The nowhereness, the nothingness, the absence of you
Is in those your words unspoken,
In what your eyes haven't broken
open,
In the straightest stream of sunlight upon a syllable askew.
The almostness of youness, this nearlessness thing
Upturns in garden rows, unpoetried,
Hangs by a nail in spaces, ungalleried
Incognied
Like notes that dangle from the lips of a man who yet intends to sing
This gap-ness, this would-have-been happiness, the nothereness you are
Lies, dies, in the dust of unreadness of my book,
Cries with the notness that knowing, with just one look,
took
Like stories still unborning, in realms still a-churning, in worlds still afar.
The unbeing and unseeing and undoing of wherever you are there,
Is the diziness,
the everydayness of business,
Isness
Of your constantly, so constantly, being elsewhere.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Art's Boom Time
Art’s boom time
Art prices have dropped, sales are crawling. Then why are artists and gallerists alike, overjoyed? Gayatri explores
Gallerist Ranjana Steinrucke says from the Madrid ARCO on her last day there, “We only sold two pieces this year. Good.” Stop short. “Good, did you say?” “Yes, good. In the long run, the slowdown will be good for art (more time for introspection) and for collectors (no more ridiculous pricing).”
She’s not isolated in sentiment. Even as world over the sales of art faces, much like any other ‘commodity’ market, shoot the moon prices falling short, plummeting demand and waning investment, artists, buyers and gallerists alike are heaving, strangely, a sigh of relief.
Pravina Mecklai of Jamaat says “The art market was insane. I had a cab driver asking me which ‘picture’ he should invest in, and it was known that a painting would change hands five times a week, which is madness. Paintings were not being finished properly to meet demand – issues of fungus, fakes, price rigging were cropping up. It is far better this way. Now that the investors are out of the market, it is the true art appreciators who are buying.”
International collectors and auction house Christies released figures for losses posted in 2008 – sales had dipped 11 per cent over 2007 figures for the same quarter, and yet, there’s a qualitative spurt, they say. Kate Malin, Asia spokesperson for the house explains “We are witnessing more disciplined buying than in previous years, but there is still strong demand and committed bidding for the rarest and the best despite economic challenges. Collectors are driven to buy unique works of art through passion and desire, and as such they are driven by opportunity. If a collector is active for a period of perhaps 20 or 30 years, then they are likely to have only one chance to bid on any particular work.”
Meet iconic Indian artist Tyeb Mehta, whose Mahishasura had fetched a whopping $1.54 million in 2005, and you will understand why he is glad to be left to his creative isolation in his unfussy apartment in Mumbai’s Lokhandwala suburb, where he continues to work, come bubble or burst, fighting fading vision and physical disability. Tyeb’s last canvas Kali broke the Rs 1 crore barrier, and his Celebration went for Rs 1.5 crore ($317,500) on September 19, 2003. Neither contributed to his personal financial stability. “In all these years, it is only Ebrahim Al Kazi, who put up Kali for auction, who gave us 25 per cent of what he sold it for. It was a gesture straight from the heart, a magnanimous, kind, gesture,” says Sakina, his wife, “but the rest of it, which canvas sold for how much, has passed by us completely. We are not associated with any of the hype around the canvases. We only know of it when a catalogue features his works,” she says.
But then, says art critic and curator, Ranjit Hoskote, Tyeb, who was all about the money to an exploding commercial art scene, has never been about the money at all. “To Tyeb, the need to articulate deep-seated psychic realities and the crises and exultations of his society is paramount. During the six decades of his artistic practice, this need has taken precedence over personal comfort, worldly success, commercial gain, and critical acclaim. All these have been secondary considerations to Tyeb, who has patterned his life on the ideal of the artist who must speak autonomously of social, economic or cultural systems of dominance,” he says.
Tyeb is hurt, if not a little angry at how little art is understood, but won’t comment on the changing world of art around him. “I don’t go to exhibitions, or to see artists’ works because I can’t relate to their works anymore. When I can spare time from being ill, I devote it to my work. Of course my work is symbolic of a changing world and time. Just not necessarily of a changing art world,” he quips. The commercial scenario does not bother him. “I do not paint for money, or for what people think of me or of my work. I paint because it is deeply personal to me. I live in isolation, I paint in isolation. That is what the true artists do – there are a few and far between the melee, but they exist here and there.”
Artist Dhruva Mistry laughs that the only quantitative impact of the recession has been “While reminding a dealer about payment, he had mentioned that ‘sales were sluggish’.” Apart from that, he says, the season has served to allow genuine artists to get on with their work. “One thing I know well is that what I care for in my work would bother no one except me. My life and work are part of my self-enlightenment kit and I must look after my mind and spirit from the mass of material affectations.” He explains what the boom-time bubble meant to Indian artists, “The art ‘hype’ has been part of boom and bust economics of Europe and the US since the early 1980s, which was part of novel reforms of 1990s for India, China and many other countries. Success from 2002 until 2008 seemed to require being in the right place at the right time. Dealer entrepreneurs gamble with select minds, matter and taste to satisfy their speculative creativity. When it works, it raises demand, prices and stakes. In the wilderness of art market, modesty seems passé, shadowing couture and success.”
The genuine artists are thus shrugging off recession, and the aficionados -- collectors and gallerists alike -- are letting them be. As artist Samir Mondal put it “in the time of adversity, the best art creations are made.”
Times News Network
gayatri.jayaraman@timesgroup.com
Art prices have dropped, sales are crawling. Then why are artists and gallerists alike, overjoyed? Gayatri explores
Gallerist Ranjana Steinrucke says from the Madrid ARCO on her last day there, “We only sold two pieces this year. Good.” Stop short. “Good, did you say?” “Yes, good. In the long run, the slowdown will be good for art (more time for introspection) and for collectors (no more ridiculous pricing).”
She’s not isolated in sentiment. Even as world over the sales of art faces, much like any other ‘commodity’ market, shoot the moon prices falling short, plummeting demand and waning investment, artists, buyers and gallerists alike are heaving, strangely, a sigh of relief.
Pravina Mecklai of Jamaat says “The art market was insane. I had a cab driver asking me which ‘picture’ he should invest in, and it was known that a painting would change hands five times a week, which is madness. Paintings were not being finished properly to meet demand – issues of fungus, fakes, price rigging were cropping up. It is far better this way. Now that the investors are out of the market, it is the true art appreciators who are buying.”
International collectors and auction house Christies released figures for losses posted in 2008 – sales had dipped 11 per cent over 2007 figures for the same quarter, and yet, there’s a qualitative spurt, they say. Kate Malin, Asia spokesperson for the house explains “We are witnessing more disciplined buying than in previous years, but there is still strong demand and committed bidding for the rarest and the best despite economic challenges. Collectors are driven to buy unique works of art through passion and desire, and as such they are driven by opportunity. If a collector is active for a period of perhaps 20 or 30 years, then they are likely to have only one chance to bid on any particular work.”
Meet iconic Indian artist Tyeb Mehta, whose Mahishasura had fetched a whopping $1.54 million in 2005, and you will understand why he is glad to be left to his creative isolation in his unfussy apartment in Mumbai’s Lokhandwala suburb, where he continues to work, come bubble or burst, fighting fading vision and physical disability. Tyeb’s last canvas Kali broke the Rs 1 crore barrier, and his Celebration went for Rs 1.5 crore ($317,500) on September 19, 2003. Neither contributed to his personal financial stability. “In all these years, it is only Ebrahim Al Kazi, who put up Kali for auction, who gave us 25 per cent of what he sold it for. It was a gesture straight from the heart, a magnanimous, kind, gesture,” says Sakina, his wife, “but the rest of it, which canvas sold for how much, has passed by us completely. We are not associated with any of the hype around the canvases. We only know of it when a catalogue features his works,” she says.
But then, says art critic and curator, Ranjit Hoskote, Tyeb, who was all about the money to an exploding commercial art scene, has never been about the money at all. “To Tyeb, the need to articulate deep-seated psychic realities and the crises and exultations of his society is paramount. During the six decades of his artistic practice, this need has taken precedence over personal comfort, worldly success, commercial gain, and critical acclaim. All these have been secondary considerations to Tyeb, who has patterned his life on the ideal of the artist who must speak autonomously of social, economic or cultural systems of dominance,” he says.
Tyeb is hurt, if not a little angry at how little art is understood, but won’t comment on the changing world of art around him. “I don’t go to exhibitions, or to see artists’ works because I can’t relate to their works anymore. When I can spare time from being ill, I devote it to my work. Of course my work is symbolic of a changing world and time. Just not necessarily of a changing art world,” he quips. The commercial scenario does not bother him. “I do not paint for money, or for what people think of me or of my work. I paint because it is deeply personal to me. I live in isolation, I paint in isolation. That is what the true artists do – there are a few and far between the melee, but they exist here and there.”
Artist Dhruva Mistry laughs that the only quantitative impact of the recession has been “While reminding a dealer about payment, he had mentioned that ‘sales were sluggish’.” Apart from that, he says, the season has served to allow genuine artists to get on with their work. “One thing I know well is that what I care for in my work would bother no one except me. My life and work are part of my self-enlightenment kit and I must look after my mind and spirit from the mass of material affectations.” He explains what the boom-time bubble meant to Indian artists, “The art ‘hype’ has been part of boom and bust economics of Europe and the US since the early 1980s, which was part of novel reforms of 1990s for India, China and many other countries. Success from 2002 until 2008 seemed to require being in the right place at the right time. Dealer entrepreneurs gamble with select minds, matter and taste to satisfy their speculative creativity. When it works, it raises demand, prices and stakes. In the wilderness of art market, modesty seems passé, shadowing couture and success.”
The genuine artists are thus shrugging off recession, and the aficionados -- collectors and gallerists alike -- are letting them be. As artist Samir Mondal put it “in the time of adversity, the best art creations are made.”
Times News Network
gayatri.jayaraman@timesgroup.com
Landscaping of Umrao Jaan
(Written by Muzaffar Ali)
I have a penchant for landscape; and architecture placed in landscape; and landscape seen through architecture. I see a great story in there, which is difficult to explain in words. An emotion, a spiritual experience. It is what nostalgia is made of. For a filmmaker it is what becomes the essence of Production Design and Cinematography. The last and the first sequence of Umrao Jaan had to be placed in such a landscape, a suburb of Faizabad. I went around Lucknow looking for such spaces. A space which could justify the terrible pangs of nostalgia, though filled with so much beauty, it wrenches the heart. It had found its meaning in lyrics...
Ye kya jagah dosto, ye kaun sa dayaar hai,
hadde nigaah tak jahan ghubaar hi ghubaar hai....
Now it had to present itself visually.
Driving around exploring the Awadhian landscape I came upon something of extraordinary beauty. A breath taking setting of an old haveli and a small adjoining mosque in a vast mustard field . I knew this would get into the bloodstream of the audience.
This was Amethi 15 kms from Lucknow. It was all that I was looking for. A cloud to sandwich the beginning and the end of the film.
Every morning we had to leave before the crack of dawn with my son Shaad, who I would bathe in a tub and get him ready for the shoot. He was also doing a small role as Umrao's little brother. As the location approached there was a huge speed breaker which I would invariably forget each day, but Shaad would remember and jump up before it came with a gleeful scream ' kal bataya' ... Meant I told you yesterday. We were shooting a bidai song in the old village haveli, and Shaad's role was that he was supposed to sit quietly in a corner and enjoy the happening. He began to get bored and became restless. He started slowly ripping apart an antique jazim spread out for sitting. I happened to notice half the jazim missing and Shaad discreetly pulling away whatever was left. I reprimanded him. He got very upset and sat and sulked in a corner. A little later he told my assistants that 'Main continuity mein phans gaya hoon varna main abhi chala jaata ghar.'
As the shooting came to an end the Maulvi who sat in Umrao’s last mujra, (whose close up nodding on a rhythmic interlude appreciating her footwork used in the song), was immediately sacked from the Madrasa. Next thing I came to know that my father's maternal grandfather, a great poet Mir Muzaffar Ali Khan Aseer after whom I was named, belonged to this very village.
As this came to be known, the Maulvi was honourably reinstated. Now that he is dead and gone he continues to nod in close up every time the arc light illuminates those frames.
Muzaffar Ali
I have a penchant for landscape; and architecture placed in landscape; and landscape seen through architecture. I see a great story in there, which is difficult to explain in words. An emotion, a spiritual experience. It is what nostalgia is made of. For a filmmaker it is what becomes the essence of Production Design and Cinematography. The last and the first sequence of Umrao Jaan had to be placed in such a landscape, a suburb of Faizabad. I went around Lucknow looking for such spaces. A space which could justify the terrible pangs of nostalgia, though filled with so much beauty, it wrenches the heart. It had found its meaning in lyrics...
Ye kya jagah dosto, ye kaun sa dayaar hai,
hadde nigaah tak jahan ghubaar hi ghubaar hai....
Now it had to present itself visually.
Driving around exploring the Awadhian landscape I came upon something of extraordinary beauty. A breath taking setting of an old haveli and a small adjoining mosque in a vast mustard field . I knew this would get into the bloodstream of the audience.
This was Amethi 15 kms from Lucknow. It was all that I was looking for. A cloud to sandwich the beginning and the end of the film.
Every morning we had to leave before the crack of dawn with my son Shaad, who I would bathe in a tub and get him ready for the shoot. He was also doing a small role as Umrao's little brother. As the location approached there was a huge speed breaker which I would invariably forget each day, but Shaad would remember and jump up before it came with a gleeful scream ' kal bataya' ... Meant I told you yesterday. We were shooting a bidai song in the old village haveli, and Shaad's role was that he was supposed to sit quietly in a corner and enjoy the happening. He began to get bored and became restless. He started slowly ripping apart an antique jazim spread out for sitting. I happened to notice half the jazim missing and Shaad discreetly pulling away whatever was left. I reprimanded him. He got very upset and sat and sulked in a corner. A little later he told my assistants that 'Main continuity mein phans gaya hoon varna main abhi chala jaata ghar.'
As the shooting came to an end the Maulvi who sat in Umrao’s last mujra, (whose close up nodding on a rhythmic interlude appreciating her footwork used in the song), was immediately sacked from the Madrasa. Next thing I came to know that my father's maternal grandfather, a great poet Mir Muzaffar Ali Khan Aseer after whom I was named, belonged to this very village.
As this came to be known, the Maulvi was honourably reinstated. Now that he is dead and gone he continues to nod in close up every time the arc light illuminates those frames.
Muzaffar Ali
Twists of Fate / Unpublished
Intro: One coincidence can change your life, for better or for worse. Ask someone who survived a terror attack, or close ones of those who didn’t. Gayatri explores if your fate can speak to you
Can a coincidence change the course of your life? Survivors of terror attacks are finding it is so. This is what a source at the Mumbai police comissioner’s office had to say about the three top cops Hemant Karkare, Ashok Kamte and Vijay Salaskar a few hours after their death “It was sheer coincidence, almost as if it was pre-ordained. Nothing could have stopped it. They were not meant to be in that car, and certainly not together. They were armed but couldn’t reach their weapons.” The driver of a Honda City parked nearby had been shot and was pretending to be dead just as the terrorists were moving in, when the jeep laden with the cops drew up. Perfect timing? Or an ill-fated one, depending on where you were standing.
While some lost their lives to fate’s roll of dice, the tales of those who were saved by chance are equally puzzling. And these are not instances to be shrugged off lightly, notes spiritual guru Deepak Chopra, who insists there is no such thing as a meaningless coincidence. “We’ve all experienced coincidences that seem to be endowed with special significance. A synchronicity is a coming together of seemingly unconnected events. If you pay attention, you may recognise that your life is shaped by those moments of meaningful coincidence. You may even be able to nurture and participate in those moments in a positive way.”
Artist Nawaz Singhania, whose exhibition wrapped up at the NCPA located beside the Oberoi-Trident, believes coincidences saved her that fateful night. “My exhibition ended 45 minutes before the attack, and some friends from abroad wanted to go to the Oberoi to pick up some stuff. I usually bend over backwards to fulfill all their requests, but that night, for some reason I didn’t, so they too ended up not going! We had been going to the Taj every single day after my showing, but that night our friends wanted to take us to Shiro, a lounge bar at Parel. Of course, these coincidences saved our lives,” she says.
Singhania further adds, “Not just for this, throughout life, coincidences are a glimpse into the ‘master plan’ of a Higher Power. It proves that someone is watching over you. I’m devastated by the loss of those who went, but I feel gratitude for these instances that left us behind.”
Joey Jeetun, British TV actor most famous for playing the role of a terrorist bomber on Channel 5, was at Leopold Café when the attack began. “I was covered in other people’s blood. So they thought I was dead and moved on,” he said, shaken by his experience. Slain ToI editor Sabina Sehgal Saikia was at a dinner at the Colaba Agiary when she reportedly took ill and returned to her room at the Taj — a room she wasn't meant to be in, says a close friend of Sabina’s. “As she checked into the hotel, the staff who knew her so well upgraded her, putting her in the suite next to the GMs family.” It proved to be a fatal move.
The machinations of destiny have fascinated man for centuries. While it was met initially with awe, reverence, even prayer, it is now being studied and probed. The term synchronicity was first coined by Swiss psychologist Carl Jung who said, “It is the coming together of inner and outer events in a way that cannot be explained by cause and effect and that is meaningful to the observer.” It was this cause and a twist of effect that saved the life of Apoorv Parikh who was dining with lawyer Anand Bhatt and builder Pankaj Shah, both of whom died.
His son, Rohan Parikh, describes how his father was saved by the bodies that fell on top of him. “On reaching the 18th floor landing of the Oberoi, the jehadis made the people line up against a wall. One terrorist positioned himself on the staircase going up from the landing and the other on the staircase going down from the landing. Then, in a scene right out of the Holocaust, they simultaneously opened fire on the people. My father was towards the center of the line with his two friends on either side. One bullet grazed his neck, and he fell to the floor as his two friends and several other bodies piled on top of him. He lay like that for several hours.”
Some call it God’s grace, skeptics shrug it off as coincidence. Either way, the tales pour in. The England cricket team was meant to check into the Taj the previous day; danseuse Mallika Sarabhai and her 25-member-troupe that had a last-minute reschedule of their performance and headed off to Indigo for dinner instead, is still too shaken to talk about it. Can you ignore a ‘coincidence’ that has just saved your life? “It’s not coincidence. It is destiny,” says actor Shilpa Shetty, “Some things are destined to happen. We are just living the course of our destiny etched out for us,” adding, “It’s sad, but true.”
Sad because, as astrologer Vipul Saxena explains, “Most coincidences that we observe are the negative ones. That is because when a positive coincidence happens, we rarely give it due credit. Coincidences are the fruit of our karma, the results of our actions that occur to pave the way for our success and failure. Astrologically, when the ‘time is right’ for you to receive, coincidences occur to put what is owed to you in your path. They also occur to remove what is to be taken away from you.”
Chopra believes coincidences are the way the universe speaks to you. “Once you put your mind into a state of relaxation and notice a coincidence, you begin to notice other coincidences that have brought you to where you are and who you are today. Science tells you the world is not organised by any external force. Coincidences are ways of revealing that there is a master plan.”
According to Vedic traditions, explains Guru Jaggi Vasudev, there are two signs of a person on the correct path to enlightenment; the first is a dissolving of obstacles, and the second is an increased occurrence of or awareness of coincidences around him.
Concludes Chopra, “People who are sensitive to events and stimuli around them will also be sensitive to coincidences sent from the universe. Clues may be as subtle as the smell of pipe smoke wafting through an open window, which makes you think of your father, which reminds you of a book he loved, which then somehow comes to play an important role in your life at the moment.”
The next time you come face to face with your fate, remember to take a minute to speak to it. Its language, is a coincidence.
Box: How to channel a coincidence
* Ask 'what is the significance of this?' Answers will emerge.
* Place yourself in silence in a peaceful environment and think back to an area in your life – health, money, love. List the coincidences that turned the course of each area.
* Keep a diary of coincidences in your life. Classify them as small, medium, whoppers and double whoppers.
* Cultivate an attitude of relaxed attention and intention.
* Simply by intending to create synchronicity in your life, you can nurture that result.
- tips by Deepak Chopra
Can a coincidence change the course of your life? Survivors of terror attacks are finding it is so. This is what a source at the Mumbai police comissioner’s office had to say about the three top cops Hemant Karkare, Ashok Kamte and Vijay Salaskar a few hours after their death “It was sheer coincidence, almost as if it was pre-ordained. Nothing could have stopped it. They were not meant to be in that car, and certainly not together. They were armed but couldn’t reach their weapons.” The driver of a Honda City parked nearby had been shot and was pretending to be dead just as the terrorists were moving in, when the jeep laden with the cops drew up. Perfect timing? Or an ill-fated one, depending on where you were standing.
While some lost their lives to fate’s roll of dice, the tales of those who were saved by chance are equally puzzling. And these are not instances to be shrugged off lightly, notes spiritual guru Deepak Chopra, who insists there is no such thing as a meaningless coincidence. “We’ve all experienced coincidences that seem to be endowed with special significance. A synchronicity is a coming together of seemingly unconnected events. If you pay attention, you may recognise that your life is shaped by those moments of meaningful coincidence. You may even be able to nurture and participate in those moments in a positive way.”
Artist Nawaz Singhania, whose exhibition wrapped up at the NCPA located beside the Oberoi-Trident, believes coincidences saved her that fateful night. “My exhibition ended 45 minutes before the attack, and some friends from abroad wanted to go to the Oberoi to pick up some stuff. I usually bend over backwards to fulfill all their requests, but that night, for some reason I didn’t, so they too ended up not going! We had been going to the Taj every single day after my showing, but that night our friends wanted to take us to Shiro, a lounge bar at Parel. Of course, these coincidences saved our lives,” she says.
Singhania further adds, “Not just for this, throughout life, coincidences are a glimpse into the ‘master plan’ of a Higher Power. It proves that someone is watching over you. I’m devastated by the loss of those who went, but I feel gratitude for these instances that left us behind.”
Joey Jeetun, British TV actor most famous for playing the role of a terrorist bomber on Channel 5, was at Leopold Café when the attack began. “I was covered in other people’s blood. So they thought I was dead and moved on,” he said, shaken by his experience. Slain ToI editor Sabina Sehgal Saikia was at a dinner at the Colaba Agiary when she reportedly took ill and returned to her room at the Taj — a room she wasn't meant to be in, says a close friend of Sabina’s. “As she checked into the hotel, the staff who knew her so well upgraded her, putting her in the suite next to the GMs family.” It proved to be a fatal move.
The machinations of destiny have fascinated man for centuries. While it was met initially with awe, reverence, even prayer, it is now being studied and probed. The term synchronicity was first coined by Swiss psychologist Carl Jung who said, “It is the coming together of inner and outer events in a way that cannot be explained by cause and effect and that is meaningful to the observer.” It was this cause and a twist of effect that saved the life of Apoorv Parikh who was dining with lawyer Anand Bhatt and builder Pankaj Shah, both of whom died.
His son, Rohan Parikh, describes how his father was saved by the bodies that fell on top of him. “On reaching the 18th floor landing of the Oberoi, the jehadis made the people line up against a wall. One terrorist positioned himself on the staircase going up from the landing and the other on the staircase going down from the landing. Then, in a scene right out of the Holocaust, they simultaneously opened fire on the people. My father was towards the center of the line with his two friends on either side. One bullet grazed his neck, and he fell to the floor as his two friends and several other bodies piled on top of him. He lay like that for several hours.”
Some call it God’s grace, skeptics shrug it off as coincidence. Either way, the tales pour in. The England cricket team was meant to check into the Taj the previous day; danseuse Mallika Sarabhai and her 25-member-troupe that had a last-minute reschedule of their performance and headed off to Indigo for dinner instead, is still too shaken to talk about it. Can you ignore a ‘coincidence’ that has just saved your life? “It’s not coincidence. It is destiny,” says actor Shilpa Shetty, “Some things are destined to happen. We are just living the course of our destiny etched out for us,” adding, “It’s sad, but true.”
Sad because, as astrologer Vipul Saxena explains, “Most coincidences that we observe are the negative ones. That is because when a positive coincidence happens, we rarely give it due credit. Coincidences are the fruit of our karma, the results of our actions that occur to pave the way for our success and failure. Astrologically, when the ‘time is right’ for you to receive, coincidences occur to put what is owed to you in your path. They also occur to remove what is to be taken away from you.”
Chopra believes coincidences are the way the universe speaks to you. “Once you put your mind into a state of relaxation and notice a coincidence, you begin to notice other coincidences that have brought you to where you are and who you are today. Science tells you the world is not organised by any external force. Coincidences are ways of revealing that there is a master plan.”
According to Vedic traditions, explains Guru Jaggi Vasudev, there are two signs of a person on the correct path to enlightenment; the first is a dissolving of obstacles, and the second is an increased occurrence of or awareness of coincidences around him.
Concludes Chopra, “People who are sensitive to events and stimuli around them will also be sensitive to coincidences sent from the universe. Clues may be as subtle as the smell of pipe smoke wafting through an open window, which makes you think of your father, which reminds you of a book he loved, which then somehow comes to play an important role in your life at the moment.”
The next time you come face to face with your fate, remember to take a minute to speak to it. Its language, is a coincidence.
Box: How to channel a coincidence
* Ask 'what is the significance of this?' Answers will emerge.
* Place yourself in silence in a peaceful environment and think back to an area in your life – health, money, love. List the coincidences that turned the course of each area.
* Keep a diary of coincidences in your life. Classify them as small, medium, whoppers and double whoppers.
* Cultivate an attitude of relaxed attention and intention.
* Simply by intending to create synchronicity in your life, you can nurture that result.
- tips by Deepak Chopra
Indian Cheeses/ Unpublished
Heading: Say cheese, desi ishtyle
Intro: Indian cheeses are stealing the march on the imports. If you truly want to be a cheese snob, stick your fork into this, suggests Gayatri…
* All local cheeses retail in and around their dairies. A few like ABC farms, Kodai cheese and Sikkim cheeses are available at national supermarket chains.
You know your Emmenthal from your Gouda, you’ve swirled white wine with peaches and Parmiggiano Reggiano beneath a tree in Tuscany, and you sprinkle your salads with feta not shudder… paneer…? But how well do you know your Indian cheeses?
“My feedback from the expat crowd is that a young Indian gouda is comparable to the best in the world,” avers Kuldeep Shanker of Steak House Delhi. He’s not alone, blogger Elga from Germany writes of her search for Sikkim’s gouda after backpacking across the state. “We thought we would find more as we went along, but we didn’t,” she writes. “It’s by far the best gouda I’ve ever tasted!” A rare find, Kalimpong cheese as it is called, was made by Brother Abraham, a parish priest in Sikkim, but after his passing away the quality of the locally produced delicacy, just isn’t the same locals in Sikkim explain. While production of the region’s Gouda has been taken over by Amul, a small amount of the local variety by Pappu Diary Co-op, which shut down wholescale production a few years ago, is available occasionally in Kolkatta (only 10 kgs are made each day).
Scattered across the country, small farms and cheese projects in collaboration with the Dutch, the French and the Swiss are moulding the best cheeses with Indian air, water and milk from cows, goats and even camels! “The Flander’s farm in Delhi has their own jerseys, so their quality of milk helps them retain a stronghold in the North” explains Shanker, “And Nepalese cheese was the equivalent of the Kalimpong one, and is just as good when you can procure it.”
A German couple in Kullu Manali send out a batch from Himachal when the mood strikes them, and if you’re lucky that’s a rare find. “A lady by name of Vijaya Vatsala, an organic honey farmer, is experimenting with goat’s cheese” points out Viraf Patel, chief executive group chef, Impresario. Himalayan yak’s cheese, sold across shops in Ladakh, and the only fat-free cheese in the world is now sold in American gourmet stores as a delicacy. Mansoor and Tina, a young Mumbai-based couple chucked up their hectic city lives to move to Coonoor in the Nilgiri’s with their three children in 2004, and run Acres Wild farm, a brand of cheese that retails around Coonoor, Coimbatore and Ooty. The Balakrishnans, nestled in the Kodai hills, run a bed and breakfast and their Cinnabar farms is the only place to take an organic cheese farming class.
While some like Rahul Akerkar of Indigo don’t put much stock by Indian cheeses, Patel explains, “We still have a long way to go, but India is doing well with hard cheeses and very well with fresh cheeses like mozzarella and ricotta. We are also good with vegetarian cheese and are the largest exporter of rennet because in India we have little use for it. But by and large, Indian cheese is used in cuisine rather than on its own. As a gourmet cheese, we are yet to develop a signature Indian cheese.”
Box:
How to use Indian cheese:
Use Flander’s kwark for baking cheese cakes, and serve Pondicherry’s gourmet cheeses with your wines. ABC Farms’ bocconcinni stuffed with olives and fondue cheese flavoured with wine or cherry brandy are great for parties, use Kodai’s Romano to flavour soups and sauces, and their Gruyere for fondue. Cinnabar farms’ Cinnableu and ABC’s blue are the only two blue cheeses in the country. Monterey Jack is great for melty BLT sandwiches.
Where to get Indian cheeses:
ABC Farms: The Parsi-run establishment, by the trio of Rohinton Aga, Adi Bathena and Eruch Chinoy (hence the ABC), have over 60 varieties of cheeses. ABC farms: 20-26810555.
Kodaikanal cheese: Specialities include the Danish Havarti, a pear shaped Provolone, a South Italian speciality. (Kodai Dairy: 04542-240293).
Cinnabar farms: Specialties are the Cinnamano, a Cinnabar Colby, and a Cinnableu. (Cinnabar: 4542-240220).
Acres Wild: Do a mean feta and camembert. They retail around Ooty, Coonoor and Coimbatore. (Farm cell: 94870-68898)
Auroville cheeses: Under the brand name of La Ferme. Available only in Pondicherry. (Le Ferme: 0413 622212)
Flanders Dairy Cheese: The Cheese Ball: 11-25314237
Intro: Indian cheeses are stealing the march on the imports. If you truly want to be a cheese snob, stick your fork into this, suggests Gayatri…
* All local cheeses retail in and around their dairies. A few like ABC farms, Kodai cheese and Sikkim cheeses are available at national supermarket chains.
You know your Emmenthal from your Gouda, you’ve swirled white wine with peaches and Parmiggiano Reggiano beneath a tree in Tuscany, and you sprinkle your salads with feta not shudder… paneer…? But how well do you know your Indian cheeses?
“My feedback from the expat crowd is that a young Indian gouda is comparable to the best in the world,” avers Kuldeep Shanker of Steak House Delhi. He’s not alone, blogger Elga from Germany writes of her search for Sikkim’s gouda after backpacking across the state. “We thought we would find more as we went along, but we didn’t,” she writes. “It’s by far the best gouda I’ve ever tasted!” A rare find, Kalimpong cheese as it is called, was made by Brother Abraham, a parish priest in Sikkim, but after his passing away the quality of the locally produced delicacy, just isn’t the same locals in Sikkim explain. While production of the region’s Gouda has been taken over by Amul, a small amount of the local variety by Pappu Diary Co-op, which shut down wholescale production a few years ago, is available occasionally in Kolkatta (only 10 kgs are made each day).
Scattered across the country, small farms and cheese projects in collaboration with the Dutch, the French and the Swiss are moulding the best cheeses with Indian air, water and milk from cows, goats and even camels! “The Flander’s farm in Delhi has their own jerseys, so their quality of milk helps them retain a stronghold in the North” explains Shanker, “And Nepalese cheese was the equivalent of the Kalimpong one, and is just as good when you can procure it.”
A German couple in Kullu Manali send out a batch from Himachal when the mood strikes them, and if you’re lucky that’s a rare find. “A lady by name of Vijaya Vatsala, an organic honey farmer, is experimenting with goat’s cheese” points out Viraf Patel, chief executive group chef, Impresario. Himalayan yak’s cheese, sold across shops in Ladakh, and the only fat-free cheese in the world is now sold in American gourmet stores as a delicacy. Mansoor and Tina, a young Mumbai-based couple chucked up their hectic city lives to move to Coonoor in the Nilgiri’s with their three children in 2004, and run Acres Wild farm, a brand of cheese that retails around Coonoor, Coimbatore and Ooty. The Balakrishnans, nestled in the Kodai hills, run a bed and breakfast and their Cinnabar farms is the only place to take an organic cheese farming class.
While some like Rahul Akerkar of Indigo don’t put much stock by Indian cheeses, Patel explains, “We still have a long way to go, but India is doing well with hard cheeses and very well with fresh cheeses like mozzarella and ricotta. We are also good with vegetarian cheese and are the largest exporter of rennet because in India we have little use for it. But by and large, Indian cheese is used in cuisine rather than on its own. As a gourmet cheese, we are yet to develop a signature Indian cheese.”
Box:
How to use Indian cheese:
Use Flander’s kwark for baking cheese cakes, and serve Pondicherry’s gourmet cheeses with your wines. ABC Farms’ bocconcinni stuffed with olives and fondue cheese flavoured with wine or cherry brandy are great for parties, use Kodai’s Romano to flavour soups and sauces, and their Gruyere for fondue. Cinnabar farms’ Cinnableu and ABC’s blue are the only two blue cheeses in the country. Monterey Jack is great for melty BLT sandwiches.
Where to get Indian cheeses:
ABC Farms: The Parsi-run establishment, by the trio of Rohinton Aga, Adi Bathena and Eruch Chinoy (hence the ABC), have over 60 varieties of cheeses. ABC farms: 20-26810555.
Kodaikanal cheese: Specialities include the Danish Havarti, a pear shaped Provolone, a South Italian speciality. (Kodai Dairy: 04542-240293).
Cinnabar farms: Specialties are the Cinnamano, a Cinnabar Colby, and a Cinnableu. (Cinnabar: 4542-240220).
Acres Wild: Do a mean feta and camembert. They retail around Ooty, Coonoor and Coimbatore. (Farm cell: 94870-68898)
Auroville cheeses: Under the brand name of La Ferme. Available only in Pondicherry. (Le Ferme: 0413 622212)
Flanders Dairy Cheese: The Cheese Ball: 11-25314237
Our Olympic shame/ Unpublished article
Must Abhinav Bindras be able to fund themselves for India to win golds not to mention take credit for his win? India’s potential sporting heroes deserve better says Gayatri
NOW that the country has weakened the pace of its Singh is King bhangra to Abhinav Bindra’s individual gold, perhaps it’s time to play spoilsport and remind everyone gently that Bindra’s win was ‘individual’ in the fullest sense – India, the country, the Olympic committee, the sporting heroes and the general public at large had no role to play in Bindra’s victory. He did not train at a government shooting range but at his private and privately funded one, and everything from his confidence-building course in Germany before the Games and his triumph over his debilitating spinal injury, which should have been at government’s expense, and would have been for an athlete of his merit in any other country. But they weren’t. He won because he practiced hard, funded by an indulgent and supportive parents’ substantial personal means. Transport him to any country QED (everything else remaining constant) – Bangladesh or Papua New Guinea – and the win would still have been Bindra’s alone.
Like with Abhinav Bindra, for 15-year old tennis sensation Yuki Bhambhri’s parents have felt the strain of supporting his sporting career. “It’s been very difficult for them. I keep thinking how long can they keep going? You keep thinking, if I don’t win this, I’ll be paying the money from my pocket and that’s so much money down the drain. That’s a lot of pressure to deal with on your game. If I was supported, the pressure would be off and I’d be playing more games.”
Contrast this with 14-year-old diving sensation Tim Daley, who was discovered when he was 8 and has been preparing for his role in grabbing England a diving gold yet. After qualifying for the Olympics as part of the British swim team, Steve Foley, the former Australian Olympic diver who has galvanised the sport in this country as the British performance director, warned newspersons “he may not go further than 2012 if the media and constant pressure on him to perform take their toll. Take the pressure off him.” Psychological mapping, steadying him, managing his endorsements, and caring for his teenage awe of the hype has been as much a part of the process as the actual hours of training. The teenager told the BBC : “Lots of people say ‘go and get the gold’ and I just think I’ve got no chance. I don’t think I am just going for the experience and hoping to do a good performance.”
Bhambhri says the training makes all the difference. “Almost all our international counterparts are supported. They travel with their coaches, both their parents. The government only steps in when it’s a grandslam, but otherwise you’re on your own. I’m happy that with Bindra at least now they have realised his potential. But I have to say if they had done this earlier, India would have had a lot more medals. This country has a lot of talent, if only there was someone to nurture it.”
Ask 28-year-old Viren Rasquinha, former captain of the Indian hockey team, and an Athens Olympics hopeful, threw in his colours in disgust after 6 years of playing for the country and headed out for an MBA at the prestigious Indian School of Business in April this year. “You begin believing it’s enough to love and know the game and you realise that at international levels you’re up against everything but the game,” he says. “At the grassroot level, our domestic teams don’t even touch an Astroturf, they play on grass and on maidans.” Under the mentorship of his coach ‘Bawa’, Viren often distributed hockey kits, shoes, shorts, socks to players on domestic teams. “Our players don’t even receive the funding for basics, let alone keep pace with international circuits. I was fortunate to be at the receiving end. But it doesn’t filter down. There’s no way we can win like this.”
Fed up, Viren left to do an MBA, averring, “Maybe when I return with a degree I can instill some professionalism into the system. I don’t know. I can’t promise anything. There’s no future in this for me.”
For Baichung Bhutia, now in his early 30s but a football sensation since his early teens, individual efforts are not enough. “That’s still fine for a sport like archery, where individual effort and famil support makes a difference. But for a majority of participatory sports in the country, like football, we need the support of the government.”
Although himself trained and supported by the government at various levels, Bhutia says there is still a lot left to be done. “If you compare us to international standards, we are way way behind. There’s no comparison. What we need are facilities, infrastructure, funding, training, competitive games… etc These are what will keep the spirit of the sport going and inculcate the drive to win.
At 22, Armaan Ebrahim, a promising young motor racing star, newly signed up for GP2, 2008, started his racing career at the age of 12. The youngest ever Indian to win the JK Tyre National Formula LGB Single seater Racing car championship, the prodigy would of course credit his father, ex Indian F3 champion Akbar Ebrahim rather than any government body for his potential growth. But probe and fear of invoking government wrath makes sportspersons back off. Akbar Ebrahim refused to comment on what the government could do or has done for nurturing talent for individuals who unlike his son, lack the privilege of a sporting background. Yuvraj Singh also shied clear of comment, for fear of invoking the captain’s wrath. “Everyone’s always afraid to talk about the situation,” says Viren Rasquinha. “That’s because in this country sports has a lot to do with politics and less to do with how you play the game.”
So where do the countries hopefuls go? Along with Bindra, Krishna Poonia in athletics, Joshana Chinappa in squash, Virdhawal Khade in swimming and Saina Nehwal in badminton are others making a splash in their respective sports and are all currently under the spotlight in Beijing. The common thread? All were privately trained, funded and sponsored by the LN Mittal Trust and don’t have so much to thank the Indian government for. Manisha Malhotra, administrative coordinator of the Trust speaking to Timeslife from Beijing takes the pride of the organization having mothered these youngsters. Exhausted after packing Bindra back home, but exhilarated, she says “Our aim is to put India on the medal grid by the 2012 Olympics and we have been focused on identifying champions and providing them the bets possible facilities to further their training.”
The alternative route to success for many then is private corporations who enjoy investing in sports as part of their corporate social responsibility programmes. Youngsters such as Gaurav Ghei for instance on the golfing circuit gaining sponsors such as Deutsche Bank, early in their careers. The GVK industries chairman GVK Reddy who has stood shoulder to shoulder with Sania Mirza monetarily since she was 13. The Tata Archery Academy run by Tata Steel at Jamshedpur has been consistently supporting sportspersons and gainingsilent marches of victory that have failed to generate the kind of hype that more mundane achievements in cricket have. The trio of A Donda Raju, Rajib Basumatary and Ravinder Hembram created world archery history when they put a never before achieved combined score of 440 at the world archery championship in Mexico. In Chennai, Steria, a France-based multinational IT services provider, invests heavily in finding football geniuses. After successfully making the Mumbai Marathon an annual movement with momentum of its own, Standard Chartered Bank is now looking to empower women in villages through netball. Each corporation is on its personal quest that may lead to stray victories, but the fact remains India as a nation is ill geared for the quantum leap into a winning streak. That, remains in the hands of the government, aver sportspersons.
As Bhutia puts it, “Of course we are proud of Bindra and we have a right to take pride in the fact that he represented the nation, even if the merit of it was his own personal effort. Hopefully, his win will bring hope to the many talented kids around. What’s important is the whole package – the positivity about the sport, a good clean healthy environment. That’s what makes winners.”
NOW that the country has weakened the pace of its Singh is King bhangra to Abhinav Bindra’s individual gold, perhaps it’s time to play spoilsport and remind everyone gently that Bindra’s win was ‘individual’ in the fullest sense – India, the country, the Olympic committee, the sporting heroes and the general public at large had no role to play in Bindra’s victory. He did not train at a government shooting range but at his private and privately funded one, and everything from his confidence-building course in Germany before the Games and his triumph over his debilitating spinal injury, which should have been at government’s expense, and would have been for an athlete of his merit in any other country. But they weren’t. He won because he practiced hard, funded by an indulgent and supportive parents’ substantial personal means. Transport him to any country QED (everything else remaining constant) – Bangladesh or Papua New Guinea – and the win would still have been Bindra’s alone.
Like with Abhinav Bindra, for 15-year old tennis sensation Yuki Bhambhri’s parents have felt the strain of supporting his sporting career. “It’s been very difficult for them. I keep thinking how long can they keep going? You keep thinking, if I don’t win this, I’ll be paying the money from my pocket and that’s so much money down the drain. That’s a lot of pressure to deal with on your game. If I was supported, the pressure would be off and I’d be playing more games.”
Contrast this with 14-year-old diving sensation Tim Daley, who was discovered when he was 8 and has been preparing for his role in grabbing England a diving gold yet. After qualifying for the Olympics as part of the British swim team, Steve Foley, the former Australian Olympic diver who has galvanised the sport in this country as the British performance director, warned newspersons “he may not go further than 2012 if the media and constant pressure on him to perform take their toll. Take the pressure off him.” Psychological mapping, steadying him, managing his endorsements, and caring for his teenage awe of the hype has been as much a part of the process as the actual hours of training. The teenager told the BBC : “Lots of people say ‘go and get the gold’ and I just think I’ve got no chance. I don’t think I am just going for the experience and hoping to do a good performance.”
Bhambhri says the training makes all the difference. “Almost all our international counterparts are supported. They travel with their coaches, both their parents. The government only steps in when it’s a grandslam, but otherwise you’re on your own. I’m happy that with Bindra at least now they have realised his potential. But I have to say if they had done this earlier, India would have had a lot more medals. This country has a lot of talent, if only there was someone to nurture it.”
Ask 28-year-old Viren Rasquinha, former captain of the Indian hockey team, and an Athens Olympics hopeful, threw in his colours in disgust after 6 years of playing for the country and headed out for an MBA at the prestigious Indian School of Business in April this year. “You begin believing it’s enough to love and know the game and you realise that at international levels you’re up against everything but the game,” he says. “At the grassroot level, our domestic teams don’t even touch an Astroturf, they play on grass and on maidans.” Under the mentorship of his coach ‘Bawa’, Viren often distributed hockey kits, shoes, shorts, socks to players on domestic teams. “Our players don’t even receive the funding for basics, let alone keep pace with international circuits. I was fortunate to be at the receiving end. But it doesn’t filter down. There’s no way we can win like this.”
Fed up, Viren left to do an MBA, averring, “Maybe when I return with a degree I can instill some professionalism into the system. I don’t know. I can’t promise anything. There’s no future in this for me.”
For Baichung Bhutia, now in his early 30s but a football sensation since his early teens, individual efforts are not enough. “That’s still fine for a sport like archery, where individual effort and famil support makes a difference. But for a majority of participatory sports in the country, like football, we need the support of the government.”
Although himself trained and supported by the government at various levels, Bhutia says there is still a lot left to be done. “If you compare us to international standards, we are way way behind. There’s no comparison. What we need are facilities, infrastructure, funding, training, competitive games… etc These are what will keep the spirit of the sport going and inculcate the drive to win.
At 22, Armaan Ebrahim, a promising young motor racing star, newly signed up for GP2, 2008, started his racing career at the age of 12. The youngest ever Indian to win the JK Tyre National Formula LGB Single seater Racing car championship, the prodigy would of course credit his father, ex Indian F3 champion Akbar Ebrahim rather than any government body for his potential growth. But probe and fear of invoking government wrath makes sportspersons back off. Akbar Ebrahim refused to comment on what the government could do or has done for nurturing talent for individuals who unlike his son, lack the privilege of a sporting background. Yuvraj Singh also shied clear of comment, for fear of invoking the captain’s wrath. “Everyone’s always afraid to talk about the situation,” says Viren Rasquinha. “That’s because in this country sports has a lot to do with politics and less to do with how you play the game.”
So where do the countries hopefuls go? Along with Bindra, Krishna Poonia in athletics, Joshana Chinappa in squash, Virdhawal Khade in swimming and Saina Nehwal in badminton are others making a splash in their respective sports and are all currently under the spotlight in Beijing. The common thread? All were privately trained, funded and sponsored by the LN Mittal Trust and don’t have so much to thank the Indian government for. Manisha Malhotra, administrative coordinator of the Trust speaking to Timeslife from Beijing takes the pride of the organization having mothered these youngsters. Exhausted after packing Bindra back home, but exhilarated, she says “Our aim is to put India on the medal grid by the 2012 Olympics and we have been focused on identifying champions and providing them the bets possible facilities to further their training.”
The alternative route to success for many then is private corporations who enjoy investing in sports as part of their corporate social responsibility programmes. Youngsters such as Gaurav Ghei for instance on the golfing circuit gaining sponsors such as Deutsche Bank, early in their careers. The GVK industries chairman GVK Reddy who has stood shoulder to shoulder with Sania Mirza monetarily since she was 13. The Tata Archery Academy run by Tata Steel at Jamshedpur has been consistently supporting sportspersons and gainingsilent marches of victory that have failed to generate the kind of hype that more mundane achievements in cricket have. The trio of A Donda Raju, Rajib Basumatary and Ravinder Hembram created world archery history when they put a never before achieved combined score of 440 at the world archery championship in Mexico. In Chennai, Steria, a France-based multinational IT services provider, invests heavily in finding football geniuses. After successfully making the Mumbai Marathon an annual movement with momentum of its own, Standard Chartered Bank is now looking to empower women in villages through netball. Each corporation is on its personal quest that may lead to stray victories, but the fact remains India as a nation is ill geared for the quantum leap into a winning streak. That, remains in the hands of the government, aver sportspersons.
As Bhutia puts it, “Of course we are proud of Bindra and we have a right to take pride in the fact that he represented the nation, even if the merit of it was his own personal effort. Hopefully, his win will bring hope to the many talented kids around. What’s important is the whole package – the positivity about the sport, a good clean healthy environment. That’s what makes winners.”
Real Men: Abir Karmakar / Unpublished
Intro: The pressure to be beautiful all the time gets to men too. In Abir Karmakar’s world, women aren’t the only ones being pushed to unreal standards of perfection says Gayatri
Men who choose to be seen naked, should have six pack abs. That is how it would seem. Look around you, even the ‘real men’ on the covers of health magazines, the average joe you would date, or the colleague in a boring pin-stripe shirt has something intelligent to say about health and works out at least twice a week, if he’s not ‘sporty’.
But not in artist Abir Karmakar’s world. He’s a little tired of the whole six pack thing, has been for a while now, and chooses to paint men real. It’s not just about exploiting the medium of oil paints for its god-given purpose; the exultation of tones of the human flesh in all its reality – stretch marked, dimpled, and belly-tiered, but it’s about finding the real man beneath all the hype.
“I’m not homosexual,” he candidly admits. “I’m straight. But because I’m not macho, and don’t fit into either the stereotypical standards of male and female, people are not able to slot me, so they struggle to find a tag for me.” The struggle affects the way people view his paintings too. His ‘Within The Walls’ is a body of work currently showing at curator Ranjana Steinrucke’s gallery in Mumbai. Siliguri-born Baroda-based Karmakar’s work has been tagged as having homosexual undertones by more than one casual reviewer.
“I’ve never struggled to deny or refute that because the confusion just adds to my social experiment,” says Karmakar quietly. “My men strike female poses, enjoy their bodies, look and feel and emanate an aura of having both genders within them. They are soft as well as strong, intuitive as well as logical, so the viewer cannot slot them. Making the viewer feel uncomfortable by not being able to find the tag that fits is the aim,” he smiles.
It is the anti-thesis to the world outside, he says. A world that beams images of perfect men, Greek gods in figure, impeccably dressed, perfectly wined, dined, suave with women and knowledgeable of the world. “Where is the space for the confused man? The awkward man? The man who can’t speak up for himself? The shy man?” he asks. The man who doesn’t win and who is yet not a loser? The man who is short and fat and probably balding too and is yet not pushing himself to perfection? “They don’t have space, they don’t fit. They don’t have a voice. So they get labeled by whatever suits the nearest observer,” he says.
But the space for him would now be in these paintings. Men in skirts, in silks, in heels, in make up and jewellery, men asking the viewer to challenge what they have seen and known of social concepts of men. Asking as Karmakar himself says, “Does this discomfort you?” It does. Very much. Because that is not what a man is supposed to be. But who is to say?
Times News Network
gayatri.jayaraman@timesgroup.com
Men who choose to be seen naked, should have six pack abs. That is how it would seem. Look around you, even the ‘real men’ on the covers of health magazines, the average joe you would date, or the colleague in a boring pin-stripe shirt has something intelligent to say about health and works out at least twice a week, if he’s not ‘sporty’.
But not in artist Abir Karmakar’s world. He’s a little tired of the whole six pack thing, has been for a while now, and chooses to paint men real. It’s not just about exploiting the medium of oil paints for its god-given purpose; the exultation of tones of the human flesh in all its reality – stretch marked, dimpled, and belly-tiered, but it’s about finding the real man beneath all the hype.
“I’m not homosexual,” he candidly admits. “I’m straight. But because I’m not macho, and don’t fit into either the stereotypical standards of male and female, people are not able to slot me, so they struggle to find a tag for me.” The struggle affects the way people view his paintings too. His ‘Within The Walls’ is a body of work currently showing at curator Ranjana Steinrucke’s gallery in Mumbai. Siliguri-born Baroda-based Karmakar’s work has been tagged as having homosexual undertones by more than one casual reviewer.
“I’ve never struggled to deny or refute that because the confusion just adds to my social experiment,” says Karmakar quietly. “My men strike female poses, enjoy their bodies, look and feel and emanate an aura of having both genders within them. They are soft as well as strong, intuitive as well as logical, so the viewer cannot slot them. Making the viewer feel uncomfortable by not being able to find the tag that fits is the aim,” he smiles.
It is the anti-thesis to the world outside, he says. A world that beams images of perfect men, Greek gods in figure, impeccably dressed, perfectly wined, dined, suave with women and knowledgeable of the world. “Where is the space for the confused man? The awkward man? The man who can’t speak up for himself? The shy man?” he asks. The man who doesn’t win and who is yet not a loser? The man who is short and fat and probably balding too and is yet not pushing himself to perfection? “They don’t have space, they don’t fit. They don’t have a voice. So they get labeled by whatever suits the nearest observer,” he says.
But the space for him would now be in these paintings. Men in skirts, in silks, in heels, in make up and jewellery, men asking the viewer to challenge what they have seen and known of social concepts of men. Asking as Karmakar himself says, “Does this discomfort you?” It does. Very much. Because that is not what a man is supposed to be. But who is to say?
Times News Network
gayatri.jayaraman@timesgroup.com
Tell Me a Story (he said)...
Once there was a rainbow and she was tired of being so many colours and by being whisked around by the rain and buffeted by the clouds so much and poked and prodded by the bounty hunters. So she went away and sulked and sulked. And it poured and she didnt come out. And the birds sang and she didnt come out. And the world spun like everything was okay, but something, something was missing....
You see rainbow didn't want to be ordinary, a mongrel, anymore. She wanted to be - well somebody! "Maybe she could pick a colour to be?" (the helpful west wind suggested). Mongrel rainbow picked red. She went very very red, and wanted all the cherries to bow to her. But then she washed out completely when the sun went down, and the sky looked like it was tearing in two! And her friends the trees stopped standing on their tippy toes to melt into her greenness, and she longed for molten gold to glisten through her yellowness, and drip into the pot at the end of it.
And while she went from red to blue to indigo, and tried every new colour in front of the mirror, and twirled to see how gorgeous she looked, somewhere, someone she knew began to forget her.
.... one day, as she sat a wierd shade of purpley blue, not likingher new look at all (it made her eyes look sunk in her mother complained), raindrop came calling. Could she, please, consider, returning to a diffused state of whiteness? You see, people, birds, insects, couldn't quite see the raindrop anymore, and cursed him so, for catching them unawares.
And rainbow looked up at him and knew, that somewhere we fall in love with only those parts of people that are the colour that we are ourselves. And to have the colours of the whole world within you, you must needs be a mongrel, with no home, and at the beck and call, and push and prod, of people who look up to see, yes they belong too, to a part of the whole of this mad whirl of colours across the world. And rainbow took raindrop's hand, and became, oh so ordinar, just-diffused-whiteness again.
The end.
You see rainbow didn't want to be ordinary, a mongrel, anymore. She wanted to be - well somebody! "Maybe she could pick a colour to be?" (the helpful west wind suggested). Mongrel rainbow picked red. She went very very red, and wanted all the cherries to bow to her. But then she washed out completely when the sun went down, and the sky looked like it was tearing in two! And her friends the trees stopped standing on their tippy toes to melt into her greenness, and she longed for molten gold to glisten through her yellowness, and drip into the pot at the end of it.
And while she went from red to blue to indigo, and tried every new colour in front of the mirror, and twirled to see how gorgeous she looked, somewhere, someone she knew began to forget her.
.... one day, as she sat a wierd shade of purpley blue, not likingher new look at all (it made her eyes look sunk in her mother complained), raindrop came calling. Could she, please, consider, returning to a diffused state of whiteness? You see, people, birds, insects, couldn't quite see the raindrop anymore, and cursed him so, for catching them unawares.
And rainbow looked up at him and knew, that somewhere we fall in love with only those parts of people that are the colour that we are ourselves. And to have the colours of the whole world within you, you must needs be a mongrel, with no home, and at the beck and call, and push and prod, of people who look up to see, yes they belong too, to a part of the whole of this mad whirl of colours across the world. And rainbow took raindrop's hand, and became, oh so ordinar, just-diffused-whiteness again.
The end.
Reality of Reality TV / Times Life August 31, 2008
It’s a virtual Lord of the Flies, and who is drawing the fine line between vicarious and vicious? The mental health fraternity is becoming vocal about participants like Monika Bedi, Raja Chowdhury, Rahul Mahajan – the three contestants on the Bigg Boss reality show now in its second season who are drawing in the TRPs as the nation watches for a potential meltdown. As a hoarding depicting former jailbird Monica Bedi screams ‘Himmat dikhayegi ki toot jaayegi’ (will she show courage or will she break?). You can bet the money is on her breaking.
“Bigg Boss is thriving on primitive human emotions and wants to exploit the pain, suffering and controversy of human beings. It’s sickening,” says eminent psychiatrist Harish Shetty best known for handling Faisal Khan’s case. “I would go so far as to say Bigg Boss is unethical in exploiting human beings who are going through a difficult time and a difficult phase and who would naturally gravitate towards such a medium for not knowing better.” His anger is shared by the mental health community. Psychiatrist Anjali Chhabria states “Sleep deprivation (the first task on the show) itself can trigger nervous breakdowns. What are they doing?”
Seeema Hingoranny, the clinical psychologist attached to Bigg Boss, (both seasons) stands in defense of the show. “The hoardings are put together by publicists. I’m not aware of that, but I handle the mental health of participants on the show,” she is quick to say. “The participants have asked me questions like ‘What if I go mad?’ Some had heard stories from previous contestants about how tough it is, and others had seen Amit Sadh break down on Bigg Boss 1. I have conducted psychological tests, interviews, observations on each participant, and briefed each participant on the show.”
“We haven’t considered their pasts because we have conducted the tests allowing them to look at how they are now. After their processes of healing have begun. We are not judgemental about their pasts, but have allowed for a fresh start,” she says. That’s not enough say observers if you consider the history. Monika Bedi has been through extradition and jail time, a family that disowned her, Raja Chowdhury battled alleged alcoholism, a wife who claimed abuse, divorce and a custody case, as well as allegations of assaulting a TV journalist. Rahul Mahajan has faced his father’s murder by his uncle, alleged substance abuse that accused the death of a friend, and his own divorce. All extreme circumstances that may or may not allow them to fare well under pressure-cooker situations. The perfect formula for TRPs. Very bad for mental health. “They could turn around and kill themselves or each other,” warns Anjali Chhabria, psychiatrist. “Have psychological tests been performed keeping in mind they are being put in such high-pressure situations?”
Media watcher and the man behind the move for self-regulation of media Peter Mukherjea is horrified, “I call it the bigg loser show as it’s no different to several news channels disguising complete nonsense as news. For me, general entertainment should be about family entertainment and putting a bunch of challenged people together to watch them through hidden cameras isn’t family entertainment by any stretch of imagination. It’s distorted and not enduring or endearing.”
Psychiatrists are also aghast that two others – Faisal Khan and Jahnavi – the individual who declared herself Abhishek Bachchan’s true wife on the morning of his wedding – were approached too. “It is an attempt to be whackier than others by being exploitative rather than being creative,” says Harish Shetty.
Friends of Faisal Khan were horrified when he was approached. “Even I am glad he’s not been institutionalized by his brother,” said a friend of Faisal’s who chose to stay anonymous, “but under that sort of a high pressure environment, he would have surely cracked, didn’t the organizers know that before offering him the show?” he asks. In all probability they – Endemol India – did know of the consequences. In fact, say inside sources, that’s why they offered it to him.
Psychiatrist Anjali Chhabria outlines the dangers of the situation “The participants in a reality show are sleep deprived, constantly under camera, watched all the time, and they are put to different tests that encourage them to extend beyond their physical capacities – singing or dancing, or preparing for some task. That is the format. Add to that the fact of not knowing whom to trust, the air of suspicion, manipulation, plotting an planning, and that’s a lot of pressure to take. I have treated a lot of so called ‘normal and strong’ people from previous shows who have broken down due to all the pressure. Definitely, people with a history of emotional disorder, breakdown or substance abuse are at higher risk in such an environment. In trying to get better TRPs, one should not play with emotionally frail minds of at-risk individuals. God knows at what provocation individuals may turn around to kill each other.”
TV actor Raj Logani, Raja Chowdhury’s former brother-in-law and Shweta Tiwari’s brother though dismisses reports of Raja’s violent behaviour, “Personally I may not fight in public, but Raja is just a guy’s guy. He’d react if it was intensely provocative and he was in a bad situation, but deep down he’s a very nice guy. Gem of a man who’s actually very helpful,” he says. “He was just going through some things,” he adds, “Who knows, he may actually show his nice side?”
Let’s hope so. Seema Hingoranny states she has qualified assistants monitoring them during the show. “We have a stand by team – a psychiatrist, an occupational therapist.” Now, fingers crossed that the fragile limits of endurance don’t crack irretrievably.
“Bigg Boss is thriving on primitive human emotions and wants to exploit the pain, suffering and controversy of human beings. It’s sickening,” says eminent psychiatrist Harish Shetty best known for handling Faisal Khan’s case. “I would go so far as to say Bigg Boss is unethical in exploiting human beings who are going through a difficult time and a difficult phase and who would naturally gravitate towards such a medium for not knowing better.” His anger is shared by the mental health community. Psychiatrist Anjali Chhabria states “Sleep deprivation (the first task on the show) itself can trigger nervous breakdowns. What are they doing?”
Seeema Hingoranny, the clinical psychologist attached to Bigg Boss, (both seasons) stands in defense of the show. “The hoardings are put together by publicists. I’m not aware of that, but I handle the mental health of participants on the show,” she is quick to say. “The participants have asked me questions like ‘What if I go mad?’ Some had heard stories from previous contestants about how tough it is, and others had seen Amit Sadh break down on Bigg Boss 1. I have conducted psychological tests, interviews, observations on each participant, and briefed each participant on the show.”
“We haven’t considered their pasts because we have conducted the tests allowing them to look at how they are now. After their processes of healing have begun. We are not judgemental about their pasts, but have allowed for a fresh start,” she says. That’s not enough say observers if you consider the history. Monika Bedi has been through extradition and jail time, a family that disowned her, Raja Chowdhury battled alleged alcoholism, a wife who claimed abuse, divorce and a custody case, as well as allegations of assaulting a TV journalist. Rahul Mahajan has faced his father’s murder by his uncle, alleged substance abuse that accused the death of a friend, and his own divorce. All extreme circumstances that may or may not allow them to fare well under pressure-cooker situations. The perfect formula for TRPs. Very bad for mental health. “They could turn around and kill themselves or each other,” warns Anjali Chhabria, psychiatrist. “Have psychological tests been performed keeping in mind they are being put in such high-pressure situations?”
Media watcher and the man behind the move for self-regulation of media Peter Mukherjea is horrified, “I call it the bigg loser show as it’s no different to several news channels disguising complete nonsense as news. For me, general entertainment should be about family entertainment and putting a bunch of challenged people together to watch them through hidden cameras isn’t family entertainment by any stretch of imagination. It’s distorted and not enduring or endearing.”
Psychiatrists are also aghast that two others – Faisal Khan and Jahnavi – the individual who declared herself Abhishek Bachchan’s true wife on the morning of his wedding – were approached too. “It is an attempt to be whackier than others by being exploitative rather than being creative,” says Harish Shetty.
Friends of Faisal Khan were horrified when he was approached. “Even I am glad he’s not been institutionalized by his brother,” said a friend of Faisal’s who chose to stay anonymous, “but under that sort of a high pressure environment, he would have surely cracked, didn’t the organizers know that before offering him the show?” he asks. In all probability they – Endemol India – did know of the consequences. In fact, say inside sources, that’s why they offered it to him.
Psychiatrist Anjali Chhabria outlines the dangers of the situation “The participants in a reality show are sleep deprived, constantly under camera, watched all the time, and they are put to different tests that encourage them to extend beyond their physical capacities – singing or dancing, or preparing for some task. That is the format. Add to that the fact of not knowing whom to trust, the air of suspicion, manipulation, plotting an planning, and that’s a lot of pressure to take. I have treated a lot of so called ‘normal and strong’ people from previous shows who have broken down due to all the pressure. Definitely, people with a history of emotional disorder, breakdown or substance abuse are at higher risk in such an environment. In trying to get better TRPs, one should not play with emotionally frail minds of at-risk individuals. God knows at what provocation individuals may turn around to kill each other.”
TV actor Raj Logani, Raja Chowdhury’s former brother-in-law and Shweta Tiwari’s brother though dismisses reports of Raja’s violent behaviour, “Personally I may not fight in public, but Raja is just a guy’s guy. He’d react if it was intensely provocative and he was in a bad situation, but deep down he’s a very nice guy. Gem of a man who’s actually very helpful,” he says. “He was just going through some things,” he adds, “Who knows, he may actually show his nice side?”
Let’s hope so. Seema Hingoranny states she has qualified assistants monitoring them during the show. “We have a stand by team – a psychiatrist, an occupational therapist.” Now, fingers crossed that the fragile limits of endurance don’t crack irretrievably.
"I'll never write a love story again": Karan Johar/ Times Life Oct 5
Intro: The ultimate weaver of the romantic Indian fantasy has removed his rose tinted glasses. Love, relationships and marriage will never be the same again. Karan Johar journeys from romantic to cynic with Gayatri
When spinner-of-magical fantasies Karan Johar tells you he’s stopped believing in love, you don’t run to press. You hold on to his words, and wait, and hope it was a passing phase, that he spoke too soon, that he will change his mind. No such luck.
The man who helped spin Dilwale Dulhaniya and wrote the mush gush into Kuch Kuch Hota Hai ‘ declares “My idea of love is more cynical today, so I can’t find bring myself to write a love story because I find every line, every scene I’m writing to be artificial. I’m not feeling it. I’m trying to be a romance writer, which is why I’ve stepped away from the writing of My Name Is Khan. Because at its core it’s a love story, and Shibani Bhathija has written the screenplay. I believe in it. It’s a lovely love story. But it’s not come from me, it’s come from her. Because I knew that everytime I sat down to write something, I was just not feeling it. Suddenly, I feel the love in my writing is just dead.”
This and the willful withdrawal from public scrutiny have been some time coming, Karan admits. “If you see the graph there is a shift from idealism to cynicism,” he says. “I reached a zone after Kabhi Al Vida Na Kehna where I just needed to be. I want to make life more about me than it's been before. Today I am in a completely different zone. Kuch Kuch Hota Hai was my understanding of first love, it’s what you hear in college of what you hear others are going through, heartbreak – I never went through any of those feelings. It was not a personal piece of work, it was very borrowed, but that is what my cinema is – it’s always a reflection of what I see around me. In Kabhi Khushi there is parental love which is still something I know about, and that for me was an honest film, (which people call manipulated, actually is my most honest piece of work). Kal Ho Na Ho was really the fear of losing a loved one, and ironically, I lost my father right after, so that kind of mirrored itself in my own life.”
And that’s when what he saw around him began to change his perspective of love. “Death has a way of bringing you back to life. It made me look at life very carefully and observe things. I traveled a lot in that zone for one year. And everywhere I went I met wives who had nothing nice to say about their husbands, husbands who were certainly not interested in their wives, relationships that were crumbling in front of my eyes. I think something is really wrong.”
Karan blames his cynicism on having seen too much and heard too much. “I sound extreme when I say in my perception of the institution of marriage. I do wonder if we turn a blind eye or are genuinely delusional, because somethings are very clear to me. There’s this lack of tolerance in relationships today, which generations before didn’t have. Large levels of communication can do that. Thirty years ago, when there were no computers and no mobiles, there was a certain mystery in people's day-to-day activity. Now there is too much communication, too much technology, everyone is in each other's faces all the time, literally. It’s taken away the beauty of romance and made everyone far more impulsive about what they're feeling and saying.”
Withdrawing is therefore a willful seclusion from emotional onslaughts for Karan. “I’m not in a relationship and therefore people download their problems on me because I have a tendency of playing therapist at times. I tend to be a good listener but now I want to stop listening and start saying. The problem is I’ve made a lot of friends listening and so it’s a lot of what I hear around me that kind of reflects in my work.”
Karan pauses, and hastily adds… “I’m not losing faith in the concept of love. I still believe in the emotion, everybody needs it, wants it, yearns for it, and hopes to get it, but I currently don’t know how to express it on paper. I’m not moved by love on screen anymore. It’s an odd shift, I can’t explain it. I would cry more for the emotion of loss or triumph than for a love story. Even the romantic comedy film that I would rush to see, I watch now and think this is over the top. In fact, the mush that I’ve been known for, love and all that, has died in my thought process. I would love to revisit the love story format post this phase to check if it is still alive and kicking. I saw Jab We Met with a tremendous amount of envy because I was like this is what I wanted to write -- just a simple slice of life love story and I couldn’t do it. I’ve stepped away because it will just disillusion me.”
And how much of what he sees will reflect in his personal life, let alone his films? “How romantic am I? I’m not. I’m 36 today and I’ve lost the zone in which I could have been romantic. Now there’s no point. I never believed in love at first sight, it is really just another word for infatuation, we confuse the two. My personal belief is that love in the 20s and love in the 30s are two different things. There is a lot of settling for in 30s and there’s a lot of searching for in the 20s. I’ve felt tremendous love, I’ve been in love and I know that that’s a different headspace. I know I won’t be in that headspace because I’m far too evolved. That’s the problem. Overthought, overanalysis can kill the most honest and earnest motions and love is one of them.”
You clutch at straws here. Anything to bring Karan back from the brink of hoplessness in love. Why, he wants to know. Because, if he goes down, he will, you tell him, take with him those celluloid dreams of happy endings from the kind of movie-goer who cries at the movies. You believe in destiny, right? What does your horoscope say? He breaks into a smile. “Sunita Menon says I will be in a relationship by the time I’m 38. So I guess, never say never hunh?”. We’re just saying “Phew!”
When spinner-of-magical fantasies Karan Johar tells you he’s stopped believing in love, you don’t run to press. You hold on to his words, and wait, and hope it was a passing phase, that he spoke too soon, that he will change his mind. No such luck.
The man who helped spin Dilwale Dulhaniya and wrote the mush gush into Kuch Kuch Hota Hai ‘ declares “My idea of love is more cynical today, so I can’t find bring myself to write a love story because I find every line, every scene I’m writing to be artificial. I’m not feeling it. I’m trying to be a romance writer, which is why I’ve stepped away from the writing of My Name Is Khan. Because at its core it’s a love story, and Shibani Bhathija has written the screenplay. I believe in it. It’s a lovely love story. But it’s not come from me, it’s come from her. Because I knew that everytime I sat down to write something, I was just not feeling it. Suddenly, I feel the love in my writing is just dead.”
This and the willful withdrawal from public scrutiny have been some time coming, Karan admits. “If you see the graph there is a shift from idealism to cynicism,” he says. “I reached a zone after Kabhi Al Vida Na Kehna where I just needed to be. I want to make life more about me than it's been before. Today I am in a completely different zone. Kuch Kuch Hota Hai was my understanding of first love, it’s what you hear in college of what you hear others are going through, heartbreak – I never went through any of those feelings. It was not a personal piece of work, it was very borrowed, but that is what my cinema is – it’s always a reflection of what I see around me. In Kabhi Khushi there is parental love which is still something I know about, and that for me was an honest film, (which people call manipulated, actually is my most honest piece of work). Kal Ho Na Ho was really the fear of losing a loved one, and ironically, I lost my father right after, so that kind of mirrored itself in my own life.”
And that’s when what he saw around him began to change his perspective of love. “Death has a way of bringing you back to life. It made me look at life very carefully and observe things. I traveled a lot in that zone for one year. And everywhere I went I met wives who had nothing nice to say about their husbands, husbands who were certainly not interested in their wives, relationships that were crumbling in front of my eyes. I think something is really wrong.”
Karan blames his cynicism on having seen too much and heard too much. “I sound extreme when I say in my perception of the institution of marriage. I do wonder if we turn a blind eye or are genuinely delusional, because somethings are very clear to me. There’s this lack of tolerance in relationships today, which generations before didn’t have. Large levels of communication can do that. Thirty years ago, when there were no computers and no mobiles, there was a certain mystery in people's day-to-day activity. Now there is too much communication, too much technology, everyone is in each other's faces all the time, literally. It’s taken away the beauty of romance and made everyone far more impulsive about what they're feeling and saying.”
Withdrawing is therefore a willful seclusion from emotional onslaughts for Karan. “I’m not in a relationship and therefore people download their problems on me because I have a tendency of playing therapist at times. I tend to be a good listener but now I want to stop listening and start saying. The problem is I’ve made a lot of friends listening and so it’s a lot of what I hear around me that kind of reflects in my work.”
Karan pauses, and hastily adds… “I’m not losing faith in the concept of love. I still believe in the emotion, everybody needs it, wants it, yearns for it, and hopes to get it, but I currently don’t know how to express it on paper. I’m not moved by love on screen anymore. It’s an odd shift, I can’t explain it. I would cry more for the emotion of loss or triumph than for a love story. Even the romantic comedy film that I would rush to see, I watch now and think this is over the top. In fact, the mush that I’ve been known for, love and all that, has died in my thought process. I would love to revisit the love story format post this phase to check if it is still alive and kicking. I saw Jab We Met with a tremendous amount of envy because I was like this is what I wanted to write -- just a simple slice of life love story and I couldn’t do it. I’ve stepped away because it will just disillusion me.”
And how much of what he sees will reflect in his personal life, let alone his films? “How romantic am I? I’m not. I’m 36 today and I’ve lost the zone in which I could have been romantic. Now there’s no point. I never believed in love at first sight, it is really just another word for infatuation, we confuse the two. My personal belief is that love in the 20s and love in the 30s are two different things. There is a lot of settling for in 30s and there’s a lot of searching for in the 20s. I’ve felt tremendous love, I’ve been in love and I know that that’s a different headspace. I know I won’t be in that headspace because I’m far too evolved. That’s the problem. Overthought, overanalysis can kill the most honest and earnest motions and love is one of them.”
You clutch at straws here. Anything to bring Karan back from the brink of hoplessness in love. Why, he wants to know. Because, if he goes down, he will, you tell him, take with him those celluloid dreams of happy endings from the kind of movie-goer who cries at the movies. You believe in destiny, right? What does your horoscope say? He breaks into a smile. “Sunita Menon says I will be in a relationship by the time I’m 38. So I guess, never say never hunh?”. We’re just saying “Phew!”
Sex & Spirituality / Times Life Feb 1/ 2009
Hdg:Is sex the way to spirituality? Intro: Can you be a sexual as well as spiritual being? Gayatri speaks to masters of the mind and body to find where the twain meet Body copy: Would you accept as your spiritual guru, one who is sexually active? Is sex more important than God? And must you choose between them? Ask a teenager and the answer seems obvious. "God made us sexual beings. It's as primal as hunger, why choose?" Before you dismiss it as licentiousness, remember it's an answer even the Buddha contemplated. Spiritual writer Parveen Chopra was a few days into a 10-day Vipassana camp, when he was disturbed by a series of erotic dreams. On the 10th day, the supervisor explained, "With extensive cleansing, deep-rooted vasanas and sanskaras, get released. Intense meditation manifests repressed sexual desires embedded in the psyche." Accepting sexual urges, not repressing them, is the key. Zen master Osho said, "Human beings can never be separated from sex. One is born out of it. Existence has accepted the energy of sex as the starting point of creation, and your holy men call it sinful… something that existence itself does not consider a sin! One has not to fight with sex, but to create a friendship with it, and elevate the stream of life to the heights." Sex and spirituality first held hands in the 60s and turned to India for influence. Fitness expert Rahul Dev explains; "One of the seven prime chakras is the sacral or swadhisthana chakra which nurtures sexual energy, and it is where spirituality and sex meet." Yoga expert Shameem Akhtar directs "the chakra can be awakened through Kundalini yoga, thrice during one surya namaskar, and once with bhujangasana, intertwining spiritual-sexual energy." Former MTV head honcho Cyrus Oshidar, describes its effects. "The Hare Krishna's of the 60s and the influence of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was magnified by the kind of lunatic fan following the Beatles had. At such a time, music to 'change the world' emerged with Joni Mitchell, Simon and Garfunkel and others, and India became the hub of its spiritual influence." Madonna's experiments with Kabbalah's Book of Sexand Sting's tantra continued the influence. Sting said, "It's about ritualising a period of the day with your partner; touching each other, reaching deeper levels of connection. Sex is only the surface. Tantra is about reconnecting with the world of the spirit through everyday things. My church happens to be the person I live with. She is my connection to the sacred." While lovers of sex integrated spiritual angles to the physical act, spiritualists exalted their devotion in sexual terms. Rumi and other Sufi poets referred to the Lord as the lover, Lord Shiva devotees exalted phallic symbolism, as did devotees of Krishna belonging to the Radha cult. Radha, born Veronica in Guatemala, has lived for over 35 years in an ashram in Andhra Pradesh. She says, "God to me is my husband, my lover. Surrender is always of tan, man, dhan." She smiles, "I am always in a state of Ananda." Sexologist Dr Prakash Kothari explains, "There are two paths to Moksha; the first of Lord Mahavira, where you don't experience sex at all; the second is tantra where you enjoy it so much that no desire is left. The second is said to be tougher. What is Brahmanand? Even the Vedas describe it as 1,000 times the pleasure of Sambhoganand (the bliss of union). Brahmacharya is 'searching for the soul' and even for Jains, marriage is the first step. Modern distortions are not mentioned in either Charak Samahita or Kamasutra." And yet, spiritual stalwarts remain celibate. At 36, Gandhi took a vow of celibacy, as did a young APJ Abdul Kalam at the ashram of Swami Sivananda in Hrishikesh. Where do the two seamlessly fit together, if at all? Sex is primal, like hunger, and thirst. But while spiritual seekers indulge their thirst and hunger, they suppress the urge for sex. The key is moderation. Khurshed Batliwala, head of the youth wing of the Art of Living explains the difference between sex out of lust and love, "Love is the ultimate experience two people can experience in their physical body." Everyday minds don't distinguish clearly between primal urges and mental desires. Taoist guru Mantak Chia in his Taoist Secrets of Lovesays, "Many confuse hunger and sex as being similar. Clearly they are connected, as many people feeling sexual frustration turn to food for gratification. An imbalance in ching(sex) energy ranks as a major cause of obesity — when you are sexually frustrated, food is the easiest substitute." Control comes only through conviction, says spiritual guru Andrew Cohen who explains his personal struggle to remain sexually active. "As my spiritual yearning grew, I began to find it an annoying distraction. When I embarked on a three-year period of celibacy, I learned more about sexuality than ever before. I came to the conclusion that lifelong celibacy didn't make sense for one who was living in the world." Soko Morinaga, Zen Shaolin monk, explains the simplest truth about sex and spirituality, "When Japanese Saint Hônen was asked whether a Buddhist religious person should be celibate, he said 'If it is easier for him to express faith by reciting the Buddha's name alone, he should be celibate. If it is easier to do that with a spouse, it is better to marry. What is important is only how one expresses one's faith'." Deepak Chopra directs you to use sexual energy spiritually; "In any situation where we feel attraction, awakening, alertness, passion, interest, inspiration, excitement, sexual energy is at work. Whenever we feel these, we must nourish its energy in awareness. Sexual desire is sacred and chaste. Its suppression is false, ugly and unchaste. Bliss is its essence. That is connect enough."
Song of the Clay
Clay-keeper,
dust-eater,
shape-shifter,
seek
Simple lines
forbidden mines
untangled vines
speak
languages imaginary
constellations luminary
tongues of apothecaries
release
my craven omniscience
unfulfilled prescience
finger-tip efflorescence
tease
my many wandered souls
numerous misshapen wholes
unholy the fathoms of my holds
mould
me with your worthiness
knead this virginal earthiness
auscultate my genesis
fold
me to your neat design
exhilerate and redefine
identity that is all mine
free
cauterised impurity
flagellatory impunity
a fire-burnt jejeunity
be
fortune-teller
master, seller
jealous-owner-maker
mine.
dust-eater,
shape-shifter,
seek
Simple lines
forbidden mines
untangled vines
speak
languages imaginary
constellations luminary
tongues of apothecaries
release
my craven omniscience
unfulfilled prescience
finger-tip efflorescence
tease
my many wandered souls
numerous misshapen wholes
unholy the fathoms of my holds
mould
me with your worthiness
knead this virginal earthiness
auscultate my genesis
fold
me to your neat design
exhilerate and redefine
identity that is all mine
free
cauterised impurity
flagellatory impunity
a fire-burnt jejeunity
be
fortune-teller
master, seller
jealous-owner-maker
mine.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
A poem for women who organise rallies
Waters break, wombs awake, Wisdom gushes
To the feet of women sipping wine from glasses made of wind and more.
Agitate, regurgitate, ally, rally, presenilely profligate
Find common cause, complicate, gravitate, and in the hoopla, asphyxiate upon its hidden bones.
Shrill ideas, stinging tones, shrines and shrouds and shoot the moon,
Sybils shove, and show-and-tell, and sieve the sounds of sanity through sideshows filled with shells.
Who goes there, friend or foe, or feeble fence-sitting feminist folk?
Falter now and forsake the free, the freedom of infidelity, else stay and feed the frenzy with torn confetti from your mind.
Kapellmeister, orchestrate the kindnesses of king and state,
Kneeling to a kinder cause, a Keepership of karhais, knead knowledge to feed the masses with.
Harness your out-of-the-box hormones, you harlot to hysteria,
What hindrance to all harmony, what heaven-ordained ignominy, hold on to the history in your hands.
To the feet of women sipping wine from glasses made of wind and more.
Agitate, regurgitate, ally, rally, presenilely profligate
Find common cause, complicate, gravitate, and in the hoopla, asphyxiate upon its hidden bones.
Shrill ideas, stinging tones, shrines and shrouds and shoot the moon,
Sybils shove, and show-and-tell, and sieve the sounds of sanity through sideshows filled with shells.
Who goes there, friend or foe, or feeble fence-sitting feminist folk?
Falter now and forsake the free, the freedom of infidelity, else stay and feed the frenzy with torn confetti from your mind.
Kapellmeister, orchestrate the kindnesses of king and state,
Kneeling to a kinder cause, a Keepership of karhais, knead knowledge to feed the masses with.
Harness your out-of-the-box hormones, you harlot to hysteria,
What hindrance to all harmony, what heaven-ordained ignominy, hold on to the history in your hands.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Monday, February 09, 2009
Flicker
On your brow,
those lines, they are mine.
I’ve seen them before.
There by the mango tree in the garden,
down which the grey-blue caterpillars of summer inched and itched onto the ground, going crunch crunch under your big boots?
I winced as you walked, but you went anyway.
You had things to do, places to visit, people to see,
Important stuff that you couldn’t explain, I wouldn’t understand.
Don’t ask why you said, it just had to be done…
Ghosts laid to rest so they wouldn’t come haunting you again.
Lifetimes of debt counterbalanced, from your savings of many births.
Pockets of your soul were they now full enough,
Now deep enough, now generous enough,
As you walked, the loose change, it jangled.
“What will I do till then?” I asked.
You shrugged. “Find something”.
But, you half-turned, and frowned. Don’t lie. I saw it.
The white madras cotton fluttering against your steely shoulders…
The line and the cut and the curve of it all
Is mapped into fingers that have been searching across lifetimes
So unlike you,
that flicker of doubt.
The memory of it unclouding you from the rest for eternity.
That was a few lifetimes ago.
The tree’s been felled,
The caterpillars still appear from time-to-time.
And lest you think my feet have turned into the roots you planted them by,
What I’ve been doing with myself since then
doesn’t concern you anymore, so don’t ask.
Are you done? Let’s go inside
Coffee is freshly brewing
I have no more patience for long absences and karma.
those lines, they are mine.
I’ve seen them before.
There by the mango tree in the garden,
down which the grey-blue caterpillars of summer inched and itched onto the ground, going crunch crunch under your big boots?
I winced as you walked, but you went anyway.
You had things to do, places to visit, people to see,
Important stuff that you couldn’t explain, I wouldn’t understand.
Don’t ask why you said, it just had to be done…
Ghosts laid to rest so they wouldn’t come haunting you again.
Lifetimes of debt counterbalanced, from your savings of many births.
Pockets of your soul were they now full enough,
Now deep enough, now generous enough,
As you walked, the loose change, it jangled.
“What will I do till then?” I asked.
You shrugged. “Find something”.
But, you half-turned, and frowned. Don’t lie. I saw it.
The white madras cotton fluttering against your steely shoulders…
The line and the cut and the curve of it all
Is mapped into fingers that have been searching across lifetimes
So unlike you,
that flicker of doubt.
The memory of it unclouding you from the rest for eternity.
That was a few lifetimes ago.
The tree’s been felled,
The caterpillars still appear from time-to-time.
And lest you think my feet have turned into the roots you planted them by,
What I’ve been doing with myself since then
doesn’t concern you anymore, so don’t ask.
Are you done? Let’s go inside
Coffee is freshly brewing
I have no more patience for long absences and karma.
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
The Others
Sometimes, I wonder if
(between you and me)
There’s a third, we do not see.
That person, whom you think you know,
Or whom perhaps I imagine you to be
Hidden in an imperceptible gap of reality.
For when I clink my glass to yours
(I could swear) there’s a moment’s pause,
In which the one you think you are, slips right through those unseen doors.
For when you tell a joke of which
I don’t approve, but laugh anyway,
(I do believe) someone leaves, even as the rest of me stays.
And when you greet me do you find
Just that part of me you don’t really mind,
The same you say you love, but don’t, well, not nearly all the time?
Is that why when kids break glass
They say instantly ‘it wasn’t me’?
As though there could be someone else, someone there, implicitly?
When a badly dressed woman in clothes far too gay
Hits the road in the middle of the day
I want to ask, was there someone else in the mirror this morning, what did she say?
And when a couple unkisses and unbends,
Winding up on the counsellors' couch,
"I never knew him" she whispers bitterly, and aches over every sigh, kiss and touch.
"Was none of it for real?" she asks him,
and he has nothing to say.
For he wasn't there, it wasn't him, but then again it wasn't her, it wasn't they.
Who are these Others,
Who slip between, into the crevices of you and me?
Who haunts the incompleteness of being?
Look at yourself hard, if you succeed,
There's two of you,
Being seen and seeing.
(between you and me)
There’s a third, we do not see.
That person, whom you think you know,
Or whom perhaps I imagine you to be
Hidden in an imperceptible gap of reality.
For when I clink my glass to yours
(I could swear) there’s a moment’s pause,
In which the one you think you are, slips right through those unseen doors.
For when you tell a joke of which
I don’t approve, but laugh anyway,
(I do believe) someone leaves, even as the rest of me stays.
And when you greet me do you find
Just that part of me you don’t really mind,
The same you say you love, but don’t, well, not nearly all the time?
Is that why when kids break glass
They say instantly ‘it wasn’t me’?
As though there could be someone else, someone there, implicitly?
When a badly dressed woman in clothes far too gay
Hits the road in the middle of the day
I want to ask, was there someone else in the mirror this morning, what did she say?
And when a couple unkisses and unbends,
Winding up on the counsellors' couch,
"I never knew him" she whispers bitterly, and aches over every sigh, kiss and touch.
"Was none of it for real?" she asks him,
and he has nothing to say.
For he wasn't there, it wasn't him, but then again it wasn't her, it wasn't they.
Who are these Others,
Who slip between, into the crevices of you and me?
Who haunts the incompleteness of being?
Look at yourself hard, if you succeed,
There's two of you,
Being seen and seeing.
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