Spaced Out

BJ: You feel better?

Sidney: Yeah, I think I do a little bit. It's like spring at MASH. If you can't find it, can't feel it, you just go ahead and make it. Somewhere in here [tapping his chest] I'm coaxing a little bud to grow.

-M*A*S*H, Season 5

Yesterday I went to this photo exhibition at Max Mueller Bhavan. Art, Space and the City is being held in collaboration with the Bengalooru habba. It showcases the works of six city-based photographers. The theme was to be “on art and culture in the public spaces of Bangalore”. Though the brochure claims that the photographers set about to explore how far spaces in Bangalore can be deemed public in the sense of more or less uninhibited access – not all the works are of common spaces that everyone can relate to.

“Celebration” – Clare Arni
About six or seven photos of celebrations like arrangements for a Kavadi, walking on fire embers at an Amman temple, a hoarding of Mother Teresa that shines eerily under the string of fairy lights, a procession (for eunuch rights I think). Neatly captured bright shots, out of everyday. Not really everyday, but the pics are all relatable plus very much with the theme.

“Meet You There” – Vivek M
The artist talks about how time & people influence the way buildings and neighborhoods appear to one. This struck a chord. His works were amongst the ones that are to me very Bengaloor.

“Artists on the Street” - Vinayak Das
Looks into the life of a group of artisans from Rajasthan who live on the streets, earn their living by making wooden statues and other decorative items. Reminded me of innumerable such people one sees on the way to work everyday – opposite to the Sunshine Parking near Forum, near the Roman Catholic cemetery. There are actually lives right on the streets, under makeshift huts out of hoarding canvas.

There was Jyothy Karat’s “Performance Within”, Rudra Sharan’s something on the Turf Club, Vivek Singh’s “Bangalore_Spaces and Beyond”. To me, they were AlsoTheres. Some neat photographs, nothing special to write about these in general. Nothing to write about on a bored/tired Sunday afternoon.

book links

I just finished "Into The Wild" by Jon Krakauer. It made for an awesome read needless to say. It also introduced me to some beautiful yet simple lines from other works. Amongst which are Thoreau's thoughts on vegetarianism.

I leave you with this -

The repugnance to animal food is not the effect of experience, but is an instinct. It appears more beautiful to live low and fare hard in many respects; and though I never did so, I went far enough to please my imagination...

It is hard to provide and cook so simple and clean a diet as will not offend the imagination; but this, I think, is to be fed when we feed the body; they should both sit down at the same table. Yet perhaps this may be done. The fruits eaten temperately need not make us ashamed of our appetites, nor interrupt the worthiest pursuits. But put an extra condiment into your dish, and it will poison you.

"Into The Wild"

No man ever followed his genius till it misled him. Though the results were bodily weakness, yet perhaps no one can say that the consequences were to be regretted, for these were a life in conformity to higher principles. If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal, -that is your success. All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself the greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality …. The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow that I have clutched.

-Henry David Thoreau
Walden, or Life in the woods.

The Book Thief

When Liesel made it to the top of Himmel Street, she looked back just in time to see him standing in front of the nearest makeshift goals. he was waving.
"Saukerl", she laughed, and as she held up her hand, she knew completely that he was simultaneously calling her a Saumensch. I think that's as close to love as eleven-year-olds can get.

"The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak.

Trying to make sense of the horrors of the World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel - a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding..

Life and Nothing Else

Think Afghanistan and a couple of turbaned men and the Bamiyan Buddhas come rushing in ... war-scarred land, Mujahideen, Taliban, apartheid, war.

A photo exhibition titled ‘Life and Nothing Else’ (at the Max Mueller Bhavan) aims to showcase Afghanistan in its everyday light, as seen by the natives.

The catalog says that it all started with an idea to modify the way the world views Afghanistan. This could be done not by international journalists dispatched to capture exotic, aesthetically fine images of a war zone. So the Goethe-Institut Kabul in cooperation with the French media organization AINA and conducted by the German photographer Wolfgang Bellwinkel conducted a workshop in 2004 in Kabul to equip some locals with the basic skills of photography that they could then use to portray their homeland. The works of six artists are showcased in this exhibition. Living Rooms, Life in an Orphanage, Youth, Weddings, Religious life, Family life in Afghanistan are the chosen themes.

The photographs are not rich in the kind of beauty one is by now used to. But they deliver on the workshop’s aim – being to modify the way one looks at Afghanistan, how life goes on beyond all the violence that the world learns about.

‘Living Rooms’ across social strata are captured by one artist. Traditional carpets, pillows, curtains all mostly shades of crimson and red fight for space alongside the television, abstract paintings.

‘Life in an Orphanage’ reminded me of the orphanage in A Thousand Splendid Suns. Some of the photos in the catalog were more impressive than those displayed under this theme.

The photos displayed under ‘Youth’ weren’t very varying in that they do not capture images across the economic classes. There was one photo (in a jewelers shop) in the catalog though, which made up for it partly. But all the subjects pose for the photos and this does take away the candid, casual effect one would expect in this kind of exhibition. In his write-up, the artist talks about the limitation in photographing women for publication which is why we are to be content with seeing them only under ‘Family Life..’.

‘Weddings’ deprived of people could achieve only so much. I still feel even without any people in it, there should be more to a wedding than just the dais on which the couple would receive guests. (Or are there some restrictions there too?) But it does succeed in pushing away the drabness, sandy; grey that one has associated with the country.

‘Religious life’ mostly shot in shrines across the country had at least one photo of women in a place of worship. And another of a man at Namaz in his living room with a computer at the corner.

‘Family Life in Afghanistan’ by Farzana Wahidy ends up being the only window into an Afghan woman’s life. Families at leisure, women in the kitchen, lady and man out on the road, children playing in the background, kid sketching/playing while men of the family eat … wide variety on the whole.

It's all easy and dandy to be critical on the works; but it really was an awesome collection on the whole with or without the restrictions, limitations that the artistes had to work under. Look forward to seeing more of these.

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While I was looking up information on the Taliban regime and the like, I came across this on

NatGeo.

evam - Five Point Someone

I first knew about evam couple of years back through an article in The Week. I was impressed by the article, the name stuck and I watched out for performances by evam in Bangalore (days, weeks after the play, unfortunately). So, I never had a chance to enjoy one of their plays until this Saturday. Five Point Someone at Ranga Shankara.
Now, I haven’t read the book. In fact, it is the only book that I have left incomplete for no reason at all. I started reading it on the last train journey back from my college, and somehow could not and at that point did not want to get back to it, for the nostalgia, regret that it evoked.
I jumped up in joy when I saw a post on my college groups about the play, thanked all the gods that for once I was checking the groups before the play, frantically blocked a ticket online. Oh what joy! And then for the next two days, I went about publicizing the group, the play.

The day arrived. Close to opening time, Ranga Shankara was as always bustling with people at Sankars, in the canteen, at the evam stalls. That place is heaven for any theatre lover. At 3:30 PM after a Evam’s Sunil Vishnu came up on stage, talked about how over four years they had done 14 plays; and like for their 50th, 100th and 150th shows, the 200th show was at their favorite venue Ranga Shankara.

Being familiar with the settings, main characters in the book, one wondered how the team would compress it into a two hour play replete with the required props. The stage had a cot, a table, a chair, and a stage with steps – which morphed into class room, the bench at Sasi’s stall, the Insti terrace, dorm room, hostel, etc. The characters – Ryan, Hari, Alok, the author, Neha, Prof. Veera, rest of the profs were all excellent. Be it Alok who radiated tension, his frantic urgency in taking notes, his general Muggu antics or Hari, stuck between his two best friends, trying so hard to be someone like Ryan and Ryan frustrated with the IIT system, “infectious, Hari is an example of the infection”, as Alok puts it. The author Hari played by a different person, full of the regret, nostalgia, dry observations that one tends to make on looking back. The part when the professor and the students face the audience – and the three main characters respond as though the professor was facing them – was nice too.

The play on the whole was a laugh riot. I have seen a couple of plays at the venue before, but none had evoked applause from the audience for just about every two dialogues that were uttered. One of my personal favorites (and the one which won the biggest cheer –- from the Bangalore aka ‘engineer’ audience -- during the play) was when the prof reprimands the students at the viva voce saying something to the effect of – “the standard of the IITs is going down day by day. What are you? Commerce students?!” I loved all of Alok’s reactions too. Him being the nervous wreck and so the most emotive of the three was responsible for a king’s share of the audience reactions.
Pink Floyd ‘backgrounded’, and laid foot work many a time too. I can’t recollect the lyrics of the song that was played before Sunil came up on stage. Think as hard as I might and all I can come up with is “all things bright and beautiful.”

Playing a best selling novel has a great advantage of pulling in crowds (not that evam needs to rely on that for a full house! :)) and for precisely the same reason raises expectations, most of the audience would be familiar with the plot, have their own visualizations from the book reading experience. Evam did not disappoint, they exceeded expectations; they’ve left me and many others look out for their next performance at our favorite Ranga Shankara.

From 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist' - Mohsin Hamid:

..we have acquired a certain familiarity with the recent history of our surroundings, and that – in my humble opinion – allows us  to put the present into much better perspective.


I had always thought of America as a nation that looked forward; for the first time I was struck by it determination to look back.

As a society you were unwilling to reflect upon the shared pain that united you with those who attacked you. You retreated into myths of your own difference, assumptions of your own superiority. And you acted out these beliefs on the stage of the world, so that the entire world was rocked by the repercussions of your tantrums … Such an America had to be stopped in the interests not only of the rest of humanity, but also in your own.

A common strand appeared to unit these conflicts and that was the advancement of a small coterie’s concept of American interests in the guise of the fight against terrorism, which was defined to refer only to the organized and politically motivated killing of civilians by killers not wearing the uniforms of soldiers. I recognized that if this was to be the single most important priority of our species, then the lives of those of us who lived in lands in which such killers also lived had no meaning except as collateral damage.

..no other country inflicts death so readily upon inhabitants of other countries, frightens so many people so far away, as America.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

I hesitated when I looked at the title and the book cover, but I’m glad I did not judge by appearance and that I trusted my librarian. This is one of a kind – a Pakistani’s perspective which I have not come across at this level through any other media so far.
We know where you will go for an actual review. My words on the same go here.

The slim green book with an air of importance about it made me curious. I sneaked a peek one workday morning when I stood outside my apartment, my back to the sun drying my hair. After the first 3 pages the fate of the other book that I was reading then was decided.

The flow between the story in the story and the story is spontaneous for the most part. The cultural difference are brought out at many a point - with regard to the male-female relationship, deference to elders, spending habits, splitting the bill, etc. But many a time the views are biased. The thoughts put forth through Changez’s conversation with the American are almost always sarcastic and many a time biased - which Changez himself confesses could be the result of the after-taste of his stay in the USA or rather the manner or cause of his return from the USA.
It is annoying when the flow of the story in the narrative is disturbed by the narrator’s conversation with the nameless American where it seems to be forced just so that it could merge with the narrator's story later. I mean it's not fun when you can actually see it through all the while.

The conversation is peppered generously with Changez’s observations that might aid in deciding an ending for the book. When he talks about sending chocolates in the rations for the American soldiers going to war - sugaring ones tongue before working on the bloodiest of tasks – while they work on the dessert at the café. About the metaphor he uses to describe how he felt when he spoke to the VP-something about feeling like he was to face a firing squad – and then taking it back saying maybe that wasn’t what he should use to describe the same especially on that day. A lot of other things about the bulge that could be the secret weapon, the way Changez assures that the tea is not poisoned, that the American seems to be on a mission, the texts on the hour, etc. The suspicious behavior of the American hints the open-ended destiny that the narration was approaching for Ken Folletts, Robert Ludlums, even the commonest sense would tell one that an American Undercover agent for one would have a well-versed back up story that he would not be hesitant to talk about. (Also, is it just me or did the part about the percentage of Paks in Princeton, etc actually make sense to someone?)
The book has being one of the firsts for a plus, which is the about the only thing that appears most of the time but look a little more and you see the slightly stale, biased nature that brings down a little the value of the attempt. On the whole, the book makes for a fast paced read, a refreshing one at that.