‘warholian’

I was reading Art India’s review about chintan upadyay’s oeuvre, where it says that his conception of an artist is ‘Warholian’. Wtf is warholian. Warhol was a great artist. He had a certain distinct vision, a distinct style. But when Chintan Upadyay can be ‘warhol like’ why should he be a ‘warholian’?

Well, my trouble is not with chintan or Warhol but with this tendency by writers, reporters to turn everything ‘ian’ to give undue depth to an argument, especially when people’s styles don’t remain styles but apparently a discipline due to the suffix ‘ian’. So we get warholian, lovecraftian, well why not pawarian? I have certain distinct traits, well none expressed to the world with any beauty or originality but in my world I am quite pawarian and this pawarian-ness is quite important to me.

So to sum up my request, stop turning famous people’s traits into disciplines.

Circumventing manufactured voices

I am gravely worried for the fate of India’s cultural empire. More than the Indian army or its embassies and aid packages, it’s the movie machine of Mumbai that has helped India raise its cultural flag beyond India. From Afghanistan to Japan, from Russia to south east Asia, Bollywood has found devout followers everywhere. This cultural advocacy helps corporate bodies when they march their imperialist marches into these countries. Hey, a dancing, overtly emotional Indian is better than a Kung-fu fighting Chinese.  

But, Bollywood is losing its hold here at home. Its becoming a caricature of it's imagined self. The ‘desi’ moviegoer is increasingly being subjected to only Punjabi and Gujarati London/Canada dreams. The mainstream movies are rarely even shot in India at all.

Since the moneyed few rules what is to be made, the available palette is primarily composed of galling stories of people falling in love in some white suburb of NY or some such world of big white people, where surprisingly white people are never more than sorry caricatures and all Indians are wealthy and wonderful, and the ultimate triumph is of ‘Indian values’ which are always loosely hinted at and never exercised in the movie. Even the conviction is absent in acting mostly, with actors treating the movie as a vacation. Look at any Johar movie. The actor plays a caricature of his character and his body language is always so loose as if he has been sitting on a yacht for hours. Johar knows that this very body language is what sells with NRIs, this image of being arrived in life. Story is incidental, often no more than some cheap emotional masturbation, if you will. What really ticks with NRIs is some misplaced nationalism (ironically whose measure is the character’s presence in Manhattan) filling the frame of character along with the ready ease of the character’s riches.

The majority desi moviegoer doesn’t pay in excess of rs. 40 for a movie ticket, and for him perhaps Mumbai is just as distant as New York. So what does he do? Since with increasing cost of movie tickets, and decreasing relevance and fulfillment with a movie experience, he would much rather not risk his hard earned money on a movie ticket, but rather get a pirated CD to watch at home.

Thankfully, the regional cinema players have noticed this sentiment and they are busy creating relevant dramas, action flicks, comedy trips. So what we see here possibly a new paradigm in Indian cinema that will come to pass. Many pockets of India will perhaps grow mature regional cinema industries. The bollywood of Bombay will shrink to fit the affluent class. The multiplex urban cinema will take a life of its own. This fragmentation is wonderful really for it will for the first time address India’s multiplicity and grow a larger relevant industry that will perhaps create more avenues for artists and audiences alike.

But there’s a worrying aspect to it too. Northeast, long neglected and not having strong industry of its own, is appropriating Korean mass entertainment. This is unhealthy from a national perspective since it is only alienating a people further. India has never addressed its diversity properly. Nationalism need not push out margins and create a consistent voice, but rather it should celebrate and recognize each other’s differences. Mainstream has totally failed to recognize northeast anymore than a caricature or an exotic part of the greater whole.  Recognition of problem, like in ‘Chak De’ is not enough. What is perhaps needed is a greater focus on helping create a stronger entertainment industry of its own in northeast. Northeasterners are characterized by their forward fashion sense and exceptionally acute sense of cool. Before even hitting the mainstream, fashions are appropriated and discarded in Northeast. It has some of the best western music bands in India. From being culture importers, they could become cool culture exporters with right infrastructure. It will only benefit the greater India for all its citizens to have a confident voice of its own. With recognition and confidence comes a possibility of co-existence. Otherwise, the red hand won’t take long to tear India into many states, and perhaps that won’t be undesirable then, if it gives the confidence and recognition to the citizens then.

Bhansali boo hoo - Guzaarish

I know, it might sound unduly parochial and unaccommodating of minorities perhaps, but why is Sanjay Leela Bhansali stuck on European sensibility? I am not questioning his choice of Goan catholic community as the backdrop for his stories (But even then there aren’t as many white people in Goa who dance the flamingo and wear jackets all the time or wear the Spanish gypsy dresses. In the movie most of the actors are very fair. Hmmm, perhaps it’s the Indian movies prerogative.), but his artistic liberty that is very narrowly defined by a certain romance with European visual culture and obscene opulence. What really bothers is, we don’t have many poetic visionaries creating beautiful cinemas, and the one we have is hopelessly afflicted with myopic obsession with a certain style that robs much from his story telling.

Guzaarish is beautiful at times, but then it was actually supposed to be about life’s wonder and an individual’s choice. The beauty should come out of this wonder, not through tropes of settings and plot. The film has juxtaposed the notion of life’s beauty and a person’s freedom to end one with humongous sufferings, without ever connecting the two. A film that should have had a strong existential motif ends up being just a mixture of protagonist’s nostalgia to life’s beauty and his desire to end it.

Well, the film may make you cry in instances; however it could have been much more. Bhansali’s ‘Khamoshi’ perhaps still remains one of his best movies where the film achieves what it set out to do.

I saw ‘Guzaarish’ at a talkies and I could see people poking fun at the film at many instances. Perhaps, Bhansali needs to work on who is he making films for. I understand that a director too needs space for his creative expression, which might not be yet appreciated by audience. But the audience was only feeling incredulous at the lapses of story. Indian movie goers are a passionate lot, but they won’t prefer a visual spectacle over a weakly developed narrative.

semiconductor

The first time I read about Semiconductor was at a blog, and it showcased their excellent art piece called brilliant noise. I was totally sucked into their gaze. It was amazing what they were doing with scientific data and observations and using sound innovatively to create one masterpiece after another. I wish to see their installation in person sometime in future.
Then came the magnetic movie. I don't have far too many grey cells and had to struggle to see if what was being projected was real or cgi. Amazing nevertheless. and then i kept going through their work. especially their work 'out of the light' . I was enamored with the idea's simplicity and its sheer beauty. In Ladakh, once I had taken a video of shadows and lights falling through leaves and how a cloud passing over us changed the shadow-light interaction, and this work reminded me of it. 

They seem to have a penchant for sound corresponding to the light's intensity on screen and time lapse magic. the result is breathtaking always. 

Dear Ruth Jarman and Joseph Gerhardt, keep on creating and bring some work here in mumbai/hyderabad for us to see.

delicious loops

earlier i would never listen to songs on loop. i constantly needed to listen newer and newer stuff. sara tavarez, illapu, Bonobo... give me more, give me more! the thirst for excellence once discovered, is inextinguishable. the genius i was hearing to was evidence of other geniuses out there. its a never ending quest for sublime. the beauty is indefinite and never ending in many shapes and sounds.

but then grace sets in with some songs. songs that mean something to you. Songs anchor our lives to certain moments in our lives. within the first note of that song it yanks us through our throats to that time. there's no point in fighting it, its part of you now. instead, swim in it, until it lasts. whatever the memory be, its always delicious. its ok to be a bit masochistic, go ahead suck on that pain. if it weren't delicious, you wouldn't have been remembering it.

long live continuous loops.

arziyan

arziyan saari mein,
chehre pe likh le laaya hun...
(delhi 6 soundtrack)

a lump forms in my throat after the first verse. and all i am left with is a sense of serene submission; of lightness; of happiness though not content. i close my eyes, and sway with it, and sing perhaps a few lines along. its not a song in grace, its in yearning. its in a world where the notion of defeat and winning is defeated itself. its a still fluid world. the song is the water with which we wash our hands, feet and face before stepping into a mandir,masjid or dargha. listening to it turns this room into a joyous open space, light playing hide and seek with the walls, waves crashing onto it.
its perhaps amongst the very few tracks which leave me incapacitated to do or think of anything else while listening to it. all i wish to do is submit to it.

levity. caresses.

Right now my whole being feels like a pastiche of a million poetries. thoughts have melted into curving, dripping, flowing ideas. i close my eyes and it feels like i am dancing.. moving with the breeze... waltzing with dry leaves. levitated. light.
i am listening to Il postino's soundtrack which has neruda's poetry.
and its making me yearn to read some kundera all over again. maybe, i will read laughable loves once more. its worth it at any rate.
sleep, i have found a substitute for you. good night.

emancipation

just heard samuel barber's 'adagio for strings'. and put it on loop.
i had heard it earlier, maybe as OST of some movie or generally in my playlist at shuffle. but today it made me pause and listen to it alone. its so bloody beautiful!
it flies.
leave me alone.. let me dissolve in these sounds.. as it flies over cities, times, people; let me too experience the colors of the world mixing in a rain. the true fresh colors left after the rain cleared the greys and false shiny ones.
The adagio is like the first rays of the sun... going around the world... liberating it from darkness.

'adagio for strings' is the smell of wet soil. it is open spaces. it is so universal. it has that sublime quality of beethoven's 'moonlight adagio'. funny, because barber was more a brahms and bach guy.
its one of those pieces with strenght in them.. strength to lift a soul up by the sheer beauty of music. you want to submit to it at times of hardship knowing that it resurrect you.

men who live - I

Werner Herzog.
i see his work and unfailingly its such an inspiration.
firstly, he is a student of life. the way the camera stays, moves and even the way narrative is constructed, its as it were his humble attempt at understanding and empathising with a people rather than simply capturing and sensationalizing a certain emotion; like most others do. Without trying to compare myself to him - i am too small a cretin, yet, to do that - i would like to share an experience i had while watching his movie. a particular scene in his movie 'wheel of time' was so similar to one i had shot in mumbai of three children sitting by road. it was eery. and uplifting at the same time. i was touched :P
and he goes around the world and stares at people with open eyes and asks questions! his movie have been based in peru, antarctic, india, tibet, australia, africa.. !
and whats more, his politics is at the right place. his questions are humane. maybe its aborigines' struggle for recognition of their faith and land in his movie 'where the green ants dream', or his travel with dalai lama in a spiritual quest and the ensuing tibetan sovereignty question, or his excellent 'The blue yonder' movie narrated in a way that is so apt and so original.... all have strong politics associated to them, all with heart.

the first quarter of my life was pretty much sans a idol. i have begun finding a few now.. maybe because i have grown out of my cockiness and grown into being a little more humble. there are quite a few such ppl, will write about them subsequently here.

glittering rectangles

Dear TV,
you suck!
well not you exactly - what with flat screens and awesome contrast and sound.. the miracle of moving picture - but what you show through you.

its not just the inanity being reinforced and the vulgar being deified, but also countless many little things that is turning my fellow media addicts into little rats/rabbits (depending on your favorite chapter of alice in wonderland); seemingly in coma while in front of your glittering rectangular self.

due to you, my left hand thumb has got a weird disease which makes it go click click in infinite loops on the remote control.

well, in part my fraternity is to blame as well for your demise. but hey, we are earning our bread and trying to be happy while at it. we have right to both. sorry to strangulate you and the viewer in the process though. besides we only give what the viewer wants. its another matter that the viewer doesn't always know what he needs and what all this communication will do to him/her in the long run.

please die. for the greater good. or if you like swimming, we may arrange for a communal TV visarjan event. we would stand on bridges and help you with flight downwards. i will love that. i think you will love it too. how so ever brief, you would know what flying is and what sin you are doing keeping people locked in around you.

abrazo,
jinxieji

intimacy

my tavel to gokarna 2 weekends back, was fraught with long distances, delays and switch overs. the travel was made amusing thanks to jean paul sartre. well, amusing isn't the right word. hmm, can't put what i felt in a word. may be a para would help.. :P
His book 'intimacy' is very truely a very up-close study of us. us humans. our relationships. our emotions. by the time i read the third story, i actually was feeling a weird sensation... a mixture of hints of suffocation, paranoia and languid stillness. the kind of feeling one has when after having slept 14 hours continuously and being awake half wishing to be in dream, staring at the ceiling, one becomes so comfortable in the sheets that the idea of slightest movement is repelled by body itself. you can't will to lift your arms. the body in its languor decidedly becomes heavy.
sartre's words become the sheet on which we are lying. it knows us well. very well. in the little confines of the self, the sheet gets marked with our true contours, our true smell, our true warmth.
and being so intimate is not comforting when you are alone. the loneliness only more accentuated now. your own touch on the arm and cheeks now transforms from indifference to mild irritation cause your body knows it won't have the pleasure of anybody else's touch. a body is useless and would wither away sooner if it doesn't find love of a warmer skin, the cut of a longer nail, the softness of the more delicate soul.
i put the book away with an alarm after the third story. will only pick up that book much later in hopefully better days where intimacy is not a jail but abounds.

written on the body

Since a few days, i had imposed a self-censor. I wouldn't use the adjectives 'beautiful' and 'kickass' (to be forever on a quest for beauty is not normal. i must taste some normality too once in a while); and i would try not to be introspective all the time. (trying not to be so 'full of myself' all the time, there's the whole world out there that needn't be reflected onto me..)
but how else could I describe Jeanette Winterson's 'written on the body' but delectably 'beautiful' and what else can one do but reflect when confronted with such poetic mirror to our hearts. its one of those literary pieces which you want to hold unto yourself like your lover, for its beauty and for its truthfulness.
I read half the book the day I bought it. and then tried to resume it the next day on local train. Now local trains are a many things, but definitely not a temple to beauty and truth. And this book deserves nothing less. It deserves to be read on a sunlit day, sitting on green grass, unperturbed by anything other than the steady bustle of the river nearby. well if not that, the cot must do, but it will be utterly disrespectful to be distracted from it again and again.
so it had to wait quite a while until a weekend when i had some leisure time by myself to read it.

The book is a portrait of love. a love who's sighs and gasps you wish to cling just a little longer every time. what makes the work even more noteworthy however is the fact that Jeanette gets us under the skin of the protagonist turning us into accomplice while throughout keeping us in doubt about the protagonist's gender! what genius! imagine portraying love without letting ever know who you are actually empathizing with. you know his/her desires, fears, loves, vices, friends but you don't know if its a he or a she.

while being a brilliant innovation of narration, its such a strong political (humanist/philosophical/gender based... whatever label you want to put.. i am not good at that) statement. love, in its completeness, defined sans gender. get this copy in the hands of all homophobes, all cynics.. and generally everyone. why should anyone be robbed of experiencing such beautiful work?

In search of uniform

india is a free country. we are free to conform.

1. Khar Road Railway station - 10-15 women are squatting on the platform. curiously all are carrying exactly similar bags. grey squarish bags with black straps. quite fashionable actually in that abstract expensive way. i thought bulk deals only happened in MICA.

2. Santacruz Railway Station - strangely many men are wearing the dirty bronze colored full sleeves shirt. the shirt uniformly not tucked in. the cuffs linked. Surreal.

3. popeye - i don't get this at all... all of a sudden the market is flooded with shirts with popeye pictures.. t-shirts, collared shirts.. they are un-escapable. go to colaba's narrow galli fashion streets, all stalls will have a popeye T. which company is dumping all these popeyes on mumbai's youth? why popeye?

4. grown men in half pajamas and full sleeved untucked plain shirts. so many people adhering to this code. the color of shirt is usually light.. cream or version thereabout. these are mostly labourers. what confounds me, if they wear half pants for comfort, why are they wearing full sleeved shirts without even rolling them up?

creators

mark rothko, Sharmila irom, baudelaire, mclluhan, beethoven, milan kudhera, rob dougan, Fransisco Danconio, Muse, Bjork, Raza, Duchemp, Banksy, Doris Lessing...
creators.
some forgotten. some lost in the fog of memory. some fictional.
all alive.
their breath, their thoughts, their actions, their stories
shape our lives.
Like falling from clouds, leaving indistinct erasable marks on them. we are.
its people like these who piece us together, breath in us the life that strides confident on grounds concrete made of the fertile compost of once dead forefathers.
thank you for letting me walk. i owe my life to you.

blackout

listen to this track..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tpE33fNMaw&feature=related
turn down lights. switch off everything around you. sit in a corner. preferably with friends at the tail end of a party. drinks would be good, but are wholly unnecessary. close your eyes. and just listen.
muse has this enigmatic energy about every single track of theirs. but blackout stands out for its ethereal calmness that masks the contained energy within. the lingering vocals hold you and take you with it to a world different from here and now.I love muse's music. it in a way questions and then celebrates our existence. the music has fatality to it. the music struggles and fights the inner commotions and eventually rises supreme over every other thought.
Another musician whose music is shaped with forces of fatality and virility in celebration of our existence is Rob Dougan. listen to his 'one and the same' track from album 'furious angels'. or the more famous and one of the best tracks ever 'Clubbed to death'. (even the vid is one of the most inspirational vids in a long time.) the music as if fights and lifts from the mundane and shines.. shines with the brilliance that needs no testimonies, shines with brilliance thats rare and pure and most importantly honest. its tattered at edges, its real and at the same time its as if from another world.
This music singularly flows from a conviction, from a faith so strong that the world flows around it into a salute of eventual acceptance.

please muse and Rob Dougan.. never stop creating music. please. we need you.

Colors

I usually seek creativity in form, innovation at structural/conceptual level. So, though i appreciate content, its usually the medium that attracts me more. Thats perhaps the reason these days I am heavily into digging for good installations. I have mentioned my love for work of Olafur eliasson earlier. But then we come across works which are simple and yet so profoundly creative.
Yesterday, I saw Anuradha Thakur's exhibit at Jehangir Art Gallery. The first bias set in due to her choice of theme. She has depicted adivasis and their cultures through her work, something which I am keenly interested in appreciating. What really attracts you to her work is her choice of colours. The colors are so natural to indian sensibilities and yet its as if its a new discovery. I haven't seen use of these colors and combination thereof in recent art works. to get an idea of these colors, take out crayons from your sons/daughters/nephew's color boxes and start mixing.
Apart from division of spaces, the choice of colors and combinations thereof, it seems to me, is a good indication of the maturity of the artist. S. H. Raza symbolizes that clarity, the focus that makes art sublime. hmm... if only i could afford his work! :P
The other thing that is noteworthy of her paintings is her choice of black or dark colors to describe human features. its as if, humans are the blank alien travellers in the world of colors. its amazing on several levels.. the painting while being about the people, is also in a way, putting them in transience with apparent shift of focus to surroundings. the surrouding nature, social complexes thus standing out while forming a backdrop. certainly a wonderful balance is sought here.
___
also, exhibited were the works of Prafull Sawant. his series of work with depiction of pensive women were brilliant. excellent artmanship. the emotions come alive with his mastery with light and shadows. in one of his paintings he depicted reflection and light wonderfully. its a pleasure to see such work.
but, more importantly, his work reminded me of the great tradition of water color paintings of maharashtra. I have had the good fortune of seeing many excellent works depicting the beautiful landscapes of maharasthra in water colors over the years. Sawant's work adds to this body of work.

intrigue

i came across a video about the number stations, essentially a broadcast of seemingly random numbers or words being monotonously spoken.
About 7-8 years back, in the night while supposedly preparing of an exam the next day, fiddling with the radio on my stereo, (used to love listening to foreign stations on short wave. different music, different programmes.. i even got to listen to a russian elvis presley) i had stumbled on similiar gibberish. the feeling of stumbling onto something utterly incomprehensible but of some obvious consequence is awesome. i can't forget this one instance as well. this was a time when i was heavily into astro physics, Carl Sagan, marcia bartusiak, SETI, drake equation, wow signal and what not.. here i am researching in free time about life outside our planet n shit, and lo and behold you hear stream of possibly encrypted data. btw, at that time with a group of friends we were trying to build an interferometer.. so that should give you a perspective.
people familiar with the story of discovery of LGM (little green men, or pulsars to be honest) would understand the rush of excitement that this broadcast brought me. i quickly tried to jot down whatever i could hear. the reception was pretty bad. it was a stream of random words.
'bats. umbrella. boots. iron. ...' shit like this.
quickly i typed the same words i had heard on the browser. a site returned with a continuous stream of the same words written in a marquee. nothing else on the page. no links. nothing. tried to dig behind the page, address. nothing worthwhile. i didn't dig further, thought it might be some ham radio club's secret game or something.
end of story.
then i read information security and warfare by dorothy dennings. it was a revelation. i was into minor programming n hacking then. this book showed me the possibilities. but that sadly made me stop doing hacking shite, cuz i started feeling small and guilty for no reason. at times, u are better off not knowing something.

that was then.
building interferometers (halfway through) and telescope (complete :) though my friends did most of the work.. i don't have the patience to grind mirror over mirror for hours)).
and now.
a few months back in MICA, enthu Akshaya proposed that we set up an online radio station. all excited, but i never got around to do anything about it. maybe it was the fact that we were too busy partying being the last months in MICA. whatever...

old hindi songs

whats about them old hindi songs!? they are magical. its only old hindi songs that spring into the media player of my head for any slight emotional gear shift.
some of these songs i have never heard in original. its as if the collective memory of the world around me seeded that song in me. a big pool from which this memory draws these songs is antakshari. through numerous games of antakshari, i know so many old songs that i have never heard in original. some others i had heard as background score in movies. mostly its people around me humming those songs. my dad's singing is another source of this memory.. though he is just as bad with remembering lyrics as me, so its the tune mostly that sticks.
Speak about viral! these are bloody the best virals ever. which viral ever lasted for decades?
yesterday i was humming geeta bali's 'taqdir se bighdi hui ...' what a wonderful song. and i had never heard it myself! i googled straight away and found it on a obscure website.

woody allen

woody allen. watching his movies is like gazing at a lake. its beautiful, its easy, it needn't be turbulent, and after spending enough time with it you actually feel content with a light buzz (that a glass of shiraz wine (nasik's \m/) would lend).
the movies may not be realistic but it always portrays a certain reality. the reality of life through a narrow lense, a narrow politics. this lends a simplicity to his movies which lets it wash over you without any undue excitement. its like having a nice conversation with an old friend, comfortable in the contradictions/arguments and with a confirmation of knowing each other a little more better.

cheers! and go watch manhattan.

p.s. : i have written about conversations and movies here.

resistire

i woke up today with 'happy together' by the turtles going on n on in my head. what a song! i heard it on loop for quite a few times before i got sated.

and then while on train, another song started doing rounds. i didnt even know the song. it was something i heard a while back while watching almodovar's 'tie me up tie me down'. god bless google and imdb. the song is 'resistire' by el duo dynamico. what a wonderful song. its one of those songs which makes u roll up ur sleeves and draw in the fingers into a fist to punch the air above.
now i want to know of resistance songs from south america. south america has a dynamic history and present of resistance and its poetic legacy is unparalleled. it would be a surprise if we can't find out some kickass stuff in this sphere.. resistance songs from south america.
even better even we could lay our hands on some native music.. that would be kickass. afaik, the conquistador's have been very successful in eliminating the native population. the very few who are left, if we could know their views through music, that would be awesome.
ppl, the two of u who read this at times, :P , please send across any thing in this regards if u find.

abrazo,
ajinkya