It was 1954. I was staying in a college hostel in Bombay, along with a bunch of struggling medical students. On an idle afternoon I assembled the ingredients for this photograph: the skull and skeletal hand from one of the college classrooms; cards, cigarette packet, "liquor" bottle (actually hair oil), money, from here and there. I think the hat must have belonged to one of the two or three Ph.D. students, older than I was, who led secretive lives in private rooms in one section of the hostel.
I was consumed by an urgent search for the meaning of life: was it contained in principles of idealism, which I found variable; or in all the opposites, which only confounded my despair and loneliness. I felt embarrassed at the thought that my lazy assemblage of stuff into a photograph could be interpreted as my claim to uprightness, and as judgmental of an "unprincipled, amoral" life, with the certainty of retribution.
Today I look back on the unremitting hardship I had imposed on my mind and, through it, on my body, between the ages of 12 and 20, to find a definitive, ABSOLUTE answer, which would not or could not alter with time, place or people, but could remain forever a constant, and therefore the ultimate, as much as the only, explanation. I feel a certain amusement and ruefulness at my naivete, which time and again criss-crossed this search to articulate, simply and unimpeachably.
Which, incidentally, ended very quickly, with my establishing The Theory of Contingency and Inevitability of Inevitability, that, even if I say so, is, has been, and will remain invincible. But that is another story.
For me now, when I am at the end of my life, the mystery of how this picture found its way into my hands is far greater than the meaning of its origin, and the meaning of life as we know it, or as it exists anywhere in the universe; and the meaning of the universe itself.
Anyone who has read this far, and would be more than just amused, and would wish to take on my claim, is most earnestly requested to communicate it to me, without any reservations. I would be available to respond fully at all times.
1 comment:
Bhai,
I do not think there is anything arguable about your theory.
There are quite a few things I love about this picture. First of all, it is old. The age and the sepia color lend an antiquy feel to it. In many circles here it would be an antique and probably auction for a good chunk of pennies.
More importantly the amalgam of the ingredients that constitue the picture is not only humorous but telling. Chasing women, money and vices, will reduce an individual to a skeleton. Perhaps before, his time.
I think a part of Declaration of Independence is ironically so appropriate as a Legend for this picture. "Pursuit of Happiness"
If you did not possess this picture and somehow landed in your hands; mystries abound!
charu
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