This beautiful reality was dismissed as
whimsical myth making by his American white audience. As a response Gupta comes
up with a deeply researched and layered ‘We
are on the Same Boat Brother’, a work through which the artist digs deeper
to present the Jewish synagogues in Kolkata as symbols of the accumulative
heterogeneous culture of the Indic subcontinent[5].
‘Islam
the Caretaker of the Bethel Synagogue’ depicted the family of Khalil[6]
(a poor Muslim family of Orissa) who have been looking after the Bethel
Synagogue for many years now, and with the dwindling Jew population of the
city, two of his sons[7]
(along with a have also begun looking after another nearly synagogue[9].
The assemblage itself
(re) presents this vision of utopia, through layers of forgetting and
nostalgia. Texts, objects and sculptures engage in multiple oxymoronic relationships,
as if consciously highlighting the tension between the dominant dystopias and
hidden utopias. The sewing machine (like
the distorted pink background of the ‘Bene Israel Family’) evokes a history of
the Jewish History Museum (Berlin), even
as the video projection lingers on the contemporary history of the Jewish
community of Kolkata, the two synagogues and their caretakers. We see the
facade of the ‘Jewish School’, with a steady stream of young Muslim girls
(students) gushing out, and an interaction with the owner of the city’s oldest
Jewish bakery[10]. Gupta’s assemblages have a definite
scenographic quality, and the ambiance created is unmistakably rooted in the
ethos of old ‘Calcutta’ interiors, the figure of (goddess) Saraswati, the
typewriter perched on a table, a large fishbone standing on an anchor, found
photography and text, come together in both a critique of fashion and a
proposal for alterity.
[3] The Bene Israel Jews speak Hindi and Marathi, the languages
of the Maharashtra state. Once thriving and populous, the Bene Israel group now
accounts for about 3500 to 4000 people. Most of them live in Mumbai, and only a
few families live in Calcutta and Delhi. The majority of the Bene Israel, which
is ten times their population in India, moved to Israel.
[5] The Jews of Calcutta came from Iraq and Syria and were known
as the Baghdadi Jews. They were a prosperous lot. Then two events — the
Independence of India and the creation of the promised land, Israel — changed
the fate of the community here.
[8] Magen David or the Shield of David stands on Biplabi Rashbehari Bose Road (previously Canning Street). It’s a five-minute walk from Bethel. Magen David has a tall spire that rises above the structure like a beacon, painted a bright red. But the entrance to this grand building is entirely hidden by stalls selling hairclips and other trinkets. The synagogue was built in 1884 by Ezra’s son Elias David Joseph Ezra, in the memory of his father. The synagogue is built in the Italian Renaissance style and has a red brick finish. It looked beautiful against the blazing summer sun. The interiors are as pretty as Bethel, prettier even. Ornate floral pillars shipped from Paris enhance its Continental look.
