Friday, June 26, 2009

Indian By Choice; American by Chance!

Recently I came across two life stories' let us call them Mr. C and Mr. P. First about Mr. C. This gentleman has been living in the west for the past 50 odd years. Practically grew up here. Worked here and raised a family here. He is retired now and seems very comfortably off considering his pricey downtown slick condo accommodation. Last person you would imagine that wishes to go back and live in India or at least spend a large part of the year there. Wrong! To my utter surprise this gentleman was practically begging for some information/ advice that would enable him to go live in - hold your breath - Delhi.!

To my utter surprise and greater dismay he practically gave me ; a total stranger, his life history. Just because I was an Indian and from Delhi ,he hoped I could help him!. To use a metaphor this was the only straw that this drowning man was trying to clutch! All he wanted was someone to rent him a room for 5/ 6 months, then he will see .

If you are guessing that he is going because of family ; you would be wrong again! He has no family to speak of in the city. Remember he left India decades ago around the time Nehru was the PM. In fact his wife has passed on and all his children live close to him in the US and Canada. Everybody he has known personally, socially and professionally is in North America. No one remembers him in India. No one is looking forward to seeing him. He has no property in India.

So What can move a 75 year old to leave what he built all his life in the west and seek solace in India. He is just a regular person , he is not going to conduct research, he is not going to find God, he is not going to invest ; he is not going to do any social work; he is just going. After spending all his adult life outside he thinks he will be among his own only in India. This is so when this metro has nearly 600000 people of Indian origin. Even than he feels like a stranger.

He is an Indian in his heart- an Indian by choice. So he thinks this is no place to live. Makes you think seriously about identity crisis. The crisis of being old, alone and an Indian in America. I hope he finds his happiness in the evening of his life ,although I am afraid he will be disappointed.

That brings us to Mr. P. He is my friends father. Or I should say was, since he is in his heavenly abode. Now this gentleman arrived some years ago from India and he lived and worked in the US for a decent length of time. As he neared the retirement age he moved back to India. Since according to him this was no place to die. Anyway he was recently visiting his son when he was taken ill. And to cut the long story short he passed away of all the places, in America. One place he did not want to die in. He did not want to be an American , just became one by chance or should we say American By Death!

Speaking of death- so the path breaking performer Michael Jackson died .Maybe the God of death did him a great favour by taking him away when he was still popular enough to be missed by fans. Had he lived another ten years people might have said "Michael Who?" instead of ''Oh no, not Michael!" Now that would really really mean death , this untimely death has made him live forever .




Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Habib and Husain



Habib Tanvir is no more. If you never saw his play, you missed a great experience. Unfortunately a play can not be preserved like a film or a painting so it is rather difficult to recreate the experience. This loss is permanent now.
Habib used Indian idioms , folk traditions and typical desi traditional music in his work with style , understanding and with telling effect. AS such his contribution to theatrical arts is immense. The great thing that distinguishes his work is the passion and zeal with which he used his symbols, his stories and his folk genre. He was true
to his traditions rooted in Madhya pradesh and Chattisgarh. He actually enriched them and by bringing them to people in general he helped preserve them. Yet his plays were not a simple copy of a traditional performance or a classical story. He infused new meanings, new thought processes and concepts in them. He raised contemporary issues, he raised important concerns and he had his feet firmly planted on earth.That is what makes great art out of a craft. Your intellectual input and your passion and your feel for your subject coupled with your technical craftsmanship is what distinguishes great art .Whether you liked his marxist slant or not, Habib tanvir was among the greats and there is no doubt about it.
He reminds one of another "great", Husain. who also used Indian motifs and cultural symbols in his art . Alas ! without passion and without any attempt to infuse any intellectual concept to it. Husain's use of Saraswati , Durga , and sita icons or even ganapati for that matter were just a sales trick.
He painted what he thought would sell. He was of course right. He continues to sell for staggering sums. It is however just plain craftsmanship. Very much like a street vendor who sells diwali cards in october, next month he sells christmas cards and next week new year greetings. Whatever sells! It is good business but not necessarily great art.
Habib must have realized early on that he might never become rich doing what he is doing but he did not betray his art form. It sure was not easy to use Chatisgarhi music , ethos and even dialect to perform and still be economically viable. habib strived all his life and Habib made folk mainstream or I should say acceptable to cultural czars. I personally was part of a long workshop conducted by Habib where I had the occasion to see this great master at work and also design a set for one of his plays. The biggest compliment I can think of at his passing away is that he was for art what husain can not be .