South Asia Daily

At bus stand in rain

There is unique joy when a piece of art becomes evocative without much effort. The one today titled ‘At bus stand in rain’ is an example of that. What began as a single vertical line that became the streetlight eventually turned into two people waiting at a bus stand in rain.

It was after quite sometime that I returned to Pixlr, a web drawing app where I first cut my artistic teeth. Their pencil tool is especially effective because it offers the ability to shade drawings.

The original sketch was the one below that was subjected to unspeakable things (I like to say unspeakable things because it sounds dark even though in reality it is not.)

Going by the early response to the artwork on my Twitter handle @MayankChhaya it appears to have struck a right chord. As is my wont, I have made the piece available as prints etc. on my Fine Art America page. Do check it out.

3 a.m. and the “witching hour” non-sense

As someone who frequently wakes up at or around 3 a.m. it is only now that I am discovering that that particular time is referred to as “the witching hour”.

One has noticed that in the movies and TV shows oftentimes a late night call would be followed by a version of the line with a tone of annoyance, “It is 3 in the morning.” I am yet to come across a situation when any character says, “It is 2.37 and 46 seconds in the morning” or “It is 1.29 in the morning.” It is always 3 in the morning. Even in ‘The Big Bang Theory’, the TV show and not the actual theory of physics, on an occasion or two Sheldon has woken up Leonard at, you guessed it right, 3 in the morning.

Political attack ads also speak of the “3 a.m. call” when something dreadfully ominous is about to go down or has gone down to test the mettle of an aspirant seeking U.S. presidency.

In short, 3 a.m. seems to matter a lot to many people. For me, it is just an arbitrary construct as part the human civilization’s need to maintain time predictability. As you perhaps know, time is a local idea specific to various bodies in the universe and not necessarily a universal one. Since it is linked to the movement of a planetary body in the context of the sun, it varies wildly depending on where you are. I can guarantee that on Proxima b, an Earth-like exoplanet around the star Proxima Centauri, or the sun in that region, only 4.22 light years away from us, their 3 a.m. looks very different.

In short, the idea of 3 a.m. being the “witching hour” is absolutely ludicrous, superstitious, non-sense. At 3 a.m. when witches, demons and evil spirits were supposed to be out in Europe it was mostly past 8 a.m. and even later in morning in Asia and people there were eating their breakfast.

For me, that hour has frequently meant rising with almost fully formed verses of a ghazal or a poem. It seems that unlike for those, who believe at 3 a.m. an assortment of demons and witches and other spirits are out, for me it is the time when unfulfilled poets are handing out free verses.

Now, the pertinent question. Why have I written about 3 a.m. today? What is the provocation? Nothing other than the fact that I woke up at 3 a.m. and wrote this.

Strange but exciting happenstances of mind

Meena--MC

Many strange happenstances have converged this morning. A popular hit song, brilliantly written by Sahir Ludhianvi, composed by Ravi and sung by Asha Bhosle, from the 1965 movie ‘Kaajal’ has been playing in my mind since yesterday.

The first happenstance is that the song is about the human mind and as Sahir so insightfully writes, “Tora man darpan kehlaye, Bhale boorey sarey karmon ko dekhey aur dikhaye.” (You mind is a mirror, Which illuminates both good and bad karmas.)

Just as I was about to start playing the song on YouTube, I happened to check Facebook for updates by some friends, in particular by dear friend and fellow journalist Raju Korti. He posted a poem that he had written and whose first four lines went thus:

Inside the cockles of my heart I have unwritten codes
Those values I enforce by self-demand
Unbreachable, my lines drawn in granite
Their presence helps me negotiate my burden

He also added that the poem was inspired by these words “Jag se chahe bhag le koi, man se bhag na paay” (You may run away from the world but you cannot from your mind).

This is where another happenstance comes in. The line is from the very song that was playing in my mind since yesterday.

Meena Kumari in ‘Kaajal’

Sahir (1921-1980) is regarded as one of India’s finest poets and song writers who built in profundity effortlessly in even in some rather routine Hindi cinema songs. In this very song, for instance, he writes, “Man hi devata, man hi eeshawar, man se bada na koi” (Mind is divine, mind is god, There is nothing bigger than mind.) He also writes about “Man se koi baat chhupey na, man ke nain hazar” (Nothing is hidden from mind, it has a thousand eyes).

So here is to the human mind.

Chiquita Piconera by Julio Romero de Torres

For obvious reasons this captivating painting by the Spanish master, Julio Romero de Torres (November 9, 1874—May 10, 1930), has dominated my morning. This one is titled Chiquita Piconera from 1929-30. The model was Maria Teresa Lopez. Painters have painted women for centuries. I have had my fair share of their glimpse in the past five years but this one always predominates.

Maria was Julio’s favorite model and muse and one can see why. Quite apart from her physical attractions, she exudes that almost menacing self-assurance that is at once inviting and rejecting. I first chanced upon this work in July, 2016 on Google Arts and Culture. I do check her out from time to time.

For your edification I have sliced it up to give some close-ups. The copper brown tone of both the overall light as well as her body makes the painting truly memorable. It is just too irresistibly sensuous without being even slightly vulgar.

Sins of the father and Rahul Gandhi

I don’t think any reasonable person would want sins of his late father Rajiv Gandhi to visit Rahul over the question of his Congress Party’s complicity in the 1984 Sikh massacre in Delhi. Also, no reasonable person would assert as Rahul has that the party, of which he is now the president, had no involvement in it.

I see no way how the party can shun institutional responsibility for the massacre. This might seem like a strange point to make 34 years after the fact but the killings of Sikhs in the aftermath of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination on October 31 that year have remained a dagger in India’s heart all these years.

More to the point, the issue has acquired new traction only because of Rahul Gandhi’s assertion that his party was not involved in the massacre during his just concluded visit to London. It was a wholly unnecessary and unacceptable point to make even with the caveat, which he did not offer, that the party did not expressly authorize the most gruesome killings in India’s history until that point since the 1947 bloodletting over the country’s partition. There have, of course, been many sectarian killings since 1984, of which particularly noteworthy for its terrible similarities, were the 2002 Gujarat killings under the government of then Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

The late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in a glib and even cruel rationalization of the massacre, said this in Hindi: “Jab Indiraji ki hatya hui thi to hamare desh mein kuchh dangey fasad hue. Hamey maloom hai ki Bharat ki janata ke dil me kitna krodh aaya, kitna ghussa aya aur kuch din ke liye logon ko laga ke Bharat hil raha ha. Lekin jab bhi koi bada ped girta hai to dharti thodi hilti hai.” ( When Indiraji was assassinated, there were some riots in the country. We know how angry, enraged the people of India felt and for sometime people thought India was becoming unstable. However, when a big tree falls, the ground shakes a bit.”)

Rahul’s assertion that his party was not involved is not just a matter of semantics but something much deeper as his own father’s rationalizing so glaringly illustrated. I remember the speech vividly because I watched it live on television then. Even as he was saying those words,I was quite dumbstruck by their indifference. Did he actually say it was the question in my mind. His words were followed by a round of applause at a big public rally at the Boat Club in the capital barely 19 days later where he spoke them.

It is an undeniable fact that important members of the Congress Party were involved in leading and/or instigating some of the most unnerving sectarian assaults on a community as reprisal for Mrs. Gandhi’s killing by her Sikh bodyguards. As Rajiv Gandhi said, it is true that there was much anger and rage over his mother’s killing but that in and of itself ought not to have become license to kill with the connivance of powerful people. He was in charge of the country within hours of the murder and should have known better than to not stand firmly in the way of that popular rage.

Notwithstanding that he was not a prime minister out of choice but out circumstance, once he accepted the responsibility he should have resisted the urge not to challenge the violence against Sikhs in the capital that seemed orchestrated.

That said, Rahul Gandhi bears no responsibility for his father’s failures but what he must bear is the moral force to acknowledge the terrible institutional failure of the party. It is hard to separate the party from the individual in the context of the 1984 riots because the two were indistinguishable at that point. Had Rajiv Gandhi chosen to categorically and preemptively speak against any potential reprisal it is conceivable that the popular anger might have been contained. Instead his party’s functionaries felt emboldened to do the opposite. It is from that angle that I speak of institutional complicity and involvement.

It has been pointed out by many in the Congress Party, including Rahul himself, that eventually former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh did apologize to the nation on behalf of the party. That is true but the irony of a Sikh leader apologizing for the violence against members of his own community when he had nothing to do with it was not lost on anyone. Anyone since 1984, especially Rajiv Gandhi himself, could have made that apology but that was not the case. Sonia Gandhi and even P V Narasimha Rao, who became prime minister after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, could have made a formal apology as well. It is not my case that asking a Sikh prime minister to apologize for the 1984 massacre was a cynical ploy but its optics were certainly deeply unpleasant.

At the very least Rahul Gandhi should stop denying his party’s involvement. It is to his credit that in keeping with his compassionate outlook he has chosen to forgive the killers of his father, namely members of the now decimated Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and its leader, the slain Vellupillai Prabhakaran. He may even choose to forgive the two Sikh bodyguards who killed his grandmother but it is for the Sikh community whether to forgive or not the Congress Party and its 1984 government as a whole.

Unnecessarily analyzing a new painting

The Shore—MC

People in my painting mostly have their backs facing the viewer. It is as if they are deliberately looking away to avoid worldly scrutiny.

I have never started a painting with the intention of telling a story. If there ends up being a story to my works, it is entirely unintentional. It is easier to let the viewer build their own story based on what they see in a piece. Take for instance, the one here titled ‘The Shore’.

I did this yesterday in about ten minutes doing the basic painting using Fresh Paint app and then did things to it, unspeakable things.(I am kidding, of course.) All paintings, no matter how good or bad, have things done to them. That is the process. The viewer is concerned with the final product, what is in front of them.

Since I have rarely, if ever, painted a real place, my scenes come across as a fusion of my imagination and influences from my subconscious memory. Once finished I do build my own story about the people and places in them for my personal entertainment. In the one here, the man on the boat is clearly looking into the distance while the woman on the shore is likely looking at him. I am not sure if something is broken between the two because I am not even sure if the two had something to break between them in the first place. The woman may or may not be looking at him but he certainly does not have her on his mind.

This is an entirely digital piece. I like the color combination and the subtly seeping darkness in it.

If I were to break the painting down as a movie frame, I like the one below.It is has a mystery about it. It seems to be in motion. You do wonder what is going on between the two. Of course, there was nothing going on when I was painting them. They were not even necessarily meant to be there. What you imagine about them is up to you.

Judging a book by its cover

I have always conceived life, including relationships and the universe, visually. There is nothing unique about it because all of us do although some of us may not be as acutely attuned to it. Lately, I have become even more visual in my conception; to the point of being distracted by it.

Yesterday, while working at the wonderfully appointed Naperville Library in downtown Naperville, I took a break from some intense writing. As I browsed through some bookshelves I was instantly drawn to the above for obvious reason. Just look at it. It was screaming to be looked at it.

People say do not judge books by their covers but I do, at least in so much as it means to first pick them up. “History of the Russian Revolution” by Leon Trotsky is not a light subject to be picked up on a whim. If I did that, it was entirely because of the cover’s visual appeal. I am not saying I may never have picked up this book without a striking cover design but that visual stimulus certainly played a key role in my gravitating towards it in the first place.

The first chapter’s opening says, “This is for the first time the scientific history of a great event has been written by a man who played dominant part in it. It is for the first time a revolution was ever retraced and explained by one of its leaders.”

With Russia being at the core of America’s abusive political discourse these days I think it might be fascinating to read about the events of a century ago, namely the 1917 October Bolshevik revolution. In many ways Trotsky embodied that revolution.

I have just begun reading this fat book stretching over 800 pages of reading material. Its opening is both telling and sharp. “The fundamental and most stable feature of Russian history is the slow tempo of her development, with the economic backwardness, primitiveness of social forms, and low level of culture resulting from it.”

It promises to be a rather instructive reading in a lucid style. The book was first published in 1932 translated by Max Eastman. It has garnered strong critical notices from those who concerned themselves with revolutions of this scale. I am already experiencing why in the first few pages.

I owe it my weakness for the visual that I am now reading this book. This may come across as the admission of a shallow mind but it is what it is.

How did a Denisovan man ask a Neanderthal woman out on a date?

The bone fragment (“Denisova 11”) was found in 2012 at Denisova Cave in Russia by Russian archaeologists and represents the daughter of a Neandertal mother and a Denisovan father.(Photo: T. Higham, University of Oxford)

How did a Denisovan man ask a Neanderthal woman out on a date?

He grunted.

Also, he did not necessarily have to because they were both out in a manner of speaking.

The distinction between being out and in was conceptual some 90,000 years ago when these two groups of hominins lived in Eurasia. Also, one is fairly certain that there were no restaurants at the time. Dating and mating were perhaps indistinguishable.

I was thinking of all this while reading a remarkable study by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. It sequenced the genome of an ancient hominin individual from Siberia, and discovered that she had a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father, according to an official press release.

“We knew from previous studies that Neanderthals and Denisovans must have occasionally had children together”, Viviane Slon,  one of three first authors of the study, has been quoted as saying. “But I never thought we would be so lucky as to find an actual offspring of the two groups.”

A single bone fragment shows that it belonged to a girl, probably 13 years-old. “An interesting aspect of this genome is that it allows us to learn things about two populations – the Neanderthals from the mother’s side, and the Denisovans from the father’s side”, according to Fabrizio Mafessoni, a co-author of the study.

“It is striking that we find this Neanderthal/Denisovan child among the handful of ancient individuals whose genomes have been sequenced”, said Svante Pääbo, Director of the Department of Evolutionary Genetics at the Leipzig Max Planck Institute and lead author of the study. “Neandertals and Denisovans may not have had many opportunities to meet. But when they did, they must have mated frequently – much more so than we previously thought.”

I was imagining how the girl’s parents might have agreed to meet before mating unless 50,000 years ago meeting led to mating without much fuss. I had read sometime ago that Neanderthals had the hyoid bone which is responsible for our ability to speak since it supports the root of the tongue. In most primates it is not in a position that would help vocalize, according to a 2013 BBC report.

I am not sure if Denisovans had the same ability. I have not come across anything that suggests that Denisovans did have that. So far the research suggests that only modern humans and Neanderthals have the hyoid bone in the right place. That prompts the question—who between the 13-year-old girl’s parents first suggested they hook up? Did the Denisovan dude grunt some brutish hints that he wanted to hook up? Or was it the Neanderthal dame who verbalized she was interested? And even if she did, how would the man understand since they had no way to communicate.

I suspect it was just their individual libidos that communicated. The language of lust is way more powerful than than the language of words.

Woman and child

Woman and child 1 & 2—MC

That’s all for today.

Tapori shayari or gangsta poetry

Sometime in 1981 I was firmly introduced to what is now known as Mumbaiya or Bambaiya Hindi. I have been an admirer ever since. Accustomed to speaking Hindi the way it should be spoken, I approached a taxi driver for a ride from Juhu to Dalal Street.

“आप दलाल स्ट्रीट चलेंगे?” (Would you take me to Dalal Street?), I asked.

He looked at me somewhat bewildered and said, “शायरी क्या करता है? आप बीप. बैठ.” (Stop being so poetic. Just get in.)

I was a bit confused about his apparent annoyance. I later found out that my use of the term “Aap”, which is a respectful way of addressing another person in Hindi, irritated him. He thought I was being too sophisticated and therefore  ““शायरी क्या करता है? आप बीप.”

It did not take me much time at all to understand that the Bombay of the street had its unique patois which, as it unfolds, has a very impressive literary range. It is very inventive and yet very business-like. It is direct to the point of coming across as rude but still often remarkably moving.

Of course, Bambaiya or Mumbaiya has been popularly associated with the city’s underworld known as “Bhailog”. “Bhais”, literally brothers, are gangsters of varying reach and criminal propensities but are often united by their language. Or so the legend goes. In my days of reporting crime in the city I did not come across too many “bhais” who spoke the way Hindi cinema portrays them but every once in a while one would pop up to completely justify the stereotype.

There was a pimp in Colaba area who could be a character that might have escaped the script of a B grade Hindi crime drama. His language was almost exactly like what is popularly represented. I know because he threatened me in Bambaiya for doing a story about his racket. “Apun ka chalta hai bhai logon se. Kabhi raat ko niklega idhar se ludka dalega.” (I am pally with mob bosses. If you ever venture out at night here, you will be dealt with—killed)” he said. Of course, it was more bluster than anything else.

Since the 1980s I have been fascinated by that street language but it is only this morning around 4 that I thought of actually writing poetry in it. There is a term called tapori to describe these waif-like young men, who are often available for hire for minor criminal errands. I have called this new genre ‘Tapori Shayari’. Here is the first one born early this morning.

 

टपोरी शायरी

काई कु भेजे का करेला बना रेला है

लाइफ की रेस में अपुन का नंबर पेला है

ताली मार साले क्या शायरी बोलेला है

मालूम, अपुन ने कितनो को ऊपर धकेला है

सब की अपनी बिजली सब का अपना करंट

यह देख बाप जेब में क्या घोडा रखेला है

यह क्या पेहेन के निकली तू आज चमेली

तेरी आखी बॉडी पे बगीचा खिलेला है

तू ले ले तेरे कु जितना जो मिला

क्यूँ लंड के माफ़िक अकड़ेला है

काट डालेगा गांजा एक ही झटके में

लाइफ पे अपुन ने सुपारी लियेला है

 

--मयंक छाया उर्फ़ गांजा पिस्तूलवाले