Rodevra Republic

The Dance of Shiva Today's art session is something very dear to my heart. I am giving an extract of an essay, ‘The Dance of Shiva’ by Ananda Coomaraswamy. This essay is part of a book that has a collection of 14 essays which critically deal with Indian art and aesthetics, ethos, philosophy, music, etc. He was a brilliant scholar and the greatest among Indian art historians. Notice Coomaraswamy's language. He expresses such a complex idea so effortlessly and elegantly and with such beauty. Indeed, believe it or not, during my twenties those passages struck me so profoundly that I had typed them on a typewriter and preserved them. Re-visiting the passages after so many years, the words sprung up and came alive as if I knew them by heart. In today's world and age, very few will understand the beauty of language and flight of thought which together raise our sensibilities almost into  the spiritual firmament. I give below a partial extract from his essay. See how beautifully ...

Very few people are actually qualified or have the capacity to transform another, leave alone a toxic person. We actually have no business to try to change others. On closer inspection, we may have many faults ourselves that we will to well to deal with first.  So then how do you manage a toxic person, and there are so many we come across all the time?  Once we are firmly rooted in ourselves, we will not be swayed by the evil doings of anyone. Secondly rather than being absorbed in the toxic nature of another person, we could raise ourselves on higher ground and show kindness, compassion as in most cases the toxic behavior of others is guided by forces beyond their control and they are actually quite helpless.

I was referred to a painting asking for my comments. The first thing I noticed that it was an AI generated picture. I had my doubts and confirmed this by asking ChatGPT to draw a picture of boys playing football in the rain. It produced the picture below, which was not the same but very similar to the picture I was referred to. Next I asked it to draw a picture of boys playing cricket in the rain and it again produced a very similar picture that you can see below.  AI has considerably diluted our artistic sensibilities. In artistic terms the picture is trash, though it invokes certain emotions like the unbridled joy in playing the game. But again these are drawn from certain stereotypes that fit in with popular images that are held in mind by the public at large. The reason I can say that it is not a real painting is that it lacks the natural irregularities formed by brush strokes and there is no indication of the medium used - oil, watercolours, etc. These lend a particular textur...

This is the story of Nitin Nadkarni, a school friend, and his wife Chitra, who is a phenomenal sportswoman. She is an inspiration, having completed the Devil's Circuit recently. Before that, she did five of the six World Marathon Majors and the 90 km Comrades Ultra Marathon. These are extreme physical events that must require  high degree of strength, stamina and perseverance.  When I wished Nitin personally on his birthday, I commented on the super fitness of his wife. This started a conversation that revealed these astounding facts. Would you believe that all these incredible achievements were achieved after crossing the age of 50?  When I enquired on what motivated her, I was told she was a runner in her school and college days and had represented at the district level. After marriage all this took a back seat as she was a working woman and was also managing the family. She had made a bucket list in which she wanted to complete the half marathon at the age of 50. This ...

This is a story of the previous century’s most enduring, appealing and successful advertising slogans, "Does She or Doesn’t She?"  See pictures of the ads  below. It was the time in the 1950s and 1960s when hair coloring was a stigma and most women found it difficult to hide the few strands of off-colour hair. All this changed when the modern hair coloring revolution came not through a safer product, or through a one-step, easy-to-use formulation, but through clever, image-changing advertising that captured the feminist sensibilities of the day. In 1949, the single-step Miss Clairol Hair Colour Bath was introduced to the American beauty industry. In 1956, Clairol launched an at-home version of Miss Clairol Hair Colour Bath and became a household name. Clairol’s one-step home colour was a breakthrough in the beauty industry as was its advertising campaign. Clairol hired the advertising firm Foote, Cone & Belding, which assigned the account to a junior copywriter, Shirley P...

 This week's edition of Saturday Art is about my own involvement in the world of art, more specifically about the revival of a dying art. The following write-up was published a few years back in a local news magazine, 'Voice of Malabar Hills' that traces the history of the art of clay model making to the present day with the efforts involved in reviving it. " India has a rich and ancient heritage of clay figurines. The fired clay figurines discovered from excavations at Indus Valley are a standing testimony of India’s ancient terracotta art and the craft of clay model making. In relatively recent history, the art received royal patronage. Maharaja Krishnachandra (1710-1783) was a patron of arts, and supported the production of clay figurines. In 1728 he invited families of expert artisans from other regions and settled them in what is today’s Nadia district in West Bengal. By end of 19th century, their work became hugely popular for their exquisite craftsmanship and w...

Here is a story I read some time back: Once upon a time there was a small time business man from a small village who used to sell butter in the nearby town. A big shop owner in the town was his regular customer. The villager used to deliver every month the required butter in 1 Kg blocks to the shop owner and in turn he used to get grocery items like sugar, pulses etc.  from the  big  shop  owner. Once, the shop owner decided to weigh the butter and to his surprise every block of butter weighed 900 gms.  instead of 1kg. Next month when the villager came to supply butter, the shop owner was very angry at him and told him to leave the shop, to this the villager replied him courteously, "Sir, I am a very poor villager, I don’t have enough money to even buy the required weights for weighing the butter, I usually put the 1 kg sugar you give me on one side of weighing scale and weigh butter on another side" This beautifully illustrates that what we give to others comes...

Can you guess something very unusual about this lamp? No, it is not its value, though each individual lamp costs anywhere between  10 crores to 30 crores rupees. Neither does it have any intrinsic value in terms of precious stones or jewels. The answer is that this is a ‘Tiffany’ lamp and these are all designed and made by ladies. By a quirk of Nature there are some ladies who have four colour receptors instead of three.  Normal humans are “trichromats”, comprising 99% of population, who can only truly see three colors - red, green and blue. All of the other colors are seen as approximations to red, green and blue. The ladies Louis Comfort Tiffany hired were “tetrachromats”, having a fourth receptor, a type of cone featuring a photopigment that allows perception of more colors that aren’t on the typically visible spectrum. While trichromats can see about 1 million colours,  tetrachromats may be able to see an incredible 100 million colours! By the way, only ladies have th...

It looks like a person is reading in the water. When you zoom in, you will find that there is no person, no book, no reading, everything is an illusion. Just like life, it seems to be the case, but it is not the case at all.. A few days back a friend had sent the above post. Apart from the message it conveyed, one could not help noticing the beautiful art behind it. On the face of it, it is just an arrangement of stones, but the art was is in giving the visual effect of a man reading in water. It involved finding stones of the right size and shape, chipping and polishing them if necessary and placing them in a particular order to create a meaningful image from a distance.  Most art is instructive as much as it gives joy, but more often we discuss the artistic merit of a piece of art and rarely the underlying message or meaning it conveys. So in today's art class, we will be deriving meaning from this work of art involving stones. The accompanying note says everything is an illusion...

With the passing away of Rata Tata we have lost a  Karma Yogi.  One of the signs of this was his actions were never for personal gain or profit, but for the long term interest and growth of his companies. His organizations too were not independent microcosms, but they thrived in the benefit of its people and society they belonged to at large. As an industrialist, he had the  vision to create and give something of enduring value to the nation and its society, and envisaged a larger goal than just making a profit. The aspect which underscores his being a Karma Yogi is his huge contribution to charity. For anyone to be called an industrialist and a philanthropist in the same breath defines the person he was. When two thirds of equity share capital is held by philanthropic trusts, one can imagine the emphasis on social welfare rather than private wealth.  He touched the lives of millions of people, and more than anything else people remember him for his kindness and comp...

The debate on letters  vs numbers will continue but while words can express emotions, the sheer beauty of numbers can leave you speechless. For example there is no known pattern for prime numbers and remains a mystery that humanity has not deciphered ever since they were discovered 2000 years ago.  They are indestructible, irreducible, but when combined produce a natural even number. You never know when the next prime numbers will come up and suddenly you will see them coming in pairs separated by an even number (11 an 13, 41and 43, 137 and 139). Is there any parallel to this in letters? Like with words there are palindromes, "racecar" for example, there are "emirp" ('prime' spelt backwards) numbers which we call as a mirror primes. If a number is prime, and the number written in a reverse order is also prime, it is called as  a "mirror prime". For example 13, 31.  Numbers share a love relationship too, and their love affair is no secret. We human...

The Ravi Varma paintings come to life! Thanks to AI and technology! This has been circulating on the WhatsApp circuit. From an AI point of view it is excellent use of technology to bring these still pictures to life. But from a pure art perspective, the essence of the original painting is lost.  When Ravi Verma originally painted it, there must have been numerous considerations. The proportions, the expression, the brush strokes, the visual balance and coherence. The main feature of his paintings was creating a moment in time that evokes a contemplative mood. The effect of light was also so important that for him it was 'subject matter'. Sadly all these elements are lost in the animation. To the purist it is almost sacrilege to play around with paintings like these. However the only justification can be we are not seeing art, but the creative possibilities of AI.

This is different story, not the usual kind, but has the elements to make it an interesting one for all the friends involved. It was a get-together of school friends. The strange part is that though was meeting some for the first time, having no recollection from school days, never for a moment felt that I did not know any of them. Felt an instant bond and closeness. Here were friends that one could relate and connect to as our very own. The sense of camaraderie was unique. In no other group you can have such pure fun, pull one another's leg and still get away with it. Couldn't help thinking what a delightful mix of people we were from such diverse fields. But the great thing was we connected at a common level and our work or position did not come in the way. This is unlike other groups, where it is a battle of one-upmanship. For a person who writes, he is an observer of people and makes a mental note of people he meets. I couldn't help registering my first impressions duri...

There is an interesting point in this video. While we understand that the past, present and future all converge to now, the question is how can we apply this knowledge? Modern science including Quantum Physics has come to the same conclusion what our philosophers understood. For example, Einstein's General Theory of Relativity creates relationships between Gravity, Space and Time, such that it postulates a continuum to an infinite point of singularity. We know that there is a concept in Quantum Physics called Higgs Boson or unofficially “The God Particle.” It refers to the smallest division that the Universe creates. Now we are looking things that are billions of times smaller than an atom. Following this, it seems like it can be done to infinity.  So we can conclude that essentially we and the known reality around us is composed of matter that converges to an infinitive point, which is a Singularity, or the Supreme Being we call God. By virtue of this singularity there is complet...

/ Today's art topic, is not art in its strict sense, but poetry that touches us as much as art does. There have been very few instances when a song is not just a song, but a feeling. I am referring to one of the finest songs of Bollywood, 'Humne dekhi hain’  from the 1966 film, Khamoshi.  It would not do justice to call it just a song, when it is poetry, that is art of a very high order.  Each line of the lyrics evokes a feeling of love, not unbridled, but restrained and understated. The metaphor for love is not expression, but experience. Gulzar poignantly writes love does not require words, the silence is enough and it is within this silence love finds eloquent expression. There is a common refrain, ‘‘सिर्फ एहसास है ये, रूह से मेहसूस करो’, where love is raised to an almost spiritual level, falling in the domain of the soul. It bears silent witness to the magical glow that even a drop of it confers upon one in pure love. It is not ephemeral but timeless. "नूर की बूँद है...

The excess body weight that one lugs around everywhere may or may not shorten our trip here, but what about the heavy burdens of stress, anxiety, worry in life, that definitely will? It reminds me of a popular Zen story, one that defines it as well. There was a Zen master who always carried a heavy bag on his shoulders, filled with sweets and goodies children loved. He used to travel carrying this heavy load and wherever he went, children would gather around him and he would just laugh and distribute sweets to them.  People wondered if he was really a Zen master and decided to test him. They asked him, "What is Zen?"  Without saying a word, he just dropped his heavy bag from his shoulders. Next they asked him, "What is the goal of Zen?” This time he took the bag back on his shoulders and walked away.  This is the essence of Zen. One has to drop one's load, the "huge weight of material concerns", discard everything that is on the way, remain free, stand up s...

I seem to have developed some sort of reputation on providing my 'thesis' on even prurient topics, that some friends referred the topic of 'sex work on wheels'. Now, considering the topic, I don't know if it is for the salacious way I deal with it, or for my 'enriching treatise' ...or for both. Anyway, a request from such dear friends will not go unsatisfied. I see a point in this 'sex work on wheels', where the bus becomes an active partner in the act. The rhythmic motion, high speeds, jerky movements in traffic, sudden breaks, the rumbles, the potholes where the bus makes bouncy sideways movements, all completely unpredictable, must add to the drama, that transforms an ordinary act into a thrilling one.  Wonder the lengths, in this case miles, humans go to enjoy sex. We are one species that enjoy it more for recreation than procreation, unlike animals. This is helped by the fact that we have pretty advanced pleasure receptors associated with our bo...

This is the story of my neighbour who is stays in the building adjoining mine, our two buildings being separated by a common wall. The buildings are thus mirror images of one another.  He is the landlord as well, so there are many occasions we have to interact, particularly for any repair or waterproofing work, where work done by any one  affects the other.  He is a decent man but I enjoy interacting with him for a particular reason. He is what may be called as the archetype SoBo snob, and a typical example of old money. We did not share our childhood together as he was earlier staying with his parents at Chowpatty, in a huge sea facing house. After his ageing aunt, a noble lady, who was staying here passed away, he moved in here with his wife as a newly married couple in late 1990s. He belongs to the well-known K M Munshi family from the maternal side, who founded the Bhartiya Vidya Bhawan at Chowpatty. The family is well connected and influential. Had once spotted our f...

 *Saturday Art:  An Omnibus Ride to Piccadilly (Mr Gladstone Travelling with Ordinary Passengers), 1885, Artist: Alfred Morgan (British, 1836–1924)*  A work of art is something that should touch you instantly. The moment you rationalize it, it becomes an intellectual exercise that robs you of the joy of just enjoying it, without having to explain why. But the love for art extends into trying to find something unusual or to discover something the artist particularly wishes to express. This exercise can have pleasant results, helping  in appreciating the artist's work better. So what I see in this painting is that the central figure is obviously Mr. Gladstone (wearing the black top hat). He was an important figure having served as British Prime Minister for 12 (non-consecutive) years. His demeanor is upright  and the artist, Morgan, manages to convey his position. He has an assistant with him, seated to his left. This is concluded by the fact that the assistant is...

 *Sunday Story: My experience at the bank* My banking experience has been a happy one and there is one happy reason for it. The branch of the SVC Bank where our family has several accounts is one that is staffed entirely by women. It is what is called a “Women’s branch”, probably one of a kind. Only the security guards are men. It is on the ground floor of one of the buildings of the Saraswat Colony. If I am not mistaken, it is in the same building where the actor Amol Palekar once lived. The branch is so close to my place that our Wifi signal almost reaches it. The SVC Bank considers it as one of their prestigious branches and whenever there is a change in the top management, they first pay a ‘pilgrimage’ visit to the branch.  Not sure it is the reason, but the ladies in the branch are uniformly good looking. Makes me wonder whether they hire or transfer staff here based on their looks or their qualification. Having said that, the GSB community which essentially runs the Bank...

 *Late Sunday story*  What happens when you have to share a table with a stranger when you are out at a restaurant? It happened last week when my wife and I were at a restaurant, not a fancy one, but quite busy, where it is perfectly fine for patrons to share tables. So when we were guided to a table of four, we were asked to sit side by side, not opposite, as would normally happen. It was an indication that we were to expect someone to sit opposite and share the table with us. This was a simple restaurant, but known for its good food, so attracted people and was always busy. You can imagine that it would cramped too, with small table sizes, maximizing every available space.  Being primarily a sea food restaurant, one does not generally refer to the menu, but one discusses with the waiter on what fish is 'fresh'. So we discussed our options and placed our order. All this while, thankfully there was no one sitting opposite us and while we were talking of general things, in...

 [20/06/2024, 18:27] Amjad SXHS 76: Raj, I have always had this thought…  that you would have written such beautiful judgments, had you been a judge. [20/06/2024, 19:27] Raj Mahimkar: Thanks for the compliment. As someone who has been writing for years, writing across different genres and subjects becomes relatively easy. The rules are the same. The important thing is keeping the reader in mind, sharing something that he or she can understand, relate to and benefit from. In an ideal world the writer becomes non-existent and only the message goes through and is remembered. Of course for this to happen, the primary quality of the writer is humility.  It is not easy as most writers are guilty of giving out unsolicited advise or sermonising. With some popularity they get carried away and if the feedback loop is broken, they don't know when to stop. In other times, the biggest bane for writers is reader apathy. Here is a story of Somerset Maugham and how he dealt with this iss...

This  beautiful song is by Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, where he not only acknowledges and embraces the endless bliss showered on him by God, but using the words of the song, God becomes a source of joy and jubilation as 'He makes way in the heart and thrills it day and night through His majestic creations'. The song goes on to say, that time and again God touches our inner core through a nudge, a song, a scent, a flavour. What else is this but an expression of His ultimate grace, as He enlivens our worlds and our hearts. This song (see below) is sung by Sagar Sen, one of the finest exponents of Rabindra Sangeet, having been singing it for over 30 years. His deep voice is most suitable for this genre.