Charaka festival

Charaka festival in Bengal, thookkam festival in Tamil nadu and Kerala, Sidi in Karnatak are all same. The ritualistic performance where people are suspended from a height on a moving tree trunk by piercing their body and its myth associated with Kali, Devi, Murugan and also its association with child birth is an interesting connection. How did this tantrik practice that became a ritual associated with hinduism spread from Bengal, Karnataka, Tamilnadu and Kerala (excluding Orrissa and Andhra Belt) is an interesting story.

Ganga

On the way back from Belur mutt, the monumental reminder of Indian Hindu renaissance under Swami Vivekananda who along with Rajaram mohan rai's Brahmo samaj and Theosophical society has turned the table of Hinduism from Kolkata, we took a small boat to cross Ganga to Dakshineshwar temple famous for the stories of Sri Rama Krishna Paramahamsa. Ganga was near still and the boat was slow. Finally when it took the turn from left side to right side suddenly the boatman stopped the boat. We all were wondering what had happend. On enquiry, he said 'johro" and I could not understand what does that mean until I saw the tide violently hitting the Dakshineshwar side of the river. millions of tons of water started gushing in and hitting the banks. Unless and until one witness the sight, one wouldn't believe the violence Ganga unleashes on banks. The old ladies in our boat were praying to "Maa Ganga".Within few minutes Ganga became a chaotic place shaking our boat left and right. After ten minutes of chaos, when the river became manageable the boatman safely took us to Dakshineshwar. This is an experience one will seldom forget in one's life time. Between these two temples, its two men: Vivekananda & Sri ramakrishna paramahamsa and the Ganga, one point of time Kolkata got a new Identity, the symbols one will find everywhere you go in the city - in cars, houses, hotels, public spaces, restaurants, under the bridges and in food carts.

tsomgo lake

Every river and every lake in this country has a legend to talk about and often it will be mired in myth. Tsomgo Lake in east Sikkim is no different. One night the old lady from village where the lake situated today had premonition. She had a dream. In that dream a beautiful lady came to tell her that her village will get submerged in water. No one believed her and she went away alone sad with her yak. The next day the village got submerged in water and everyone in the village lost their life. There after this lake of dead people became a place of worship for local people.

The lake changes its colour from morning to evening and season to season with the change of sun light. Earlier it seems Buddhists used to predict future looking at the colour of the lake. At thirteen and half feet above sea level this lake and the surrounding mountains becomes a memorable story. Within an hour or so we spent time there in chilling cold and ice, we saw it changing colour from black to green and dark blue.

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Who is Vajrakilaya?

"The yidam we know as Glorious Vajrakumara, or Vajrakilaya, is the extremely wrathful form of Vajrasattva. This means that Vajrasattva is Vajrakilaya’s peaceful manifestation. Other manifestations of Vajrasattva are the semi-wrathful form known as Dorje Namjom (Vajra Vidharana) and the wrathful form known as Vajrapani.

Vajrakilaya is the physical manifestation of the power of the enlightened activity of all the sugatas of the three times. All enlightened activity gathered into one form is the deity Vajrakilaya. Therefore enlightened activity is the essence of Vajrakilaya."
. 
....Lerab Ling, 20 August 1997

The second paragraph is interesting if one recalls the legend of Kali and Durga. Copy of Vajrakilaya in Rumtek monastery painted on its wall

Sanatan Mehta

First thing he did was showing his water colour paintings on Rajkot architecture. After some time he went away on his old Raleigh cycle. He was Sanatan mehta, an architect graduated from MSU who later on worked in Europe for many years. He walked into my class many times during those years and we used to have conversation on art and architecture. People said he was not mentally normal and they also said he came back from Europe mentally disturbed. Perhaps his reclusive nature and love for architecture and water colour painting must have made him look different for others. Every time he completed a painting of a building in Rajkot, he used to show me those paintings. He loved Rajkot and its architecture and he wanted to spent time painting them. Couple of years later after we met, he died of cardiac arrest. Sanatan Mehta was a wonderful artist. Today when I was clearing my old papers and this calendar brought out by one of the art lover in Rajkot came into my hand. Given below are some of his brilliant paintings of architecture.
Water colour on paper.

Industry of power

Post industrial revolution, industrialists needed politician to survive their business and during war time politician needed businessmen of their choice to run their war machinery. After war, as the industrialists became rich, they needed politician of their choice to sustain their business and force other countries to open up for their business. They became corporates and together with politician they divided the world into two poles and called it cold war era. They called themselves capitalists and communists. In communists countries, they became one and the same -they called their business government run industries or public sector. They got carried away with the profit and their greed made them to ignore people and finally in their excesses they collapsed - the communist corporates- the government. On the other side, at capitalists side, they slowly made the politician depended on them as they and not the government produced profit and they had the much needed money. Politician needed money and using politician's vulnerability, corporate made the choices and decided the kind of support they extended to politician. They demanded their pound of flesh. Slowly like in communist countries, they started becoming one and same but with a difference- in capitalist countries it is not the politician who became businessmen but it is the businessmen who became politician. They slowly started flexing their muscle and subverting every system that are important to the society. They took over media and decided what is news and who has to be news maker, they took over education and decided what is intelligence and who has to be the intellectual, they took over art and culture institutions and establishments and decided what is art and culture and who has to lead them and they took over the sports and entertainment and decided what is joy and who should have/ lead them. Where ever they saw the possibility of social unrest, their bedfellow, religion and its heads became handy for them to be utilised. They used the power of belief to divide and break the unity in the society with faith and tradition. People remained divided and in the division groups become profitable and for the profit they violently protected their exclusivity that is important to their identity and group. Slowly the divided people became dispensable or of no relevance or consequence. Whatever the governments in communist countries had practiced, in capitalist countries the corporates applied the same in their fiefdom that is called democratic countries. They didn't need politician anymore. Corporates are now the government. Business runs the government.

If it sounds like we are talking about our country, don't be confused. Certainly we are talking about our country or for that matter every country around the world.

Unfortunately what these corporates who are doubling up as governments are now forgetting, whenever politician had become businessman or businessmen became politician and started ignoring people, their system had collapsed. The countries had collapse. Former communist countries are its living example. Present day european economic crisis is the example. Middle east mess is the example. US tragedy in making is the example. Most importantly our own country is the living statement.

The end of capitalism and end of this genre of politician is imminent.

FIRSTPOST.COM

Arrested professor Shoma Sen's daughter Koel says: My mother's been tagged a Maoist after lifetime of working for others - Firstpost

Koel Sen, the daughter of Prof Shoma Sen, who was recently arrested for

flamingos

Over the last 12 years I did so many works of flamingo the migratory bird and elephant the uprooted slave to understand and experience the dislocated or the alien (!). They are not my concept or idea but they are the subject metaphorically the life I find around me. Although I know some textual languages of conversation, but the only language I can comprehend in conversation is painting. So I painted them over these last 12 years not as any concept or idea, but as the strangers I want to develop a conversation with.

Painting is my language and perhaps the only language I can comprehend. Like those fellow travellers in bus, train and street who are despite we spend time and at times even after travelling days together, we know nothing about.
I paint them to develop a conversation-
to know them
to talk to them
They are everywhere
At every man made boarders, outside the periphery of our illusionary comforts, they struggle just to survive,
hoping to find peace and life and losing those battles.

They look beautiful and cute outside of those periphery as someone not among us. They look good in painting. Hanging within our four walls and decorating, they look beautiful.
They are acceptable till they breach those rectangle composition and walk into our life alive. That moment, they become alien, threatening and dangerous to us
That moment...
Dalits
Muslims
Rohingyas
Disfranchised Assom Bengalees and Muslims
Mohajhirs
Pashtuns
Syrians
Bagladeshi hindus
Pakistani Christians
Mexicans
Italians
Nigerians
Liberals
.....
.....
That moment..

Narendra Raghunath

November 8, 2017

funny ! FB finds this image objectionable and deleted! :-) :-)
whoever reported this image as objectionable, a reminder it takes only 2 seconds to upload it again. so please forget it

A I

After having a chanced encounter and an extended conversation with a data mining entrepreneur yesterday, (who is doing a city based data collation for building analytics for commercial potential ) I really wonder hasn't our technological advancement in AI stuck in the dependancy of ML/deeplearning on neural network protocols and making it redundant too fast !!

Over the last few years in my conversations with many data/mining experts and scientists, I found this particular attempt in their conversations to hide or side step the complicated alienation issue taking place between the ML and Deeplearning protocols. Also even as these experts claim the incoherence of theoretical rootedness in deep learning process for their emphasis on empirical approach for the neural network system, the resent developments in this sector only shows their application of 60s and 70s theoretical developments in structuralism and postmodernism in linguistics in their methods.

Their confusion looks like emanate from the assumption that
1. a decision is a "statistical average" of memory nodes/ associations, a constraint in neural network model
2. Almost near religious dependancy on causality, a structural necessity again of neural network model.

Considering these two issues were dealt extensively in quantum mechanics during the early twentieth century and had rejected both these premises with statistical inference (an near. impossibility in neural network system) and rejection of static causality( intelligence as memory association, a structural necessity for the hierarchy of information in neural networks), it is time that we look for alternate models that can offer equity, justice and values, the 'reasonable' intelligence of inference and interpretation. Otherwise the story of the data mining business shaping around the world will become a big waste land. Worse the information will stop at 'recognition' and ML will remain a stranger in that lost land.

les demoiselles- isn't those prostitutes Picasso himself?

les demoiselles- isn't those prostitutes Picasso himself?

Comparing his self portraits- two from the same period as les demoiselles and one from much later but an important self critique by picasso with the figures in les demoiselles, one will end up wondering wasn't this painting a self critique or desperation of him about his situation as artist who had to do a sort of prostitution to retain his position?
Leaving the judgement open. decide yourself :-)

The clear divide he built with left side realist portraits from the right side cubist portraits along with segregation of still life fruits at bottom adds value to this argument that this painting is not about a brothel scene at all, but the artist himself

Photo credits : internet, used only for academic purpose

new media

If you tell people that scientists have invented medicine for cancer, landed on mars or ozone hole is repaired, they might get a bit of amused or may be get a little exited. Tell them the statue of their God started weeping or started drinking milk, a mass hysteria will break out, they will gather all over the world. That is the power of faith we as a civilisation is addicted towards magic. When one see the way new age technological advancements in electronic and robotics are marketed for its magical features, one is reminded of that power of magic on us. The new media/ technological art is no different. it is the old wine in the new bottle.

Geetha Narayanan

(let me first acknowledge the fact that the person I am going to talk about is my boss. But that doesn't mean that whatever I am going to write about her is in any way is my attempt to impress her. Reasons

1. In 2002, when I left the corporate career, I also had left the idea of building a career for myself perhaps anywhere

2. I am not at all in her good books or perhaps in her any books for that matter :-)

3.I am also not among one of those in the institute who is 'well paid' or treated above the call of basic institutional requirements, so that I try to impress the boss to retain my position

4. Of course, institutionally or personally she never tried to interrupt my discomforting artistic and political positions or articulations in public platforms. A rare opportunity, I need to acknowledge with sincere regards)

A leader of unmistaken integrity and vison.:
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Day before yesterday on my way to convocation ceremony of our under graduate students, inside school bus I was having a casual conversation with one of the brilliant student I taught in foundation. I asked him what are his plans. He said he is continuing in Bangalore and already has many freelance works in his hand. But what he continued to say about Srishti spoke volumes about the institute and the way it is conceived and built by its brilliant and visionary founder Dr. Geetha Narayanan.
He said " Narendran, you know yesterday we were having a conversation among us that how much have we transformed in the last four years. What all diverse courses, skill sets , teachers and experience that srishti had given to us. It is brilliant'.

When I joined Srishti in 2011, I was little skeptical that whether I would be able to continue for a long. For almost six months, I was confused and was wondering what am I doing and where am I headed towards. Teaching six days a week from 9 to 4 and that too diverse courses from art to socio-cultural general studies, I found it becoming very difficult to continue my practice. Only solace I found during that period was the wonderful colleagues I had. But one thing was very clear to me from day one that this place is different from many other institution and the reason is its Director. I realised unlike other art and design institutes, Srishti is a teacher run institute. The detailed and meticulous course planning something very important in Srishti. Geetha Narayanan always made sure that the planning going through a collective and chaotic brain storming processes before it got translated into a course plan that at times are very torturous and tedious. This was a new insight for me. So must be for many other teachers.

The strong pedagog :
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Geetha Narayanan and her abled team of faculty have taught me a lot in pedagogy that I hadn't learned all my years in teaching before. Application of intricate Tools, technique, methods, processes and marathon collective brain storming sessions even for designing a five day course amazed me in the beginning. Many times I felt when will all these procedures end so that I can be normal again and get back to my routine. But it taught me and many other faculty like me, the importance to preparing courses with profound rationalisation and reasoning for every act in the class room, so that teacher is never looked down upon by the students in this era of information over flow and digital technology. Also students derive the best of not only from the individual faculty but also from a collective wisdom. Every year almost two months this process continued unabatedly.

Disruptions as pedagogical tool :
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One thing remained permanent in Srishti curriculum is the constant disruptions Geetha had deliberately brought upon to it every year. For her, her schools curriculum has to keep up not only with time but also at the cutting edge. She used disruptions as an important pedagogical tool to bring about that 'continues change' into Srishti curriculum. However brilliant they may be but no course or method ever remained same in Srishti for more than a year or two years at the maximum. Whenever she went abroad, I used to joke with my friends that "ok let us be ready for the next change of approach and method in course structure". In fact it was not a joke, she would always consult so many cutting edge academics around world during her every trip so that she can bring about those necessary changes in curriculum to keep up with time. During these years with Srishti, I never found her ever scared of experimenting and risk taking when it comes to academics. Many times, I felt that she had become the victim of these risks she took in her profession.
But it had contributed immensely for the reputation of the institute. In the age of propaganda and marketing, within a very short span of few years if Srishti has become an important institution with a very limited marketing, all credit goes to the importance given to this academic process.

Inter disciplinary/ trans-disciplinary and multi disciplinary in one place
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This is something I found unbelievable that is being practiced in Srishti curriculum. The way Geetha Narayanan has been able to bring about this visionary idea in curriculum structure still remains to be far fetched idea in Indian context. Although due to university structure, some stifling is in place now, but by giving the large choice to students to select their courses from a wide spectrum of courses that are inter disciplinary/trans-disciplinary and multi disciplinary in one place under one domain still amazes me as a teacher. Although it makes the life of a teacher very difficult, but this complex structure of exponential learning (where students from different classes, navigating though different courses sharing their learning from those different classes to others through collaboration and participation, making learning in an exponential mode) certainly a revolutionary act. The importance of this moving away from the modernist model of media/material learning existed in (Bauhaus/ulm model ) NID and IDC to this post modernist model way back in 2006 or before, was recognised in 2014 when the world design council declared "lateral design thinking" as the top of the pyramid approach in creative learning for the industry.

Transforming the rigid design process into narrative to humanise the design process :
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Although Geetha Narayanan had kept the art always in front of design along with technology ( both are unique to Srishti till couple of year ago), the re-imagination of course structure four years back was another mile stone in her visionary act. Although narrative is a pass in art for a long time, but the implementation of narrative structure to srishti design curriculum to humanise design practice from its pure process centric approach was an act unparalleled in design curriculum across world. This radical move still hasn't been comprehended in its fullest by most faculty (including me), but the way it is implemented with service design tools made it an unblemished act of revolutionary transformation in art and design teaching/learning.

Although many of us (including students ) complain in our corridor talks about the ambiguity brought in by these changes , but considering every change takes its own sweet time to manifest and understood, the art and design profession will be a different story couple of years down the lane in market and in practice.

Labs and studios : the idea of core and peripheral teaching and learning.
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Another revolutionary act by Geetha narayanan in art and design teaching and learning emerge from her conceptualisation of labs and residencies as an important peripheral influence on core teaching and learning. There are more than six independent practices flourishing in srishti as an optional guiding principles for students such as gender activism, sufism, oral history, experimental media arts, public art and industrial interphase. These are some of those chosen few creative practices to exert that peripheral inertia needed to look beyond the usual, the practice of lateral learning.

Other reformations in art and design learning.
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Other important contributions she brought in the curriculum is the idea of contextual learning. This important step of humanising practice for its contextual location and articulation than its mere need based process response is another major step in art and design pedagogic reformation. Next one is the emphasis in the study of humanities. The compulsory learning of history and theory through out their course years is helping the students in a big way to rationalise their decisions with appropriate vocabulary and contextualisation, some thing very important in this age of communication.

These are only a few of her accomplishments as a visionary leader in art and design practice. There are many more and much bigger things she has accomplished in her journey of building a 10 student institute into 1200 students ug to doctoral studies institute with six schools under it and enabling students in various streams of creative practices. One of the other most important contributions from her to Indian art and design education is the assessment system she has developed in Srishti. In Srishti, a student is not only evaluated for the process or outcome, but also assessed for dimensions of practice and studio habit, an well rounded assessment system, something still unheard of in Indian education system.

Yesterday during the convocation ceremony when every one got up on their feet to thank her, I saw the teacher and leader standing among the crowd; a frame I saw many times during our course planning and she was leading the pedagogic process, a teacher’s forte. As a person, I do not know much about her. During all these years, I only had a few personal interactions with her that too I may be able to count on my fingers. But as a leader who doesn’t bow down at brink of collapse, a teacher uncompromising, a visionary who is transforming Indian art and design curriculum and its focus is certainly evident with her strong presence in Srishti. Other day as one of my friend pointed out how she has transformed the design teaching otherwise historically a male bastion into female profession by preserving Srishti teaching community a 90% female force. He further joked that by letting go every year a 20% female faculty and recruiting another 20% new female faculty, she also has forced other design institutes of this country to become a female centric institute ☺

I am sure, in the years to come we can expect many more radical transformative initiative from her and her able core team of faculty that are firmly in place now. Like those students who are taking great pride in their growth validates that they value and acknowledge her transformative visionary acts.

Geetha Narayanan proves the fact that an institution is not its earning capacity or it’s infrastructure but what matters is the leadership, what matters is the vision, what matter is the sanctity of processes and the team they lead.
What matters is the integrity.

Three malayalees of Indian art : Riyas Komu, Bose Krishnamachari and Johny ML

If one writes history of Indian contemporary art, one third of its chapters will be filled with the contributions of three malayalee artists Riyas Komu, Bose Krishnamachaari on one side and Johny M L on the other side. These three artists are not only known for their contribution but also are famously known for their rivalry on personal, professional and ideological ground. Anyone associated with Indian art needs no introduction to any of these three important individuals.

Back in nineties and early two thousands, Bose with his flamboyancy, sheer hard work and brilliant networking capabilities emerged as a permanent fixture and influential figure in Bombay art scene and Page three business circuit. A generation of present day Indian contemporary artists also had emerged during that period and Riyas Komu, a junior of Bose in College was one among them. They both benefited a lot from the Art boom that took place between 2005- 2008. They made a strong presence in Indian art market with their paintings and friendships. They both had friendships across the spectrum - from businessmen to journalists to advance their interest in art. Unlike Riyas, who remained as painter and installation artist during that period, Bose also emerged as a strong curator with business acumen by organising many shows including 50 malayalee artists, female artists etc and also starting a gallery - Gallery BMB in Bombay. During those period, these two artists were everywhere in every major shows and awards across this country. As the art boom took a beating in 2008 and with the persuasion of the then cultural minister MA Baby, they decided to come back to Kochi to turn Kochi an international art centre by setting up a Biennale. Unfortunately in the beginning with their uncharitable remarks about celebrated Kerala artists/ practices and non inclusion of most of them in any of biennale activities, they turned a huge section of Kerala artists against them and their Biennale. Bose and Riyas were seen as outsider and facilitators of Bombay art market and 'market art' considered to be an anathema for idealist Kerala artists. A big resistance was unleashed in Kerala by artists and others forcing the artists of Kerala to take sides. There were some other reasons also said to be there for this resistance. One among them was the resistance to "Muziris historical project" that supported Kochi biennale, a project resisted by the custodians of traditional cultural narratives who opposed the project that wanted to celebrate the non hindu historical heritage of Kerala including Christian and Muslim heritage of Kerala. Finding the brand building and tourism potential of Biennale that can benefit the Muziris project spear headed by Benny Kuryakose, his project had extended a substantial monetary support to Bose and Riyas in exchange of using Muziris in their biennale title, for their big biennale plans when they were in deep financial crisis .

Another resistance it seems to have came from "Anti Baby lobby' in left politics of Kerala. But the biggest of all of them came from M L Johny, a prolific writer, curator, Journalist, Art historian, editor who launched many art journals and magazines and a fellow Malayalee from Kerala. It is said that Johny and Bose & Riyas had some huge personal tussle between them. But his attack also was from an Ideological ground against the "Biennale's corporate/market nature of art practice". This had generated a huge support for his crusade from a large section of fellow art community who were already resisting "biennale plans" in Kochi on ideological ground. In that hard fought battle, both the sides had established their strong influence in Indian contemporary art. Biennale became a huge success, so were the stature of these three Malayalees. Johny ML, who in the past had been supporting many emerging artists with favourable essays on their relevance in Indian art. He also had been curating many shows of important modernist Indian contemporary artists with establishments like Lalithkala akademe and doing the study of the state of Indian art schools and coming out with repot on it.

The rivalry between these two art groups but fortunately became beneficial for the Indian art by the launch of UAF an artists led art fair, a first of its kind in India curated by Johny ML. Unfortunately, for Johny this exhibition did not go well as the businessman who owned the fair failed him and the whole idea of UAF with his failure to honour many promises UAF put forwarded or idealised. Mean while Kochi biennale by bringing all the big time market capitalising artists into their block either by locating their art works in biennale or making them as curators slowly emerged a force to reckon with the possibilities it offered to world of tourism business, international cultural participation and organising alternate space for intellectual, literary and cultural activities within its gambit. With the success in Biennale, Riyas slowly expanded his foot prints from Bombay to Delhi by collaborating with the Delhi club - a strange combination of MSU baroda, Mumbai and north Indian art scene - lead by Vivan Sundaram and Ranjit Hosekote, a post modernist literary theorist/journalist turned art curator/ writer to establish "serendipity art festival" in Goa.

This corporate funded experiment was interesting, considering both Vivan camp and Ranjith Hoskote/ Nancy adajania group till then had been advocating and facilitating a bridge between western art market and Indian art market with their post modernist vocabulary, universalised idioms and curation, suddenly turned around to set up a facility for Indian classical and modernist art and aesthetics in Goa as serendipity festival. Post first serendipity festival, Johny's critical piece on Vivan's block of art and artists had indeed made a big discussion point during that period.

During this period Riyas also had established a gallery "Uru" in mattancheri as an alternate space for socio-cultural activities and exhibitions. Meanwhile Johny had curated few influential shows in Kolkata and is now setting up Orissa's first triennial in collaboration with NGMA and Orissa government(?). Keeping his historical fight with Kochi biennale on corporate/business model on ideological ground, the model is yet to be known in public. Meanwhile Johny is perhaps the only one art facilitator today who could remain an important figure of influence in both at left ruled Kerala lalith kala akademe, BJP ruled Kendra lalithkala akademe and Triennial of third front BJD ruled Orissa.

It is a very interesting factor that these three malayalee artist's rivalry or difference of opinion on many grounds including personal and ideological, something they never tried to sweep under the carpet, had contributed immensely for indian art and artists. Unlike the unsavoury group fights in Baroda art camps that had created many rifts and cartels for the tragedy of many emerging artists, this combative and spirited rivalry among these three malayalee artists but along with unsavoury fights also had precipitated a positive impact to art community by their various art initiatives and opportunities created in the process. While Riyas and Bose started of with postmodernist universal idioms that now also facilitate a modernist inclusivity of art, aesthetics and language that are rooted in Bombay, Baroda and Delhi Art circuit, Johny spear heads a strong modernist language and pan Indian aesthetic order (with a limited Bengal art emphasis). In recent times, their strong likes and dislikes for each other and their practices, if not completely but to certain extend have been defining the Indian contemporary art and aesthetics. One may like or dislike, agree or disagree with this inference or insinuation, but one will never be able to write contemporary Indian art history without a major portion dedicated to them.

This note is only a bird's view without much substance, but a detailed essay is in making and will be made available in a while.