The power of art…
Have you seen the statue of the Winged Victory of Samothrace in the Louvre museum? Or David in Florence? Or Venus de Milo? There’s something about art, particularly sculpture that makes you want to lose yourself in it. I’ve never been a great connoisseur of art. Primarily because I could never remember all the different styles and textures. Although I’ve been a student of art history for over 15 years now, I’ve never really bothered with the technicalities of art. But, there are days when I see a piece of art and wish I could lose myself in the beauty. I wish that time would stop. That I could just stay there taking in the piece of art in front of me with a sense of awe and wonder.
Each of the sculptures I’ve mentioned inspires a different emotion. The first time I saw the Winged Victory of Samothrace, I was awe-struck. I felt small, insignificant in the presence of something so powerful. With Venus de Milo, it’s pure love. The kind of love that makes me want to stop time. The kind of love that makes me want to experience life all over again, just to relive that moment I first saw Venus. David is a different matter altogether. It’s a marvel, a testimony to the sheer genius of Michaelangelo. David. The perfect man. Created by Michaelangelo. The perfect artist. And then there are dozens more, sculptures, paintings, even charcoal sketches. Pieta, The Last Supper, and many more.
Sometimes, I wish I could at least reproduce these beautiful works of art. I wish I could paint. I wish I could immerse myself in the world of art and lose all sense of time and space. For now, I will have to content myself with just the written word.
On love…
I need to say this. Love is not what holds you back. It’s what sets you free. Far too many people, young and old alike, confuse possessiveness for love. If someone tells you not to do something or go somewhere because they can’t bear to be away from you, that’s not love. That’s the need for you. And need is certainly not love.
Over the past few days, one particular post on Facebook has caught my attention. A “love story” where the boy calls the girl two days before she is scheduled to leave for higher studies abroad and tells her not to go. He tells her that he can’t live without her and she should stay back in India for him. And I see too many young men and women share and re-share this story as an example of “true love”.
Let me tell you this, true love would let you pursue those dreams. True love would strive to help you get what your heart truly desires. If someone tells you not to do something because they don’t want you to be away, it’s not love. That’s selfishness. They don’t love you. They love what you do for them and how you treat them. And that’s not true love.
I’ve never understood the term “falling in love”. How can something what trips you up and makes you fall be a good thing? Love should elevate. It should empower. It should make you want to stay by setting you free. As the saying goes, let it go. If it comes back, it’s yours. Otherwise, it never was.
For the love of the written word…
Ever read a book that transports you into another world? Ever read one that makes you wish you inhabited that world instead of the one you actually do? One that makes the pages of history come alive in front of your eyes?
If you’ve never known what it feels like to get so involved in a book that you even forget to breathe, then you haven’t really lived. The written word holds a magical charm that’s hard to resist. It’s a world of its own, with no barriers or expectations. A well-written book is equal to a thousand movies rolled into one. It’s magical because it gives wings to imagination.My first tryst with historical novels was Kalki’s Ponniyin Selvan. Ah! Who can forget the handsome Arulmozhi, or the stunning Kundavai. I don’t know if these people actually looked the way I imagined them to be. But, for me, it’s the image that will remain forever etched in memory. Since then, tens of historical novels have fascinated me. The Ibis Trilogy and The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh, White Mughals by William Dalrymple, even Freedom at Midnight by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins. Each of these books have made me fall a little deeper in love with history.
Don’t believe me? Just pick up a book and read. Let go of inhibitions. Let the story carry you forward. You’ll never regret it.Of marks and grades…
It’s that time of the year when the marks and grades frenzy grips every household that has a student old enough to ponder over questions of career. And every year, unfailingly, we see and hear reports of students choosing to end their lives over their perceived failure. It’s depressing and disheartening to see that so many teens view this failure as a failure in life itself.
There’s something seriously wrong with a system that encourages rote learning and privileges grades and marks over a true understanding of what is taught. Somehow, every year, the focus shifts a little further away from learning and towards the result. So much so that we’ve moved so far away from learning that we no longer recognise the true purpose of education: learning.
What drives children to end their lives over something so trivial as a few marks lost here and there? What makes them believe that they’ve truly reached the end of the world and there’s really no way out of the mess? Haven’t they ever heard of Steve Jobs or Bill Gates? Or are such motivational stories just stories that bear no resemblance to the lives we live?
I am not qualified in any way to talk of education, its quality or the way it’s delivered. But, what I do know is that this is not what it should be. Learning should inspire, not terrify. It should bring joy, not stress. If our system brings so much stress that we no longer feel or experience the joy of learning, maybe it’s time to change the system, one brick at a time. And perhaps, we should start by telling our children that it’s ok to fail sometimes.
Questions of identity…
The elections have just concluded. Much discussion has transpired on the various things politicians said to get votes and seats, from free laptops, to Activas at half price. But, for some reason, one election promise hasn’t been discussed in the mainstream as much as I would like: that of giving primacy to Tamilians in Tamil Nadu. This election slogan of “Tamil Nadu is for Tamilians” is neither new, nor entirely unexpected. What is, however, disheartening is the number of educated and seemingly sensible people who seem to think this attitude is acceptable.
I do not quite understand how someone can be so determinedly nationalist in an increasingly interconnected and interdependent world. I do not understand how nationalism and exclusionism is not a negative quantity in a world where most products we routinely consume are produced outside of the geography that we occupy. How can someone who boasts an Apple iPhone, a Fossil watch and a Ford car think that only people who “originally” belong to a state/region have the right to live there? How can anyone, in the same breath speak with great pride of Satya Nadella and Indra Nooyi, while simultaneously wishing to deport all non-Tamils from Tamil Nadu? What does nationalism or regional pride even mean in today’s world?
Questions of identity are extremely complex and difficult to resolve. This questions is one of special personal importance to me, as I have spent the better part of my life trying to give myself a single identity. And failed. Am I Kannadiga, when my knowledge of the language is limited to the dialect I speak at home, and that of the state limited to my few visits to Bangalore? Or am I a Tamilian, when my mother tongue is a language other than Tamil? Who exactly am I and what is my relationship with this place I call home?
When someone asks me where I am from, the first answer I give is, “Chennai”. Because, it is true. I am from Chennai and this is home. I certainly do not speak Tamil as a first language or mother tongue. I belong to a tiny community of Kannada-speaking people who migrated into this state several centuries ago. I am married to a member of an even tinier community of Marathi-speaking people who also migrated several centuries ago. If someone asked us to go back where we belong, where do we go? To Karnataka, whose language and people are so alien to me that I return from each short trip to Bangalore with the joy of pup returning home? Or to Maharashtra, which I have barely visited except for a few times for official reasons? For me, home is Chennai. Even if I were to go a few generations back to trace my origins, they would go no further than Coimbatore and Theni. Then, who am I?
If mastery of a language is the criteria for qualifying as a “Tamilian”, then would millions of my co-inhabitants of Tamil Nadu qualify? How many native speakers of Tamil actually know the language they call their mother tongue? How about this generation of urban youth, which is more comfortable in English than in their mother tongue?
These are questions that are extremely hard to resolve, or even attempt a resolution at. Yet, we do not hesitate to call someone an “outsider” just because we feel entitled. Can we try, at least, to build a more equitable world? A world that, in Tagore’s immortal words, has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls? Try?