Books: Bhajju Shyam/ The ex-empire bites back

'A plane taking off is as much of a miracle as an elephant flying...'

ORDINARY phrases cannot quite sum up the charm of Bhajju Shyam. It seems unfair to describe his adventures in London as those of an innocent in wonderland. Or to paraphrase his take on the British capital across the urban-rural global divide. Or to negotiate his unusual vision of western mores as the quirky insights of a Gond tribal artist from Madhya Pradesh.

Bhajju’s first publication, “The London Jungle Book,” co-published by Chennai-based Tara Publishing and the Museum of London, was released at Barista’s on St. Mark’s Road on March 5, courtesy the British Council.

His very individualistic travelogue brilliantly recreates Bhajju’s first trip abroad in 2002 to paint traditional Gond panels at London’s Masala Zone restaurant over two months with fellow adivasi painter Ram Singh Urvethi, at the instance of cultural czar Rajeev Sethi. While Bhajju’s interpretative visuals are stunning, his narrative ~ fine-tuned by Tara’s Sirish Rao and Gita Wolf ~ is deeply autobiographical.  

On 33-year-old Bhajju’s pages, London becomes a brilliant bestiary. He interprets Big Ben as a rooster, the Gond symbol for time. His complex emotions at leaving his village of Patangarh are rendered as a sad-happy face, whose banyan-like strands of hair connect with culture-specific images like a mango for food, a porcupine to ward off the evil eye, or a cart loaded with life’s essentials. The black-clad London crowds who disappear into pubs each evening are interpreted as bats.

Even a random sampling captures this wide-eyed traveler’s zest for the experience. Under a picture of an ornate blue-grey elephant in flight, Bhajju writes, “The heaviest animal I have ever seen is an elephant. So that is the creature that came to my mind when I painted the plane. A plane taking off is as much of a miracle as an elephant flying. I have put the trees upside-down in the sky, and the clouds below, because flying turned my world upside down.”

Speaking in Hindi, Bhajju later explains during an interview at Hotel Grand Ashok, “I’ve only painted in my village on festive or ritual occasions. When I didn’t earn enough, I even worked as a security guard. At Patangarh, we work mainly with four natural pigments. But now, I use so many acrylic colours.”

It was during a Tara-sparked 2003 illustrators’ workshop at Dakshinachitra, outside Chennai, that the publishers first shared Bhajju’s London experience. Over three months, the book finally took shape, a giant leap from his inherited visual vocabulary.

Pointing to a tongue-in-cheek self-portrait in orange legwear and fluorescent headgear, a black (very British) brolly in hand, Bhajju says, “Here, I see myself as a Londoner on my first trip. But when I went back in November 2004 for the book release at the Museum of London, there was less wonder in that journey.” 

“I got tired of telling my London stories to the proud Patangarh villagers,” smiles Bhajju. “Instead of the traditional Gond bard or bhujrukh, suddenly everyone ~ even the elders ~ wanted to listen to me. I’m a villager who has traveled, but I know Patangarh is where I’ll always belong. My parampara, my inheritance, is important to me.”

How does Bhajju feel about his book’s Italian and Dutch translations?  Or the ongoing nine-month traveling UK exhibition of his art? “How could I dream that my book would be so well-received? You know, there was an English lady in a wheelchair who would visit the exhibition every day?” exclaims Bhajju.

In Chennai, Tara is already engaged with his second visual book ~ of fantastical creatures created in his inimitable vein. And from March 8, an exhibition of Bhajju’s drawings about the reach of radio, done for the BBC, will tour Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand.

Bhajju’s book raises core issues within the visual debate. Is the contemporary-folk schism widening? Are we re-tribalizing these artists by limiting their reach? How do we gauge authenticity and ethnicity? Iconic crafts interpreter Jyotindra Jain brought these into focus at the launch.

Last century, English anthropologist Verrier Elwin married a Gond and settled among them. Today, as Bhajju observed to his Tara editors, “Elwin sahib wrote about my tribe; now it is my turn to write about his!” A case of tilting scales? Or one in which the former empire bites back?

(The Hindu Metroplus, Bangalore, March 2005)

Books for Children: 'We are all Born Free: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Pictures'

We Are All Born Free The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Pictures Publishers: Tara Books (with Amnesty International) Price: Rs 240

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights lies forgotten today, shrouded in the mists of time, blurred by 9/11 and 26/11, by the Iraq war and communal disharmony, by famine and exploitation. It was published by the United Nations as far back as 1948, when World War II ended.

This interpretation in pictures and simplified text reminds us of the fine print of humankind, beyond History or Civics lessons. Of the forests and oceans that are mankind’s legacy. Of the right to breathe and be joyous that belongs to us as it does to those in PoW camps and in prisons, to those who are variously challenged or live in physically impoverished conditions. For we are all born free.

Addressed mainly to children (or to the child within each adult), Tara Books has published this magical edition in tandem with Amnesty International. It arrived in 2008, when hundreds of children died in Gaza, when Barack Obama was elected US President, when recession hit the global economy — and hard!

We live in a time when communication is almost instantaneous, via sms, email, podcasts, Youtube, blogs and other tech-enabled routes. Our information is increasingly visual, more potent than mere words can ever be.

We now accept that the global is local, as we struggle to find our increasingly invisible roots. This book, with 30 basic rights illustrated brilliantly by acclaimed artists from Australia, Brazil, Sweden, South Africa, Canada and South Korea and so on, socks us in the solar plexus. For we’ve drifted worlds away.

Flipping randomly, a child appears asleep under a comforter, with toys scattered all around, in a delicate watercolour by Argentina-born, Spain-based Gusti. The image represents Article 12: “Nobody should try to harm our good name. Nobody has the right to come into our home, open our letters, or bother us, or our family without a good reason.”

This child-friendly rendition by Amnesty International is framed by an introduction and educator’s notes by Gita Wolf and V. Geetha of Tara. They point out: “In the Indian context, where children routinely hear news of pavement dwellers being evicted or slums demolished, this Article assumes importance — it helps children understand that rich or poor, everyone has the right to the safety and protection of a proper home; and that whoever harms them, even if they are powerful people, are doing wrong.”

Visually vital, this book could bridge the generation gap. Through learning to read the pictures, perhaps with guidance, children could explore issues such as untouchability, child labour or gender rights. Or free expression or the role of governments.

By degrees, adult and child alike could step into a larger minefield of ideas, such as the right to be a citizen of a country or to seek refuge elsewhere.

Or to choose our own friends or hold religious/ political beliefs. For instance, a lyrical painting of babies in prams, elderly folks on a park bench, a young man in a wheelchair by Swedish artist Brita Granstrom reminds us: “We all have the right to a good life. Mothers and children and people who are old, unemployed or disabled have the right to be cared for.”

Another dramatic black, brown and red graphic scene with silhouetted figures by brilliant Brazilian Fernando Vilela drives home this: “If we are put on trial, this should be in public. The people who try us should not let anyone tell them what to do.”

A large green dragon by Briton Chris Riddell somehow sums it all up: “There must be proper order so we can all enjoy rights and freedoms in our own country and all over the world.”

Are we talking of a new global order? More, perhaps. Our world has been deconstructed, then reconstructed by wars and politics since 1948. These rights, once upheld as inviolable, have been violated repeatedly. That’s why a reminder of what we bequeath to our children today seems invaluable.

As the editors point out, “Articles are fundamental values which we need to defend for the common good. They may have to do with individuals, but we also need to defend them in the common interest. They are worth struggling and fighting for, because they grant us dignity, and tell us how we may relate to other people and learn to live with them.”

Documented 60 years ago, these rights spell out the difference between the world as it is, and the world as it should be. Perhaps we have forgotten that we can recognise ourselves in each other. These pages — whether quirky, comic, subtle or graphic in their images — remind us of promises being made to the next generation. As responsible adults, as parents, as teachers, our time starts now.

(Originally in The Hindu Business Line, February 2009)

Books: Lal Ded/ the power of Kashmir's saint-mystic

I, Lalla: The Poems of Lal Ded. Translated by Ranjit Hoskote. Penguin Books, P 246. Hardcover. 2011. Rs. 450


Reviewed by Aditi De

                                     *                           *                         *

I trapped my breath in the bellows of my throat:
 a lamp blazed up inside, showed me who I really was.
 I crossed the darkness holding fast to that lamp,
 Scattering its light-seeds around me as I went. 

 I learnt dohas by Kabir and Tulsidas, even sang bhajans by Mirabai, at school in Rajasthan. In Bangalore, I skimmed through the soulful vachanas of Akka Mahadevi, though in translations of variable quality. But the vakhs of Lal Ded – the 14th century Kashmiri mystic – blew me away more powerfully. Perhaps because her spiritual and spirited poetry was new to me, brilliantly translated by Ranjit Hoskote.

I read her against a tumultuous interior landscape. At a time when Kashmir evokes images of a troubled paradise. In an age when columns on religion, yoga and meditation have found niches in business dailies. Within an India wracked with soaring everyday stress levels in a competitive, corrupt, unrelenting world.    Lal Ded, I thought, was seldom more relevant. Translated as Grandmother Lal or Lal the Womb, she is demystified on these pages as a fecund, giving yogini.

For over seven centuries, Hindus have idolized her as Lallesvari or Lalla Yogini, the Muslims as Lal-arifa. Across religious lines, Kashmiris call her Lalla. Her vakhs are among the earliest records in Kashmiri literature.    Folklorists, historians and scholars have different takes on Lalla. The saint-mystic was said to have been born a Brahmin. Married at 12 into a family that ill-treated her, she renounced her home and became the disciple of a Saivite saint 14 years later. As a wandering mendicant later, Lalla began to compose these vakhs or poems. Hers was a radical choice in her time, tilting against all social conventions.
Oddly enough, though Lalla’s influence pervades all strata of Kashmiri life, she neither created a movement nor had especial disciples. Her poems became part of oral lore, traversing families, generations, even religions.   Of Lalla’s 258 known vakhs, Hoskote has sensitively translated 146 vakhs for 21st century readers, by going back to “the original, word by word, line by line, clause by clause.” These unique renderings, as easy to read aloud as to mull over, trace an inward journey that renders an individual awakening.

Lalla shines through in lines like these: “Who trusts his Master’s word/ and controls the mind-horse/ with the reins of wisdom,/ he shall not die, he shall not be killed.”

Hoskote began this labour of love 20 years ago as a bridge to his “ancestral past, to a homeland and a language that I had lost, as the descendent of Kashmiri Saraswat Brahmins who migrated to southwestern India in several waves of diaspora between the tenth and fourteenth centuries.” Staying the course, he has wrought an unforgettable book, with a beautiful kong-poush/ saffron flower by Bhavi Mehta on its jacket.

His scholarly introduction places Lalla in the context of history and legend, politics and linguistics, oral and printed texts.   Sifting through scattered clues, rumours and oral narratives, he concludes: “She is the play of versions, not an absolute entity… Lalla, to me, is not the person who composed these vakhs; rather, she is the person who emerges from these vakhs.” That could well be true, whether she was a single yogini or a composite of many ever-questing beings who straddle yoga and Tantra, Kashmiri Saivism and the solo soul.

Hoskote writes of visiting Sheikh Balki’s shrine in Pakhar Pora and the ruined sun temple at Martanda. He recalls, “The earth was alive with sturdy walnuts, tall pines, the poplars and flowering apricots of spring; but wherever there were settlements, we found a spiky creeper. It grew around the walls that surround public buildings and private homes; it curled around schools, mosques, abandoned temples, half-asleep hotels. Concertina wire is the most widespread form of vegetation in Kashmir today. It grows everywhere, even in the mind.”

Perhaps this marks a time to take stock – of the 21st century, of India, of Kashmir, of ourselves. To rewind to a calmer, more spirit-centric era. Like counselling, like vacations, Lalla could prove part of the answer in this quest. For her deep vakhs will certainly strike a resonant, luminous chord within each reader:

Resilience: to stand in the path of lightning. 
Resilience: to walk when darkness falls at noon. 
Resilience:  to grind yourself fine in the turning mill. 
Resilience will come to you.   

(Originally published in The Hindu Business Line in 2011) 

Who am I?

Who am I?

I wish I knew.

Maybe I will, when I get to 79 or 104.

Not sure yet, though.

I was born in free India. But I believe I belong wherever I happen to be.

I’m Bengali by birth, south Indian by choice, and have lived in Bangalore/ Bengaluru since May 1992.

I love children. And the world of the word – written, read, spoken or imagined. I’m addicted to wandering around the globe, around India and way beyond.  

I write books, by choice. I'm an independent journalist, too. 

Over the past four years, I’ve come across dozens of folks who’ve asked me: “Why don’t you blog?”  

So, here's my first blog. Launched on an unusual day, February 29, 2012. Through it, I hope to be able to share chance encounters, conversations, stories beyond route maps, questions beyond guidebooks, all that lights my path as I travel, within myself, without myself. Inner journeys mean as much to me as physical distances do.

I realize with certainty that, as I travel, I’ve grown addicted to the unknown. To wrong turnings. To getting lost. To looking up into the eyes of a stranger across continents, who helps me find my way back ~ and becomes my friend for the next decade or more. To my (sometimes wobbly) centre. To my search for myself.

This blog, I think, will be about places… people… arts... food… stories… images…. I hope it will backtrack through time, location, close encounters….. and who knows what else?!

I’ve chosen to call these meanderings … MULLED INK!

Will you travel with me through this collage of memories and moments? Be my friend? My reader? My guest? My guide? Or even my companion in wonder?