Vanitas

In the early 1950s, in my student hostel in Bombay, there were few sources of entertainment: movies, cards and other games for some. Singing, for those who could, jokes and talk. We essentially had to entertain ourselves.

At one time there was a genre of painting called vanitas. To quote Wikipedia, "A vanitas is a symbolic work of art showing the transience of life, the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death, often contrasting symbols of wealth and symbols of ephemerality and death."

In order to compose my own vanitas, presumably with the active cooperation of my hostel-mates, I borrowed a skull and bones from the medical students, and imagined some appropriate sins: the "liquor" bottle was actually hair tonic, turned backward. The skeletal fingers hold something that must have been sinful, but I'm not sure what. There is a paper pack of Maypole Minors cigarettes, and another of Markovitch Red & Whites.  The skull wears a rakish crown of currency notes and a very big grin.