Why Reva diaries?

Sometimes one takes oneself at face value, begins to do something without really explaining why. here is a simple note on why i am doing it.

but yes..this camp is rooted in the Marxist strategies of protest, and a certain Gramsian notion of citizenship.

there are two things that are central to the conception and the method adopted in Reva Diaries.

• citizenship
• voluntarism                

A close friend of mine has been volunteering with the Narmada Bachao Movement and though her i got to know how a group of volunteers run pillar to post to save farmlands, and to ensure that government at-least gives adequate and legal compensation. at the same time i learnt how large multinationals, would spend large sums of money to ensure that farmers . to my aghast i learnt that companies and industrial lobbies spend enormous amounts of money to deny paltry compensation.

hapeshwar temple submerged Aug 16 2004

the brutality of the colonizing project bit me brutally. and i realized that all this was being done in our name and our silence was being quoted as our consent.
madhya pradesh generates the highest amount of electricity in the country and suffers from the longest ever power-cuts.

we get agitated if there is a power cut during a seminar on environment and ecology...
i thought it's time to draw the line.

there is a cluster of villages that that will be sunk by large reservoir  that is built to take away water and resources away from the land and it people.
tradition fishermen are left jobless... cause now there is a centralized tendering of fishing rights.

in the face of this, i want to respond as a curator and also i knew that the human factor in development interested many of my artist friends.

i have always been vocal about contemporary indian art being disconnected to the large hinterlands over which we are now witnessing a war over resources.thats why the idea of a platform where one can come visit see here....the people, culture and landscape set to be destroyed for our benefit and on the back of our silence.

if to give me electricity  50 villages have to be submerged, how am i better than a terrorist.
with all its faults NBA is a voluntary based non violent  movement- two values that i think should be central to any public engagement.

i am not going to mention it in my bio or present it as a paper in a seminar till a more serious engagement happens....right now it's just an attempt to say if we want maybe not a single more village needs to be submerged.

And i can only react as a curator. i cant do rallies, or fight court cases ican only put artistic energies together and/or create a platform ...and hope

best

an ode to pink lips

by Rahul Bhattacharya on Saturday, 12 June 2010 at 14:10

there she goes again
off she goes for lunch
leaving me with a smile
that wipes away all pain


off she goes..yet stays with me for keeps
chomping into her punjaban lunch
waiting for her to come back with a happy tummy
and a smile at the end of those baby pink lips

off she goes gain
with my heart in her pocket
though she gets lost with it sometimes
she will always be my pink champagne

the writer...his smile..and some other stories

by Rahul Bhattacharya on Friday, 17 July 2009 at 21:27

another day went
it still escaped her whisper
the smile did not shine today
or maybe its just the sun
lost in the shade of a lost melancholia
the writer picked up his pen

an exciting evening passed
not even a breeze touched his soul
that longing for the lost shine that did not belong to him
cut short the memories that were to come
lost in the strains of a shared melody
the writer picked up his pen

the night approached as they knew it would
he had not seen the stars yet
as the consolation of the internet ruptured the soul yet again
baby pink and a smile surfaced in his memory
knowing that people are sitting down for dinner
the writer picked up his pen

i want to run...and other stories

by Rahul Bhattacharya on Sunday, 12 July 2009 at 03:13

dawn was yet far away
she still gave a sleepy smile
the moonlight flickered on the lake
as the window stood still

passed the moments before dawn
playing still lifes with the mirror
distracted , by the lake reflecting the sun
i want to run

as the time far away
entered my living room
nowhere is a far away word
where did that smile come from

· · Share · Delete

quite contary

by Rahul Bhattacharya on Friday, 10 July 2009 at 02:36

grow your plants in your own garden
so sang an off tune melody
the confusions that my garden grows
deserves no song at all

mary lost her little lamb
when she thought that she did not need the wool anymore
the grass was not greener on the other side
but mary did not think so at all

the dead ant stuck on the flowing honey
did not sense the hysteria of pain
as the tree huggers save the amazon
the vultures circled with no fear at all

a pillow for your thoughts
cold and damp on a winter night
the child played in the shadows
as confusion showed no remorse at all

death by the moonlight
the growing meaning of pain
the missing sparrow on my window sill
wish mornings carried no memories at all

'creative closure' the notice read
as he lost his home that night
the grass was not green on the other side
just wish there were no fences at all

an excercise in writing and hiding-2

by Rahul Bhattacharya on Friday, 10 July 2009 at 00:16

the paradise lost an angel today

they pray for your mercy

soldiers marching past a desert

dead souls in disarray


the anchor that had to let the ship go

still yearns for the ballroom dance

fear and loathing inside my crystal pie

the moderns tried so hard to hate


crickets making love in a bush nearby

the smile that only pink can bring

the emptiness of a forsaken temple

sometimes the flute forgot to cry


memories that yesterday brought

feel so chilling somehow

as the martyrs feasted on my crystal pie

a piss yellow sunset marked the end of the day

untitled- after a long time

by Rahul Bhattacharya on Tuesday, 07 July 2009 at 09:25

angels circle the devil's mind
in lust and in dismay
the august that was to never come
shed a lot of tears for this may

the shaven chest of a hairy man
rabbits lost in foreplay
achilles heel in the krishna myth
the random...nearly demented sunday

fountain pens
blood
sanitary napkins
the caucasian christ
death is a five letter word
but my spellings are horrible


lusting after a sunday morn
evenings are mornings in disgrace
can you give a better answer
or do you still want to hold the ace

same time last year

by Rahul Bhattacharya on Friday, 04 March 2011 at 01:43

 

sleepy and fly squatting at the ahmedabad airport. behena, krishna, winnie had just dropped me to the airport...very early morning flight.
on my way back from a seminar in baroda...very much in a rush...had just moved into my 'house by the lake' ...three days ago...rushed to baroda...attended a seminar...presented a paper....canned a interview...made life long friends with rajiv...totally FU to prohibition in gujrat.

moreover after ages i had managed to present a decent paper, and i realised that even complete desertion and neglect could not possibly wash away the department of art history.....more than any other place in the country whre in terms of disiplinary art history...even walls speak.
loved the young students i met there...
lamented the impact of powerpoint presentaions on art teaching.....
much was happening

was waiitng waiitng to make a call...had not called home for 3 days in a row...knew that ma always worried that i will over sleep and miss my early morning flight.
security checked at 4.30...hungry...no engligh new paper at the air port.

nostalgic memories of airports with smoking zones.

so with a all knowing suprise suprise smile...i call home
bapi picks up the phone.

then all i can feel is one dark hollow...just words...
descprition of ma fainting...falling ...hurting herself....

the proudest and the most upright woman i had seen....
totally out of control of her body...helpless...and in pain
ma in pain
it had been 2 days now

by that evening we knew that ma's cancer had spread to her brain...

and then ..slowly slowly ma left....and the meaning of life changed for ever...

the meaning of home changed for ever....

tonight boo left....

the meaning of faith changed for ever.

this year has been on the run

cheers to running

twisting some neil young songs

they say every junkie is like a setting sun
is that why tiny hands needs something else to hold
wishes re thought and stories re told
long may you run

they say that the gods shall return
there are changes that have come to me
there is a new me that is coming to be
long may you run


how can i be sad...they say its your turn
promises to vanish maybe sticking out as no one listens
sometimes its just the tear drop that glistens
long may you run

men with walkie talkies...men with lots of guns
i am just a dreamer
and you were just a dream
you ran thinking its your turn


learning that even  tears can burn
as hollywood comes to you on television
i pray clutching all my reason
long may you run

 by Rahul Bhattacharya on Friday, 29 April 2011 at 23:54

Reva Diaries- Finalisations..

by Rahul Bhattacharya on Monday, 28 March 2011 at 11:44 ·

• After much brainstorming among curators, coordinators, local support groups and some of the participating artists, we have come to a conclusion that holding a press conference in Indore might be too early and a bit rash. The purpose of this press conference was to share the documentation of the Pathrad camp and refresh journalistic memory about how artists can engage with displacement and people the affected people. We have decided to instead issue a press note, inviting journalists to Reva Diaries as observers and possible neutral documentors.

The other important shift from the action plan is not to use cameras as a primary mode of documentation as we would be occupying private spaces and the camera is often viewed as a tool that infringes privacy.
The third deviation from the action plan is that the Jantar Mantar presentation is not a foregone conclusion but instead it is through a discussion during the residency that will decide how we will carry it forward.

here are the day by day break up of what we might be doing..
(might because we can always choose)

• 1st April - Departure from Indore at 3pm. [those arriving later can leave in a group with a local coordinator once the last person has arrived] - spending the first night at  Omkareshwar...Interaction with the community, film screening,  visiting the river.

                                                                                                           

lands between Omkareshwar and Pusa

• 2nd April -Departure at 8am from Omkareshwar for Dharaji ; seeing Punasa Dam (the biggest dam in India)

                            => On reaching Dharaji, discussion on geography, history and tradition of the area.
                            => introdction to the many histories of resistances from the area...activists and villagers will come        and share stories with us.
                            => from lunch time on every participant gets into a dialogue with the curators and coordinators as to how they would like spend the next 3 days...what are the kinds of interactions and projects they would be interested in.

                                                                                                               the banks of narmada at dharaji

       day 2 will be devoted to group brainstorming of individual plans and facilitation of implementation.

• from day one the late evening will be deditated to artists showing work to our hosts, getting into a dialouge about their practice etc. one is free to choose what kind of work to share, and the manner of sharing.

•  3th-4th April - implementation of plans and projects

along with the artist presentations, the evenings  will be filled with music and story telling sessions.

• 5th April- winding up day, saying goodbyes and leaving for Khandwa

sharing Reva diaries with local press, and having a dinner dialogue about how to take it forward...

                                                momentary dispersal begins

Why meet at Jantar Mantar?

Ever since the early 1990s, Jantar Mantar had been a space for farmer groups, human-rights activists and other political groupings to bring their issues to public notice. Since the Narasimha Rao government had banned access to the Boat Club Grounds near India Gate, the protestors had shifted primarily to the Jantar Mantar area. We should understand that Delhi is the political centre of the country which makes it the strategic, and in most cases, the inevitable choice for people’s demands for justice.The shrinkage of space of dissent is curently underway and this beautification drive seems to be pushing it to an extreme. Dissenters are understood in all the negative avatars of encroachers, traffic-jammers, illiterate vandalizers but never for what they are, and never for the reason they are there in the first place.

What are we hoping to achieve:

As project curators and organizers we would like to present documents of the artists presentations and show films, photographs, write-ups..etc. at a non-commercial political site thats why we chose Jantar Mantar

After having chosen the site, we just thought of tapping the political potential the space offers. We are now trying to put our energies into having a rally which will be a nation-wide meet of about fifty thousands people coming from across the country including people from movements and organisations like NBA, Chattisgarh Mukti Morcha, IPTA, Sahmat, AISA and like minded groups including mainstream media, local media, bloggers, net activists etc.

Indian Visual Culture and its Discontents

album cover : Axis-Bold as Love

Originally written and published as Art&Deal Magazine's 36th issue's editorial

Yesterday a young girl died during Richard Davis’s presentation at the “Conquest of THE WORLD AS PICTURE- Indian Visual Culture and its Discontents” at the Jawaharlal Nehru University. The way the present art historian community reacted to the death threatened to take away all meaning from this issue. She was a young student from somewhere faraway, by the time she was taken to the hospital, we all knew that she was on the verge of death. The seminar promptly resumed and in an appalling moment of human history the organizers apologized for the inconvenience and we all took a deep breath and carried on. We needed to be informed by the hospital that the young girl had died… and thankfully that made us stop. The entire Art&Deal editorial team was attending the seminar and in the recent past we have been writing, thinking and reading about death, tributes and obituaries. It’s at that point the (suppressed) truth finally dawned…linkages between tribute and cultural capital and how it functions in today’s contemporary arts…

Coincidently at that point Richard Davis was talking about Euro-American interests in collecting Indian popular culture and was dwelling upon the linkages between Indian popular, tantra and psychedelia. The two neo-tantric artists who passed away this month represent the Indian voices of this hippy-orientalism and it’s on that wave that both Biren De and Sohan Qadri found acceptance and dialogue in/with the west.

cover -art&deal 36th issue

When we got the news of Sohan Qadri passing away the first reaction was that one should not lose the stories associated with this reactionary character, so in that sense this issue embodies an archival instinct. The cover story almost sealed and ready was “Art in Society” and we realized that the individual and the socio-cultural aspect of neo-tantra in visual culture have largely been un worked upon and forgotten. Ajit Mookerjee's giant tome Tantra Art in 1966  (he was the then director and curator of the Crafts Museum — artists like GR Santosh, Biren De, KCS Paniker and J Swaminathan were ‘influenced’ immensely by this philosophy) is an wonderful exception. However, Ajit Mookerjee sits in the intellectual fringes of the intellectual landscape that informs the mainstream of contemporary art.

Geeta Kapoor’s momentary inability to understand and narrate neo-tantric impulses within modernism began the process of these artists slipping out of ‘public memory’.  I mentioned Geeta Kapoor because one feels that she is the only person with the intellectual ability to understand the formulation of neo-tantra in the 60’s in the larger narration of Indian modernism.

The intellectual environment that dominates art writing and gallery practices move from the Marxist ‘religion is foolish’ to the neo-liberal definition laced with consumerism, identity and terrorism. We have forgotten that people can engage with art through religion and vice versa. In fact we have forgotten that at a certain level there can be zones when difference between art and religion does not exist. Within the sub-continental context how can we understand art and society if we don’t start looking at art and religion in a different way.

More than anything else we decided to do this as a Sohan Qadri Special because he was an absolute rock-star, and his tantric practices challenge the monopoly that Hinduism enjoys over tantra in contemporary imagination. The deep influences of Sufi and Sikh mysticism in Qadri’s practice forces us to challenge our notions of neo-tantra in post-partition India.

Taken from - Light of the Sufis: The Mystical Arts of Islam that was held at the Brooklyn Museum of Art The painting depicts three sufi mendicants and one Buddhist yogin

Mysticism and art were very central to Qadri’s life not only informing the art he ‘produced’ and how he produced but also informed how he lived and how he engaged with the forces of capitalism. However, let us not be hedonistic and assume that knowing a person’s life is one way traffic of knowledge.  Speaking to a young gallerist whom i has known Qadri for a long time I learnt that though he stayed in Denmark and Canada for above 40 years he did not speak a word of Danish or French, though he was married to a Swedish lady and has a son who speaks only English and Swedish, Qadri did not even pick up that language. He ate Indian (Punjabi home cooked food) and never connected with the cultures of the countries he stayed. Over a meal of parathas and accharwhen asked he not simply come and stay in India, Qadri felt that India could not offer him the quite meditative space he needed. He preferred to stay in a small house and paint in a government studio. I wonder we will know about ourselves through this story.

Just as the Qadri tribute cover story was closed we received the news of Biren De passing away. With a little more time in our hand we would have done a neo-tantric special. Maybe sometime in the future…Soon.

Obituary: Biren De

written for Art&Deal Magazine

A lot of interest has been shown in the notion of ‘progressive’ in the recent times. The root of this progressive tendency is broadly understood as a renunciation of the Bengal School Orientalism and early signs of contemporary Indian art (re)aligning itself to a Eurocentric art. In this flow of things one strand of art, in fact, probably the most viewed and sold trends, but under-theorized is that of neo-tantric abstraction. Biren De was one of the first artists in north India to force historians to deal with this not-so-easy understanding of the word ‘progressive’. This is further confounded by neo-tantricism’s engagement with repetition, tradition and meditation, which are semiotically on the opposite side of the ‘progressive’.
A casual chat with a friend made me aware that he had just passed away. Immediate flash backs were those of Prof. Shivji Panikkar classes on ‘modern Indian art’ in Baroda getting reverted by radiation of flowing bright yellows and reds, transfixing minds though the darkness of a afternoon slide show.  At the point of time I did not quite understand what the personal and the political were when an artist explores art through Tantra and vice versa. What did strike me was that it must have required a lot of ideological integrity to be an early inventor and a consistent master of a school so easily misunderstood.
The ‘progressive’ situation of Biren De as an artist comes from how it took the West (American expressionism) to liberate him and change perception about what one can do within contemporary painting. But somehow, neither the art-historical formalism of West, nor contemporary Indian urbanity really appealed to Biren De. Till the end he was extremely reclusive and has always been very quiet about the role Tantra played in his process of art-making. Superficially we can talk about the cosmic form and his engagement with energy. But speaking of form and energy separately betrays a lack of empathy to the core from which his art kept coming.

He passed away this Saturday. May his soul rest in peace.