Latest visit at MoMA

This was my second trip to MoMA. It is definitely the best of art museums I have been to. It is classy, appealing and very accessible. This is the first time I got to use my corporate membership (thanks to my job at JPMorgan) so there is some excitement that comes from that.


Anyways, the special tour this time was that of Latin American artists. I discoverd Leon Ferrari whose most drawing seemed to be with some drooping lines and what I might say - blobs. Technically they are called drip drawings. Then there was Gego - Gertrude Goldschmidt - who played around with distorted geometrical patterns. Interestingly some later works of Leon Ferrari appeared to have mixed theses blobs and geometrical patterns. Mira Schendel and Helio Oiticica despite their abundance at MoMA, didn't interest me much.


The Photography tour was especially interesting, because of my recent interest in it. I discovered George Bernard who has this style of introducing some kind of noise (an unsettling effct, rather) in some of his photographs. I thought that was very distinct. Of course, Ansel Adams had those really great shots of geysers being shown at MoMA (old faithful geyser). I saw some shots of these abandoned buildings by Paul strand which are probably the best of the lot. I am not into portrait-photography so much but Josef Koudelka had some of the greatest portraits I have seen. Probably because he uses background to convey some character as well.

On the top floor, the Painters garden (Etchings by Lycian Freud) has some really interesting impressionism-style paintings. Garden in winter exhibits a b&w dense and noisy painting style.

In retrospect, Jackson Pollock has similar characteristics to that of Leon Ferrari but he is a painter , of course and uses color (oil paint) more freely that Leon Ferrari can (him being a publishing artist).

Among some of the striking images were those Jean Dubuffet which had this metallic touch to. Soul of the underground looks like made from cast iron residues, actually. Other than those, there are some fine mesh drawings with pencil by Seurat that are full of grandeur despite their simple means.

Vasil Kandinsky and Martin Puryer were two other new artists I hadn't paid more attention to before.

For a cup of coffee...

It was the first time I have felt so uncomfortable in the new york streets that are always brimming with people. I tried walking to my gym last Saturday and it took me 10 minutes to cross just two blocks. For five minutes I was just standing amidst people with everyone around me probably as desperate as myself, to be just moving forward to their way. But of course, there were people with their kids showing them all the fanfare that holidays bring on the fifth avenue.

This is the picture of the most crowded Starbucks I have ever seen. Except in New york, people go to Starbucks to relax. I remember those fine evenings at school that I spent working on my math problems or writing assignments. The starbucks at new york fail to bring back any of those memories.

on a thought train...

I think thought trains are really interesting things. Some day we should be able to capture our thoughts in a mathematical langauge. I think with increased influence of logic on language, it would immensely help such analyses. We would be closer to understand our language in a way that it maps to the mental images that it attempts to represent.

Once we have a reasonably accurate representation of the sequence of our thoughts, we can define the macroscopic properties that would signify an overall idea, a belief or even a certain philosophy. I have conducted some experiments, and I think the only care that needs to be taken is in the interpretation of results. Any claim on results needs to be logically specified as well. This might be tricky, because the observations themselves are seldom logically defined. That is one thing we need to improve with our language(s).

Why religion won't really matter

Most of what we consider the global terrorism is associated with Islamic activity. It wouldn't be inhuman or unjust to think that Islamic violence is a problem. Even if we don't want to admit that for whatever reasons there are good reasons to think that there are enough that are acting against Islamic fundamentalist probably in more violent ways. Given that, I don't really see the point why we come back to this discussion of whose religion is more peaceful than the other. The problem is way beyond that discussion now. As far as history goes, forced conversions all over the world had a lot of bloodshed involved. The reason I mention it is because it was about bloodshed and greed for power, and not glory and salvation. When you are in a war, why would you let your religion weaken you. Even the respected Hindu Brahmin parshuram (who you think won't eat meat) is believed to have cleared all Kshatriyas (warriors) from this earth not once but twice (a puranic story). So, there goes our hero of this religion of peace and harmony. One could go on talking about the goddesses of retribution and destruction but that is hardly the point I am trying to make. As for Islam, you all are aware that there is an official procedure that Islamic forces followed moving Eastwards (on directions from God the Almighty Himself). Give the tribe a dawa (show them the glory of God, with the kind of fanfare that missionaries do these days) and if they don't accept Islam, fight them till they all die (rape women if you like, but that was strictly optional). There were hundreds of tribes (small ones) that were erased out of memory because they refused to accept Islam - this is no propaganda but known history, which no Islamic historian would deny. The point is that there are heroes with swords and guns you can honor, no matter which religion you are. Thus, if Hindus in India are peaceful and Muslims aren't then its not because of their respective religions but because of the way they have responded to changing times. Modern day Hinduism doesn't really mean a lot, its about selecting your heroes freely and comfortably; aspiring to make a lot of money (worshipping it rather). Needless to say, this has gone down very well with the changing times. Religion means a lot more to devout Muslims, or devout Catholics. So the problem really is that of social conditions, and social choices rather than of religious texts. Why can't we thus, refrain from discussing religion when talking about terrorism? What is really the point in showing what part of religious texts encourage people to kill infidels, when we know that those who commit crimes don't need religious scriptures to perpetrate the crimes anyways?

One possible reason that I think is presented hereforth. If I were a historian (like I thought I would become once) it would have been real important to me to find out how religious texts influence a society. I could have too, derived pleasure from conjecturing that certain modern day practices are mere repititions of some ancient historic event. I could have for example, liked to consider that Muslim women are veiled only because Mohd. once doubted his younger wives, or that Hindu oppression of low-caste shudras is actually some sort of racial strife. It is fun to do so but I am afraid it is of no more use than in coffee table conversations. The point (deriving a from a bit from cultural anthropolgy rather than history) is that the way a society reacts to, remembers or sometimes creates its history is a statement of its own consciousness. It is erroneous to reverse this argument (If I am allowed to be a bit more scientific, it is a chaotic system because people influence other people and yet get influenced by others). Religious texts too, esp because of their historic nature in Abrahmic religions, should be seen as statements of a society's consciousness (and like I said, not in a strictly irreversible and opposite way). That is to say, it is the people who assign weight to their texts and not just the other way. For example, Bible won't mean a lot to many Westerners, so wouldn't grih-sutras to most Hindus, but Al-koran does mean a lot to many of the Muslims. In defence of the scriptures, Abrahmic religious texts refer to the times of Egyptian decline (fall of an evil empire), the great exodus of Jewish people (discovering new arenas), their returning home, the fall of Constantine (another one)and the re-establishment of religion and faith (the primal utopia). The respective societies more or less do think in these terms, despite all the apparent problems that exist in these texts. Bible could be used to justify slavery and Islam could be, to justify rape and murder; still, neither of them can be formulated as reasons for such crimes, even from a totally rational, if not ethical, perspective.

The power of hybrids

A new trend has picked up in cinema. Gone are the times when a movie would take up a Sherlock holmes project and solve the murder mystery with its super-cold actors enacting malcontented characters. The two movies that I can name from the top of my head are Ne dis a la personne, and des liben der anderen. Both these movies are essentially thrillers and have a prolong and deep suspense involved. Still the way stories unwind in these movies has a deep dramatic influence. The drama element is so significant at points that while you are in the movie, you wonder it its really a thriller you are watching.

In Ne dis a la personne, the protagonist is a suspect who has been charged of the murder of his own wife. In discovering who actually killed his wife, he unveils the characters of so many people around himself and his wife, discovers his own love for his wife and exhibits his own vulnerabilities. He unravels the stories of his life in this search for the real murderer of his wife.

The other movie, des liben der anderen is a much more powerful movie. It should be a pure espionage movie with national security guards and innocent victims in the socialistic East Germany. However, again, the movie becomes more about the love between two artists, their own love for their art, the overall appeal of art to humanity and the very values of humanity that even spies are not inert to. This is probably the best directed movie I have seen in the year so far.

I completely understand that there is nothing new in this idea, and such movies have been made in the past. But its just the gush of these movies which made me think of this as a somewhat of a new formula for popular cinema.

On RSS

The bete noire Despite having grown up listening to all the bad publicity RSS have recieved I think an organization of such a wide following and reach cannot be ridiculed away as a group of hatemongering lunatics. What RSS arose from is introspection ofHindu society fueled with a Europestyle nationalism. It is a failed movement indeed, because of incompatibility with the powers at center (Indira Gandhi in particular), yet at the same time it bears in itself the roots of two major political parties in India. Ideal Scapegoats In a culture of vasudhaivkuTumbam it is ironic indeed that RSS and more violent organizations continue to exist. It could be attributed to the unrest in Hindu minds. Muslims become the ideal scapegoats in the Hindu revival because 1. Hatred is indeed the favorite vehicle of political agenda. Given the conditions of a developing country spreading hatred is far more feasible than educating masses or imparting scientific temper. This is how our minds seem to work. There are indeed psychological roots to finding scapegoats (so one could argue that Muslims are important to right-wing in India the way homosexuals are to right-wing in US or immigrants are to the right-wing in Europe). As most would agree every politician fiddles with it. If your country is on verge of disintegration you could declare an emergency, massacre all the ones in opposition and go on war with the closest foe to make people forget about it all (70sIndia). Also, wasn’t the movement for social equality in TN fueled with hatred towards Brahmins? 2. The Muslim allegiance to Hindu India has been debatable. It is easy to bring Muslim adherence to the nation into doubt, far easier than it is for other non-Hindu communities like Sikhs, Parsis, non-caste Hindus/tribes or Christians. The Inherent Problem Islam doesn't respect pagan practices of the natives of any place, be it Arab, Persia or India. So you cannot expect Muslims to be very assimilating with idol worshipers. A true Muslim or a true Christian is always supposed to inform the pagans of their false beliefs and motivate them towards the truth of one Supreme Being. Pagan roots are implicit That being said even in the so called Islamic countries thediscussions of culture and philosophy rely on interplays between local pagan traditions (which is where pride in one's tribe, nationality etc. emanate from) and the institutions of Islam (code of law, religious ethics). Pagan roots of traditions and culture present a compromise with true Islam, the latter being so abstract that one cannot really lay down all-inclusive doctrines. So is the ase with Christianity in theWest. But since a complete Islamization of India didn't occur you don't find such dialectics in the Islam of South Asia. Muslims never felt the necessity to debate their religion with the natives of the region. Indian Christianity, on the other hand, has done a better job in naturalization and thus has been far more successful. The marriage of paganism and Christianity has been celebrated to an extent that cannot be elaborated in this post. Incompatibility of Indian paganism It is not unislamic for instance to praise one’s tribe or clan ifyou are an Arab. If you are a South Asian however, praising your culture might sound unislamic. Even if it is Turkey or Iran, the lands of Islamized nations have been roamed by mystics who had limited interest in Koranic disciplines and those who dared even to oppose the Islamic institutions. Most celebrated poets in the Islamic world were mystics; some of them declared themselves to be pagans, and remained popular despite strong discouragement by Islamic clerics. Prophet himself was known to have discouraged poetry. But all is acceptable in Islamic countries. Wherever Islam is main-stream, it is immersed into the culture of local people. But it is not quite true for India. There are lower sections of society who haven’t received much from the higher sections of Muslims. The divide is not just economic between uunchijaat (high-caste muslims) and ajlaf jaat (lowcaste Muslims). High-caste Muslims consider themselves to be closer to Arabs racially as well as culturally. The Muslims from lower sections (julahas, ansaris) are looked down upon not just because of economic reasons but because of their associations with native tribes and Hindu culture (a notion somewhat similar to Rice Christians in West). So, although Islam has a different flavor in every region (culturally Bangladeshi Muslims are as different from Pakistani Muslims, as are Bengalis from Punjabis) there is what one may consider the Arab-centricity of Islam in high-class South Asian Muslims. It shouldn’t come as a surprise therefore, if institutions like Deobandi tabligh declare expression of pride in India as a nation to be un-islamic, or if singing the pagan song of vandematram becomes officially against the command of God. It is ironic indeed that as an essential part of their regional theater, Ramayana could be read and enjoyed by Indonesian Muslims, but it would never be brought out of the “pagan literature” epithet in South Asia itself. The point, still, is that if Islam was main-stream in India the same things could have taken a different path. In Arabia for example,a lot of songs praising pagan-gods that were popular amongst people were preserved with only removal of references to Ozza or Allat (the Arab pagan gods) and placement of addresses to Allah instead. Such accommodation didn’t happen in India because Islam was never her primary religion, and she doesn't have a history like Arabs or Persians where in she had the opportunity to have used Islam to strengthen and uniform the South Asian culture. Islam took a very different path in India, due to various reasons, as I would further elaborate. Historical roots to the problem The reason that the integration of Islam in India didn't happen as it did in the rest of the Islamic world is that Islam couldn't dominate completely in India. It definitely transformed the culture of North India, and brought into existence what we consider the Hindustani culture today, by having ever lasting influences on language, literature and architecture. Still Islam in India having spread into lower sections primarily due to Sufi saints could not annihilate the culture of lower sections completely. Everyone except Aurangzeb who ruled India, knew that it would be hard to convert Hindus en masse even after massacring Brahmins, defeating or appeasing rajputs, razing down temples and defaming local gods(a technique that worked really well everywhere else). More importantly, by the time Islamic conquest of India got completed, there were problems in Baghdad (the seat of Caliphate) and India couldn’t be further Islamized.

The result was a miscellany of half-converted Muslims in India. It is only in South Asia for example, that caste is of importance even among devout Muslims, a concept that, technically speaking, is more anti-islamic than pride in nationality. There is indeed a confusion among Muslims of South Asia which has been of far more serious consequences. Pakistani equivalence One can’t really view the problem with complete isolation of Pakistan-a country that tried to perpetuate the disconnection of South Asian Muslims from nativeculture. Although (in my personal opinion) Pakistan started with better national establishments than India. It was completely Islamic, yet liberal enough for a democratic setup at its birth. Pakistan could indeed have been a place where local culture might have sought expression in Islam, just according to what Iqbal dreamt of. But it did not materialize. Pakistan is a country where most of the native people (Pakhtuns, Punjabis, Balochis, Sindhis) live under the make-believe that their ancestors were Arabs and feel proud about it. Pakistani Muslims express the same problem when saying that Islam is not adopted completely among its people. The reason behind such a national feeling is only that they have problems in completely denying their roots in native history. This feeling facilitates the disrespect towards native traditions and culture, or in other words, all what exists in the country they live in with the half-converts doesnt find expression in the Islam that everyone is supposed to follow. Fundamentalist Islam is the only choice that an average Muslim is left with, thus not giving way to free discussions of culture. As a culture that struggles to find it roots, Pakistani Muslims are always directed to India, something that they not only fail to understand but were created as an opposition to. This is a disconnection similar to that of Muslims in India, where they fail to be proud of their history and culture (and hence of pagan practices of dances to goddesses, sanskrit linguistics or architecture of ancient temples) without compromising with the duties of Islam. Potential Solutions It won’t be an overstatement to say that no one since Akbar has attempted to correct this disconnection. In those times, he established a kingdom that respected both the religions, and thus forged a culture where both the religions could co-exist, debate, exchange ideas and flourish. He did connect Hindu culture with Islam, and facilitated the Hindustani identity. Beginning of the colonial times, British were new rulers and had to let the people appointed by them, have all the power. In the famous trial of Badshah Zafar they had discovered that posing Muslims as the reason behind India’s paradise lost is the best way to dissolve Mughal national identity. For centuries, the Hindu educated elite were told that Muslims have plundered the glorious country that India was, molding the orientalist perspective in Indian elite that still persists. Congress has actually facilitated it while RSS might only be reutilizing this fabrication. Fallacies of appeasement Perpetuating the British style appeasement would not solve the dilemma of Indian Islam. If it could have, then unrest should have decreased among Indian Muslims. On the contrary, Muslim identity is even more so unconnected with the new globalized India, where religious adherences are even harder to maintain. The only solution I think is the facilitation of the debate of culture and religion among Muslims, which no-one remotely seems to be attempting. The liberals whose actualgoalis to shun all religions, use the same old colonial ways of appeasing one religion against the other for near sighted political needs. Disconnection with local culture, along with the disjunct of tradition and modernity in the globalization era, Indian Muslims are left to choose only the fundamentalist way. Misunderstandings with right-wing I don’t agree with what RSS propagates about Islam. But there is much more weight and justification to much of what they have suggested as a solution, than the British style appeasement that liberals or Congress want to perpetuate. I dont consider it militarily fundamentalist for example, if Savarkar says that Hinduism is a culture and not a religion. Something that liberals reject as extreme fundamentalism is the moderate admittance that you could be a Hindu Muslim, or a Hindu Christian, which sometimes seems to be all what RSS demands. Using religion for political gains against India is what colonial powers had perpetrated for centuries (both in instances of Islam and Christianity), and if somebody tries to correct that by taking religion out of such colonial pursuits, he automatically becomes a fundamentalist in the eyes of our educated elite. Many a times RSS have appealed Muslims to follow the Parsis. Parsis do follow their religion which is quite different from that of Hindus, but their traditions are immersed in Hindu traditions instead, and they don’t consider themselves to be living in a jahilia of Hindu gods. In propagating “hindutva” as cultural nationalism, the central core of Islam was not under attack by RSS; even the most rabid of Hindu fundamentalists only expect a South Asian Muslim to be as connected to India as the average Sunni Muslim is to Arab, or a Shiaite Muslim is to Iran. Although some Muslims could accept that, it is not acceptable to liberals somehow. A minimalist approach Instead of approaching to a solution much of what liberals have done in India has aggravated the problems by polarizing the two factions. To create more confusion we have things as preposterous as imposition of Urdu (a language of poetry) as the Islamic language all over India, something that most Islamic intellectuals would have problems with. To give an example of the ridiculousness of such policies, in a call for applications to extra Urdu teachers introduced in schools of UP solely for the appeasement of Muslims, Mulayam Singh was puzzled to have found more than 70% of applicants to be Hindus. Conclusion So even if one doesn't agree with the view of Islam that is presented by the sangh, there is no better alternative towards assimilation of Islamists. It becomes indeed then, about choosing a better poison. Rather than appeasement of Muslims or leftist endorsements of conversions to Christianity, most Hindus tend to support organizations with hatred for Muslims, the good old enemies of the paradise lost. Further Reading http://www.saag.org/papers6/paper569.html

Tell Nobody

I don't consider myself a big fan of thriller and suspense. I usually find their plots to be too much artificial to be realistic. If somehow I don't then my disinterest rests upon its mundaneness. It is very rarely that a thriller movie interests me. Thriller novels? I wish I had that kind of patience...

I liked the movie 'Ne le dis a personne' that I watched today in the IFC center at 4th St. This was part of the rendezvous with french cinema (cheesy?) going on in New York. This movie struck me especially because of its superb star-cast. It is hard for a movie with Jean Rocheforte and Andre Dussolier to be uninteresting in any way. It was the same casting director as that of Monsieur Ibrahim afterall.

This movie was a great thriller I’ve watched in a long time. Based on a novel with the same name suspense was built up somewhat slowly but the script wasn’t sloppy at all till the end. There were some scenes exhibiting great cinematography while acting was consistently well by everyone.

I don’t want to spoil the thriller for anyone, so please just watch the movie. 

Flandres

Came to know about Bruno Dumont in the 'Rendezvous with French cinema' organized in the Lincoln Center at New York. I am not aware of the current developments in French cinema, but this movie didn't seem to be an exceptional one. I didn't find the director to exceptionally good either that I would expect any better movies from him.

Like a typical on-stage conversation in performing arts, there were some questions and answers exchanged about the way director works, how much and what importance does he give to the script and so on - probably because of the abundance of budding movie-makers in the screening.

There is nothing much substantial in the movie that I could compare to the great movies I have watched in the past. There is thus very little I would recollect from the movie. Still one of the scenes would stay in memory for an interesting follow up. There is this scene in the movie which I didn't completely understand while watching it, where the woman raises up on her heels and the camera focuses on her from above. When Bruno was asked to explain this a little further, he mentioned that it is only the woman who is living within her body unlike the others in the movie. When rising up on her heels, she feels the whole exterior world in a resonating manner.

An interesting question that thus followed from one of the female audiences that why doesn't she herself feel anything like what Bruno said while watching the movie. Bruno's simple answer was that it is because he is a male, and she is a female. There are differences in the way we look at the universe and he completely admits that.

The memorable experience from this visit would be the Lincoln Center itself. This was one experience that I can connect really well to the screening of Rituporno's movies in Chowdiah memorial hall at Bangalore, India. Even though Bangalore never felt like New York, this was an experience similar in many ways. I walk into the building brimming with chitchats in a language I don't fully understand (Bangla/French). There is a strange unfamiliarity in the air which is somehow soothing because it serves as an escape from the world that surrounds it. I guess that is how it would be for any immigrant if he enters into such tents erected by other immigrants; those who don't belong here and have a world of their own that no outsider is welcome to, still they continue to share the inescapable common ground that belongs to everyone and yet it is no one's.