Mayank Chhaya Daily

Here is to Balkrishna Doshi, 26 August 1927 – 24 January 2023

Balkrishna Doshi 

There were two recurring names that embodied great architecture in my formative years—Le Corbusier and Balkrishna Doshi. Both were courtesy of my architect brother Trilochan, who first studied under and then worked with Doshi for years. In fact, Trilochan was one of Doshi’s favorite students.

Ahmedabad has had the distinction of being home to some remarkable works by Corbusier and Doshi, for whom it is his hometown. When I heard the news yesterday that the prestigious Pritzker Prize for 2018 had been awarded to Doshi my reaction was somewhat similar to Trilochan’s who said Doshi had recognized Pritzker.

At 90 and with a glorious architectural  design and planning career spanning 70 years, for Doshi the Pritzker probably meant a mild sense of joy. Given his standing as a great architect and design thinker I think it was the prize that became him rather than the other way around. I thought Doshi had outgrown honors a long time ago. Nevertheless, it was a good thing that the Pritzker jury finally chose to honor him.

In so much as the prize brings attention to larger existential issues of people and their organic surroundings it serves an important purpose. For as long as I remember Doshi spoke of architecture in the context of life and community and never as just buildings. He defined architecture as “a living organism”, something that “evolves.” It is necessarily a very different view of a profession that often gets lost in form rather than function.

Of course, the aesthetics of the form is essential but it is so in order to serve the larger objective of those who live in and around it. For someone who conceives life visually I have a weakness for form for the sake of form but I see Doshi’s deeper philosophical take.

Since I grew up in Ahmedabad I was always exposed to some truly remarkable designs without fully realizing. For instance, one occasionally went to the School of Architecture (now CEPT University) which Doshi founded and whose buildings he designed. My brother studied there and I remember those visits rather vividly because of Doshi’s design. Every time I visited I wanted to be part of the institution as a student . I have never felt that about my own schools. The other day, I briefly wrote about Sanskar Kendra, the city museum that Corbusier designed, and which happened to be right in front of one of the schools I went to. I went to school often because it was in front of Sanskar Kendra. Doshi was Corbusier’s chief assistant on that building completed in 1954.

Doshi was also Corbusier’s chief assistant on Chandigarh, a project on which he played a significant design role as well.

“More than practicing architecture I am constantly learning about life and behavior of people and places,” Doshi said. “For me architecture is not a single building but a complex of habitations,” he said.

I met Balkrishnabhai a few times over the years but never as a professional journalist. I did seek an interview with him after the Pritzker but for some reason it did not work out. 

Sometime in the mid 1990s, Snehlata, my mother, and I were traveling from Mumbai to Delhi. We bumped into Balkrishnabhai at the Mumbai airport. He was a wearing lovely bottle green shirt that was gently starched. "You wear lovely shirts. They are understated like your architecture," I said. He guffawed and said, "That's a first. No one has compared my shirts with my buildings."

He greeted my mother warmly and said in Gujarati, "Chhaya majama? Tajetar ma malyo nathi (How is Trilochan? I have not met him recently)." 

Mother responded saying, "Ha tamne pan ghanaa vakhte joya. (Yes, I am meeting you after a long time.) Ekvar jamva avo gher. (Come home for a meal someday.)" 

"Chokkas (Definitely)," he replied.

He and I talked a bit about this, that and the other. I mentioned my visit to the (M F) Husain-Doshi Gufa in Ahmedabad and said, "Entering it made me feel as I was returning to my birth." 

He seemed touched by my observation, saying, "That is because one living organism entered another." 

We shook hands and went our separate ways, Doshi to Ahmedabad and us to Delhi. I never met him after that. 

 

Shehbaz Sharif's peace overture unlikely to move Narendra Modi much

Perhaps no Pakistani leader has ever said "Pakistan has learnt its lesson" in the context of the three wars with India like Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has done. That is an extraordinary comment whose motivation could stem from a combination of factors.

His comments during an interview with Al-Arabiya TV are quite remarkable considering that they go against the country's militaristic pride which has never quite reconciled with the defeats after they started the wars.

“Pakistan has learnt its lesson. We had three wars with India and the consequences of those wars were more miseries, more unemployment and poverty. Millions were demoted from their level of satisfaction to a low level of satisfaction," Sharif said. 

It is hard to offer a definite analysis on why Sharif felt the need to say something so extraordinary other than saying that it could be a combination of factors, the predominant being his country's battered economy. It has all but collapsed and is not showing any signs of revival anytime soon other than getting by on international aid. Perhaps there is recognition in his mind about the huge chasm between his country and India when it comes to their economies. According to the World Bank, India's 2021 economy was $3.18 trillion with GDP per capita of $2256. Contrast that with Pakistan's GDP of $348.28 billion and per capita of $1505 for the same year. This is a clearly unequal relationship. It has always been.

Rapidly depleting foreign exchange reserves, galloping inflation in the prices of food items, especially wheat, coupled with climate disasters have pushed the Sharif government into a tight corner. As if all this was not bad enough the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has delayed its $1.1 billion aid until the next fiscal. For now they have managed to secure $3 billion  in handout from the United Arab Emirates but there is already disenchantment among Pakistan's Islamic benefactors over its handling of its domestic affairs, particularly the economy. 

As India is on course to becoming the world's most populous country any time now, replacing China, and with its economy still largely sound, New Delhi does not need anything in particular from Pakistan but the reverse is not necessarily true. Notwithstanding its historic animus against India Islamabad is aware that a good working relationship with New Delhi has some long-term economic benefits once they open up their economies to each other. Unlike China, whose approach is to only fuel sovereign debts of the countries it does business with, especially Pakistan, India is more focused on bilateral trade as a strategy for economic cooperation. It is obvious that in the long-term Pakistan stands to gain through the Indian way of bilateral relations.

However, and there is always a however when it comes to Pakistan, Sharif caveated his conciliatory tone by saying this: "My message to the Indian leadership and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is let's sit down at the table and have serious and sincere talks to resolve our burning issues, like Kashmir." 

Perhaps realizing that Sharif might have gone a bit too far in saying Pakistan has learnt its lesson, his office later said after the interview that talks with India would only be possible if New Delhi restored the autonomous status. That was in reference to the Modi government the August, 2019 revocation of Kashmir's special status guaranteed under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution. "Without India's revocation of this step, negotiations are not possible," the statement by Sharif's office said. That effectively shuts the door on any breakthrough.

That was clearly necessitated by wanting to placate Pakistan's omnipotent military without whose blessings its governments cannot make any meaningful progress with India. Since much of the Pakistani military's predominance in their country's polity comes from the bugbear of India, any dilution of that whipped up threat goes against their interests.

In so much as Sharif chose to say his country having learnt its lesson, he has opened at least left the door ajar for a revival of bilateral talks. From Modi's standpoint it may not mean much because he is doing just fine domestically without actively pursuing peace with Pakistan. In fact, with the 2024 general election on the horizon, he has no particular incentive to change the equation of indifference that his government has maintained for quite sometime now. Unless he sees a real possibility of a major breakthrough that does not involve the status of Kashmir in any significant way, he has next to no reason to respond to Sharif's overtures. 

In geological sense, has Earth already entered the Anthropocene Age, or the age of humans?

Professor Jan Zalasiewicz (Photo courtesy of the University of Leicester.)

The following first appeared in Indica News. 

By Mayank Chhaya

Has Earth already entered the Anthropocene Age, or the age of humans?

It is more than likely that it has, and it has done so faster than any geological age so far. At the heart of this global transformation is human activity since the mid-20^th century.

For geologists to declare a new epoch takes a great deal of time because geological epochs take thousands of years or even millions of years to make in order for them to identifiably alter Earth’s surface.

However, the Anthropocene seems to have unfolded disturbingly fast and propelling its advent goes to the very heart of the raging climate crisis debate. That is because several markers which are considered evidence in the way Earth’s surface has changed since the mid-20th century are direct consequences of human activity.

Professor Jan Zalasiewicz, a geologist at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom and a former chairman of the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG), tasked with determining the rise of the new age, listed them in a conversation with the online show Mayank Chhaya reports (MCR).

“There is a whole range of what you call stratigraphic proxies, that is markers of some kind of environmental change and which are trapped within sediments. One kind is simply physical (such as) plastic particles, microplastics, fibers which are washed into lakes and seas. They are found worldwide in sedimentary layers, and they begin to appear about the mid-20^th century,” he said.

Being a global surface impact is the primary condition for a period to be classified as a distinct geological period.

Other markers that Professor Zalasiewicz listed are different types of new chemicals such as pesticides and DDT in trace amounts found in sediments, chemistry of carbon because of the largescale burning of coal, oil and gas that has changed the isotopic chemistry, proportion of light Carbon12, heavy Carbon13, fly ash as well as radioactive particles unleashed by hydrogen bomb tests in the early 1950s. All of these show upsurge around the mid-20^th century, a period which is now beginning to seem most likely when the rise of the Anthropocene may be pegged. As pointed out by Zalasiewicz, all these markers are found globally.

Of course, whether there will be a scientific consensus over the advent of the Anthropocene Age is a subject of voting by the members of the AWG that is currently ongoing. There are expectations that the process will be over by end of this year and new age declared where for the first time in Earth’s 4.54 billion history a single species, namely humans, would have impacted the planet so dramatically.

According to Professor Zalasiewicz, the early 1950s seem to be the “sharpest most applicable time marker to mark the beginning of a unit of time.”  That would seem to indicate that the beginning of the new epoch, the age of humans, would be likely fixed in the early 1950s.

There are nine sites worldwide which are being examined to establish changes in sedimentary layers which could be directly attributed to human activity. According to the AWG, the nine sites are in Beppu Bay near Kyushu Island, Japan, Flinders Reef, Coral Sea, Australia, Gotland Basi, Baltic Sea, Palmer ice core, Atlantic Peninsula, Searsville Lake, California, U.S., Sihailongwan Lake, Jilin Province, China, Śnieżka peat bog, Sudetes Mountains, Poland and West Flower Garden Bank, Gulf of Mexic.

If the 1950s-time marker is indeed confirmed, then it would mark the end of the Meghalayan Age, named after the northeastern Indian state of Meghalaya. Geologically, we currently live in what is known as the Meghalayan Age named after the northeastern Indian state. It began some 4200 years ago, and its onset saw widespread droughts across the world that disrupted civilizations in Egypt, Greece, Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, and the Yangtze River Valley.

For a period to be called an Age on a geologic timescale its climatic impact has to be as global as possible and has to be associated with a rock or sediment type. In the specific case of the Meghlayan Age, it was about a spike as evident in perturbation of oxygen atoms present in the layers of a stalagmite rising from the floor of Mawmluh Cave in Meghalaya.

The Meghalayan Age itself is part of the 12000-year-long Holocene Age.

One of the controversies about the Anthropocene Age is that many geologists do not yet accept it to be an epoch. As Zalasiewicz pointed out, they find it “disturbingly short, lasting a human lifetime” compared to other ages which were thousands of years and even millions in the making.  The formalization of the new epoch depends first on the AWG voting followed by several other rounds of back and forth within the scientific community.

Zalasiewicz acknowledged that the Anthropocene condition, the planetary state, will be very long-lived. He said it is hard to see how the climatic consequences “will not last many tens of thousands of years.” He also said it is already the beginning of a “different kind of planet” given that the course of biological evolution is already changing and therefore Earth’s future paleontological evolution will also change.

The rapidity of the likely emergence of the new epoch from the mid-20^th century can only be compared, according to Zalasiewicz, to the meteor strike that wiped out dinosaurs and ended the Cretaceous Period some 65 million years ago. He said that is the only boundary on Earth that is sharper than what we are experiencing now in terms of geological transformation. “It is a hammer blow,” he said.

Taken together, the recognition of a new epoch has global political, economic and sociocultural consequences and that may make the debate more difficult.

Tintinnabulation

Reupping a slightly rewritten post that I had written on the 89th anniversary of Tintin's creation. He turns 94 today. He was born as a cartoon character in 1929 on the pages of a children's supplement to the Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle.

Here is what I like the most about Tintin who turns 94 today. He is a journalist with an unlimited expense account, gets to travel the world in search of stories which he never files for a newspaper that does not exist and whose editor he never gets in touch with. Naturally, he has no deadlines. I want that job.

Tintin, created by the late Belgian writer and artist Georges Prosper Remi better known by his penname Hergé, first appeared on January 10, 1929 in a Belgian newspaper. Since then he has remained one of the most popular cartoon characters in the world, a favorite with the filmmaker Steven Spielberg who made a brilliantly animated/motion captured version ‘The Adventure of Tintin’ in 2011. There are reports that Spielberg along with fellow filmmaker Peter Jackson, who collaborated on the first one, are making a sequel.

I read/watch Tintin in various avatars fairly regularly as a relaxing distraction from the daily grind. After watching Spielberg’s version I wrote, “I have also found a place where I want to be posted. It is called Bagghar, somewhere in Morocco. It is a North African sultanate by what looks like the sparkling blue Mediterranean Sea. There are other fringe benefits to being Tintin. Although he is 94, he does not look a day over 18. He has a perfect quiff that never collapses. Also, he does not seem to have a bank account or a credit card. He receives no threatening letters from the income tax or internal revenue authorities. And finally, he does not ever have to shave.”

While as a boy I loved the thrill of Tintin’s adventures depicted by Hergé through his brilliant drawings, in my more mature years the attraction has been to his career as a carefree journalist. I also like his sartorial choices. If I were to locate myself between two fictional characters it would be Tintin and Sherlock Holmes.

If we have to live in a fictional world, we might as well live in the one created by Hergé.

In my case, the wisdom came first , The age is coming only now

No caption needed for narcissism 

I turn 62 today which in America qualifies one as "senior" and is considered retirement age eligible to receive Social Security benefits. But then journalists do not retire. They work until the deadline or until such time as they are dead, whichever comes first.

The idea that I was not "senior" less than 12 hours ago and am one now is hilarious. In my mind I do not feel any markedly different at 62 than what I felt at 26, which can mean only one of the two things. Even at 26, I was too old in my spirit to be young or at 62, I am too young in my spirit to be old. These are just glib aphorisms. Speaking of aphorisms, in my close circles I have a minor reputation for producing pithy, quotable lines.

For instance, I have been re-reading Oscar Wilde of whom I had said this over 35 years ago: "Some of his lines are so good they could have been written by me." 

I think it may be an interesting idea to offer you some of my lines chosen from the last four decades, starting with when I was 22 in 1983. This is just a random sampling. I have hundreds of such lines. 

• Don't dust your conscience here. I suffer from moral asthma. 
• Price cannot become value by wearing a couple of diamond rings, mink and mascara.
• Every time I jumped over the wall of my conscience, I landed on the same side. Either there is no wall or no sides or no conscience.
• Who know where zephyr (morning breeze) has through that it carries the fragrances of so many beloveds.
• What is life

  but forever

  a transit

  to a destination

  like a simmering mirage

  in a desert

  There is no

  getting there

  but ours is

  to merely chase it

• In my case, the wisdom came first

  The age is coming only now

• With age wisdom does not come.

  What comes is a greater tolerance for the lack of it.

• We all hide our share of guilt

  In a sheer shroud of conscience

  That tears at the slightest prodding

  Of scrutiny

• Let my pretenses be friends with your pretenses

  And spare us the burden of revealing ourselves

 

 

 

 

 

Breezily charismatic romance of 'Likha hai teri aankhon mein'

The man is breezily charismatic and the woman unaffectedly fetching. Both are in a corn field under a big sky. A farmer in tattered clothes hands them both corns, shakes a leg or two with them and leaves as the the lovers sing.

"Whose saga is written in your eyes?" asks the woman, Nanda.

"If you figure it out, let me know," answers the man, Dev Anand.

One yearns for charming and uncomplicated joys of romance and one unfailingly finds it in Hindi cinema. Perhaps no one does effusive, frothy and yet pristine romancing better than Dev Anand. 

Since the morning I have been playing in loop this lovely song from the 1965 film 'Teen Deviyan' (Three Beauties), written by Majrooh Sultanpuri, sung by Lata Mangeshkar and Kishore Kumar and composed by Sachin Dev Burman.

I don't know about you but nothing unlocks exultant happiness in me like a lovely Hindi cinema song. Hindi cinema audiences take such things for granted but I am sure it took some special skills for Dev Anand and Nanda to exude such lightness of romance.

There are a couple moments in the song which I find particularly charming. At cue 1.51 when Anand has stuck Nanda's stole/shawl/dupatta in his back pocket which also has a couple of corns. The other end of the dupatta is held by Nanda over her shoulder. Both are nibbling away at their corns even as they sing. Nanda then wraps the stole around Anand. Such a lovely intimate gesture of familiarity bred by love!

Another moment is at cue 3.23 when Anand flings his hat in the air and then catches it back like a frisbee. 

Applause for the film's director Amarjeet, cinematographer Pratap Sinha, editor Pran Mehra and everyone else involved in the movie. 

"Fame, flashes and photographs have been my life for a long time"--Rajesh Khanna

I knew Rajesh Khanna for over a quarter century from 1985 until his death in 2012 but have no photograph with him. Of my own, I have never taken photos with famous and consequential people I have known and interacted with in my long career spanning over four decades as a journalist. I see no point taking pictures with them. 

There is a reason why I am mentioning this. It has a bearing on my reminiscence of Rajesh Khanna on his 80th birth anniversary today. It involves an incident sometime in March of 1992 when Khanna was returning to Delhi, where I lived, as part of his preparations for an impending by-election to the Lok Sabha seat vacated by Lal Krishna Advani of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The star was the candidate of the Indian National Congress against a fellow star, Shatrughna Sinha on behalf of the BJP. 

By some serendipity we met at the Delhi airport. He knew my office in Jor Bagh was not far from the Ashoka Hotel where he had a suite. By then I had known him very well for over seven years. "No need to take a taxi. I will drop you," he said. "If you have the time, come to my suite. I want to pick your brain about the by-election," he said. Since I was returning from an assignment I was not expected in the office that day. These were pre-mobile phone days in India when one was not tethered to work 24/7. Along the way from the airport to the hotel, about half an hour drive, we spoke about Khanna's prospects against Sinha. My sense was that he would win comfortably.

"Kitne margin se? (By what margin?)" he asked me.

"That's a silly question. How can I predict a margin? It has no scientific basis," I said.

"Forget science. Just speculate," he persisted.

"If you insist, I am going to pull a number out of my ass. It will be 20,000 plus," I said.

"You could have pulled it out of your brain too," Khanna said.

"I often get confused between the two," I said. He smile-laughed, which was a combination of half smile and half laugh, at my response. 

(For the record, he went on to win by about 25,000 votes. Mine was a completely lucky guess.)

A point I made during our conversation was that essentially it was a battle between two famous men and which one would out-fame the other would decide the outcome. Khanna was unequivocally the bigger star of the two. It was in the context of fame that we talked about the insane craze he had experienced as a superstar in his 20s. In 1992, he was already 50 and the craze for him had waned a great deal. 

"I feel fame has always been around me. Fame, flashes and photographs have been my life for a long time," he said. 

As was my wont, for no apparent reason I pointed out that "fame, flashes and photographs" was only a phonetic alliteration because photographs had a 'p' in it . He just looked at me quizzically for offering that information.

We were already at the Ashoka Hotel with two Sardar ushers holding his car door in utter deference. One of them greeted, "Sat shri akaal, Kakaji." The other just saluted. Khanna effortlessly slipped 100 rupee bills in their palms. 

By the time we entered the reception area, Khanna had already been checked into his suite and his suitcase already been taken there. About a dozen people came to greet him and gawk at him. As we walked towards the elevator we ran into a family of three--a young couple and their daughter. They froze in their tracks finding Khanna just a couple of feet from them. The young woman looked stunned at first and then started crying while the man just laughed. Then all three touched his feet which Khanna stopped them from doing somewhat unsuccessfully. 

No words were exchanged; merely unrestrained exultation was heard from the family. "Camera hota to kitna achhchha hota. (We wish we had a camera)," said the man. Khanna was picture of warmth and friendliness as he tapped the young daughter on her head affectionately, smiled his famous crinkly smile as we got into the elevator. As the door shut the family was still standing looking in until the very last moment.

"I wish they had a camera. What a memory it would be for them," he said. 

Before entering the suite, he grabbed me by my arm and said, "You have often wondered what my fame would have been like at the peak of my career. Multiply what you just saw by a lakh or two and that too several times a day."

P.S.: It is only fitting that I carry no photograph with this post.

The unending misogyny of the Taliban

Why is it that historically the few have often managed to hijack and destroy aspirations of the many? This is true of countries across the world. For the purposes of this particular post, I want to talk a bit about Afghanistan.

Some of you might know that Afghanistan’s misanthropic Taliban rulers have intensified their draconian anti-women campaign by ordering an indefinite ban on university education for them. Sixteen months after they made a cakewalk entry into Kabul in the face of a disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan after nearly 20 years, Afghan women have to suffer the worst anti-women impulses of the rulers.

As pointed out by the well-respected Afghan women's rights activist, Mahbouba Seraj, the Taliban have "erased" women from her country's public life. It is heartbreaking that entire generations of girls and women are being destroyed by a bunch of men reveling in medieval prejudices and hatreds. 

What I find extraordinary is that about 400,000 active Taliban members are able to ride roughshod over 40 million Afghans as if they were some trophy in a game of buzkashi. How is that one percent is able to lord over the rest with such brutal efficiency? I have long been mystified by the cruelly mesmeric hold that any such order is able to work up on the rest of the populace. Related to that is my incomprehension over why there are such few mass uprisings against an avowedly misanthropic order.

As Seraj and I discussed in my interview with her, it is instructive that the fundamentalist regime in Afghanistan's neighbor to its west, namely Iran, has been imposing some of the same draconian practices on its women. The Taliban, of course, is an extreme Sunni group while Iran's regime is a fundamentalist Shia order. Both these sects of Islam, otherwise at daggers drawn historically with stunning blood-letting between the two, are united in their misogyny. 

Women always bear the worst of all religions founded by men and yet they choose to follow them. This is beyond me. 

 

The deadly trap that is Lionel Messi’s deceptive torpor

I wrote the following for Indica News yesterday.

By Mayank Chhaya

As a casual watcher of football bereft of visceral passion, I feel a particular affinity for Lionel Andrés Messi because of his deceptively laidback style on the field. There were several moments during the just concluded epic Argentina-France World Cup final where he seemed to exude uninterest. It was anything but that.

I found him static at several points during the game. It was almost as if he were there against his wish and better judgment. The word lackadaisical came frequently to my mind. And then suddenly he would be animated as if he had drawn a bolt of electricity from the ground. His legs would be propelled by an unusual burst of energy and his feet’s movement would be sharp and deft while dealing with the ball. It is an extraordinary gift to be able to combine such speed with deftness. It is the hallmark of a player in supreme control of his preternatural abilities.

After that burst of activity, Messi would be once again his sedate but self-assured self either just ambling across the field or static. As one watched more of him doing less, one understood how unbelievably efficient he was expending his personal energy. I am not even a remotely committed admirer of any particular team or even a particular player. However, I make an exception for Messi. It reminded me of my unequivocal admiration for the master batsman Sunil Gavaskar. No matter whether India won or lost, I always wanted Gavaskar to score a century. I was conscious that I was being selfish on Gavaskar’s behalf even though, I am sure, he was playing for the team.

In Messi’s case, one knew that he was clearly playing for the team even while he was also playing for himself. It so happens that the fortunes of Argentina for years have become so inextricably linked with those of Messi’s. I cannot emphasize enough that I am not an avid football watcher, but Messi’s pull on me has been irresistible.

Messi’s apparent torpor is like a deadly trap for his opponents. He is so swift that his activity burst is necessarily short-lived. Within that short period, he does the most damage to his adversary. I do not know how much of that has to do with his diminutive physicality, a consequence of his well-documented childhood problems with growth hormone deficiency (GHD). I discovered that when he was first diagnosed with GHD he was four feet two inches as opposed to five feet seven inches now, the average height of Argentinian men. He had to be injected with human growth hormone (HGH) early on. His GHD was diagnosed when he was 11.

His deceptively laidback style was on display in all its glory during the Argentina-Croatia semifinal when he zipped past the 20-year-old defender Joško Gvardiol deftly passing to Julián Álvarez who scored a goal. Until that happened there was nothing in his body language to suggest what was impending for the Croatians. He did something similar in today’s final against France.

My knowledge and understanding of football are admittedly very limited but I have a fairly good handle on its physics. Every time Messi scored during this World Cup, or at any rate what I saw of his goals in the highlights of the pre-semifinal games I could tell from the trajectory of his movement that he was going to score. When he did, it felt as if either he had rearranged the field to suit his play, or the field had rearranged itself in deference to him.

His center of gravity seemed remarkably low keeping his feet firmly planted on the ground. From what little I have seen of him, he does not lift off the ground frequently. That is perhaps in keeping with relatively small stature even though at 5-7 he is not dramatically short at all.

The fact that the Argentinian and Messi triumph came in the face of France’s 23-year-old rising star Kylian Mbappé scoring the first hat trick in a final in 56 years is evidence that Messi has made a league where only he exists.

As an aside, it is interesting to note that when Argentina last won the World Cup in 1986, Messi was not even born. He was born on June 24, 1987. Now he has become the embodiment of his country’s excellence in league with the iconic Diego Maradona, who led Argentina’s World Cup win that year and with whom Messi has always been compared and benchmarked. With Messi’s 2022 World Cup victory he has finally attained the exalted status of Maradona.

Art is an immaculate child of conceit

Art is an immaculate child of conceit. It begins with conceit, conceit that what I write or paint or compose or sing or perform will be well-received by at least one person. 

I have not come across anyone who, like me, thinks about the staggering conceit, arrogance if you will, of thinking that I will indulge in poetry, painting, writing, performing or singing and there will be someone, anyone, somewhere, anywhere who would applaud it.

Of course, while one is in the process of creation, one does not think of its reception. At least, I do not. However, more often than not on completing a piece of art or writing or singing or composing one can tell whether that might be well received. 

I am embarrassed somewhat to say this but I encounter that more frequently than ever before. Even if I discount 90 or even 95 percent of appreciative reaction as social media politeness or just pure indulgence of a fellow human being, that still leaves five percent of those who genuinely seem to like what I post. That is an overwhelming feeling. 

Let me cite just two examples; one is a poetic verse, a line really, and the other a rapid sketch that I did recently.

The verse in question is this in Hindi.

यह कैसा शबाब है

 

न मिले तो हक़ीकत,

 

मिले तो ख्वाब है

 

(What kind of beauty is it?

 

When unattainable, it is real

 

When attained, it is a dream).

 

The rapid sketch is the one above. Both took next to time for me. The verse was born on my morning walk and the sketch on my iPad just randomly moving my fingers. And yet both have earned me lovely appreciation. When I think about the fact that neither existed just moments before they came into being immaculately, it leaves me profoundly moved. Art is what did not exist once, does now.