and Chennai's Prakriti Foundation, her audience included hundreds of women sub-inspectors and garment factory workers in Chennai, women's groups and NGOs in Bangalore, besides theatre buffs.

Every hour-long show of Flowers Aren't Enough extends into a live exchange with the audience. In Chennai, a well-heeled woman spoke of her lawyer husband who tried to poison her while he plied her with diamonds and expensive cars, until she opted out to set up support centres for abused women. In a village outside Auroville, a woman wanted to tell her husband to stop beating her. Though empowered by the Women's Federation for Human Rights, she was scared. So, four of her women friends stood behind her as she spoke her mind. And he listened.

"That's so inspiring!" comments Naomi during an interview at The Park hotel in Bangalore, interlaced with both laughter and tears. "I would consider her one of my role models. More than any big writer or actress. Talking about women's issues in this village gave me a warm sensation of sisterhood. Perhaps it's also the fact that I'm pregnant. Everything is against them, yet somehow they're positive and happy. I'd like to incorporate some of their simplicity into my life. That encounter moved me to my core."

Excerpts from the conversation with Naomi Ackerman:

Do you still see your monologue as a work in progress because of the later exchanges?

Originally, the show was just 20 minutes long. For the first 50 shows, I was stretching it to make it deeper and wider. Often, someone sheds light on a dark area. I have the freedom to change it as I perform because I wrote it. I'm not less open now, but less quick to incorporate material into the show.

Did your work as a mediator help?

Being a mediator means basically you learn to listen. That enabled me to talk to these women in the shelter without judgment. I thought this could never happen to me. The biggest lesson was seeing myself in them.

Initially, I performed in all the Israeli jails. The men told me about their lives, their pressures. It made me realize that criticism about gender should be on both sides. Even men imbibe subtle messages about being strong and being providers, about making money. It's a societal issue.

How has the current tour impacted your life?

Outside Pondicherry, another woman explained to me that married women weren't supposed to dance. But she wanted to perform for International Womens' Day. So, a band of women said to her husband: "She is radiant when she dances. You should see her." He cried when he did. Then, he shopped for her costume. Their path to change is inspiring. It's without anger, without burning brassieres. They don't talk about divorce or the burdens of their lives. That's a path I would like to learn to walk down.

Any other cherished memories from interactions?

There was a sweet-faced Israeli woman who said to me: "You know, Naomi. That was me. I was the woman in your play. But I have to tell you my husband died five years ago of a heart attack, and I'm still afraid of him." To me, that's the essence of the cycle of violence.

Could you share a little about your workshops with children at risk?

I recently did a play in Israel with a group of Ethiopian Jewish girls, who suffer terrible racism mainly because of their dark skin. Those who come from broken homes are at risk to prostitution or drugs. 

Through theatre games, we created a safe environment where they could talk about school, their mothers, their pressures. We evolved a play about an Ethiopian-Israeli woman who's about to get an Oscar in Hollywood. She comes back to Israel to be interviewed by a local TV channel. Each question leads to a flashback in her life. Or rather, our lives.

Later, one of the girls said to me, "Naomi, if I can do this, I can do anything." Being on stage gives you so much self-confidence.

How did you experience Palestine as a woman?

I feel, especially with my Palestinian women friends, that if women were running this world, we would have had peace a long time ago. We don't agree about everything. But we try to share what is the same between us. We always say it's the women who'll bring about change because we're teaching the children. I don't want my children and my friend's children on the Palestinian side growing up into war or oppression or fear. 

(The Hindu Metroplus, Bangalore, 2003)

Music: Pete Seeger in real time

Seeger: 'We shall overcome...'

I first listened to Peter Seeger on a vinyl record as a teenager in Calcutta/ Kolkata. My Baba's best friend (whom we called Sadhan Kaka) had gone abroad with his family ~ and they left us some wonderful music on 33 1/3 r.p.m. discs until they returned from the UK. I was rivetted by the songs of protest and angst that Seeger, Woody Guthrie and others sang.

So, it was a really major thrill when, in 1996, Pete Seeger came to Bangalore, where I now live ~ and sang for us at the Guru Nanak Bhavan. Almost all of us in that audience sang along with him. It was an electrifying evening.

On the morning of that performance, I got lucky. I had an opportunity to interview Seeger. I'd like to share excerpts from that conversation with you.

 

Deep in my heart, I do believe…

‘This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender…’

ONCE Pete Seeger begins to strum on his banjo with this unusual inscription on it, he’s easy to believe. For his commitment is to the small things that make our world tick. And glow. And surrender its baser self. The little men. The unnoticed acts. The unsaid words. And all the tiny grains of sand that mould our shores, all the ripples that stir the ocean deep.

It could be when he’s singing in harmony with Arlo Guthrie, son of the legendary American troubadour Woody Guthrie, at the Royal Albert Hall in London over ten years ago in the hard-hitting ‘Presidential Rag’ with which Arlo rocked the Nixon administration over Watergate:

“You say that you didn’t know that the cats with the bugs were there

 And you’d never go along with that kind of stuff nowhere

But that just isn’t the point now, that’s the wrong, wrong way to go

If you didn’t know about that one, then what else don’t you know?”

Or when Seeger’s freewheeling voice, strongly harmonizing with his grandson Tao Rodriguez onstage at Bangalore’s Guru Nanak Bhavan on November 14, belts out a universal satire on politicians, ‘The Ross Perot Guide to Answering Embarrassing Questions,’ that makes you tap your toes, snap your fingers, and lend your voice in chorus: “I lie, I simply boldly falsify/ I look the other feller in the eye/ And just deny, deny, deny? I lie…”

Yes, the iconoclastic activist of the American 50s and 60s was recently in Bangalore as part of a four-city Indian tour that culminated in Calcutta, where the Rabindra Bharati University conferred a D.Litt. (Honoris Causa) degree on the pacifist folk artist who, in December 1963, captivated a Calcutta audience of nearly 15,000 at the peak of his popularity. That’s when Pete Seeger had reluctantly been granted a passport by the US authorities after being on radio and TV blacklists across the land of milk and honey for 17 years for his championing of the unions, the downtrodden and the leftists. So, he and his wife Toshi Aline took their two children out of school for a year, and showed them the shape their world was in. This time round, at 77, his grassroots wisdom undimmed by age, Pete Seeger looks the world in the eye, whether he’s addressing a press conference at a Bangalore hotel or doing a jig across the stage to a children’s ditty at the sing-along concert.

Pete Seeger, whose reputation as a Sixties songwriter rests on words sung my millions globally, popularized by such voices as Trini Lopez, The Seekers and the Kingston Trio, is still comfortable with his compositions ~ Where have all the flowers gone, If I had a hammer, and Turn Turn Turn, among them. ‘Where have all the flowers gone’ ~ later the title of Seeger’s musical autobiography ~ was originally a Cossack soldier’s song he chanced upon in Mikhail Sholokov’s And Quiet Flows the Don, to which he added two telling phrases: ‘Long time passing’ and ‘When will they ever learn?’ Even today, the words and melodies of his timeless paeans to simplicity, his chants of decency and equality, trip easy off the tongue.

Seeger live: 'If I had a hammer....'

But has the never-say-die high priest of the American protest song ~ tutored by Woody Guthrie and Huddie ‘Leadbelly’ Ledbetter, revered by Bob Dylan and Joan Baez ~ been mellowed by the Clinton administration’s conferring of the National Medal of Arts on him at the Kennedy centre in 1994? He laughs at the very idea. For you can’t expect Pete Seeger to conform at any age, not since he dropped out of Harvard University in 1938 to hit the folk trail in America with a banjo on his shoulder and a dream in his heart. He overcame odds to become a researcher at the archives of American Folk Music at the Library of Congress in Washington DC. But you can’t quite stall a rolling stone, can you? By 1941, his group, The Almanac Singers, were touring America in support of the rights of working people. But World War II and a stint in the US army in the Pacific zone intervened. His vocal quartet, The Weavers, formed in 1949, soon struck recording gold ~ and fuelled the great American folk revival of the Fifties and Sixties.

But in the darker times ahead, in the thick of the McCarthy witch-hunt against the radical left, Seeger was summoned before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, defied them in song, and was sentenced to a year in jail. But higher courts granted him a reprieve. He was soon a free man.

Uncowed, Seeger continued to voice his commitment musically to causes that made his world turn, turn, turn. Imagine the Sixties in America. The Vietnam war. The student turmoil on campus. Rev. Martin Luther King’s civil rights rallies. And the powerful strains of Seeger singing for each cause he championed. At one of these massive gatherings, Seeger took an obscure Afro-American hymn written in 1903 and turned it into an international anthem for freedom. All he did was to replace the words “I shall overcome” in the original with “We shall overcome.” The rest is history, sung by voices attuned to the hammer of justice, the bell of freedom, and songs about love among all people.

Seeger:; 'Where have all the flowers gone?'

This non-conformist crusader, who brooks no cant and can still hold the high notes, already has 170 albums and 1,700 songs to his credit. “You know,” he chuckles, “every time a radio station plays one of my songs, we get a penny in royalties. We aren’t exactly rich, but we are doing OK.”

Labels sit loosely on him, cubbyholes are an uncomfortable fit. For Seeger never has ploughed a trodden furrow, whether termed a commie, a leftist, an organizer, a guru. Or even a folk singer. “Strictly speaking, I’m not a folk singer,” he reiterates. “People singing the blues are, people singing gospel songs are. There are 4,000 different languages in the world, I believe, and as many different kinds of folk songs. To my mind, real folk music is at home in the kitchen. Or with the mother singing to a child.”

And he sings out his definitions even louder and clearer with a chuckle, “When the Smithsonian Institute brought out the record, The American Folk Song Revival, they found that the same song might have been a pop song at once point in history, or it may have been a folk song. Once everything goes commercial, a folk song handed down from guitar-picker to guitar-picker could become a pop song!... As for me, I sing some old songs, some new ones. Actually, more than singing, my main work has been in writing. In my recent book, I point out that in most of my songs, I borrowed a melody here, I took some words and changed them or added to them. So, I’m proud to have been a part of this folk process.”

In tune with all the answers that are blowing in the wind, does Seeger ~ who was keen to inspect the Ganga project after mobilizing support for a cleaner Hudson River, on whose banks he’s lived for years ~ see room for hope? “I ask you all. Did you expect the Pentagon to leave Vietnam the way it did,” he quips. “And did you expect Nixon to leave the way he did, after Watergate? Did you expect the Berlin Wall to come down as peacefully as it did? Or did you expect to see Mandela as president of South Africa? Well, if you could not predict those with confidence, how can you say there’s no hope?”

In an open pre-tour letter to friends in India, Seeger had written: “With my grandson Tao to help me (he takes the lead on many songs ~ my voice is 50 per cent gone), I am trying to tell a story of how some of us keep hope for the world.”

The prosecution of Pete Seeger: PBS documentary

Yes, every tiny voice, every little mite, every signal of quiet amidst disquiet counts in Seeger’s world. He spontaneously enchants us with a song about the vagaries of the English language, its lyrics packing both a punch and a pun. As you strum along, hum along, sing along with Seeger, you agree with the optimistic balladeer that seeds of peace can sprout amidst weeds of war, nurturing causes he now holds dear, such as universal literacy, population control, and a pollution-free world. Here’s evidence in excerpts from an interview in Bangalore, in which Seeger rejects rhetoric for honesty with a twinkle in his eye, a lilt in his voice and, often enough, a song on his lips:

What made you write your first songs? And what sparks your songs now?

Well, as a kid, I wrote poems…I’ve never really thought of myself as a songwriter. I wish I were. People like Bob Dylan and Phil Oakes write song after song. I’m lucky if I get one song written a year. Two or three maybe. I guess I’m better with tunes than words.

My grandson Tao and I were trying out the idea for a song. I love to eat sweets and, if I don’t watch out, my belt won’t buckle. So, our song’s about “Shrinking is progress”… Well, the whole world’s full of human beings and they’re doubling every 42 years. One of these days (chuckling), we’ll realize that shrinking is progress.

Have you done songs about the population boom?

I’ve tried to do one. It’s not a very good one. (Tapping on his knees to keep the beat). It goes like this:

We’ll all be a-doubling, a-doubling, a-doubling

We’ll all be a-doubling in 42 years

2 and 2 makes 4, 2 times 4 is 8,

2 times 8 is 16,

And the hour is getting late…

Double ten more generations

You could have children more than a million

Double just another 20 generations

You could have children more than a trillion…

Incidentally, have people in India ever heard of Nechai Viravaidyn of Bangkok? If somebody in Bangkok wants to buy a condom, they ask for a Nechai. He’s become the television personality of family planning. He holds balloon contests, he has jokes of all sorts, he hands out prizes to taxi drivers who sell condoms. He’s even persuaded the Thai government to hand out agricultural and family planning information together. So, when a farmer comes to get seeds, he gets the message: To be a prosperous farmer, you don’t neeed a lot of sons… 

What was it like to share special moments with Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly?

Well, (the commanding black troubadour) Leadbelly was older than I. I was 22 when we met, he was in his 50s. I think he was kind of amused to see a young white boy trying to learn his music, the blues. But we did end up giving concerts together. Tragically, he died six months before his song, Goodnight Irene, became the biggest hit of 1950.

To Woody, too, I must have seemed like a strange kid. He once said: “Seeger doesn’t smoke, he doesn’t drink, he doesn’t chase girls…” But he must have liked my banjo playing, so he allowed me to tag along with him. We sang for over two years before World War II. Then we started a little organization called Peoples’ Songs. It eventually became a magazine called Sing Out, which was eight pages then, now it’s nearly 200. Woody would be surprised! We print Jewish and American Indian folk songs. Bob Dylan’s and Phil Oakes’ songs… I’ve had a column in the magazine for 50 years now.

Seeger: 'Waist-deep in the big muddy'

Is your column about the causes you sing about?

I’d say our main cause is to persuade people to turn off the TV and do something themselves. I wish every TV set had a message on it: “Life was meant to be lived, not to watch other people live.’

I’m really interested in the literacy programme in India, especially in Kerala. Not just me. There’s a 16-year-old Brazilian boy I met in New Delhi, Alexander Ferraz Tabor, who’s a computer freak. We came up with a plan. We’re going to try and persuade computer companies to give prizes to any village that can show it is 100 per cent literate. If all the old people, young people, men and women can read 30 words a minute, the village will get a prize. A computer! Then, everybody in the world will learn to read and write. 

Now, I have a question. Do they have to know English to use a computer? Or can they use it in their own language?

That’s possible in a number of Indian languages…

Maybe we should reach Sam Pitroda, who got a telephone to every Indian village… Alexander’s on the Internet. He just might be able to pull together young people in different countries. It could become a world movement (Enthusiastically) If any of your readers pick up the idea, they could get in touch with Alexander…

Do you sense a song brewing about it?

Perhaps someone here should make up a song. There’s a great temptation to say you have to be rich and powerful to do anything. (Fervently) One of my main purposes in life is to persuade people that’s not true.

You know, when Woody wrote his song This land is my land, this land is your land, it wasn’t published until years later. But it went from guitar-picker to guitar-picker until the whole country knows it now. It’s almost one of the best-known songs in America, but it was never promoted by a big company, it never made a lot of money. It did get him into the school songbooks, which helped. It got into summer camps, into little churches, and people like me took it around and got the crowd singing. Woody had the genius of simplicity. While a lot of people writing songs have too many words, he knew how to use few words to hit the nail on the head. That’s not easy.

What was it like to hit the folk music trail in 1938, when you opted out of Harvard?

I could have been killed a couple of times. I was trying to ride the freight trains without knowing how, but I survived and I saw my country without having money. I’d advise young people to travel when they’re young. It’s very hard to travel when you have a family.

My wife Toshi really is a heroine for the family. She kept them together while I was all over the country. One year, I was away 75 per cent of the time, traveling.

Did your experiences while traveling chime in with the ideas you set out with?

Sure, I discovered that working people may speak different languages and have different religions, but their interests are basically the same. Marx was right: “Workers of the world, unite!’

But ‘unite’ is an over-simplification, perhaps like most words are. My father, who was a musicologist, used to say: “Beware the lingocentric predicament!’ Ever hear of that? Well, the ethnocentric predicament is an anthropological term to explain why you never understand another culture because you’re always looking at it through your own value system. People who use words should remember that no two people attach the same exact meaning to a word. Obviously a house is not the same to an Eskimo as to a Hawaiian, or to a rich man and a poor man. And words like freedom, democracy, liberty and folk music all mean different things to different people.

If I was a better songwriter, I’d write a song about over-simplification. It reminds me of my father, who said, ‘Truth is a rabbit in a bramble patch.’ You circle around it, but you can’t actually put your finger on it.

How did your music contribute to the success of the Hudson River project?

I encouraged other musicians, hundreds of them, to come along, including jazz musicians, blue singers, gospel musicians. My grandson Tao is just one of them. He keeps singing on our sailboat, The Clearwater, to up to 15,000 children a year, whom he ferries up and down. (Energetically) About one-third of the money comes from rich people, but two-thirds comes from concerts and festivals.

What about your concert for the Seeds of Peace project for a Middle Eastern children’s summer camp in New York?

It all began some ten years ago when some peace-loving Jews met some peace-loving Arabs. The Arabs went to Syria or Jordan, the Jews went to Tel Aviv, where they met some kids longing to come to this camp. So, they raised the funds and crossed the ocean. Can you imagine the big job these kids (between 11 and 16) have when they get home: “You mean you slept in the same room as an enemy?”

Does it feel strange for an anti-establishment person like you to be recognized by the US government?

Yes, (laughing aloud), hilarious!

Did you ever toy with the idea of declining the award?

Well, I never expected it all to happen. Six years ago a businessman in California, who liked my music, wrote to me: ‘I think you should get a Kennedy award. Would you accept it?’ I wrote back: ‘Yes, I would.’ I never thought it would come to be. I finally met him at the Kennedy Centre banquet hall and asked, “How many letters did you have to write?” He said, “Over 300. My secretary wrote them.” I said, “Then your secretary should be here.” One of his letters reached the movie actor Gregory Peck, who agreed: ‘Seeger may be a radical, but he’s had some influence.’ (Chuckling). And so it went, until finally the committee thought: Yeah, we could get away with it.

Looking around, do you sense breezes of hope?

Yes, there’ve been lots of little victories. The Hudson River was one of them. We’re swimming in it again. About 30 years ago, swimming in the Hudson was like swimming in a toilet bowl. We’re still working on New York City.

I tell people: If there’s a world in a 100 years, it will not be ~ to my belief ~ because of any big organization, any big government, any big church, any big university, any big corporation or anything! It will be there because of tens of millions, for all I know hundreds of millions, of little organizations. Small businesses, small churches, small educational institutions, small publications, small media, small political parties. And we’ll disagree about so many things, (grinning) it’ll be hilarious! But we’ll agree about two main things. It’s better to talk than to shoot, right? And bombs always kill innocent people. Whether it’s bacteriological or chemical warfare, the victims are always innocent women and children.

When words fail, and they will fail from time to time, well… I say: try the arts, pictures, melodies, rhythms, dancing.

You know, there are rather better banjo players in the world than me, but I always claim I make the best strawberry shortcake. (Shares the secret recipe with the rhythmic flurry of an action song, smiling through).

(Originally published in Sunday Herald, December 15, 1996)