OK, its Halloween!

Earlier today, I was talking to Jocelyn, a friend of ours, who told me that she was born in a cemetery in Port au Prince, Haiti! There was no ambulance to be found at 2 am, so her mother, father, the grandmother and the maid began walking to get to L’Hospital Generale. Jocelyn’s mother was ready to deliver; and the only place close by was in the cemetery which was on the way down the mountain leading to the city. So, there is this entity/spirit Baron Samedi, Le Maître du cimetière (The Master of the cemetery). His presence is seen as light passing as a flash. So when Jocelyn was being delivered herfolks saw Baron Samedi passing by. As many Haitains have told her: Fille. vous êtes protégé. Vous êtes sous la protection de Baron Samedi.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baron_Samedi

Swallow coming

玄馬至 (つばめきたる, swallow coming).

Copied for practice from works of senior Tenkoku artists in Kyoiku Shuji text. Oct MMXI. In progress. 

These are all carved in reverse. So the ones on the left and middle are 至馬玄, and will read left to right 玄馬至 when impressed. The third seal on the left reads left to right, then bottom to top. The reading is as follows: first the one on the right 玄; in the second column there are two characters, but the bottom one 馬 precedes the last one 至–at the top!

Taking that step…

The act of philosophizing, genuine poetry, any aesthetic encounter, in fact, as well as prayer, springs from some shock. And when such a shock is experienced, man senses the non-finality of this world of daily care; he transcends it, takes a step beyond it.
(from The Philosphical Act by Josef Pieper)

Maqbool Fida Hussain's mortality has been claimed (1915-2011)

Fundamentally, Hussain was a deeply rooted Indian. Having two selves, is something uniquely Indian among India's minorities. His sense of being was of a deeply imbued Indianness replete with its deities and iconographies. No matter what may be said of what he should or should not have done, Hussain in this sense was a manifestation of Indian culture and was suffused in it. That is the point that cannot be discounted. His was not an objectified self. He was a social construct, a unique expression of Indian culture and how it permeates us all. 

Early on Hussain took a position, essentially moving from becoming, towards being a brand, a manifestation that enthralled and fascinated Indians with its potentiality of what an artistic existence meant. He set himself a trajectory—a high-wire reality, while believing it "unlikely that any particular incident will have any influence" on him, since he drew inspiration from "everything under the sun." This gives us a tiny sense of how he perhaps viewed the idea of influences and impacts—which affects all artists. The mark of a person who wishes to zealously set himself apart from others. He oozed the very notion of culture, and projected strength in all that he did and touched.

Where did he get his chutzpah—that nawabi mien, that Indians across the spectrum saw and gushed over, and in recent years many disdained the object of their adulation. A maverick that had to be branded! Did he regard anyone as a significant mentor, Souza perhaps? Or did he consider himself as an entirely self-made entity. Or were there a range of factors that only a few know? These questions do dovetail his artistic reach, his acumen, the subjects he painted over the decades, his singularity, force of will, as also being closer to the ground sans footwear.

Although much has been made of his intellect, his work was far from complex, in fact very accessible. A contradiction? Or, one was having the ability to work in a "getable" vein? Perhaps both. Yet Hussain walked his walk, he talked his talk; opening himself up to opportunities where he engaged with other artists, students and Indians. His body of work embraced the idea of Indian—vast as it is. He thought big. He was an artist of many hats, including to many—a political artist. Many consider it imperative to apply to Hussain the sobriquet "Picasso of India,' but Hussain's most relevant contribution to Indian modernity would be that by living his unique artistic act, He gave Indian artists a primer in branding themselves with an artistic spine, and the much cherished reach. 

Then tragedy visited in waves. The banishment! Was it forced or self-imposed? Exile. Forces arrayed themselves against him in mind and spirit. A forced exile, as it is seen in most corridors of silence. Qatar received him. India was down by one of its sons.  

Art is a peculiar beast with its connotations and denotations. In a country where the idea of common law is still not enforced—other issues will get complicated. But yet we all wish for our interstice of modernity, alongside our spiritual underpinnings.

"I'd like to die like a soldier with the boots on," he had said. Perhaps it was a mere turn of phrase, or a churning of words? In that regard Maqbool Fida Hussain was a sipahi, a sentinel of the Indian avant-garde to Indian mores and exuberance. He is no more but yet there will be many Hussains’ of the mind. He was one and many, like the proverbial Kokopelli. Mysterious and magical. Time will reveal more, but for sure each of us has a Hussain in and of our minds.

Barricading oneself

There is a saying in Konkani, “Kednaim zomnir’lo fattor uthon toklear podd’ta.” Sometimes the stone (lying) on the ground raises itself and lands/falls on ones head! I see it also as an apt analogy for one form of resentment — the inability to celebrate another being as also the fruits of that journey. In essence not celebrating ones own existence; its awareness being clouded by concerns and the setting up of conditions (barricading oneself) predicated by narrow sense of being, spirit, and self. 

Alacrity of Being

One often hears about life being a two way street, suggesting that mutuality in various forms is to be esteemed. However, such alacrity of being is rarely the case, even from those who profess notions of dharma and karma—albeit within intense cultural etudes. So what leads to going after ever more larger slices of the pie. The pie, or laddoo for that matter is large enough for all, and will always be.

What is small is the footprint of our existential reasoning. Hence the street turning into a one way street, where the only option remains that of saluting the feudal detritus moving directly upon ones being. Of course such is not acceptable. In the meanwhile the appetites of even those whom one admired has mushroomed, continues, and apparently shows no signs of abatement. Yesterdays apparitions, along with their transactional libidos have been manifested into the widest gamut of successes. But still the transactional element that makes one human (or is this some quaint notion) is expected for oneself, but not accorded towards the other. Of course every interaction has its place. We know that. Small victories in ones limited sphere are regarded sullenly, as though in spite of all dharmic dimensions and possibilities—one is claiming more of that karmic pie! Again one respects as is only fitting in the culture I was raised within.  

Even the most fake among us have their place and are respected by someone dear, if not by the many whose lives they impact. They too must have our respect, not in the way they expect obeisance and being fawned upon, but an accord within the precincts of their own dharma. Indeed, this is very becoming of the ideas that regards one an Indian.

Manifest gain?

What is it about certain people who come through/towards you/for you, although one cannot say they came through, when one did not even think or expect anything from them/through them, or thought that X, or Y should/or even could do something for you. Of course it counts that they give of themselves, and it must be seen of/in larger spirit. That has been my lot recently—towards manifest gain really, as also a clarity in the the cloudy impermeability of existence. Yugen anyone?