protean ramble

Central Line

2010-01-21T15:33:00.000-08:00

In times that greys and whites
pattern, speckle and tesselate
stretches of tiles and skies
A yellow line smudged with
the earth it carved out
trails the fringes of the songs
you draw in your mind.

As you alight volumes of steel
and adverts of countries
you'd visit as you sleep, fitfully
cashing in on your frequent flier miles
The ragged dolls of pity
strut the beaches in exotic names and swimwear
as the blondes stand neckdeep
in callous dark waters, bobbing
possesions of their dollhouses
and antique chestnut dressers.

Coloured tubes persevere in centimeters
of drunken auras and mint laced breaths
carefully exalting fumes
of half scalded hearts, burnt at the pub altar
exhumed though, outside
mackintosh doors with roses and serpents
in thick and cold
tinted glass and grids
barring escapes, from your Edens.

Stare closely, at those grouted grimy lines
sketched along edges of giant set-squares laid in time.
Don't look at the tip of your nose
you'd get cross-eyed, and perhaps a splitting spine.

They leap, those striations
in sonatas and symphonies
you write with your gait.
Every clicked heel, a beat
tappety tap tap
on trodden concrete.

You alight and slump
in your red and blue seat
As you flew across, so did the crow
The dash you charted
Now, you s l o w

Orchestrated quartets bow and light up
each, a music sheet;

three strings allude the synagogue,
(with spiral staircases and flying buttresses)
burning polaroids in light
expanses and darker hollows.
A harpsichord picks its chord
A Giordani I know.

Wistfully they climb the crest
in C minors
as you melt away..
leaving behind

your afterglow.

dhaage ko hindi main kya kehte hain?

2010-01-17T19:18:00.000-08:00

धागा था कच्चा

जो तुमने उठाया

परखकर, अपनी ऊँगली पर नचाया

थोडा खींचा, ताना, फिर दी ढील

तो धागा, डगमगाया /

उसी को तुमने वापस लपेटा

यादों का एक संदूक जा खोला

अपने पिटारे में जगह बनायीं

और रेशम के रुमाल में

क्या वहीँ, उसे समेटा //

उस रेशम की नींद में

मैंने एक सपना देखा

और जैसे की सिनेमा में होता है

आया तभी वह सपना तुम्हे

और वह पल , कुछ तो बहका /

अब क्या वो धागा कहता..

तुम तो ठहरे कढ़ाई के जादूगर

उठाई सुई और लगे

तिरछी आँख से दूसरी आँख में

खेलने सुई-धागे का खेल

धागा भागा, कहीं चूंका

लेकिन जादू-टोने ने बड़ा धमकाया //

तुमने धागा क्या गिराया

लगे लिखने, अपना शाही उपन्यास

अपने, इस भागते मंडराते कलम से ;

कभी दिशा बदलता, कभी रूप

कभी खींच, तो कभी लचक

यहीं कुछ अक्षर बने, कुछ लोग

उन्हीं को उन रेखाओं में

कैद किया, और वहीँ आज़ाद हुए

उस आज़ादी के पट्ट-चित्र में

तुमने पिरोया, एक मोती

छोटा, पर कठिन

कुछ उस 'double' किये धागे की तरह

जिसके पैरों को कैद कर पक्की गाँठ में बाँधा/

बाँधा,

तो उसी गाँठ में वह पैर चले

कहीं घुंगरू की खनक उठी

आमद के बोल, एक सलामी, कुछ थाट गूंजी

वही सुनते, दिल झूम उठा

उन बंधे पैरों के नशे में

कुछ समा बंधा

कुछ हम बंधे /

धागा थिर्थिराया और आगे बढ़ा

एक कहानी लिखी, एक मोती जचा //

Pattern-party

2010-01-14T15:42:00.000-08:00

Swerving toes of men hung
in shamed centuries that
mark the plot
shadow my days and junkets
in frigid time and passing weather
Stretching blankets of green
with corners that thus spake
the ones I write, tonight
preceded by, an asterisk.

Listings, exemplars, epochs
ascertained and appropriated
Perusal, yours
Debate and egresses, created.

As you leave
When the cold snatches your breath
and blows back smoke rings, you swallow
read, the notes in the haze.

The fog that bobs and bears
spiel and legend
parallel cities and spans
metered, devised and punctuated.

Speckles in shimmering consistencies
strewn across collective universes
that sing the songs in drones we know;
leap
out of bassinets and petri-dishes
and climb the proverbial doublehelix
fragile, in welded snowflakes

And as they descend the inverted skyscraper
turning along it's inclining walls
falling inwards, back to where it all started
they mate, cheat and play the game of bacchus
spirited, in wine and daze

I watch,tickled, in my head
as they climb, slowly
gravitating to the pulsating sciatic
precariously stretched nerves and hide
untangled, suspending
a trampoline
throbbing names
throbbing dates
throbbing pain

Apophenia, today
reigns.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Disease_of_Language

ghisai

2010-01-12T15:30:00.000-08:00

for most of you who know me
and know all the other stuff that most people who know me, know about me
you know that i have a website
that i hardly ever end up updating with my work
because i can hardly understand the code and the process now
with my head swimming with things more important than HTML and suchlike

so what i've managed to do
and it's an accomplishment for me (ergo, the need for applause)
is that i've managed to put together some of my work
on yet another social networking website
but it's done
and it's one less thing to do in 2010

i'll keep it updated hopefully

check it out if you may

http://www.coroflot.com/payal

boyohboy

2010-01-08T16:02:00.000-08:00

sunshine brought him in

jabberwockying, mid-meals

a gleam on my rearview mirror

of the car i never drove or dreamt up

but the one that pushed my train up the hill

from where i could see

the sea

a high tide, surging up a haze

a reverie in green, white and blue

shimmering a million pieces held, glued

a whistle that held the tune

breezing in, the curtains they pirouette

in circles and halves

broken and oblique

tangential like the lives that hold us

you remind me

of people i wanted to visit and of places i wanted to be

an incandescent looking glass

a brasso-ed haft, the split veneer

laughing perversely at our trails

refracting, bouncing, imagining

never was that kind word silent

never was the one stoic , liquid

hear me out, tonight if you will

i rhyme and conjure

those hundreds-and-thousands

in colours you and i summoned

round them up, whisk them in the trowel

and sink them in urns

bury, in the lair

for soon

we'll find them pickled

with stories, yours and mine

handpicked

marinated

and sundried

out

2010-01-01T13:23:00.000-08:00

disappearances and forgiveness

thick pie crusts gone stale

'BLUEBERRY'

old rancid layers of creamcheese

for breakfast

i wipe it clean

the dribble

the spilt cake

clear now, the glass and the mind

markings in yellow markers swept loose

broken, multiplying and hooked distances

from one another and the other

affable meetings

and stark goodbyes

the lid struck down

not a muscle

nothing winces

the tear is scanty now

yellow markings

down a cheek

you knew

weekend tramplings

2009-12-13T11:32:00.000-08:00

Patches of darkness spill

onto the gravel

lit by a million fireflies; guiding

flames and memories

songs

and songs of a song

the evening

spent walking our minutes by the leash

letting them go, out but not far

we walk them in sync and when you stop

i know its time

to retrace those steps and go home

to arms we belong, times we contain and possessions we become.

walk with me the time

ours

alone

this time, once

walk it slow.

2009-12-10T12:24:00.000-08:00

He's white and blue. And he holds a big bottle of champagne to celebrate. News, he says. Life, indeed. He's white and red sometimes. Thin stripes that make a pink. They fall, tightly around his greased tummy and grizzly mane. He's sometimes, yellow. Sometimes, pure evil red. Odious, if I may. But he can punctuate. And say all the wrong things at the wrong time. And the right ones, when times have flown by. You can see him from a distance, a hazy blob of associations and tangents, carrying baggage. Mine.

corner tales and wooden smells

2009-12-08T15:20:00.001-08:00

Imagine an existence in hatched lines and dotted paths, dimensions you've studied and known, memorised in silence and darkness. Counted stairs to the landing, preempted the curve on the balustrade, breathed in the volumes and smells of rooms, familiar though forgotten. The winding plan, the multiple splits in level and configuration, stories in brick, cement and some marble. Doors that lead to another, then another, then another. The house. The non existent living room. The rite of entrance and the grandparents, waiting for a bell. Sometimes, to not ring.

I come home after gaps that wear out my memory and those it contains. I come home to changes I've foreseen yet not accepted. I come home to changed views, viewpoints and vistas. To newer linen, floorboards, kitchen mats, chimneys, gas hobs, tables, flowers in the vase (from my brother, to make up for my father's temporary absence)

The lilies, as always, are fresh. And white. They've become my sense of permanence, of home and comfort corners. Move the vase, and I cry a river. Take the flowers away, and I cry some more. The lines fall away slower than the walls did. Orientations have changed. I changed them, on a grey screen. And my virtual models come to haunt me and my memories that they threaten. The story is a simple one. And the conclusions apparent. The conflict lies in my absence and the stoic markings in my mind. Some, hatched. Some, double-lined.

The story writes itself. And I watch, clinging onto the songs I heard on the AIWA deck in the living room, when it existed, when we played our cricket matches along the lengths of the diwans that lined the room. When the stories were shorter in my head, a ball of wool, ready to be flung down a slope.It wound out, faster than I would imagine tugging it back. And the colours changed along the way. It dropped, skipped, chugged and ran. The house whispered it's story. Sometimes now, I hear it shout. And it annoys me. It was supposed to be my story too. And I didn't want it spoken out on electroacoustic transducers. No part of that story. Not mine. Not ours.

Let's sit in our circle of ten tonight, mumma. Let's play the game we knew and mastered. Let's play a round of whispers that once comforted her crying. The one that made me draw. The one that made them giggle. It's been a while in the story since we did.

It takes the biscuit

2009-11-26T15:55:00.000-08:00

The tickets, were difficult to procure. The show runs a full house every single evening. And the sell out is easy to understand after two odd hours of stepping into the world, that is, Warhorse.

No previously read reviews, watched videos or overheard babble can ruin this work of sheer genius. Nick Stafford's adaptation of the text climbs multiple rungs for its sincere dramaturgy and an accession to simplicity that beats most Westend spectacles, hollow. The plot, uncomplicated allows the dramaturge to infuse life into the acts by using life size puppets, crafted deftly by the Handspring Puppet Company and suddenly, the inanimate objects become the engaging anchor. To think out loud, the production uses multiple media (too many, actually) to tell a rather straightforward story however the switch from one medium to the other, from text to dextrous choreography of the puppets, singing and dancing, dialogue and animal sounds to the animation on the minimalist backdrop is indeed, effortless. The story revolves around the love a young boy has for his horse.Of how the horse is sold to the dragoons during the First World War. And how they're reunited over a series of effectively staged incidents pertaining to the war.

Starkly, an honest tale. And honestly, a stark one at that.

The set is minimal and does justice to the simplicity of the piece. A constructed screen and a massive revolve are the only two permanent elements that allow for many a prop or staging device to be wheeled in or hauled down. The narration is crisp and ingenious in it's use of the extents of the stage. Effectual choreography with large sticks held by a chorus of five players transforms the playing area from a marketplace to a stable, a pasture and the house of the young boy called Albert. Each horse chassis is maneuvered by 3 people; one controlling his head and the other two, it's body. The frameworks created for the puppeteers to play with are incredibly detailed. The sound of the hooves on the stage, the sound of the horse smacking its tail down are all percipient facets to the complete design of the mechanism. When the horses gallop, the mind immediately obliterates the three people who manipulate it's movements and the horses take focus. Each puppet in itself is also different and the inclusion of some other puppets almost makes it a complete world. Not just a slotted gimmick to the production.

Stage properties, like the performers, double up and create smaller worlds. Stage space is fluid. Audiences find a bunch of actors seated next to them while the puppets spin their magic yarn and the scenes fade into one another, harmoniously.

The production doesn't particularly need a space such as the New London Theatre to thrive. It's dramatic appeal lies in the impregnable fit of it's direction, choreography and dexterity assumed around the puppets. It would work just the same (or even better) in a park or a square.

Warhorse, to me, is an appropriate example of what theatre ought to be. And almost a mockery of the technologically crippled spectacles it aspires to turn into. The production values here, indeed are large. But the monies seem wisely spent. Not a single aspect appears over-designed or intellectualised. It is as unfeigned as an instance of a bedtime story told by a father to his child, using little toys and blocks over the contours of the blanket, the child is tucked into. It's effective. And heartwarming. It is a story we all know and we've all heard. In the different tunes we sing in our head before we sleep. It's a story that needs not a 'Once upon a time' or 'an ogre and a fairy' but a neigh and another, to have me sleep happy.

Too many a door, too many a dot.

2009-11-19T18:22:00.000-08:00

I walked through an epiphany

No heights, no deafening hum

Sepia sequences in duotone

Paper thin stone facades

the same

leaves rustling up a tune

a man busy fixing

his doll, changing it's

circuitry from DC to AC

The engines rev; the neon, embitters

the night, cold

struck away from yesterday

or where I come from.

poetic reasoning or outpour

on a blank night

Starlets on a cloudy turf, nebulae with no names.

Noises and things I see

shut out

I close my mouth, my hands and eyes

to see Goldenrod mosaics

tesselate and dance

in dots and lines, converging

in elliptical circles

parabolic tendencies

rings in phosphorescence

The dots, they converge, resuming walks, tracing lines

dots, dots and dits. Smaller. Now.

An exodus of points, a line detonates

I blink; my eyes dry, moisten and glister now

sodium, vapourises

the streetlamps howl and bleed

crying smelting spheres of yellow

a hue so bright and naked

drips

scathing lines across, my mind and the sky.

Inhalation

and the score rests; incomplete

on a newer prologue

A Keynote. A quantum beginning.

Jasmin Vardimon // YESTERDAY

2009-11-19T16:55:00.001-08:00

Living in a city littered with performances every evening, drives me to atleast two a week. And while I watch them, I take mental notes, sometimes grab a quick unobserved image over my phone or record a sound piece to take back home and store up within the bank of things I will go back to every now and then.

I walked into THE PLACE at Euston square last evening, knowing not very much about Jasmin Vardimon. I'd heard of her prowess over the artform given her presence at a few dance festivals that friends had once mentioned, but save that and a few youtube videos (to check if buying tickets would be worth my while), Jasmin Vardimon Company, wasn't particularly within my umwelt (yes, this word reappears often when I write. Yes, you'll have to bear with it. Yes, you can go ahead and "Tsk")

If a retrospective of ten years of work looks like what I saw yesterday, it sets a very high benchmark for any artist in any sphere of performance to live upto. For a company to produce a body of work that braids technology, dramaturgy and dance so rather seamlessly, is nothing but a feat unmatched. The performance draws in it's audience as they walk in and take their seats. And the long curtain call almost cheers out an encore. 'Yesterday', the retrospective piece by the Company is a tale of triumph, of endurance, dexterity and above all, a collective notion of enraptured space and time. A movement pattern etched out so completely on a palette that comprises the human body, the lines in space and driven form, music , technology and carved space within an intimate setting for a captive audience. It defies every rule in the game, every note on the score and every point of contact with the piece that the audience already presumes. The performers, aren't smaller cogs in the wheel that turns deftly and spans a duration of evocative latitudes. They are, but the larger system that allow the weft of technology and stage properties to be woven within. The affordances of the object, the human body, the screens, projections, lights and sound are stretched elastically and they garner shape that the choreography lends them to creating multiple strata of poignant frames and freezes that progressively form the whole.

The performers almost lend their bodies to the performance and stand away, in ekstasis, watching their limbs take forms that instill meanings and methods beyond their own means. The bodies buckle, fall, bounce and drift across the stage like marionettes in the hands of a lucid dreamer. Their skins become almost transluscent media for creating larger pieces of automatic art, canvasses for detailed maps and elongated mindspaces. The facets tell their individual stories yet they don't add up to the whole. Infact, the summation of piece lies in grander truths that the performers explore and astutely convey. Form dissolves into darkness and the eye traces the outlines of what remains or may have been. Escapades and stolen notes from diaries of youth come to life upon a stage set afire by souls in stop motion, watched in their personal staccatos and legatos. One stares into a theatre laboratory and finds a madhouse of scientists busy at work, imploding intentions and preserving the inviolate.

The collective energies propel the performance into a league, unmatched. The narratives seep in from the lacuna, as the performers breathe spirit into the ordinary and make it indelible. Humor, strikes its note and the falsetto echoes a sympathetic chorus. The dramaturge, sits perched on the throne (or in this case, the chaise lounge) the choreographer sits nimbly upon, with those who infuse the night. His role, is perhaps the most pivotal in the series of works that the audience is subjected to. And as elements of mass choreography tend to play repetitions (which does help hold the performance together, though I did hear people complain about similar routines), the dramaturge smokes his pipe and blows rings in phosphorescence. Thermal screens, live projections, stylised videos, animated sequences, simplistic prop elements and costume, basic percussion and lighting plots set the ball rolling. In this case, it's almost a dribble run.

Each piece is short, concise and structured within the meta-narrative almost gleefully. The dancers emote, sing, squeal, shout and thump almost as well as they swing their sinewy frames across a gargantuan expanse that seems too little to contain them. Yet, they stop when they do, robotically, mid-motion, mid-air, mid-speech, mid-thought and mid-intention, choreographed, almost by a ghost pull or swerve that changes their trajectories and delights at newer syllogisms.

The audience, on its part, forgets to breathe. Some, forget they gape. I think I did also observe people clasping shut the mouths of those they accompanied as the performers lined up for a curtain call.

A standing ovation, but obviously.

Introspective.

Retrospective.

24 July

2009-11-17T17:48:00.000-08:00

I miss you.

I remember you in technicolour dreams and generous smiles

in tearful eyes, wails and loving sighs

To think that I stayed away from our city, waiting for the big tide to subside

for the rain to settle down, the skies to shine on bright.

The water came down

crashed, and it did.

It took you away

sweeping

sweeping our hearts and souls

and drying out these tired eyes

cheeks, tearstained

in wild hopes and lucid dreams

I miss you. Though never in a void.

In life. Truth and sincerity. In real love.

and warmth.

In coloured shoes and scarves

Fox hats, pierced noses and kohled eyes.

In every soulful cry

In the blurry mist

The howling night

In pink, in death.

In pink, in life.

Howler

2009-11-13T18:47:00.000-08:00

The wind howled

All night

And so did my mind

In thought sunk deep, far and entrenched

In memories of childhood and relief

The howl and the scream

Set tone to the game we play

As wolves in a pack of puppets

set to score

Non-metered, immeasurable

lengths of our stories

and lives of our own, on terms we

Never learnt to set

Rules, we didn't think applied

Strings we never mastered

Limbs, that don’t move

Not now.

Atleast for now.

I hope they soon do.

LONDON 09

2009-11-13T18:39:00.000-08:00

I've stayed away from writing here too long. Maybe putting my writing out to dry doesn't do me good in my head. i find myself constantly wondering when I'd get back to it. And I realise that over the last few months, I've been making detailed blog entries in my head.
The move to London's done me good. And it's opened my mind out to see things, anew. And some things new.

I'll write more often. Now. And maybe transcribe the loop that's been playing in my head and on the other random sheets of paper I make myself write.

change.now.

2008-11-30T22:23:00.000-08:00

Seething anger. And a complete sense of being vulnerable.

Sheer disgust. At my own initial reactions to something I perceived as yet another incident, Firing at Leopold’s, said the caller who tried reaching me while I watched a film. Yet another drunken brawl, I thought to myself. 8 people dead, he said. These mad buggers, i thought and went back to the film. Complete apathy. And then the screening stopped. Evacuation. And a horrible feeling.A squelch. And the worst fears playing truant in my head.

How close to home does tragedy have to lurk for us to stop playing oblivious. How many times does my adopted city have to get hit for fear to take over my existence. And how many times can I get myself to reread a list of the dead and the martyred before I pick the phone and check up on an acquaintance who worked at the Taj, who may perhaps not answer my phone-call. Every morning, I tell myself that I’d hate to go through the day if he didn’t answer his phone. And every evening I try and sleep, and wake up thinking if he’s all okay. Its been 4 days. And the text message remains unsent.

I’ve never known this fear before. Where I walk, strangely aware of every un-rhythmic movement around me. Where I wonder if this is over. Or if someone would retaliate and kill a few more innocent people to take revenge of an edifice that was charred for the amusement of a few individuals on a political picnic. I saw the Taj burn, and understood what hate means.
Words- meanings and sounds, places and people, my reverence and obstinacy stand challenged.

2007-12-23T08:01:00.000-08:00

airplanes are mundane spaces. to be squashed in leg-crunching,backbreaking seats for several hours (that may not be a result of international travel but prolonged delays with lowcost airlines) is not something i look forward to.

but then every now and then (even if the most desirable man does not plant his bum on the seat next to mine) something makes the journey worth the torture.

this was one of them.
the airdeccan flight from delhi to goa- june 2006.

DOOOdaaaah

2007-12-22T09:19:00.000-08:00

Seven years ago, my eldest cousin gave me a Furby.
He was called Domo.

I loved it yet hated it just as much.It was the ugliest thing I'd ever owned and I couldn't help myself but replace the batteries, when they ran out (which was ever so often)..Then we moved rooms and Domo vanished into cartons of things we would never need or of things we needed that we would never find.

Today, I found this image. Domo never looked better.

" You know you're too attached to Furby when you go camping and you fall off a cliff yelling 'Maybe! Me scared, ching!' and all your friends say 'Ching! Ching! Me sad, ching!')"
- Forest Jigglypuff

back to campus, the old canteen, randomly painted silver pillars and dollop of dust laced memories

2007-12-09T11:40:00.000-08:00

the old world theatre festival at the habitat centre every winter season is perhaps one of my favourite festivals on the calendar. i caught a few plays there last year and envied all those theatrebuffs who had plunged into theatre at college and managed to sustain their love for performance, so passionately. i remember calling ruchita and musing out loud about how much one could have done with KHEL, at nid. i must admit, it was the enthusiasm of the few like prachi, satwik,lekha,avinash,hitesh and a bunch of us that kickstarted khel....the first production was one arduous task and hats off to lekha for pulling it off.... much dwindled in the years that passed....while kel and i kept pushing the limits (and the authorities) with our little dancing escapades in the old canteen, theatre gathered dust with the many other dreams that the UTM stocked...every single time i walk out of a performance, satiated....i wish i could call hitesh and relive the time when setting a jingle to tune could render sleepless nights only to walk into class the next morning with a big grin of contentment ...call avi and speak to him about shakuntalam and the those other unfinished works, monumental projects that would have lent a completely different sensibility to the idea of performance in a space like the nid campus, that exudes talent but most often shuns the latent few or simply turns its face away...kel and i have been mulling over an elective in movement and composition for a while now...how brillliant would it be to spend fifteen whole days immersing oneself in a project of such nature...it is indeed unfortunate that we find ourselves unable to make that commitment,leave our other work behind and go back to campus..i point fingers to none other but myself, my non-committal stance that is newly imposed but allows me to dive into complacence sometimes.

to think about it...
i actually sat down to write about the play i saw today. it was called ‘shaw cornered’.
for a shaw buff, it was a pure delight.
however, at this moment, that’s all i can bring myself to say...nostalgia has done its bit to veer me off course.

glossary (for those uninitiated into the nid-ness)
ruchita- an exhibition designer, an extremely well read creature, scenographer, a dear friend.
KHEL- the performing arts (ok...theatre) club of NID. now..defunct.
prachi - a stupendous dancer, textile designer, one of my first friends on campus
satwik- a brand freak, he designs accessories for adidas in germany.talks nineteen to a dozen.magnificently manages to hear everything one never said (or never intended to)
avinash- the next big author (watch out!), theatre lover, the linguist in the extended family.
hitesh- the one man army who can take on any theatrewallah and put him to shame with his brilliant stage presence.now a married man with a very lovable wife. i’d have gotten her, if he didn’t :)
lekha- now actress.once a filmmaker. very very tolerant director.
kel- kelsang dorjee dongsar. dancer. and what a dancer!!!
UTM- under the mess.the despicable storehouse that’s eaten into the nid fabric of treasured memories and memorabilia.

beyond the page-threeness of art

2007-12-05T12:38:00.000-08:00

the image above
Bihzad, Sa'di’s Bustan, “The Seduction of Yusuf” 1488

having read the article by STEVEN HENRY MADOFF on October 7, 2007 in the New York Times, i put this together as a string of observations that have been running riot in my head.the article (in NYT) was appropriately titled : ART; India's Art, Booming and Shaking

i've tried to get most quoted facts right.
do point out gliches, if you see any.

......................................................................................................................

I must say the article does justice to presenting a rather objective
stance to the indian art market today.Having observed the market for
almost a year now, I have atleast begun to understand its mechanism
and smaller holes in its fabric.In 2005, a Tyeb Mehta painting called
Mahishasura sold at Christies above the legendary million dollar
mark.The world took notice.There were profound declarations of how
indian art had arrived.If one observes carefully, the art market in
India has burgeoned multifolds in the last two years and indeed many a
gallery has sprung up in every corner of the larger cities.

Yes.The indian art investors have matured.The numbers have grown
almost exponenetially.The question however has morphed from whether we
accept the idea of art as an asset to whether we even understand half
of what we buy.The art dealers are making huge profits from client
consultation and dinners of meursault and pinikpikan.Everyone wants a
piece of the art pie and everyone who's anyone is attending the
auctions and openings.The understanding and development of the
aesthete is my concern.The art bubble may never burst. But it is
essential to understand how many actually appreciate what they buy vis
a vis how many perceive this as a liquid asset to be transacted
primarily for its value in the market.

The world has definitely opened its arms wide to India and the country
has reciprocated in full spirit.Anything that is indian or oriental is
placed on gilded pedestals.The chinese art market is spoken about in
every circle just as the Iris Chang and Gao Xingjian are widely
acclaimed within the literary tangent that oh so often metions Kiran
Desai and Jhumpa Lahiri. And just as 3251 more Indian authors today
write in English and manage to sell a decent number of copies that was
once the accomplishment of the lot of khushwant Singh and Vikram Seth,
the contemporary Indian art scene boasts of promising talents such as
Thukral and Tagra and creates royalty out of The Dodiya couple.My
statement is in no way derogatory of their efforts and work, for i
thoroughly appreciate the work done by Anju and Atul Dodiya and the
stance taken by Thukral and Tagra,with support from Nature Morte that
has done well to promote the artist duo.

It is indeed surprising to have seen stalwarts like Abindranath tagore
sell for a lesser price than some of the newer lot in auctions that
simultaneously take place in the virtual and physical realm.
Saffronart , with its online presence has built a strong client
network and brought a new perspective to a means of art investment.
Osian's - the first auction house in the country has been a forerunner
in various quarters that have instigated a positive thrust to the art
market.Art investment funds are running strong marathons as India Inc
pumps in its hard earned money into the next big promise.While most
investments are sound, many are not. The larger players stay (or
attempt to stay) clean and deal in money that is accountable.The IT
raids early this year however exposed the ugly undercurrent that has
had many investors and dealers jump in to make their big money and to
make it fast.
I was rather impressed by the statement an industry forerunner made to
the press as they hounded him while he lay miserably ill in hospital
during these raids(the raids had nothing to do with his illness). He
said that he welcomed the raids for it did bring to light that art was
finally regarded as a promising asset by the investors and the
government and that the raids would filter away those who had indulged
in what was unlawful.

Many smaller dealers shut shop or stayed away from the usual pr
activities that brought them into focus.Many investors stayed away
from their staple doses of moneylaundering escapades.

Art came into focus and how.

Today NDTV and many other channels on Indian television dedicate
regular segments to art.Page 3 and the last few pages of every glossy
magazine boast of candid pictures of artists-turned-fashionistas.
Everyone wants their children to attend the five-hundred-rupee-a-class
art appreciation courses that have sprung up in far corners of the
growing metropolises. Whether or not these courses actually even skim
the surface of Indian art is a question i have asked many a time.The
university art appreciation courses still veer towards western art and
aesthetic while briefly mentioning Indian art that is still explained
within the sphere of miniature paintings, the sculptures at khajuraho,
the ajanta frescoes, jamini roy and amrita shergill.What worries me
extensively, is how much we understand what we raise toast to and
whether our education system acknowledges the gaping hole that
completely sidelines art as a vocational route.The system is caught in
a paradox as we do not have the right infrastructure to build or
sustain art as a possible means of economic growth.The prices may rise
but the bubble is deemed to pop if the flying buttresses that hold the
structure together are not built in the first place.

A fine example of focussed suggestions that may help the cause of art
education in the country's curriculum are made in the book titled
'Towards ananda' by Shakti Maira.And though the book is veiled in
small portions by megalomaniacal observations by the artist, it does
make for an informative and comprehensive read.

Though one has simultaneously observed a relative dip in the art
market and art index over the past few months, it is true indeed that
though the art pieces may not sell for earthshattering rates that are
pushed by a handful of investors, the profiles and aggregate of
investors has definitely widened.This may also be related to the newer
trends in art.A painting by souza or gaitonde is bound to fetch alot
more moolah than an assemblage. More and more contemporary artists are
experimenting with various media and the investors are taking their
time to warm up to the newer exploits. Assemblages are the new
pollocks in the Indian art market.Artists like subodh gupta are
painting the town red having revived the technique or the ideology
once propogated by Braque, Elsa von Freytag Loringhoven and other
early twentieth century artists.

Though every art escapade today is applauded just as every performance
in the revered Prithvi theatre in Mumbai receives a standing ovation
regardless of the quality of production, one does hope that the work
and its chosen medium evolves out of an individual journey and not a
blindfolded trend following.

The article in NYT quotes artist shilpa gupta.''It doesn't matter
who's a star now,'' she says. ''It's so beautiful. You can hang out,
chill out. We all know each other, and everyone is doing very well,
and it's fantastic.''

It reiterates the buzz in the market at the moment and brings to the
forefront a concern that I have, having basked in this bacchinalic
revelery.Curatorial effort is perhaps one of the most important foci
of the art domain and there are only a handful of curators who are
capable of putting together a reasonable, well researched and thought
provoking exhibition together. This may be a side-effect of the big
leap that many an untrained eye has taken into this arena but it is
definitely gutwrenching to see how this particular profession is
shaping up.Anyone who has the money has bought him/herself a warehouse
to paint it white and run the gallery/art dealer marathon.And though
this does not undermine the quality of artwork produced in the
country, it does also flesh out some terribly-gone-wrong consequences
of self expression masquerading as art.

This does indeed question the authority one has to become judgmental
about art as a product. But I remain a firm believer of the fact that
however subjective art remains, there is good art and there is bad
art.

And of course, every now and then...there is design,masquerading as
art.And vice versa.I recently covered the London Design week for an
indian design forum.And though I saw some splendid examples of work on
display over the fortnight, I did often wonder how fast and easily the
boundary between art and design was blurring.What was also interesting
to observe was how receptive the design community was to this
shift.This remains a longer piece for discussion that i shall refrain
from instigating,at the given moment.

Payal Wadhwa
New Delhi
Oct 16,2007

2007-12-05T12:30:00.000-08:00

i speak the commoner's language
and write the wanderer's tale

- (me)

from a mathematician and a poetry addict

2007-12-05T12:24:00.000-08:00

a dear friend sent this to me last winter.i found this while i was sorting my folders this evening.
there's lots of other stuff i found, so the blog shall bear the brunt of it.

anyway, my friend claims he's human.and calls himself rohan dutta.
i am convinced he has an android DAK-NAAM.

---By Dylan Thomas

In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.

Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.

the day of the POST avalanche

2007-12-05T12:17:00.000-08:00

i've been trying hard to apply for my masters program.from the looks of it, i've now missed my first deadline.and sent them my TOEFL scores, nonetheless.
that was for MIT.
the next lot of options are varied

a major in history of art
a major in scenography
a masters in graphic design/media design
a major in visual culture

its a bad spot to be in
and to have 16 different SOP's

and everytime things get mad, its funny how i keep going back to this book and finding myself playing alice, ever so often.

Alice came to a fork in the road. "Which road do I take?" she asked.
"Where do you want to go?" responded the Cheshire cat.
"I don't know," Alice answered.
"Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter."

~Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

its a blog.

2007-09-05T12:37:00.000-07:00

there shall be much written on the soaking emptiness of this virtual page
the next few days
its a pity i shall have to type
for if it were the same as
the joy of an ink blot on grainy paper
my lamy and me
would have both been happier

maybe, i shall succumb
to the temptation of
scanning in real written pages
and letting you breathe them in.