Dement Reality - an art series

My responses to a Mojarto.com interview

What is that first thing you remember that got you interested in art? (Was it something you read or saw or experienced?)

For a long time, the significance of visual art eluded me though I was heavily involved with performing arts. First photography – which was more about understanding composition – and then a documentary series gave me the orientation needed to begin understanding the significance of the Masters. This was Simon Schama’s ‘Power of Art’ series that for me deciphered the relevance and importance of visual art. Mark Rothko suddenly seemed more intriguing and the abstraction necessary and groundbreaking, ‘Guernica’ finally made sense (like it never did from the history textbooks) and, Caravaggio and Bernini became more real for me. Salvadore Dali became a true inspiration once I could sense the psychological context of the melting clocks. The latter became connected with the play ‘Blue Mug’ and Oliver Sacks’ ‘The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat’ as they both deal with the malleability of memory.

'Taking Flight' (Benaras, India - 2016)

When did you start creating your own art and why?

As a journalist, music enthusiast and documenter of the independent music scene, I have been around creators for the better part of my life. The impetus came from this but the real trigger was when photography as a medium started to seem rather limiting and surrealism and abstraction more achievable through manipulation. I also saw shapes being able to tell a story without needing be representational art. The other realization that also came is that digital art, as a medium, is accessible to someone not trained in the techniques of traditional art media. Not having access to such training needn’t limit one from translating one’s vision into art.

Please share in detail any struggles you’ve faced to pursue art? (Did you have a full-time job you quit to pursue art? Else, do you have a day job? If yes, what is it?)

For me, quitting my corporate media writing/editing/production job actually was the best decision because ever since I have had the mind space to explore different facets of my creativity. Since then, I have set up an arts practice that curates art and music, and creates productions built on collaborations across difference artistic disciplines. I also help acquaint others with street through walks I conduct. I now find more time for travel and photography and this is what helped me most in finding my medium and starting to create. I also now make it a point to get up close and personal with contemporary and art displayed in my city and wherever I travel.

'Empty Women' (Delhi, India - 2014)

Personally, how would you describe your journey with art?

It’s a journey that, I believe, has just begun. From year to year, I see a pronounced change in the art I’ve created – in the perspectives I choose, the tools at my command, and because of the endlessly iterative process that creation can be, in where I choose to stop. My palette has also changed over time and I am experimenting with mixed media. Architecture also inspires me immensely but I now I do something totally different from where I started. On a journey to Leh, rock faces, shepherds and puddles of water have become subjects, while in urban settings, buildings have taken over. I have experimented with surrealist portraiture too and there’s a series somewhere in the future with that.

There’s a beautiful simplicity about every artwork of yours. Is that deliberate? If so, why?

Is there? I thought most of them are rather ‘busy’ and don’t give the eyes a place to rest.

'Jagannath Chemicals Pvt Ltd' (Delhi, India
 - 2015)

What is a constant theme in most of your artwork? And why?

Mirrors, or mirroring, shows up in my works often but then the symmetry is deliberately taken away keeping in mind that there is no clone in nature, only in mass-produced realities. Other than that, surreal abstraction and ‘unintentional’ monster faces appear acknowledging the inner demons that we all struggle with but reveal themselves only on close scrutiny and introspection. Dementing reality is the central line of thought.

What are you trying to capture in each painting of yours? (Basically, what is the essence of your work?)

The essence is surrealism with reality being too limiting. It’s with a bit of pity for those who are satisfied with the visual fabric of what appears real – that’s too mundane. At least in art, it can be changed, enhanced and made intriguing.

What is your inspiration? (Please share as many details as you can.)

Among inspirations, I count Salvadore Dali, the propaganda poster art of the two World Wars, Mark Rothko and street art.

Please share details of what you studied in college & about your current life? And your other interests (apart from art)?

I graduated with English as a major and studied hotel management. However, most my professional life has been spent as a journalist. I curate music and art, create collaborative arts productions, document independent music through video and photography. I also conduct art and cultural walks, while also donating time and skills to a few NGOs.

What is the best time for you to paint and why? (Morning or evening.)

Late night – the world has settled as has the torrent of thoughts that run by, which don’t let one see what is hidden behind the mundane. The world sleeps, the psyche and the eye come alive.

‘The Indian Dream Will Be An American Photocopy’

YOUTH MATRIX

‘The Indian Dream Will Be An American Photocopy’

The head of the department of psychiatry at Nimhans Bangalore speaks on the present and future young of India with the insight of a sociologist and social psychiatrist

SUGATA SRINIVASARAJU

Dr Sanjeev Jain is head of the department of psychiatry at Nimhans Bangalore. A clinical psychologist, he speaks on the present and future young of India with the insight of a sociologist and social psychiatrist. Dr Jain is currently engaged in researching and writing a four-volume history of the growth of psychiatric services in India. The final volume will focus on the psychiatric history of India’s partition in 1947. Excerpts from an interview with Sugata Srinivasaraju:

What is your assessment of the post-liberalisation generation?

What has been evident in the last 15-16 years is the so-called opening up of the economy or rather a blending of the Indian consciousness into a multiple- channel global consciousness in terms of attitudes and lifestyles, experienced only by people who can read and write English. It is debatable if the rest of India has changed. Clinically speaking, what is worrying about the young is the rising rate of depression, suicides and drug and alcohol abuse. With the intensely competitive environments, there is also more and more unease at social norms. Autonomy, freedom issues that are common with adolescents across the globe come up here too, but they get peculiarly amplified because the parental generation and the younger ones, in certain classes, are really at different portions of the wave and trough cycle.

What is it that you find peculiar about today’s young?

Frankly, there is nothing particular or peculiar about today’s young. The issues that surround them are the same old ones—roles, families, societies, jobs. Only, it gets differently articulated and differently experienced because social matrices have changed. These issues now transcend what were clear-cut boundaries earlier. Today, people come with problems because they are marrying someone from a different region of India speaking a different language. Earlier, it used to be a caste issue or a neighbourhood issue. At a fundamental level, these are variations on the same theme—of independence, autonomy, a breakdown of what were stable family attitudes. Again, we don’t really know how stable these were in the real sense.

Why are the young wooed so aggressively by advertisers/corporates?

I don’t think it has a qualitative content to it. It’s just a marketing ploy. If you go to big malls, you’ll find only foreign brands. If you go to certain other stores, you’ll only find local Indian stuff. So what they are doing is bifurcating the young. The young who’ll prefer Indian fusion music, Indian writers or appear to be rooted, and then the other, who’ll be ashamed of all this. It is an artificial bifurcation foisted on the purchasing power or pocket money of the youth. It is deliberately and politically constructed to promote a corporate ethos. The most dangerous part of this is that the youth tend to become non-self-critical. The self-awareness, or critical element, is hardly encouraged. The stress is on consumption and appearance. It is made out that to be effective you have to appear in a certain fashion. What you really are doesn’t matter.

What repercussions does this have on the psyche of the young?

It comes up in therapy situations off and on. We often get complaints from parents saying that their son insists he needs a Rs 3,000 shoes. But the son says that is the way it is. Another common complaint is from parents about their daughters dressing in a particular way. But the daughter says if she doesn’t wear tight tees, she will not be accepted by her friends. Social psychology is a very prominent driving force. It is only in the late 20th century that social psychology has been overtaken entirely by advertising. A lot of it is manufactured emotion. Whether this or that person will win in the Big Boss household is a manufactured emotion. Cheering crowds at cricket games is a manufactured emotion. There is no real connect between the players and the audience.

So a ruptured self-criticality defines the younger generation?

I don’t think it defines the younger generation. But it defines the society which is trying to manipulate the younger generation and create a kind of serfhood. Self-criticality is not a virtue anymore. You are supposed to be happy. You have to appear to be happy. You have to keep a happy face even if you are not, otherwise nobody wants to know you. It is this that is really troublesome. In a wider psychological sense, not in the clinical sense, one worries about this kind of uncritical optimism. We seem to be obsessed with growth. A German scholar at a lecture made an interesting statement recently. He said growth for the sake of growth is the philosophy of a cancer cell. He also said that we must be sure what it is that we are growing towards and growing into. To have only economic parameters, to have only GDP benchmarks, will not help.

What happens to a nation when the young sacrifice their self-criticality?

The nation ceases to exist. A disconnect with self-criticality, at one level, is replaced by a sham affiliation to narrow and parochial interests. There is a group dynamic that sets in. At a simple college level, it manifests as a local vs non-locals debate. At a larger level, it becomes a Telangana vs rest of Andhra or Kashmir vs rest of India debate. What is amazing is the logic is exactly the same. We are now running politics at the level of college-level identities. Group identities which are essentially adolescent, teenage fantasies etc threaten to engulf the entire system because we have become so uncritical. Identities have become excessively local. What is worrying in India is that one assumes that commerce and economics will bind the nation together, but that is not a given.

Will a self-obsessed generation be interested in any kind of larger social or cultural movement?

Our societies have become slightly more undemocratic from when we were young. In the sense that access to other people’s time and space is now very rigidly controlled by a media structure. College festivals are sponsored by media houses or corporates. There is actually no unencumbered physical or political space. So young people learn to manipulate or learn the ropes of this ‘give and take’ very early. They know that being independent or sticking out does not really help. All this is happening ostensibly through non-political institutions and instruments. What we increasingly see is young people don’t want to be identified with the accidents of their birth. The young here feel constrained by localism and they try to escape it in their own way. We are not aggressively building a sense of a safe society in India which can actually accommodate the aspirations of the young. There is no Indian dream, equal to an American dream, for the youngsters.

Can they then forge an Indian dream?

At the level of subversion, an Indian dream will be an American dream. That is the whole problem. The Indian dream will be a photocopy of the American dream which is not a good idea. The worry is, if young people don’t get enthused then we have a huge problem on hand. We are still riding on the crest of the hopes and aspirations of the people of the ’50s. If the young generation becomes cynical and if they don’t plan like the people of the ’50s who had a hope for India, that is serious trouble. The loss of social hope is an unquantifiable impoverishment.

Do you see a loss of social hope?

In medical terms, you can see it both by its absence and by its unnatural presence. Absence meaning very few people talk about it. All they talk about is buying this car, getting that job, getting a visa to that country etc. At the other end, you see people who are railing against it and hitting their head against a wall.

What of the young participating in the Anna Hazare movement?

Again, this creation is like a popstar version of the truth. Because it’s a tokenism. A German writer once asked: “When injustice is sliced into thin slices, how thin is the slice that I should put on my daily bread?” If you replace this injustice with corruption, how many people in India can actually claim to be free from corruption? This comes up at various levels. Recently there was a survey of the state of the SC/ST hostels in Karnataka. The fact that there should be hostels for the SC/STs is not commented upon. Why should there be separate housing for them is beyond me. This is not a public debate at all. If you are segregating young people right through their undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral levels, what corruption and what young people are we talking about? At various levels, we teach the young the ropes of the ‘snake and ladder’ game rather too efficiently. So they become aware of their constrained kind of identity and this spikes any sense of universal hope and solidarity. It is the same as the absence of idealism. Actually, the capacity for humanism is not considered a good thing anymore. You are I and me. You are you and we are never together.

But what makes a young mind identify with someone like Anna?

In some ways, it is anachronistic. He is against gay behaviour, against liquor consumption, against free mingling of the sexes. It boggles my mind that a young person can fall for all that. So there is a compartmentalisation that has taken place, you don’t see the wider social context. This is again a result of the absence of self-criticality and is exactly what the corporate media wants. It wants you to be conservative. It wants you to be feudal.

Could you comment on the young and social media?

I think social media is built mostly for specific commercial or sexual networks. There has been an issue in the US where many multinationals, especially attire-makers, create these dummy accounts for shoes or tees they want to sell and ask ‘friends’ if they have seen these cool new shoes or dress? And then that becomes viral and the sales shoot up. This is about the absence of real communication. It is like the age-old ‘monkey and the cage’ psychiatry test. You put a monkey in a cage and it starts having symptoms of social withdrawal. If you open the window into an adjoining cage, the act of observing another monkey is more than enough for this monkey to neglect food. So it will spend more time obsessively watching the other monkey. When you deny real human contact, or any sense of human communication, then these kind of alter ego communications start. What you have to worry about is why is actual physical life so impoverished that the young need to have 400 phantom friends. It is a kind of narcissism. We do get clinical cases in this regard. If they come all the way to clinics like ours, then it is literally the tip of the iceberg. I don’t know what the iceberg is, but if I see a tip, there is an iceberg below.

On the nurtured culture of self-loathing

Use this or use a soft camera filter over the eyes of everyone who sees you (because that's what they had to use on Olivia Wilde, too). Age used to about mature grace. Now it's a bad word.

Seriously, the way consumerism is driving self-loathing, it's not hard to see why we are so disconnected from each other, why there is so much strife, why so many of us are fake (fake enough to make Barbie jealous), and why (ironic in reference to where I am airing this) the internet is our escape.

Up to you to mute the ads, ignore the hype, trust your grandma's advice on beauty (or how to be great despite aging naturally).

If you can't believe there's much, much more to you than your skin, you shall reap a harvest of hate - and it will surely and sorely spread beyond you.

I know it sounds alarmist and overstated. But so is the ad in a deeply insidious way.

Places you at the bottom of the beauty hierarchy so that you need products to use as rungs to climb an imaginary ladder that actually goes nowhere.

Perhaps, you need a better beholder for your beauty. But first, let it be you.

Scarred for life - the tale of a courageous girl

What strikes you the very first time you talk to Sonali Mukherjee is clarity of purpose and a grit and determination that is unparalleled in one so young. What is also apparent is that disfigurement that her body has suffered has only strengthened her sense that justice is every one's right. What may shock you however is her bitterness at the current legal system, which has not only let her attackers out on bail but also cannot with any existing punishment commensurate with her suffering.

"Even if they (attackers) are given life imprisonment they will be eating, sleeping and living in relative comfort. Can that compare with my plight? I am not saying there should be tit-for-tat - I know that will not happen. Only if they are left to live in a dark room, cut off from all others and made to suffer can they understand what I have been and am going through," says Sonali, with a passion that conveys the pain of a nine-year, largely lonely fight. 

Be shocked at her views only after you have a sense of what happened to her on the night of April 22, 2003. Seeking relief from the oppressive heat, Sonali, her sister and her father were sleeping in the open on the terrace of their Dhanbad home. The three attackers - Tapas Mitra, Sanjay Paswan and Brahmadev Hajra - stole in and poured acid on her, scarring her sister and father too in the scuffle that ensued. 

"At that moment, my world just stopped. All I could feel was the burning and my body melting away. I felt the most excruciating pain and the world went dark," recalls Sonali vividly. Her face, neck, upper and lower torso suffered burns. She hasn't been able to see ever since though her hearing has been restored through multiple surgeries. She suffered 70% burns and her sister 20% burns.

What prompted this devious attack - her objection to three men's weeks-long abuse and their inability to take rejection. Patriarchy reared its head in its ugliest form and three men set out to teach a strong-willed young woman 'a lesson'. 

The three were arrested and sentenced to nine years imprisonment, but within three years they were all out on bail, one because he was a juvenile when he committed the crime. 

Sonali's fight has been on three levels - her treatment and a drive to be like 'any other woman' (which is also why she refuses to be photographed currently). Second is the legal fight to bring the perpetrators to book. Once she feels her medical condition is under control (she currently has to avoid contact to stay clear of infection and regeneration of tissue is being helped by two 'tissue extenders', one each in her head and neck). The third is helping her family, which has been driven to bankruptcy due to legal and medical expenses. 

Needless to say, this will take a lot of grit. Talk to Sonali for a bit and you will be left in no doubt that there's more than enough of that. Added to that is a sharp, alert mind that is not only on top of her medical treatment's progress, but is also looking for new avenues to ease the burden of her family.

"For three years after the attack I could not walk or even get out of bed. The doctors in Bokaro had said that mine was a hopeless case and they could not do anything for me. At that time, my father (Chandidas Mukherjee) carried on the fight. Through all the legal hearings, managing finances by selling all we had, and taking care of me, my father stood tall and strong. That was a dark time for me, confined to a room and I must have lost hope many times. But as soon as I was able to move around, I joined the fight and have been at it despite the pain, discomfort and lack of support from all others I thought I could have counted on," says Sonali.

Her father's support is what she has come to count as most precious. "Once I could move around and took stock, my father supported me without question. Wherever I said we would go - whether it worked for us or not, and mostly it did not - he would accompany me without opposition. Through heat, rain, the cold, through government apathy, threat to our lives and severe financial crises, he has stood by me when I was alone," she says with a palpable flourish in her voice. 

In the following six years, Sonali approached three chief ministers, countless legislators, and NGOs, including the National Commission for Women and Salman Khan's Being Human organisation, was either ignored, received nothing more than assurances or just used for media bytes. There were sporadic reports in the regional media in and around Jharkhand about Sonali's fight and slowly mediapersons came to know her and empathise with her cause.

This came handy when on July 9, 2012 she approached Krishna Tirath, minister for women and child welfare and was met with traditional government apathy.

"I went to the minister's official residence and waited for hours. Various members of her staff gave me conflicting reports - she's abroad, she's in a meeting, you need an appointment, she is across town - but continued to wait. Then I called a media contact I knew in Jharkhand (connected with Sahara Samay) who called his Noida office and a few journalists showed up. It was then the staff realised that I was not to be ignored. They called the minister and after she showed up, she gave an assurance that she would appeal to the PM to release money from his relief fund. That's the last I've heard from the minister," Sonali says.

It was then that Sonali laid down two options for the government - either help her financially, or give her permission to die. "This was taken up the media and a lot of people learnt of my struggle. It was a call to bring attention to the apathy that my family and I have been facing. It wasn't that I had given up the fight or lost hope - but I did want to the state to realise its responsibility."

Help, though sporadic, has been coming through from unexpected quarters. 

"Ram Jethmalani heard about my struggle and called me over to his office in July or August 2011. Apart from expressing solidarity with my cause and showing genuine compassion, he also helped us financially with Rs 1.45 lakh, which has helped with my treatment.

"After I laid down the options for the government, there has been more attention and help from various quarters," says Sonali.

The BL Kapoor Hospital in New Delhi, where Sonali's treatment is in progress, has offered to help her. Sanjeevani, a Bokaro-based organisation has come forth as has Foundation Beti, the latter helping her with Rs 30 lakh. The poignant and sensitively shot episode Kaun Banega Crorepati in which Sonali was accompanied by Lara Dutta Bhupati is now national knowledge. However, the Rs 25 lakh that she won will be taxed at the rate of 30%, against which TMC MP Derek O'Brien has issued an appeal. However, more popular support would be required to see the waiver through on the grounds of this being the rarest of rare cases. 

A public appeal for funds was also issued through Hallabol.com, which helped some but more funds are welcome because it's becoming necessary for Sonali to consult doctors abroad for specialised surgeries and treatment.

Her legal and moral fight is also far from over.

"Why shouldn't my attackers be charged with attempt to murder and grevious assault? Why isn't there harsher punishment for perpetrators of acid attacks when the victim's life is not only endangered but altered for the worse? Why doesn't the government take responsibility for such attacks? If you can pay crores toward Ajmal Kasab's security but can't protect women, you should at least pay to support their treatment in full and for their rehabilitation. After all, it happened on your watch," questions Sonali.

If you want to trip out without drugs

Don't know if I love the girl more or her eyes, the filter or the effect achieved more, the story or how much I can relate to this more. All I know is I am hooked and there's no coming back from the high standards set by this video and song. Trippy as hell.

Can't believe it's believe this has been out for more than a year and I hadn't caught. So, here's thanking MTV Indies again for aiding discovery.

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (Click to listen)
You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip,
Skip out for beer during commercials,
Because the revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
In 4 parts without commercial interruptions.
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon
blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John
Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat
hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be brought to you by the
Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie
Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia.
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal.
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs.
The revolution will not make you look five pounds
thinner, because the revolution will not be televised, Brother.

There will be no pictures of you and Willie May
pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run,
or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance.
NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32
or report from 29 districts.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being
run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process.
There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy
Wilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and
Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving
For just the proper occasion.

Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville
Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and
women will not care if Dick finally gets down with
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
will be in the street looking for a brighter day.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock
news and no pictures of hairy armed women
liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose.
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb,
Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom
Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be right back after a message
about a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.
You will not have to worry about a dove in your
bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.
The revolution will not go better with Coke.
The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath.
The revolution will put you in the driver's seat.

The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
will not be televised, will not be televised.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be live.

PENGUIN BOOKS INDIA – STATEMENT ON THE HINDUS BY WENDY DONIGER

Penguin Books India believes, and has always believed, in every individual’s right to freedom of thought and expression, a right explicitly codified in the Indian Constitution. This commitment informs Penguin’s approach to publishing in every territory of the world, and we have never been shy about testing that commitment in court when appropriate. At the same time, a publishing company has the same obligation as any other organisation to respect the laws of the land in which it operates, however intolerant and restrictive those laws may be. We also have a moral responsibility to protect our employees against threats and harassment where we can.
The settlement reached this week brings to a close a four year legal process in which Penguin has defended the publication of the Indian edition of The Hindus by Wendy Doniger. We have published, in succession, hardcover, paperback and e-book editions of the title. International editions of the book remain available physically and digitally to Indian readers who still wish to purchase it.
We stand by our original decision to publish The Hindus, just as we stand by the decision to publish other books that we know may cause offence to some segments of our readership. We believe, however, that the Indian Penal Code, and in particular section 295A of that code, will make it increasingly difficult for any Indian publisher to uphold international standards of free expression without deliberately placing itself outside the law.
This is, we believe, an issue of great significance not just for the protection of creative freedoms in India but also for the defence of fundamental human rights.