I Should Learn to Look at an Empty Sky unless……..

Something you read makes you introspect very deeply. You know it’s going to happen long after you are gone but the feeling still doesn’t leave you.

I got that feeling when I read DENNIS OVERBYE’s essay “The Universe, Expanding Beyond All Understanding” (NYT June 5, 2007)

“When Albert Einstein was starting out on his cosmological quest 100 years ago, the universe was apparently a pretty simple and static place. Common wisdom had it that all creation consisted of an island of stars and nebulae known as the Milky Way surrounded by infinite darkness.

We like to think we’re smarter than that now. We know space is sprinkled from now to forever with galaxies rushing away from one another under the impetus of the Big Bang.

Bask in your knowledge while you can. Our successors, whoever and wherever they are, may have no way of finding out about the Big Bang and the expanding universe, according to one of the more depressing scientific papers I have ever read.

If things keep going the way they are, Lawrence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University and Robert J. Scherrer of Vanderbilt University calculate, in 100 billion years the only galaxies left visible in the sky will be the half-dozen or so bound together gravitationally into what is known as the Local Group, which is not expanding and in fact will probably merge into one starry ball.

Unable to see any galaxies flying away, those astronomers will not know the universe is expanding and will think instead that they are back in the static island universe of Einstein.

It is hard to count all the ways in which this is sad. Forget the implied mortality of our species and everything it has or has not accomplished. If you are of a certain science fiction age, like me, you might have grown up with a vague notion of the evolution of the universe as a form of growing self-awareness: the universe coming to know itself, getting smarter and smarter, culminating in some grand understanding, commanding the power to engineer galaxies and redesign local spacetime.

Instead, we have the prospect of a million separate Sisyphean efforts with one species after another pushing the rock up the hill only to have it roll back down and be forgotten.

Worse, it makes you wonder just how smug we should feel about our own knowledge.”

It brought to my mind W H Auden’s poem “The More Loving One” (1957)

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total darkness sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.


Artist: Unknown The New Yorker February 19, 1927

Did Natives Create The Bountiful Art You See In Maharashtra?

 

 Richard Stoneman, 'The Greek Experience of India: from Alexander to the Indo-Greeks', 2019: "...to my eye the paintings at Ajanta could have been made by a Greek (Macedonian) observing intently the Indian life around him. At present it seems impossible to do more than speculate, but the fact that wall-painting in India begins at a time when Greeks were dominant in the north-west of the country, and among Buddhists, with whom Greeks seem to have close relations, does suggest more than coincidence with regard to the origin of this Indian art."

Frontline has started publishing 25-part series on Indian art.starting with the issue Aug. 11-24, 2007 “Eternal India”.

The latest article is “Grandeur in caves”. Article covers “vast rock-cut temples and viharas dot the hills of western and eastern India”.

“Does Maharashtra have its Own Distinct Culture?” was the title of an essay by Prof S M Mate in 1954. A debate raged on the subject, joined by number of experts like sculptor V P Karmarkar, K Narayan Kale, Irawati Karve, H.D Sankaliya. One offshoot of the debate was if locals created the art you see all around in Maharashtra.

I haven’t heard of such a debate elsewhere in India except perhaps in Assam. People elsewhere presume locals created the art. Maharashtra and Marathi have perhaps been more melting pots than others and hence the debate.

The then Maharashtra often used to have such raging debates. What fun! See an earlier entry on the related subject of literary feuds here.

This blog keeps returning to the one and only D G Godse द ग गोडसे. See previous entries on Godse here.

1.Taj Mahal and Raigad
2.Thomas Daniell’s ‘Fraud’ Painting of Peshwa Court,
3.Ashtavinayak

Godse joined the battle with his essay-‘Shilpi Maharashtra’- first published in ‘Chhand’ (May-June 1955), now included in his book “Samande Talash” (Shreevidya Prakashan 1981).

Godse’s verdict- Yes, natives largely created the art you see in Maharashtra. He aks “why 90% of all Indian carvings are in Maharashtra?” and explains this abundance ”…. this is not just because of the ruling dynasties of Maharashtra –Shalivahan, Vakatak, Chalukya, Rashtrakut-but also because of patronage of art by ordinary people”.

Frontline says: “IN western India, the 2nd century B.C. ushered in one of the greatest periods of the art of India and the entire art of Buddhism. Over a period of about 1,000 years, more than 1,200 caves were hewn out of the mountains of the Western Ghats, not very far from the coast of present-day Maharashtra. They were profusely sculpted and painted in the Buddhist traditions. Leaving behind the cares and confusions of the material world, the devotee came to these splendid havens of contemplation…”

My parents shifted residence to Nashik in late 80’s. The best place I found at Nashik was what locals call “Pandav Leni” sculpted in 2nd century during Satavahanas (see picture below). Once I went up there, I never felt like coming down. I imagined how it must be almost two millennia ago. People,looking just like me, taking in breeze, contemplating both every day issues and life-after.



Pandav Leni / NASHIK CAVES, 2ND century A.D.

And I haven’t seen more vivacious and sexier woman than this 2nd century beauty!



MITHUNAS, CAVE 3, Kanheri, 2nd century A.D.

Our Globe- Not Guaranteed Against American Sacred Cows and their Pee

Over last Saturday/ Sunday (September 29/30 2007), I watched -J. Robert Oppenheimer’s biopic on History Channel. It was very disturbing. It showed few American scientists celebrating the “success” of Atom bombs.

JRO knew Sanskrit well and is shown quoting from Bhagavad-Gita- "Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." -when he sees the first nuclear explosion "Trinity". Oh how I wish he read Buddha and Bhakti literature after Gita and never joined Manhattan Project!

Don Quixote says: “And had the luck, with much ado, To live a fool, and yet die wise.” but how about we making some attempt to live wise!

American empire’s desire to reshape the world manifests itself in many ways. Atom Bomb, like current Iraq war, was just one of them. Neither the first, nor the last.

Another such attempt was San Francisco Conference, formally known as United Nations Conference on International Organization (April 25–June 26, 1945)- an international meeting that established the United Nations. Forty five nations, including the four sponsors, were originally invited to the San Francisco Conference: nations which had declared war on Germany and Japan and had subscribed to the United Nations Declaration.

American President Harry Truman attended the conference. He flew in there on his plane "The Sacred Cow".

Poet B S Mardhekar बा. सी. मर्ढेकर wrote following untitled poem included in his book “मर्ढेकरांची कविता“ (Mardhekar’s Poetry, Mauj Prakashan 1959-1977).

सुखदुःखांचे गळे कापुनी
मळे पिकविले वर्षांनी तरि,
रवंथ काढी कुढ़या मनाची
जुनाच भाकड़-कडबा हा वरि.

कुड़ीकुड़ींतिल भाव लाळला;
आचळ धरिती पातळ आशा;
अधू मनाची दुडकी कुठवर-
जमेल तर ही जिथवर भाषा,

-अणि पांगल्या गाई जगभर
गोमूत्रानें पावन अंबर!
Critic M V Dhond (म वा धोंड) has written a masterly book “तरीहि येतो वास फुलांना" (Rajhans Prakashan 1999) appreciating handful of Mardhekar’s poems.

He since then has written few more essays-most of them have appeared in Lalit Diwali numbers- analysing few more poems of Mardhekar.

Dhond called me some time in 2003 and asked me if I knew this poem. I did. How did I find it? I liked it, particularly the last two lines. Did I understand it? I had no clue! Then I requested him to include every poem of Mardhekar in the next edition of his book because I now didn't seem to understand even those poems that I thought I had understood earlier!

He explained to me what Mardhekar probably meant. Mardhekar is making fun of America’s President astride “Sacred Cow” and their latest instrument - San Francisco Conference- to reshape (manipulate?) the world.

I congratulated Dhond on his impeccable timing because US had invaded Iraq that year, again by brazenly manipulating UN. We all now know how brazen and with what consequences!

I did some googling and sent Dhond some info relevant to the subject. Showing large and kind heart, he has mentioned me in the essay. Please see his letter to me on the subject at the end of this post. Feel his humility.

Lalit Diwali 2003 has that essay-”Gomutrane Pavan Ambar!” (Cow’s urine sanctifying the sky).

Artist: Robert J Day The New Yorker May 5, 1945



M V Dhond's letter to me on September 8, 2003

In the Room the Women Come And Go, Talking of Dev Anand

On September 26, 2007, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh released autobiography of Indian legendary actor Dev Anand, 84, titled “ROMANCING WITH LIFE”.

I owe a lot to Dev Anand, for the amount of pleasure his films have given, especially through their music. Therefore, I was looking forward to his book that I knew was in the pipeline for some time now.

I have still not read the book but have read excerpts in “India Today” issue dated October 1, 2007.

Iconic poet T S Eliot wrote these unforgettable lines: “In the room the women come and go, Talking of Michelangelo.” (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock).

LOUIS MENAND writing for The New Yorker (issue 30 September 2002) said: ” T. S. Eliot's sex life. Do we really want to go there? It is a sad and desolate place… “.

Dev Anand’s sex life has not been “a sad and desolate” place as he seems to have bedded many white and brown women-although we must hear from the girls to confirm this- but what about his love life?

It’s not a pretty picture.

Read this:
"Zeenat and I started being linked with each other in the magazines and newspapers that people hungry for gossip love to read. Whenever and wherever she was talked about glowingly, I loved it; and whenever and wherever I was discussed in the same vein, she was jubilant. In the subconscious, we had become emotionally attached to each other. After the premiere of Ishq Ishq Ishq at Metro cinema, Raj Kapoor kissed Zeenat in full view of the invited audience, congratulating her for her sparkling performance in the film. That must have made her evening all the more sparkling. Yet, I was jealous of him for making advances on what I considered my sole possession, my discovery, my leading lady, and desiring her with a kiss.

I felt I was desperately in love with Zeenat—and wanted to say so to her! To make an honest confession, at a very special, exclusive place meant for romance. I called her up to say, ‘Zeenie, I want to go out on a date with you tonight.’ ‘But aren’t we already going together to a party tonight?’ she asked me. ‘Let’s just go there only for a brief while, say Hi to the gathering, and then quickly disappear!’ Together we went to the party. It was on in full force. The first person who greeted Zeenat from a distance was a drunken Raj Kapoor, with a gallant drawl, ‘There she is!’ He threw his arms around her exuberantly. This suddenly struck me as a little too familiar. And the way she reciprocated his embrace seemed much more than just polite and courteous. My heart broke into pieces, I wanted to leave the party at once and go off somewhere alone, to be just by myself, so that I could swallow the humiliation thrust on my ego.”

This is petty. This is not romantic...”And the way she reciprocated his embrace seemed much more than just polite and courteous. “

Oh, thanks for not describing how hard her sumptuous breasts were pressing against Raj Kapoor’s chest! (Poor Raj Kapoor, this has been a bad month for him. First it was Vaijayantimala denying any thing more than 'Sangam' publicity between him and her and now this......Dost Dost Na Raha!)

I didn’t expect this from Dev Anand, some one from whom a generation or two of India learnt to love and romance.

To be honest, I always felt Dev Anand's acting in colour era of Hindi films- starting with Guide- was only an act of seduction, conquest of a girl, done with a style and good music.

Reading Dev Anand reminded me of PAUL THEROUX’s review (NYT October 17, 2004) of Graham Greene’s biography:

“...GREENE was a restless traveler, a committed writer, a terrible husband, an appalling father and an admitted manic-depressive; he was relentlessly sexual, ardently priapic. ''I think his sexual appetites are voracious, frightening,'' one of his close friends remarked, though the man was English and so the word ''frightening'' must be taken with a grain of salt. But certainly Greene was a tireless sensualist. Like many other sexually obsessed men he tended to be noncommittal, evasive, given to unexplained vanishings and sentimental utterances, but forever feverishly on the prowl. He often complained of writer's block, but where women were concerned he was hypergraphic. He had the lecher's bouts of romanticism and fits of fantasy; these he set down on paper…

… Greene was not a Casanova, not vain in his conquests, not a scorekeeper (though he kept a detailed list of his 47 favorite prostitutes -- given here in an appendix). Greene was insecure, needy, insatiable, interested in variation and always willing to have a go. He preferred his women to be waiflike, boyish, petite -- he himself was well over six feet tall. The women in his novels tend to match that description, but of course they are based on women he had loved…”

I remember watching Dev Anand’s interview on “Rendezvous with Simi Garewal”. I was moved by his hurt on the death of his mother before he came to Bombay. I now think he never got over his loss. He still misses his mother. He never found the real love.

In his later life, did he mistake sex for love?

Freud has said: “"He who knows his mother's love and is secure in that knowledge will never know failure.”


Artist: Peter Arno The New Yorker March 24, 1928

Learning to Lucid-Dream to Meet My Mother

One of my most favourite authors is Carl Sagan.

Read this passage from his book-my most favourite- “The Demon-Haunted World” (1997, HEADLINE)

“My parents died years ago. I was very close to them. I still miss them terribly. I know I always will. I long to believe that their essence, their personalities, what I loved so much about them, are -- really and truly -- still in existence somewhere. I wouldn't ask very much, just five or ten minutes a year, say, to tell them about their grandchildren, to catch them up on the latest news, to remind them that I love them. There's a part of me -- no matter how childish it sounds -- that wonders how they are. "Is everything all right?" I want to ask. The last words I found myself saying to my father, at the moment of his death, were "Take care."

Sometimes I dream that I'm talking to my parents, and suddenly -- still immersed in the dreamwork -- I'm seized by the overpowering realization that they didn't really die, that it's all been some kind of horrible mistake. Why, here they are, alive and well, my father making wry jokes, my mother earnestly advising me to wear a muffler because the weather is chilly. When I wake up I go through an abbreviated process of mourning all over again. Plainly, there's something within me that's ready to believe in life after death. And it's not the least bit interested in whether there's any sober evidence for it.”

I was in tears when I read this because I too wanted to meet my mother-who I lost in January 2006- for “just five or ten minutes a year”.

If I were to meet her today, I would tell her “Ganpati festival is no fun without you.”

STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM has written an essay “Living Your Dreams, in a Manner of Speaking” for NYT September 16, 2007.

She says: “THE kiss you share with the exquisite stranger is electric, deep and seemingly endless — that is until you open an eye and see drool on your pillow.
If only you could have slept long enough to consummate the seduction. Then again, you had no idea you were dreaming. Besides, you cannot control the nightly ride on the wings of your subconscious. Or can you?

Maybe, if you learn to practice “lucid dreaming,” a state in which a sleeping person becomes aware he or she is dreaming and may even be able to direct the action. Those who regularly experience the phenomenon say that like the physics-defying characters in “The Matrix,” they are able to generate or manipulate the fantastical events that unfold. They can fly without wings, play instruments they never learned, go bowling with T. S. Eliot — and, yes, indulge sexual fantasies…..”

As I have said before Americans think or fantasize rarely anything beyond sex but I must learn to lucid-dream to meet my mother.




The New Yorker

What has got Freud to do with India’s World Cup Victory? He helped create Dr. Dreud!

SIGMUND Freud died 68 years ago. It’s still not clear whether Freud was the genius of the 20th century, a comprehensive absurdity or something in between. So says, MARK EDMUNDSON (NYT September 23, 2007).

“…But he has been different from all the other aspiring masters in that he has taught nothing so insistently as the need to dissolve our illusions about masters, and to be responsive to more moderate, subtle and humane sources of authority.

Such a figure — authoritarian and anti-authoritarian at the same time — cannot help but be confusing. But once we understand our confusion, Freud can also be quite illuminating. Among other things, his ideas about authority help us understand (and in some measure sympathize with) the hunger for absolute leaders and absolute truth that probably besets us all, but that has overwhelmed many of our fellow humans who find themselves living under tyrannical governments and fundamentalist faiths.

But the best of Freud will not be available to us until we can work through the transference he provoked. We need to see him as a great patriarch, yes, but as one who struggled for nothing so much as for the abolition of patriarchy.”

Rahul Dravid in his quiet yet firm ways got rid of patriarchic duo of Tendulkar and Ganguly from Indian T20 cricket. Result? India trumped big.

Personally, I had stopped cheering Indian team for last few years because of this duo. I was feeling like the child in Peter Arno’s picture below. “Knock about…. Just on the estate” Why?

When I heard T20 team was going to be without them, I told my son that I was back in the camp...Count me in.

Our team played some great, lively, fearless cricket.

I have always felt that Dravid is not only India’s best batsman since Sunil Gavaskar but also a very conscientious man. He always plays tactfully but with a straight bat. He did that when he withdrew himself out of T20 world cup. That forced Tendulkar and Ganguly to do the same. He also quit captaincy on the eve of India’s first match in T20 to force cricket administration to announce Dhoni as the captain even for F50.

I have said on this blog few times earlier that most of our heroes overstay their welcome because we tolerate their tyranny. Other than Sunil Gavaskar almost none of our megastar sportsmen/women- absolute leaders- retired at the top or near the top.

Tendulkar’s is a story that proves George Orwell’s point- “Our civilization is decadent”. Tendulkar WAS a great cricketer, almost a genius, who in last century played without fear but in this century, seems to have allowed himself to be increasingly used by greedy corporates. Sponsors control everything he says or does. We the people never get the correct picture because his sponsors control even the media and the cricket administration.

We needed an insider like Dravid to do what many of us wanted to happen some time ago. Thank you, Dr. Dreud!



Artist: Peter Arno The New Yorker 21 June 1941

Will Rakhi Sawant’s Reveal-all Book Outsell Bhakti Literarture in India?

The Telegraph, UK’s website on September 23, 2007 and Times of India on September 25, 2007 report:
“Fears for the future of the literary novel have been heightened by the revelation that a book by Katie Price, the surgically enhanced model, has outsold the entire Booker Prize shortlist.

Sales for the Man Booker Prize contenders show that the combined efforts of the cream of Britain's literary talent cannot match the appeal of Crystal, by Katie Price, the topless model better known as Jordan.

Figures that make grim reading for lovers of highbrow literature show that Crystal is beating the combined sales of all six works on the Man Booker shortlist…

The revelation has thrown the literary world into depression…

Told of Ms Price's victory, one agent who has represented Booker shortlisted authors in this and previous years, admitted: "Depressed? That could be a bit of an understatement. Literary fiction just doesn't sell in the quantities it used to….

Ms Price, 29, who came to public attention as a topless model whose natural attractions had been considerably enlarged by the surgeon's knife, has written two novels. Angel, about a young woman who becomes a model, was published in 2006, selling 300,000 copies in six weeks..."

I am not surprised.

P L Deshpande, Marathi humourist and entertainer, once punned: “Theirs is a Draksh (Marathi word for GRAPE) culture while ours is a Rudraksh culture”. He implied the Christian use of grape wine as part of religious ceremony while Indians use Rudraksh. (For Indians, no other bead is so auspicious and powerful as Rudraksh….The seed of Rudraksh has been given a very special place and it is credited with mystical and divine properties. The botanical name of the Rudraksh plant is 'ELAEOCARPUS GRANITRUS'.)

He could as well have said- theirs is a “sexulture”.

In US it seems, ‘old’ wealthy men- tycoons, Hollywood honchos, politicos-are busy marrying women of their daughter’s age and producing babies as fast as possible.

In olden days India, you could find mother and daughter pregnant during the same period. In US, you have similar scenes now. Mother, daughter and perhaps a granddaughter expecting a child!

In India serious vernacular language books hardly sell and titillation-thanks to Indian cinema- sells big time but I still feel Indians are not obsessed with sex as much as the West and for sure best selling books in India are not written by topless models.


Artist: Peter Arno The New Yorker September 10,1960

A Prayer for the Supreme Court where Truth was Not Considered a Valid Defence

ARUNDHATI ROY has written a devastating (does she know any other way?!) essay “Scandal In The Palace” (Outlook October 1, 2007).

Ms. Roy says: “…When there's a scandal about a former chief justice and his tenure in office, it's a little difficult to surgically excise the man and spare the institution. But then commenting adversely on the institution can lead you straight to a prison cell as some of us have learned to our cost…

The higher judiciary, the Supreme Court in particular, doesn't just uphold the law, it micromanages our lives. Its judgements range through matters great and small. It decides what's good for the environment and what isn't, whether dams should be built, rivers linked, mountains moved, forests felled. It decides what our cities should look like and who has the right to live in them. It decides whether slums should be cleared, streets widened, shops sealed, whether strikes should be allowed, industries should be shut down, relocated or privatised. It decides what goes into school textbooks, what sort of fuel should be used in public transport and schedules of fines for traffic offences. It decides what colour the lights on judges' cars should be (red) and whether they should blink or not (they should). It has become the premier arbiter of public policy in this country that likes to market itself as the World's Largest Democracy…

Ironically, judicial activism first rode in on a tide of popular discontent with politicians and their venal ways. Around 1980, the courts opened their doors to ordinary citizens and people's movements seeking justice for underprivileged and marginalised people. This was the beginning of the era of Public Interest Litigation, a brief window of hope and real expectation. While Public Interest Litigation gave people access to courts, it also did the opposite. It gave courts access to people and to issues that had been outside the judiciary's sphere of influence so far. So it could be argued that it was Public Interest Litigation that made the courts as powerful as they are. Over the last 15 years or so, through a series of significant judgements, the judiciary has dramatically enhanced the scope of its own authority….

The expansion of judicial powers has not been accompanied by an increase in its accountability. Far from it. The judiciary has managed to foil every attempt to put in place any system of checks and balances that other institutions in democracies are usually bound by. It has opposed the suggestion by the Committee for Judicial Accountability that an independent disciplinary body be created to look into matters of judicial misconduct. It has decreed that an fir cannot be registered against a sitting judge without the consent of the chief justice (which has never ever been given). It has so far successfully insulated itself against the Right to Information Act. The most effective weapon in its arsenal is, of course, the Contempt of Court Act which makes it a criminal offence to do or say anything that "scandalises" or "lowers the authority" of the court. Though the act is framed in arcane language more suited to medieval ideas of feminine modesty, it actually arms the judiciary with formidable, arbitrary powers to silence its critics and to imprison anyone who asks uncomfortable questions….

Until recently, under the Law of Contempt, even truth was not considered a valid defence. So suppose, for instance, we had prima facie evidence that a judge has assaulted or raped someone, or accepted a bribe in return for a favourable judgement, it would be a criminal offence to make the evidence public because that would "scandalise or tend to scandalise" or "lower or tend to lower" the authority of the court.

Yes, things have changed, but only a little. Last year, Parliament amended the Contempt of Court Act so that truth becomes a valid defence in a contempt of court charge. But in most cases (such as in the case of the Sabharwal...er... shall we say "affair") in order to prove something it would have to be investigated. But obviously when you ask for an investigation you have to state your case, and when you state your case you will be imputing dishonourable motives to a judge for which you can be convicted for contempt. So: Nothing can be proved unless it is investigated and nothing can be investigated unless it has been proved…

It all becomes a bit puzzling when ex-chief justices like Justice S.P. Bharucha go about making public statements about widespread corruption in the judiciary. Perhaps we should wear ear plugs on these occasions or chant a mantra.

It may hurt our pride and curb our free spirits to admit it, but the fact is that we live in a sort of judicial dictatorship. And now there's a scandal in the Palace…

In most other countries, the definition of Criminal Contempt of Court is limited to anything that threatens to be a clear and present danger to the administration of justice. This business of "scandalising" and "lowering the authority" of the court is an absurd, dangerous form of censorship and an insult to our collective intelligence. ..”

Reading this makes me numb. All I think of, during this Ganpati festival, is a prayer for the Supreme Court. "God, give them wisdom".


Artist: Alan Dunn The New Yorker July 21, 1962

Perhaps Beautiful but Surely A Fraud: Thomas Daniell’s Painting of Peshwa Court

William Dalrymple has written a wonderful essay “Moor The Collector” for Outlook (September 17, 2007).

WD writes: “In 1805, a young scholar-official of the East India Company was invalided home to Suffolk at the age of only 35. Edward Moor had first come out to India at the age of 11, spoke several Indian languages, and was passionately interested in the cosmology and beliefs of the Hindus.

Now, with time on his hands in an unfamiliar country he hardly remembered, Moor filled his time by gathering together and organising the artistic, anthropological and textual materials he had been collecting for many years on the deities and images of Hinduism. Five years later, in 1810, he finally published his masterwork, The Hindu Pantheon. Moor's book immediately established itself as the most detailed and accurate attempt yet made by any European scholar to collate and compare the textual and artistic material on Hinduism.

Before Moor, British scholars in India had managed to write some quite amazing nonsense about the Hindus and their religious practices…

Moor's work on Hindu deities was not superseded for 80 years and remained in print for over a century; yet today he is remembered less for his scholarship than for the remarkable Indian paintings, miniatures and artworks he commissioned and collected as part of his research. These consisted of over 640 items of Hindu painting and sculpture, with a special emphasis on the varying iconographies of the different deities.”

Indeed 18th-19th century India-centric art has largely remained unsung and inaccessible. The art is not just about aesthetics but it's history talking to us directly, without any lousy interpreters.

One of the major events in Indian history was the treaty that brought Nizam, Marathas and British together against Tipu Sultan. There is a much-hailed painting by Thomas Daniell (1749-1840) depicting the event. At the end of this post, you may see a copy of the painting. The picture also finds a mention in Edward Moor’s “The Hindu Pantheon”. Moor lived in Pune for many years.

The painting is described as: ‘A representation of the delivery of the Ratified Treaty of’ ‘1790 by Sir Charles Warre Malet Bt. to his Highness Souae Madarow Peshwa in full’ ‘Durbar or Court as held upon that occasion at Poonah in the East Indies on’ ‘the 6th Aug 1790’

Based on Dr. V D Divekar’s article in Bharat Itihas Sanshodhan Mandal' (भारत इतिहास संशोधन मंडळ) journal, historian, painter, art-critic the late D G Godse द ग गोडसे wrote a memorable essay ['Ek Darbar Chitra ani Charitra' (एक दरबारचित्र आणि चरित्र) included in his book ‘Samande Talash’ Shreevidya Prakashan 1981) on this painting. It’s a fascinating read and proves why they say a picture is worth a thousand words.

Godse proves that this picture is a fraud!

This painting was initially wrongly attributed to James Wales (1747-1795). Wales came to Pune and even taught at an art school there. The school created some notable painters like Gangaram Chintaman Navgire-Tambat (गंगाराम चिंतामण नवगिरे-तांबट) and sculptors like Bakhatram. Malet has praised Gangaram’s work and some of Gangaram’s work is still preserved in Malet’s estate. But Wales came to Pune only in 1791, a year after the event depicted in the painting and died at Thane in 1795.

The painting was finally correctly attributed to Thomas Daniell who probably never ever came to Pune! Daniell painted it circa 1805, not in India but back in England. In 1790, Daniell was traveling some where in Andhra Pradesh.

Godse has picked many holes in the painting.

He points out that first it was Edward Moor who noticed the difference between Ganesh Mahal in the picture and the one Moor actually saw. Cows in the painting look European. Mythical daemons depicted look foreign, like Satan. Headgears worn by Peshwa and others look Saxon. Putting flowerpot was not a practice of the time etc. etc.

Maratha officers used to sit to the right of the Peshwa unlike in the painting where they are shown sitting on the left. Crowd present in the court is poorly depicted. Most of them don’t look like Maharashtrians.

And the biggest faux pass of Daniell is that the painting shows visiting British have not just NOT removed their shoes as was customary but are exposing their bottom of their shoes to the Peshwa, an extreme act of profanation.

How bad the insult would have been?

Almost 116 years later, on CNN Larry King Live, I heard Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico and aspiring Democratic Party (United States) presidential nominee, telling with glee his famous story of meeting with Saddam Hussein and insulting him by showing him the bottom of his shoe.

Malet despised Marathas but was surely not as foolish (and boorish?) as Richardson to do this! Or was it his way of venting out his frustrations- of not getting governorship of Bombay- on Marathas 15 years after the event when he was safely away in England?!

Artist: Thomas Daniell, commissioned by Sir Charles Malet circa 1805

courtesy: Tate Gallery and Wikimedia Commons

(p.s.
In September 2007, I invited Mr. Dalrymple to visit this post.

His reply on September 24 2007 in an e-mail: "Its a fascinating piece- well done! W")

Only True Test of Artistic Merit is Survival

After Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni died, Toby Young wrote an essay for The Spectator (August 11, 2007) "Keep your wild strawberries: Bergman, Antonioni and the end of an error”.

Young says:” Sixteen years ago I got together with a group of like-minded friends and started a magazine called The Modern Review. Its premise was that popular culture is as worthy of serious critical attention as high culture… As George Orwell said, the only true test of artistic merit is survival and posterity has not been kind to the films of Bergman or Antonioni — or, indeed, the vast majority of art-house directors…

The argument, then, isn’t about the artistic merit of films like The Shop Around the Corner, The Searchers, It’s a Wonderful Life, The Lady Eve, His Girl Friday, North by Northwest, The Maltese Falcon and Some Like It Hot — which we can all agree are masterpieces — but about whether art-house directors belong in such exalted company. And to my mind, they don’t…

...I’m profoundly suspicious of the whole modernist project, particularly the notion that art and culture should only be accessible to an educated elite. As John Carey pointed out in The Intellectuals and the Masses, modernism emerged as a way for the literary intelligentsia to differentiate themselves from those they contemptuously referred to as ‘the masses’. By championing artistic endeavour that was deliberately obtuse, the intelligentsia succeeded in excluding ordinary people from sharing in their pursuits…

Unlike the champions of Bergman and Antonioni, it is popular movies I regard as true cinematic art, not obscure, art-house films — and I’m convinced that posterity will prove me right.”

Since Acharya Atre 1898-1969, P L Deshpande , champion of nostalgia, was Maharashtra’s greatest entertainer until his death in 2000. Only bigger entertainer than Pu La was Hindi film industry.

Pu La wrote about other entertainers- Bal Gandharva (legendary large-hearted Marathi stage artist), masters of Hindustani classical such as Kumar Gandharva; Bhimsen Joshi; Mallikarjun Mansur; Vasantrao Deshpande among many others. But he never wrote about Hindi films and their music.

I think Hindi film music composed from circa 1950-1970 by likes of Roshan, Madan Mohan, C Ramchandra, two Burmans, Shankar-Jaikishan etc is as good as any man has created. It is not just popular till the date but also of high artisitic standards. Some of C Ramchandra’s music, inspired by both Jazz and Hindustani classical, would make both Lionel Hampton and Govindrao Tembe (has there been any musical album better than his SANGEET MANAPMAN) proud.
Songwriters like Shailendra, Kaifi Azmi, Sahir, Majrooh etc. too were of high quality.

In Raj Kapoor’s film Shree 420, there is a scene where a milkman takes the song “Ramayya Vastavayya” from the protagonist Raj Kapoor to his estranged lover Nargis at the time of daybreak.

A milkman.

Along with Bhakti literarture, Hindi film music will outlast any art in India.


Artist: Ed Fisher The New Yorker February 12, 1955