Holi is coming! Vikas Bharti, Ranchi (GULAB series)

Installation / Collaboration with L. Naveenaz Singh 2/25/10
*elephant from stop animation project by Gautam in Ranchi

pictures from Pink(Gulab) Series - Rainbow Hobo to be added soon***

One day in Jail, Indian Style - Ranchi, Jharkand

A select number of us from the Karavan decided to brave the Indian judicial system today not by unlawful means but by invitation from the controversial Minister of Jharkand(newest state in India as of 2000) We arrived by bus, about 17 in number,  entered through the main gate that was some 25 ft high and wide, a metal bright blue door or should I say wall, that moved and sounded like thunder. Then we proceeded through the formalities in the white austere offices of all the big wigs in uniforms, gold stars, wood batons, hairy exposed chests, saluting inferiors and all. I was most fascinated by the cup rings on the edges of the desk of Mr Sinha. We were separated into men's and women's groups. After a short wait and the collection of all cell phones, our Art group was lead onto the guarded grounds past manicured lawns, flower beds, fountains and forboding 2 story buildings with window bars and storm shutters. We walked toward another not so tall metal gate and it was opened with ease. We were inside another more barren compound that had the feeling of a housing project. We were chaperoned shoeless by women in classic army colored fatigues and black berets into a open hall. There sitting on the floor were some 60 plus ladies in brightly hued saris and some 20 children all under the age of 6. We stayed for an hour and as we were 7 women from the Karavan we felt a bit overwhelmed at first   by the numbers and silence that enshrouded the space as we entered. The officials turned to us and asked us what we planned to do. We were told not to bring anything so we were a bit stunned when they asked us this. So of course we made light of it all and quickly broke off into groups and soon had the whole place in a swoon over our presence: photos, journal sketching, yarn bracelets, songs and dance - we proposed cosmic play in this large empty space that hosted a few sewing machines in one corner. It wasn't long before every mother was begging me to photograph her child, and after every photo I had four more hands tugging on my dress. In the aftermath of each shot they stood staring at the light pictures on the small screen. It was at first a humble quiet reaction that turned into a riot of laughter and jest among the women. And then somehow I had an intuitive thought that  there must not be one mirror inside this place. Already mirrors are quite under used in India. They are usually only above the sink, if that. I can't imagine they have the luxury of eyeing themselves every morning ...so looking at themselves on the tiny screen for some was perhaps like meeting themselves again after months even for  some years.

As we were leaving the ladies were shouting for us to come again and there were "I love yous" exchanged with exuberant voices and it in this way that we all had such a difficult task of saying our last goodbye. As that gate finally closed, we all felt so close to women with whom we had only spent a few minutes but frankly the languageless exchange of eye contact and understanding was magnanimously a heartfull experience for all of us, even the guards, and not a drop of Bollywood inside. This is a prison that encourages Vipassana meditation of its prisoners and guards. The spirit inside seemed risen by our presence but I am sure their own faith in consciousness was the real key to the radiant beings inside.

CITY OF KALI, Calcutta and the Hereafter (LAL series)

Kali - The Goddess of Time and Change. Of Annihilation. The Redeemer of the Universe. Shakti. Fundamental Power. Having a form yet is formlessness. Creatrix. Protectress. Destructress. Mother of Language.

One must destroy all wantoness of earthly desire to attain Consciousness in the lap of this Ultimate Mother. Her skin is blue-black. Her eyes are red with intoxication and in absolute rage. Her hair disheveled, mouth open with small fangs and her tongue lolling and crimson. She is in a skirt of human arms and a garland of 108 heads. Her multiple arms are holding a sword which signifies Divine Knowledge and the decapitated head which signifies the human Ego that has been cut by this sword  to procure Moksha or Liberation. The other two hands are in mudra positions of Abaya(fearlessness) and Varada(blessings). She is a force to be reckoned with and she requires all of her devotees to maintain a true heart. In return she will be their guide in the Hereafter. She will continue to exist when the universe ends. She is the pure unmanifested energy, the Adi Shakti.

"Shiva without Shakti is Shava(corpse)."

Kali stands on Shiva, her husband.

There are two ways of perceiving the same absolute reality.The first is a transcendental plane which is often described as static, yet infinite. It is here there is no matter,  no universe - here only consciousness exists. This form of reality is known as Shiva, the absolute Sat- Chit- Anand(Existence, Knowledge, Bliss). The second is an active plane, an imminent plane, the plane of Matter of Maya, the Illusion of space and time where the actual universe exists. This form of reality is Kali(Shakti) and again is Sat- Chit- Anand.

With Shiva as male and Kali as female it is only by their union that creation may transpire. Their interdependence is essential to the vitality of their Union.

Kali's Temple is located at Kalighat in south Calcutta. The surroundings of her temple manifests in a theatrical mythology of the world's stage: a small redlight district that comes alive as the sun sets, the never ending throng of pilgrims and devotees, feasting sacrificial goats tethered to the last days of their existence, religious iconography merchants with all the glitz and sparkle a Goddess could demand, sellers of  tilak(red pigmnet worn by married women on the part of their hair) covered in their red powder, strolling priests beckoning everyone into her inner sanctum, wedding parties circling the outer grounds with banging drums and dancing family members and passerbys and lunatics following behind, immaculately dressed  women, screeching, crows, hibiscus and marigold sellers, prasad wallahs rolling out the dough, the destitute and the dying lying about in the dust, the mad wandering freely, tatooed orphans laughing crying, mangy dogs searching for scraps at the feet of tea drinkers, card players on mats in the middle of the road slapping down their hands in glee or dismay, curious white folk meandering, neighborhoods and markets spilling out from narrow passages in and around the peripheries of the temple. The microcosm of it all.

This last picture shows one of my LAUNDRY(Dorii) LINES installed just beyond the inner gates of the temple.

"YOUR BODY IS YOUR TEMPLE" its reads

From the Red series - Rainbow Hobo realized in Kolkata at Kalighat

wait til you see what is at the other end (WHITE/SAFED series)

A series of performances at Shantiniketan, Visva Bharati University 2/14/2010: " tug o peace, everyone wins", & "Dark Sided Moon", I in White Tejosh of final year MFA student in Black. This chicken below was saved from alife in a cage and his due fate of being dinner, was a performance natural and then ended up on an eco farm at Babli amongst nature.

street art, Calcutta

time & place: for the birds

morning tea with flowers, Calcutta 6am

I woke this morning at 5am to the song of the call of the muezzin drifting into my dreams. The loudspeaker was blaring from within the mosque on Mirza Ghalib Street around the corner from my hotel. It was that familiar feeling I get when I am surrounded by the world of the symbolic. Religion is not my favorite subject but the certainty that is upheld by such belief in uncertainty is created only in Faith. I rose like a spirit and knew I had to get down to the Hooghly river quick. I knew magic awaits only those who are moved into action when called. I had to rouse the hotel staff who were asleep on the floor just inside the locked gates of the entrance. One sleepy eyed fellow woke by an incoming telephone call, lucky for me someone else was his alarm.
Early morning streets of Calcutta are full of mist and the smoke of burning trash which exude a smell only familiar to India; I think it's the leaves that the street sweepers toss on the pyres. Hundreds of sleeping bodies wrapped in blankets and R.E.M. lined the sidewalks along the roads on the way in the final minutes before dawn.
My taxi dropped me just before the road veers into the bridge. There I was above the Mullick ghat(bathing steps to the river) think the Mullicks of Burrabazar but this one was erected by the British in their name.  Here is one of the oldest bathing ghats in Calcutta, there in the shadows of the metal trellis architecture of the Howrah Bridge, enshrouded in mystery by the fading darkness.....this ghat has a special 'Zenana Ghat' (a section exclusively for women) attached to it which is a witness to that era when women of the aristocratic families were brought here in palanquins. The whole carriage was then dipped into the holy river so that the lady of the house was not seen by the proletariat. 

I witheld my descent down the steps because 25 feet below was something out of a scene from Constantinople. Gerbers sunflowers, roses, dahlias and mountains of marigolds amid throngs of bodies moving them from one hand to next. Garlands being draped about sellers bodies like some cosmic dress of the Gods. Exhuberant shouting, the zealous pander... all as the sun was rising on this rainbow spectacle between shanty shacks, railroad tracks and the grey shores of the Hooghly. I walked silently through the morning and this parade of petals with my lens wide open and was offered a tea in a terracotta cup at the end of the line. 

from the shores of humanity

This place pulls on my soul like a riptide. It is the in between moments that grow wildflowers in my imagination. The waiting..... on line for tickets, the enigma of direction, the platform at the train stations, the passage from one to the next, the blur of gravel between the tracks, the portrait of the masses held by the traffic officer at junctions, the trash truck bursting at the seams, the rickshaw piled high with cargo, the bamboo trellis at construction sites with silhouettes climbing about their upper eschelons against the whiteout of sky, the movie that spins from the backseat of the rickshaw, the cacophany of sounds at the airport arrival lane, the constructivist installations of the laundry lines along the way, the color blocks of saris that spill like waterfalls over the wretched facades of cinderblock apartment complexes, the dignity of design even within the shanty towns, each outdoing the other with the inventions of resource,the puzzled faces on the average Indian when they notice I am appreciating such banality. The un-Art of it all......

"Doing is Knowing"

Hare Krisna Hare Rama

the chanting rises with the sun
this labrynth of iskcon
the handsome young Krisna
jumps out from every mural
reminding me love is everywhere
as if in a dream
little Mira takes my hand
and in her other a twirling rainbow light stick
she boldly leads me off the plane
reminding me the symbols are everywhere