Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Genesis


When I took this picture, I called it Genesis, beause I intended it to look like an encapsulated fetus. I used a portion of tissue paper, to make it look like a fetus, human, animal, aquatic, terrestrial. Somehow, at the time of one of my exhibitions, somebody changed the name to Anaconda, and the reviewers loved the name, so the name stuck. But when the picture is seen by people at home, I tell them that my name for it is Genesis.

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Pattern


A PATTERN IS
EVEN IF
ASSYMETRICAL
INTRINSICALLY
AN ORDER
IN CHAOS

LIKE A VAGABOND
BREEZE
PLAYING UPON
THE RESPONSIVE
STRINGS OF A
CARESS-HUNGRY LEAF
TO EXPLODE
INTO RAPTUROUS FRAGMENTS OF AN
UNFORGETTABLE
SYMPHONY

In 1995 the wife of the head of the British Council at that time asked if she could ‘borrow’ this poem. St Mary’s church, in the Fort, was celebrating its 315th anniversary, and she felt that the poem expressed a lot about the way that different communities / countries / beliefs formed a beautiful pattern. At the ceremony, the poem was read out in English, Tamil, Spanish, Russian, and French, by Consuls from countries which had representatives here in Chennai. I have no idea why this poem, which has no connection with god, religion or any kind of spiritualism, should first be chosen with such earnestness for recitation, and then, meet with such an emotional response and applause. But here it is, for your reaction and edification.


(St. Mary’s church, not my photograph)

Monday, September 11, 2006

Fissures, yet Forebearance, Life

The word 'life' in its various translations and dialects and meanings is known only to us, mankind, as far as we know, in the whole universe. The other forms of life that we know, that we co-exist with, plants and animals, do not know the word in any language or dialect. They do not know that they were born, that they exist, and that they would perish.

At seven billion-plus, does it make us lonely? Mostly, honestly, no: because most of human life and experience is devoid of loneliness and purposelessness in the vastness of the universe, with no reference point of any permanence. For some, the caprice is unbearable, and doubly so because the sense of futility of this irrelevant, indeterminate, uncontrolled exercise springs from knowledge. But then, knowledge is held, at least ostensibly, in high esteem, and therefore should be rewarding, and not flagellating. Interestingly, perhaps, respect for knowledge is only hypothetical and unreal. Most people wilfully or unconsciously externalise it, and go about the business of living, incurious, unquesting. (See also my poem Knowledge.)

One of the more cardinal things that we retained when the process of evolution brought us about as conscious beings was herd mentality from our animal forebears. I do because somebody does, who does because somebody else does, who does because I do, and so on, the act of living. (see also my poem At the Airport.)