Saturday, 23 January 2010

Avtarjeet was invited to give a talk by The Press Club of India, New Delhi

Most people when they get the chance to address the press, they talk about their achievements, it is more so the case when one returns to his/her home country after having spent few decades abroad. It is only natural, since most of us when we leave our countries, we go to achieve something.

I have come here to you, NOT to tell you about my achievements, , I have come here only to share my realisations. As all achievements have a short lifespan, where realisations are life long, sometime they remain in the public space beyond one’s life.


Our realisations are based upon the circumstances in which we live our lives. The world around us is our reality; so our realisations are our interpretations of our reality. Only choice we can make, is how we interpret this reality.

An illegal economic migrant, landing on the shores of a cold country like Britain, his experience of Britain will be very different from the young man/woman who is invited a British University or a large corporation due his talent in a very specialised field of science or technology.

On a different scale millions of microbes, those live in our stomach, their task is to process our food, into a useful product that our body needs. To live in human or animal’s stomach and continue their task, that is the Reality for these microbes. Similarly all the plants, birds, animals and the humans live their own reality.

Though human have established their place in this universe by developing what we call ‘intellect’ during thousands of year of development. Intellect an additional faculty is what separates humans from other sentient beings. as a result we make conscious decisions based upon our intellectual capacity. Today we have gathered here in this room, not that we smelled food, but due to our conscious decisions.

To arrive at this juncture where we could chose to attend this small gathering today or not, we had a choice, we have felt it essential to spare time to discuss such a topic. Or let’s say that life has been kind to us that we could spare our time for such a discussion; that is our Interpretation of Reality that surrounds us.

Every child born in this world has a natural instinct to explore the world around, soon it finds out that the reality around demands that it must learn to survive, develop its abilities to understand the reality and then interpret it from his/her unique point of view. We have equally strong natural urge to share our discovery, our interpretation with the world around us. Every living species has the same urge, be it a small flower that grows in a harsh arid environment still programmes its life in such a way that it opens its bud when its fragrance will spread as far as possible.

What we call/interpret as achievements, it also very much depends upon first how the reality is introduced to us by the people around us.

A boy named Manilal Baumik grew up in poverty in a Bengali village, went to California, excelled as a scientist, when he could afford it, he bought a huge mansion on hill and gave big parties, just to tell all that he is not a poor boy anymore. It was to exhibit/share his achievements.
A Jain girl, in ‘Nine Lives’ of William Dalrymple sets the aim of her life to live as a nun and happily goes through a very painfull experience of getting her each hair pulled out for its roots; on the other hand when I asked the son of my Indian family in Birmingham, what dreams he had for life. The answer was to become a millionaire and drive Ferrari. This was dream he nurtured in an environment in his parents’ home; where the most important achievement was to earn money.

Few years ago, I was visiting a philosopher friend in Vancouver, the very first morning when I getting ready to go for morning jog, his 8 years old son Jonah offered to accompany me. It was bit crazy of me to go for jog with a thin cotton Tee-shirt and shorts, when it was snowing outside. When we are about half mile from the house, Jonah told me that he had been waiting to ask me a question, which his father thought I may have an answer. That was the reason he was up early and offered to accompany me for a jog in the snow. I had to stop to listen to him. Jonah said, ‘I am already 8 years old, and I still don’t know the purpose of my life.’
I was not ready for such a question while scantily dressed and jogging in the snow. I politely asked him if he could wait till we were home and seated in a warm place, I could try to answer it. This was the most important question for this young man and he had set his priories accordingly.

Considering that the Press Club has introduced me an artist/sculptor, you would have expected me to present you with some images of my sculptures if not the original works. Yes I made objects people called them sculptures until about 12 years ago, when Institute of International Visual Arts, organised a big show of my work in London, and published a monograph. I had already exhibited with name like Henry Moore and had seen posters of my exhibition displayed on the London metro along where all major events are advertised; since I have lost my appetite to make objects.

There have been few points in my life when I had to reconsider direction of my life. To indicate my new direction, let me quote here what I wrote in 1988, part of longer article.

‘If we imagine, the whole of the humanity is a large caravan traveling with time. In this caravan most people are busy pulling/pushing, carrying their possessions, sweating in a race of material achievements.
Most of the artists are happy to be part of the caravan, interpreting/celebrating its activities, achievements and other trivialities, serving fellow travelers, producing objects of desire to embellish the caravan.

It has to be a rare artist/thinker, who disengages oneself from this entourage; frees from this rat-race, runs ahead of caravan/time to finds a vantage point to grasp/intuit an overview, where the caravan is coming from and where it is heading to. Then he/she expresses this vision by singing a song, playing a piece of music, writing a poem or by using another medium to share this vision.’
Avtarjeet Dhanjal 1988

Now

For the last 10-12 years I have been searching beyond the world of material objects. My glimpse into religious classics, right from Sumerian times to 20th century, discussions on the nature of Reality at quantum level has revealed that human beings have interpreted Reality, the world around them using limited vocabularies of language, and the concepts available to them, at that particular place and time in history. Today the world is treating these interpretations as Gospels, and the basis for all their thinking and value systems.

Early 20th century when Brancusi, the Romanian sculptor, developed a human head in the shape of an egg -very first piece of abstract sculpture- it was considered a landmark in the Western Art world. Though in India, the concept of the Abstract had existed right from the Vedic times. But when presented in glossy publications, made Indian artists feel as if they were receiving something new.

Why these details matter to me and to the rest of the world? Because the Western thoughts are based upon the concepts developed in the Old Testament. The idea of primacy of the material world is based upon this Abrahamic idea of Reality. Today, using latest information technology and aggressive marketing, the West is exporting these values to the rest of the world, as the only valid interpretation of Reality. All other interpretations are being condemned as archaic and outdated.

The contemporary Art world is also using the very notion of Reality to evaluate the works of Art on the markets of New York and London and now Mumbai and New Delhi too; whereas the value of Art works in Ajanta and Elora was based upon their intrinsic worth, not on market value.

Such works of Art, when you happen to come across, touch you at such a deeper level, a level within you, not reached in normal day to day living. These works are produced by artists who had reached a state of mind beyond the mundane.
Such artists create these works NOT for auctions in London/New York, but as expressions of gratitude to the universal creative force that inspired them at the first place. These timeless works may have been created centuries ago, still exude an energy that takes the viewers beyond their physical boundaries.

The prevailing values in the art markets today are mostly based upon the media headlines. We have seen media can be easily manipulated by producing something shocking; be it the ‘Unmade Bed’ of Tracey Emin, or infested cow head by Damien Hurst. Media headlines rarely have any relevance to the real worth of an event, idea or a work of Art. It was an example of fickleness of the British media, when a twelve years old English girl, bored with life, created headlines just by running away with a soldier.

People also create messiahs when they need one. Two thousand years ago, a humble Jew named Jesus was turned into a messiah, by changing several facts including his date of birth to fit a prediction in the Old Testament. More recently the British, in their effort to stay in the limelight, needed couple of jugglers to flag around on international art stage, who could make headlines in the media just by shocking human senses.

BBC Radio 4 has a long running program called ‘Desert Island Discs’, the interviewee/castaway is usually asked to choose a handful of items, what he/she would like to take with him/her, if sent away to an island. I have not yet heard if any of the castaways have chosen a work by Damien Hurst or Tracey Emin to take with him/her to give him/her a constant delight or spiritual uplift on this island.

Issue here, is not that I have personally anything against Jesus Christ, or the two jugglers, but how the dominant powers build up a hypothesis, a value system and make you believe, as if it was the only TRUTH available to mankind.

Above were some of my realisations, those I wanted to share with you. I have wandered the world for exactly 40 years, I am back here knowing at the door of my own country, when global forces has swayed almost everyone including our artists/writers and thinkers are busy improving their market value, struggling to achieve highest market prices of their goods, I am not sure how many people will be willing to listen or take seriously my realisations. But these are my realisations, my achievements of last 40 years and I can’t disown them.
Your response to this very talk today will set my agenda; I stay longer in this country and share more with my fellow countrymen or continue my wandering around the world.

Finally I express my sincere thanks my friend S. Balwant who introduced me to the Press Club and the management of the Press Club of India, who organised this talk.

Avtarjeet Dhanjal