Nidān by UKZN College of Humanities

NidÄ n

International Journal for Indian Studies

December 2017 Durban, South Africa

Published at University of KwaZulu-Natal

Editors P. Pratap Kumar

penumalap@ukzn.ac.za

Editor-inChief

Emeritus Professor

University of KwaZulu-Natal

Ajaya K Sahoo

sahooajaya@yahoo.com

Associate Editor

Associate Professor

University of Hyderabad, India

Editorial Board Members Member

Institution

Anand Singh (Professor)

University of KwaZulu-Natal

singhan@ukzn.ac.za

Michel Clasquin (Professor)

University of South Africa

clasqm@unisa.ac.za

Goolam Vahed (Professor)

University of KwaZulu-Natal

vahedg@ukzn.ac.za

T.S. Rukmani, (Emeritus Professor)

Concordia University, Canada

t.rukmani@concordia.ca

William Harman (Emeritus Professor) University of Tennessee, USA

wharman@bellsouth.net

Knut A. Jacobsen (Professor)

University of Bergen, Norway

knut.jacobsen@ahkr.uib.no

Martin Bauman (Professor)

UniversitĂ¤t Luzern, Switzerland martin.baumann@unilu.ch

Purushottama Bilimoria

Melbourne University, Australia p.bilimoria@unimelb.edu.au

Yoshitsugu Sawai (Professor)

Tenri University, Japan

sawai-yt@sta.tenri-u.ac.jp

Ramdas Lamb (Professor)

University of Hawaii, USA

ramdas214@gmail.com

Kim Knott (Professor)

University of Lancaster, UK

k.knott@lancaster.ac.uk

Corinne Dempsey

Nazereth College, USA

cdempse6@naz.edu

Hanna Kim

Adelphi University, USA

hannakim@adelphi.edu

Antoinette DeNapoli

University of Wyoming, USA

memsahb2007@gmail.com

Anup Kumar

Cleveland State University, USA a.kumar64@csuohio.edu

Brij Maharaj

University of KwaZulu-Natal, SA maharajB@ukzn.ac.za

Mathieu Claveyrolas

Centre for South Asian Studies

mathieu.claveyrolas@laposte.net

Nidān is an international journal which publishes contributions in the field of Indian Studies Articles published in Nidān have abstracts reflected in the Index to South African Periodicals Nidān is now distributed only through electronic media as a freely accessed journal from its main website: [http://nidan.ukzn.ac.za] Articles published in Nidān are also available on Sabinet [http://www.journals.co.za/ej/ejour_nidan.html] This periodical is indexed in the ATLA Religion Database® (ATLA RDB®), www: http://www.atla.com)

Peer Review Policy All papers published in this journal are subjected to rigorous blind peer review by two independent scholars in the field. Authors Guidelines Please see for detailed instructions on our website at http://nidan.ukzn.ac.za Submission of Papers Authors are requested to submit papers to the editor-in-chief by email as attachment in MS word format at: penumalap@ukzn.ac.za Disclaimer Article/papers published in this journal are entirely the views of the authors. The editors and members of the editorial board are not responsible in any way for the views expressed by the authors.

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Table of Contents Image and Word in the Works of Rabindranath Tagore

Nalini Rao

The Privileges of Diaspora: The selected work of Indo-Trinidadian artist Shalini Seereeram

Sharda Patasar

The Two Talking Yonis: the use of Hindu iconography in conversations of race, identity, politics and womanhood within contemporary South African art

Reshma Chhiba

The Spell of Indophilia in the Imagination of South Africa

Nalini Moodley-Diar Book Review

P. Pratap Kumar

44 61 77

Editor’s Note This special edition of Nidan titled Sovereign I dentities and Creativity presents a volume of work that focuses on the visual world through the lens of Hinduism and the through the dialogue of the Indian diaspora. The aim of this volume is to provide a view of the development of the study of the visual form towards creating a stronger art historical narrative within the framework of Indian-ness and Hinduism. While the borderline might be difficult to draw it does exist and becomes a way to register and describe these relationships within a contemporary global space. The volume comprises four papers from women writers who emerge from the Indian diaspora and who work in the field of the arts. There is flow of enquiry that extends from the discussion of iconic images in the work of Rabindranath Tagore to the lyrical paintings of Shalini Seereeram to the personal explorations of Reshma Chibba and finally the appropriation and misappropriation of Hindu icons in the modern western world in general and in South Africa in particular. Nalini Rao’s paper presents a new interpretation of Indian icon, Rabindranath Tagore’s paintings and poetry. Having produced almost two thousand five hundred works of art, this paper offers insight into his influences like theosophists Annie Besant, Charles Webster Leadbeater and Wassily Kandinsky. Tagore’s rhythmic doodles with their fluid lines reveal his multi-dimensional creative consciousness that also found expression in his poetic compositions. The transformation of complex irregular shapes to recognisable animal forms reveal his inner most subconscious feelings as exposed in his metaphorical poetry as well. Rao explores Tagore’s thematic representations and rich narrative traditions both in art and word. The juxtaposition of the art works and the poetic writings foreground Tagore’s solitary life and indeed his loneliness. Through the doodles he explored opportunities to weave creativity and imagination in a manner that provided an opportunity to release emotion. Within this complexity of concepts, Rao manages to seamlessly navigate through and between the artist, the art works and the poetic word. This paper is finally a bringing together of the recognition of the importance of the non-verbal imagery which all papers in this volume foreground with great success. In Sharda Patasar’s paper an exploration of the story of the diaspora as one of privilege and limitation is positioned as the catalyst for Shalini Seereeram’s continued development as an artist. The paper explores Seereeram’s concept of belonging with its privilege and limitations within institutions that are prescribed by traditional society. She introduces the term re-casting as an operative lens in the complex discussion of identity. This term looks at the disruption of caste as an identity which was reshaped when the Indians dispersed through indenture towards what would today result in the diaspora. Her use the concept of the stage in the explanation of the word re-cast results in a delineation of space where identities are re-worked and re-created as circumstances dictated. Her discussion within a framework of hybridity also problematizes the politics of identity which for the diasporic necessitates the source of here and the concept of making place home. This is further complicated by those of alternate sexual orientation through the stereotypical interpretations by people, particularly of Indian ancestry. The discussion of Seereeram’s paintings challenge v

these processes and systems of definition and categorisation in determining places for LGBT belonging. The article stiches together the complexity of belonging within a visual language that is inherently a reflection of the artist’s cultural identity but which allows her to move seamlessly between cultures within what she believes is a borderless world. Reshma Chibba as a second generation South African artist of Indian ancestry, occupies a complicated space in the South African lexicon of difference in terms of defining herself as South African Indian or Indian South Africa. She is an artist, performer and classically trained Bharatha Natyam dancer. In her paper she explores the personification of Kali in Ajima her maternal grandmother who arrived from India. The lyrical, poetic style of Chibba’s writing becomes a painting in words. Through this style she engages the spaces of intersectionality as one of conversing dualities such as contemporary and traditional, masculinity and feminity, black and Indian and artist and curator. She voices her invisibility as an Indian female artist in contemporary South Africa and where works from this sector of Indian women artists is often marginalised through stereotyped perception which discards them as insignificant. Chibba also bolds confronts the complication of blackness in South Africa, within the socio-political climate and context, which marginalises the stereotyped Indian and in fact that sense of Indianness itself. She also focused on rescripting the notion of womanhood in an attempt to claim agency and power over embedded notion of patriarchy. The final paper of the volume is a presentation of conversations that occur within Hindu societies throughout the world when they are threatened by the misappropriation of their divine icons of devotion. South Africa is under the spell of all things Indian and popular and this Indophilia brings with it the tendency to appropriate in the name of beauty, celebration and indeed adoration. While the appropriation of religious imagery does not seem to be as aggressive within other religions the paper questions the ‘freedoms’ that Hinduism allows in this commodification of religious forms. While many forms are not deemed inherently disrespectful eg. T-shirt prints of deities, there are some which are indeed deeply offensive and are exposed through what has been defined as the religious consumer supermarket. Within a country that is still grappling with realising what a postapartheid South Africa ought to be, the memory of separateness and division is a convenient fall-back position. The erosion of an ethnic identity in favour of embracing a South Africanness is defied through the process of deepening religious intolerance that results in parochial citizenship. In this way the fetishisation of the religious Hindu image leads to mass hysteria amongst a minority community whose religious tolerance is constantly being questioned. Prof Nalini Moodley-Diar Guest Editor

Contributors

Sharda Patasar Dr. Sharda Patasar straddles between two fields, music and academia. She is a sitarist trained in North Indian Classical music and graduated in 2013 with a PhD in Cultural Studies. Sharda’s musical work comprises primarily fusion of the various genres of music in the Caribbean with North Indian classical music. Her position as a musical practitioner and performing artiste is one that provides her with intimate knowledge of the working of the musical landscape of Trinidad, where her father Mungal Patasar set the stage for musical collaborations with his pioneering work in fusion music that encapsulates the Trinidadian experience. Her academic writing and journalism are influenced by this heritage and her personal experience as an Indo-Trinidadian/Caribbean artiste. https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharda-patasar-66a84724/

Reshma Chhibba Reshma Chhiba is a visual artist and dancer based in Johannesburg. She holds a BAFA (2005) and an MAFA (2013), from the University of the Witwatersrand, and a diploma in Bharatanatyam (2002) from the Institute of Indian Art and Culture (South Africa). She currently serves as Exhibitions Coordinator at The Point of Order, an experimental exhibition space run by the Division of Visual Arts, Wits University. Chhibba was joint winner of the Wits School of Arts Martienssen Prize in 2003. In 2007 she was selected by the Goethe Institut to work as an art mediator at Documenta 12, in Kassel, Germany. She has participated in numerous group shows and her solo exhibitions include Kali – Art Extra (2008) and The Two Talking Yonis – Constitution Hill Women’s Jail, Kalashnikovv Gallery and Room Gallery (2013), in which she collaborated with curator Nontobeko Ntombela.

Nalini Rao Nalini Rao holds a Ph.D.in Art History from UCLA and another in Ancient History and Archaeology from the University of Mysore, India. Rao's specialization includes South and Southeast Asian Art, Ancient and Modern. Presently she is Associate Prof. of World Art in Soka University of America, Ca, U.S.A. Rao is the author of many books, some of which include, Boundaries and Transformations, (ed.) Sangama: Confluence of Art and Culture during the Vijayanagara Period, Royal Imagery and Networks of Power at Vijayanagara: A Study of Kingship in South India and (ed.) Sindhu-Sarasvati Civlilization: New Perspectives. She has published numerous articles in journals and books.

Nalini Moodley-Diar Nalini Moodley-Diar is the Assistant Dean and Associate Professor in the Faculty of the Arts at the Tshwane University of Technology, South Africa. She has a B.A (Fine Arts), M.A (Art History) and completed her PhD in Art History at the University of KwaZulu-Natal which focused on the visual art produced by Indian South Africans from 1961 to 1999. Her present areas of research include minority politics, race and identity politics and the challenges of being Indian in post-apartheid South Africa. She has published papers on Hindu art and artists in South Africa, Indian dance and the position of Indians in the new South Africa in peer reviewed journals. She also serves as a member of the international body for the Indentured Indian Labour Project. moodleyn@tut.ac.za

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Image and Word in the Works of Rabindranath Tagore Nalini Rao Soka University of America nrao@soka.edu

Abstract This paper explores the co-relation between the images in paintings and poetry of Rabindranath Tagore, the Nobel Prize winner in Literature in 1913. The relevance of his poetry to his doodles, portraits, and works of other genres enhances the iconic and ideological significance of his abstract, semi-abstract, and representational paintings, substantiating his life-long quest for the beyond. The paper reveals a new understanding about his paintings, namely the relational identity between his paintings and poetry, and argues that the visual imagery in his ‘arts’ were expressionistic, flexible supple and transformable. Tagore’s ideology, feelings and life experiences were sources of his inspiration for his art, and their interrelation was complex. This line of investigation also marks a new departure in the exploration of the influences of Wassily Kandinsky, Charles Webster Leadbeater and the theosophist, Annie Besant.

Key words: Rabindranath Tagore, Doodles, Paintings, Poetry, Kandinsky, Annie Besant

Rabindranath Tagore

Image and Word / Rao

Introduction Rabindranath Tagore is known more as a writer, poet, songwriter, novelist and philosopher than as a painter, although he produced almost two thousand and five hundred works of art. His paintings, though not as well-known as those of Abanindranath Tagore, are expressive, iconic, and powerful. They reveal his creative subconscious mind that lingers and reverberates in our soul for a long time. There have been numerous studies on his paintings, such as those by William George Archer (1959), Geeta Kapur (1982), Ratan Parimoo (1989), Andrew Robinson (1989), Purushottama Billimoria (1993: 29-44) and others. In the latest book on his works by Siva Kumar (2011), his paintings have been roughly divided by subject matter, and genres such as portraiture, landscape, doodles, fantastic shapes and women. While adhering somewhat to this classification, I attempt to understand his works from an arthistorical, multileveled perspective, particularly the subjective experiences of the artist, his vision of life and co-relate them to the imagery in his poetry. The paper focuses on some of Tagore’s important works, and argues that the visual imagery in both his painting and poetry were flexible and transformable. The relevance of poetry to his doodles, portraits, and other genres enhances the iconic and ideological significance of his abstract, semi-abstract, and representational paintings, substantiating his life-long quest for the Beyond. Tagore’s ideology, feelings and life experiences were the sources of his inspiration for his art, and their interrelation was complex. An important aspect that has been overlooked is the influence of the theosophists, Annie Besant and Charles Webster Leadbeater and the artist, Wassily Kandinsky on the works of Tagore, particularly about the interaction between art and thought. The symbolic imagery in his paintings have been analyzed and its connections noticed in some of his poems, particularly, from his own translation, Collected Poems and Plays of Rabindranath Tagore (2002). The biggest limitation for an analysis of his paintings, lies in the absence of dates on his works of art. However, considering his own ‘obsession’ with certain ideas, it is possible to correlate the two forms of art, which seem to transcend boundaries. Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was a literary icon of modern India (O’Connell and O’Connell, 2008:961-970). Born in 1861 in a rich and talented family at Jorasanko in Calcutta to Debendranath Tagore and Sarada Devi, Rabindranath was the fourteenth of the fifteen children that his mother bore. His father was a poet and philosopher; his brother Jyotinrindranath Tagore, was a musician, and his sister, Swarnakumari Devi was a novelist. He was rebellious from childhood and hence he had to study under private tutors. Tagore led a life of loneliness caused by the death of his dear ones. It is remarkable that sorrow did not deter him from writing and he published numerous novels, plays, songs and poems. Soon he became the leading writer of his age and

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published the Gitanjali in 1910 for which he received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.

Doodles

Fig. 1 Doodles

Fig. 2 Doodles

Tagore began to paint at a late stage in his life, at the age of 63, after he had written Gitanjali by indulging in doodles which were merely calligraphic erasures of some words in his poetry (figs. 1, 2, 7, 8 Doodles). It was only in 1924, after he had visited China and Japan, and seeing the vitality of living Japanese folk tradition and encouraged by

Image and Word / Rao Victoria Ocampo, the Argentinian poet that he began to turn his doodles into art. Generally speaking, the paintings of Rabindranath Tagore are expressionist, flat, largely black, (although later, he used color) monochromatic and minimal (Subramanyam, 1988: 215). They are more like outlines with fillings and encompass a broad range of styles. Nevertheless, there are some consistencies in pattern, continuities and affinities in style with few western painters that reveal his multidimensional creative consciousness. Tagore’s doodles were formed from erasures of his words in his poetic compositions. Soon these erasures evolved into continuous sinuous lines, unending and rhythmic, forming biomorphic shapes that were interspersed by ovals (fig. 1). They have an ambiguous figure –ground relation and developed into irregular and fantastic shapes (fig. 2). Tagore himself explains his concept of doodles in My Pictures: “Of this process of ‘doodling’, I had come to know that rhythm gives reality to that which is desultory, which is insignificant in itself. And therefore, when the scratches in my manuscript cried like sinners, for salvation and assailed my eyes with the ugliness of their irrelevance, I often took more time in rescuing them into a merciful finality of rhythm than in carrying on what was my obvious task… The only training I had from my young days was the training in rhythm in thought, the rhythm in sound. I had come to know that rhythm gives reality to that which is desultory, which is insignificant in itself. And therefore, when the scratches in my manuscript cried, like sinners, for salvation, and assailed my eyes with the ugliness of their irrelevance, I often took more time in rescuing them into a merciful finality of rhythm than in carrying on what was my obvious task” (28 May 1930; Kumar, 2011).

Fig. 3 Bull/Crocodile

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Fig. 4 Fish out of Water

Fig. 5 The Perching Bird

By transforming irregular shapes to recognizable animal forms, both his painting and poetry are metaphorical and attempt to express his innermost, subconscious feelings. The figure of the Bull/Crocodile (fig. 3) with its strong directional lines, powerful jutting and bulging contours, creates a ‘monumental’ figure that is a reflection of his inner mental condition, of sorrow and loneliness that reverberates his words, “the scratches were like screams, waiting to be released. In his work, Fish out of Water (fig. 4) two simple floating objects are symbolically meaningful, but they are ambiguous that have a need to be ‘released’. Another significant work is The Perching Bird (fig.5) which portrays dynamic geometric lines of the beak and fingers that emerge out of a body that is waiting to fly. There is a great contrasting harmony of colors, and a delicate asymmetrical balance. Visually compelling, it awaits to soar, as he captures the moment of its dilemma and draws us to his poem, The Fugitive and Other Poems, Stanza XXIX:

Image and Word / Rao

From me the flight of these birds has sent a veil of stillness and reveals an immense flutter in this deep silence. I see these hills and forest fly across time to the unknown and darkness thrill into fire as the stars wing by. I feel in my own being the rush of the sea crossing bird, cleaving a way beyond the limits of life and death. While the migrant world cries with a myriad voice, “Not here, but somewhere else, in the bosom of the Faraway” (Tagore, 2002: 447). The symbolism of the bird was rooted in Indian philosophy and narrative tradition. It is about two birds, both on a tree, one serene and peaceful, sitting on the topmost branch while the second bird on a lower branch eating the sour and sweet fruits of the tree. Every time the second bird ate a sour fruit it looked up at the first bird. Unlike the second bird whose life was filled with joys and sorrows and there was no liberation from this “wheel of samsara” (attachments), the first bird had attained liberation and peace. The conversation between the two birds in the poem, The Gardener, Stanza VI, reveals that he longed to be free, in the woods: The tame bird was in a cage, the free bird was in the forest. They met when the time came, it was a decree of fate. The free bird cries, “O my love, let us fly to the wood.” The cage bird whispers,” Come hither, let us both live in the cage.” Says the free bird,” Among bars, where is there room to spread one’s wings?” “Alas, “cries the cage bird,” I should not know where to sit perched in the sky.” .............They flutter their wings in yearning, and sing, “Come closer, my love.” The free bird cries, “It cannot be, I fear the closed doors of the cage.” The cage bird whispers, “Alas, my wings are powerless and dead. Tagore appropriates the symbolism and places the birds in a cage and forest. It was an iconic image that best symbolizes the longing of Tagore for the beyond. Tagore wrote, “Like a bird losing its way I am caught” (Tagore, 2002: 112). He was like the caged bird, kept in loneliness in the huge mansion after his mother died. It was in the inexpressible in him that was best rendered in a simple, symbolic form both in image and word.

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Fig. 6 Bird on Animal

Tagore’s painting of the Bird on Animal (fig.6) depicts something very different: it is a strange, primitive looking creature, perhaps an animal on which a bird is seated. The solidity and contrasting profile of the delicate curve of the bird, juxtaposes the moving and the unmoving. It is interesting to note that Tagore was one among the early artists to introduce black in early modern Indian art. For him, black with its visual weight, appeared to be invincible like his own inner individuality and solitariness. His life was, indeed, marked by loneliness; he had seen the disintegration of the Jorasanko extended family (Banerji, 2010: 116). He had lost four members of his family, his father, wife, his second daughter, and his youngest son, Krishna Kriplani after which he was reduced to utter loneliness. The mysterious power of death haunted him and his work takes a paradoxical turn and this was portrayed symbolically in his painting, Bird on Animal. Like Van Gogh’s Cypress Tree, his animal, was a transcended object, it was his mysterious emotion lurking in his mind. While, for Van Gogh, it was impending death, but for Tagore, it was the loss of his loved one that he had experienced. It is difficult to say whether the colonial rule contributed to his depression that had originated from his loss of family members (Sen, 1990: 34-43). The delicate bird, perched above, sitting alone was perhaps himself as revealed in his poetry; it was a concept and more a symbol of his inner longing that was ideational and majestic. However, his feelings of gloom did not remain in him as negative. He tinged it with a universal meaning of freedom from one’s psychological bondage, with unrestrained in thought art, and imagination. This agony for freedom can be linked to the vital changing environment in India’s national movement and its struggle for Independence from British rule that had been surging in many parts, particularly in Bengal. His poem 35, published in Gitanjali reveals his desire to hear the music in the breeze from all sides

Image and Word / Rao Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high Where knowledge is free Where the world has not been broken up into fragments By narrow domestic walls Where words come out from the depth of truth Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit Where the mind is led forward by thee Into ever-widening thought and action Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake. (Tagore, Gitanjali, 1912)

Figs. 7 Doodle and Calligraphy

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Fig. 8 Doodle and Calligraphy

In fig. 8 his doodles can be ‘heard’ and they are ‘louder’ than his written words. However, the words which are co-related with his doodles was his cry for liberty that extended to a liberal humanitarian and progressive attitude of the people and stretched even beyond to a nation. The imagery in his doodle/calligraphy (figs. 7, 8) can be related to what he writes about the mind: Mind you build walls to imprison yourself. Your servants toil to enslave themselves, but the whole earth and infinite space are for the child, for the New Life What does that child bring you Hope for all the world and its joy. Mind asked me “Poet, do you understand? I lay my work aside,” I said, “for I must have time to understand” (Tagore, 2002: 421). Stepping beyond the restrictions embedded in language, Tagore found his venue for his interwoven ideas of freedom of thought, creativity, imagination, in painting, that could release his thoughts and emotions. They reveal a tesserae of a complex mosaic in his mind that displays rhythmic words, and lyrical forms that are surreal.

Image and Word / Rao

Fig. 9 The Dancer

Another interesting work, The Dancer (fig. 9) is an unrealistic, mythical creature with a tail (a cat, monkey or lady?). The combination of an animal and human form was known to the traditional Indian artist, but Tagore uses the familiar Indian imagery to create unfamiliar work. Although the work, imparts a sense of balance between the left leg and left hand, curve of tail and hips, and its division into red and pink areas, it seems to be composed of fearful and mysterious ideas, which are yet colorful. The dance of light and dark, of joy and sorrow reverberate in his words, in The Fugitive and Other Poems, Stanza XV: I must fashion new gifts every day; and shall I not seem a fresh offering, dressed in a new robe? My heart, like the evening sky, has its endless passion for color, and therefore, I change my veils, which have now the green of the cool young grass, and now that of the winter rice. To-day my robe is tinted with the rain-rimmed blue of the sky. â&#x20AC;Ś I thought I would write lovesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; words in their own color; but that lies deep in the heart, and tears are pale. Would you know them, friend, if the words are colorless? (Tagore, 2002: 421).

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Portraits

Fig. 10a Womanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Portrait

Fig 10b Womanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Portrait

Tagore painted numerous portraits that reveal his perceptions about the character. His images of silent, enigmatic women with haunting faces reflect his unfortunate experiences with women. He had lost his wife, Mrinalini Devi in 1902; he is said to have had romantic relations with Ranu Mukherjee and his sister in law, Kadambari Devi, but the latter committed suicide. One cannot be sure whether these are particularly their portraits as likeness has been transcended with his subjective imagery in figures 10a and 10b. His first poem, First Sorrow which he wrote after the death of his wife, reverberate similar intensity of pathos. I was walking along a path overgrown with grass, when suddenly I heard from someone behind, "See if you know me?" I turned round and looked at her and said, "I cannot remember your name." She said, "I am that first great Sorrow whom you met when you were young (twenty-five)." Her eyes looked like a morning whose dew is still in the air. I stood silent for some time till I said, "Have you lost all the great burden of your tears?" She smiled and said nothing. I felt that her tears had had time to learn the language of smiles.

Image and Word / Rao I asked, "Still today you've kept with you that youth of mine when I was twenty-five?" Said she, "Here, just look, my garland." I could see, not a petal had fallen from the garland of that springtime back then. I said, "Mine has become completely withered, but my youth at twentyfive is still this day as fresh as ever, hanging there about your neck.” Slowly, she took off that garland, placing it around my neck. "Once you said," she whispered, "that you would cherish your grief forever." I blushed and said, "Yes, but years have passed and I forget." She added, "He who is the bridegroom of my inner thoughts, he had not forgotten. Since then, I've sat here secretly beneath the shadows. Accept me now." Then I took her hand in mine and said, "But you have changed." “What was sorrow once has now become peace,” she said. (The Fugitive, and Other Poems, Stanza xxvii, Tagore, 2002: 426) Although the visual imagery of his wife’s tears and smiles were personal and deep, but he accepted death and reconciles by transforming it into peace that has a note of joy. Both the works, The Dancer (Fig. 9) and the Portrait of a Woman (Fig. 10a) are conceptual and resonate the low and high keys of life. ‘I thought I would sing love’s words to their own tune, but that sounds only in my heart, and my eyes are silent. Would you know them, if there were no tune?’ ‘Give me the supreme courage of love, this is my prayer—the courage to speak, to do, to suffer at they will Gods...the love that tunes the strings of existence breaks out in music when my heart is won.’ (The Fugitive, and Other Poems, Stanza xxxiii, Tagore, 2002: 450)

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Fig. 10 c Dancing Woman

Fig. 11 Nature

Did both Tagore and his wife sing the same song? It appears that they did, but at different times and at different places. Sorrow was the fountain for his inspiration for

Image and Word / Rao both painting and poetry. He could articulate better in words than portraits or doodles, but he recognized the importance of non-verbal imagery. The liberation from language and thought was ultimately through his use of color which he took to in his later years. Color for him was symbolic of light, passion, and a feeling of joy that Andrew Derain or Henry Matisse were portraying in their works then. But Tagore’s style was more lyrical and influenced by Japanese art. After his visit to China and Japan, his swirling line could excel in portraying graceful movements as seen in the Dancing Woman (Fig 10 c). He also revered nature, and in his depiction of nature, at Santiniketan, although his trees appear gloomy, there is a glow, a renascent light in his Fig. 11. He loved the grass and the earth; Nature was eternity itself (Tagore, 2002: 432). In a remarkable passage, he writes in Song 12 Gitanjali: Travelling through nature – it was a journey of quest, through darkness The time that my journey takes is long and the way of it long. I came out on the chariot of the first gleam of light, and pursued my voyage through the wildernesses of worlds leaving my track on many a star and planet. It is the most distant course that comes nearest to thyself, and that training is the most intricate which leads to the utter simplicity of a tune. The traveller has to knock at every alien door to come to his own, and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end. My eyes strayed far and wide before I shut them and said 'Here art thou!' The question and the cry 'Oh, where?' melt into tears of a thousand streams and deluge the world with the flood of the assurance 'I am!' Although Tagore began to paint after 1924, after he had written the Gitanjali, his quest to understand life and death remained with him till the end. Tagore exalted his sorrow to a new level and gave renewal a universal meaning. “To leave all things or be left alone. Strengthen me on errands of danger, honor me with pain and help me to climb to that difficult mood which sacrifices daily to thee. Give me the supreme confidence of love this is my prayer – the confidence that belongs to life in death, to victory in defeat, to the power hidden in frailest beauty, to that dignity in pain which accepts hurt but disdains to return it” (Tagore, 2002: 450). Here one is reminded of what Wallace Stevens writes, “The poet does his job by virtue of an effort of the mind. In doing so, he is in rapport with the painter, who does his job, with respect to the problems of form and color, which confront him

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incessantly, not by inspiration, but by imagination or by the miraculous kind of reason that the imagination sometimes promotesâ&#x20AC;? (Stevens, 1972: 331-341).

Self-Portraits

Fig. 12a Self-Portrait

Image and Word / Rao Fig. 12b Self-Portrait

Fig. 12c Self-Portrait

An examination of Tagoreâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s self-portraits, presents a different aspect of his personality and spirit. In fig. 12a, he depicts himself as an intellectual, a philosopher and a suffering hero. His realistic self-portrait (fig. 12b), is somewhat similar to one by Van Gogh, a suffering artist. In fig. 12a, he is a creative thinker, in the midst of a world that is too structured. In his last self-portrait (fig. 12c), he imagines himself as an icon; there is darkness within and around him, but he is surrounded by a glow coming from a higher creative energy. Like Nietzsche or Maeterlinck or Vivekananda, he transforms the outer material gloom into an inner spiritual creation. His art like his poetry has a dualist expression of decline and renewal that contained contradictions that were rooted in ambiguity, emanating from his interest in Indian philosophy and mysticism. The ambiguity or tension may have been the result of his quest for something higher. In these portraits of himself as an author and poet, we see him as a thinker, a drowning man, and an artist. His self-portraits articulate some mystical aspects of his being.

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Fig. 13a Self-Portrait

Figs. 13b, c Self-Portraits

Tagore’s works are ‘iconic’ particularly, what I interpret as ‘self-portraits’ in figures 13a, b, and c. They are well-concealed, somewhat abstracted and made symbolic by their linear, circular rhythmic forms, that impart a sense of anonymity to them. In fig. 13a,

Image and Word / Rao Tagore appears as a thinker and an intellectual; in fig.13b he is a creative individual, appearing strange in the eyes of the viewer, and fig.13c, he is like a bird, perched on a rock emitting power, reaching for the impossible, that extends far beyond the frame. The three concepts of his own self, an intellectual, an artist and seeker which he was in real life. In fig. 13b, the creative side of his personality is revealed in a comical, distorted way. Tagore’s creativity surged from his rebellious nature and his distinct inner personality that was truly humanistic. He writes: ‘When man ceases to act out of his own will and is driven only by habit, he becomes a sort of parasite, for he loses his means to accomplish the task assigned to him, which is to say ‘make possible that which seems impossible’ and follow the road of progress, man’s true destiny.’ This might have been the result of his quest for something higher and deeper, an occultism that was surging within his soul that is best expressed in his writing when he is talking to his mind, in Stanza XIII: ‘Mind: I must have more. Tagore: Why must you. Mind: Because it is great. Tagore: What is great? Mind remained silent. I pressed for an answer. Mind: why ask about things that are not. Take notice of those that are there...’ (Tagore, 2002: 414). An incident narrated by Tagore himself, sums up what he would say about his own paintings. He writes about a busy girl who comes to fetch water from the well, and a man asks her to lend her pitcher to draw water, to paint patterns. She lends him the pitcher and he paints the pitcher with curious colors in a mysterious maze of lines. The girl takes it up, turns it round and asks: ‘What does it mean? It has no meaning, he answers’ (Tagore, 2002: 444). This could well be Tagore’s answer to his own paintings, although not those of the readers. Tagore’s meaningful works have an occult character and his art elicits queries about his ‘other’ influences, particularly in the context of his late entrance to painting in 1924.

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Influence of Annie Besant, Leadbeater and Kandinsky and the Three Bodies Scholars have traced the various western influences on the art of Tagore (Sen, 1990). Although he had seen the Armory Show in 1913 with its 1600 exhibits of modern artists, ranging from Monet, Van Gogh, Kollwitz, Modigliani, Matisse, Rotluff, Klee and Kandinsky, he still experimented on his own. In 1937, he wrote to Rothenstein, that he enjoyed his role as a painter, and how people did not know how to pass judgement on his pictures. However, Tagore appears to have been profoundly influenced by Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) and Annie Besant (1847-1933). According to Kandinsky, forms emanated from thoughts and inner feelings. Tagore, during his wide travels must have read the work, Uber das Geistige in der Kunst, About the Spiritual in Art by Wassily Kandinsky (1977). Kandinsky did not depend on the real world for his inspiration. In the first part of his book, he deals with issues of abstraction and expression of the inner feelings and experiences of the artist (which had a great impact on future modern artists in the world, such as Duchamp, Mondrian, Malevich and others). Kandinsky during his emerging expressionist style had introduced what he called “vibrating forms” which surged from his fascination with certain theosophical imagery beginning in 1909. In fact, Kandinsky, at this new stage, had read Thought Forms by Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater, (1901) which dealt with visual imagery and its relation to emotions, meditation, concept of self, and effects of thought on art forms. The book had appeared in a German translation in 1908, and Kandinsky’s own painting, ‘Mountain from 1909’ was influenced by its content. Sixten Ringbom, in his book, The Sounding Cosmos, (1966): 386-418) clearly mentions that Kandinsky was interested in the mystical and had taken to spiritual practices. Kandinsky not only owned his inspiration to the Besant-Leadbeater book, but is said to have continued to praise it for years. Tagore was influenced by Annie Besant, the well-known theosophist, who lived in Calcutta. She had withdrawn from Christianity and her Protestant clergyman. In 1889, she had embraced Theosophy, became a disciple of Madame Blavatsk, and later her biographer. She pursued her mission to India and founded the Central Hindu College at Benares (Varanasi) in 1898, and in 1916 she established the Indian Home Rule League and became its president. Later she traveled to Europe and United States with her protégé, Jiddu Krishnamurti, and became the President of the Theosophical Society from 1907. She wrote a number of books on theosophy, including Four Great Religions (1897), The Ancient Wisdom (1899), and a translation of the Bhagavad Gita (1905). Besant and Leadbeater (1901) believed in different types of bodies one possesses, namely the physical body, the mental body that is concerned with thoughts, the astral body of emotions and desires, and the ‘buddhic’ or spiritual body. The understanding of Annie Besant about different types of bodies was deeply rooted in Indian philosophical thinking, particularly the Upanishads, in its concept of self and in the words of

Image and Word / Rao contemporary spiritual thinkers, such as Ramakrishna Paramahamsa in Calcultta. Mysticism and spirituality, were not new to Tagore who was well versed in traditional Indian religions. Tagore’s works, prior to his taking up painting, contain numerous spiritual insights and ‘internal truths’ that were rooted in Indian thought and practice. Besant and Leadbeater’s articulation of the three bodies appears to have influenced Tagore that is revealed in his paintings. His doodles that flowed from his thoughts correspond to his mental body, his portraits of woman to his astral or emotional body and his self-portraits to his spiritual or ‘buddhic’ body. Even the idea of substantiating them in form might have been the influence of Besant and Leadbeater. The two theosophists contend, that forms emerge from the astral body and the spiritual body. Given, however, that the desire body is the most prominent part of the aura of an undeveloped man, what the seer most often detects are forms of a crude nature. It may be a blessing, then, that we all are not yet able to perceive the subtle shapes of our thoughts (Lachman, 2008: 57-61). Besant states that the purer and refined are ones’ thoughts, the richer is the art. Tagore might have been indirectly influenced by Besant’s theosophy directly or the similar theory of art by Kandinsky through Annie Besant. It is true that even before he began painting, Tagore’s poems had been characterized by radiant, spiritual reflections. However, prior to 1920’s he did not take to painting although he wrote mystic poems. One might argue that Tagore’s abstract doodles are like erasures, a transformation of word; and these abstractions were later transformed into concrete shapes and representations, while the abstraction of Kandinsky were transformations of form, and later emanations from music. This does not negate the fact that the conviction that visual art and spiritual thoughts co-exist and that inner feelings can be concretized in painting, particularly in an individualistic style that did not depend on outward reality of form. Tagore was well versed in traditional Indian philosophy and was eager to synthesize western and eastern traditions in art and philosophy, and in this quest, it is very likely that he was influenced by Annie Besant’s understanding of what constituted ‘thought’ and its materialization in paint.

Conclusion While it is difficult to pass an aesthetic judgment on the expressionist works of Tagore, it is interesting to find that his art and poetry were closely integrated, drew inspiration from each other. Tagore clearly had a theory of art – that color and form were a manifestation of the inner life, although we see it spelt out in bits and pieces. There are three conclusions that can be drawn about his works in the context of his poetry. Firstly, his paintings like his poetry, concretize not the appearance of the subject but the feeling it evokes in him. Secondly, Tagore’s art, both painting and poetry, like those of Kandinsky or Munch, were intuitive and spontaneous that sprang from his

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timeless vision of life, death and beyond. Thirdly, his expressionism was dualist; his works contained both decline and renewal that aimed to comprehend the Eternal. Thus we find a total integration of Feelings, Ideology, and Expressionism that soar to the ‘Beyond’. These three conclusions can be related to the three ‘selves’ of Tagore which occur in the three images in fig. 13. In fig.13a, he is a thinker, in fig.13b, he is an estranged creative artist, and in fig.13c, he reaches for the Beyond. One can add that these are similar to his doodles, portraits of woman and self-portraits that symbolize the three bodies that Annie Besant had articulated. It is fascinating to find that even after Tagore stopped writing, he would still draw. He was a genius and could express himself through both the visual and the written that revealed the splendor of mysticism. His paintings are indeed a ‘visual poetry,’ a legacy that has been left behind for generations.

References Archer, W.G. (1959) India and Modern Art. London, George Allen and Unwin. Banerji, D. (2010) The Alternate Nation of Abanindranath Tagore. New Delhi, Sage. Billimoria, P. (1993) The enigma of modernism in early twentieth-century Indian art: School of Oriental Art in J. Clark (ed.) in Modernity in Asian Art. University of Sydney, East Asian Series 7, Sydney, Wild Peony, pp. 29-44. Besant, A. (1897) Four Great Religions. Four Lectures delivered on the Twenty First Anniversary of the Theosophical Society at Adyar, Madras, Madras, Theosophical Publishing Society (Later edition (1998), Kessinger Publishing). Besant, A. (1899) The Ancient Wisdom: An outline of Theosophical Teachings. Madras, Theosophical Publishing Society. Besant, A. and Das, B. (1905) Bhagavad Gita. Madras, Theosophical Publishing Society. Besant, A. and Leadbeater, C.W. (1901) Thought Forms. London and Benares, Theosophical Publishing Society. Kandinsky, W. ([1912] 1977) Concerning the Spiritual in Art. New York, Dover Books. Kumar, Siva. (2011) The Last Harvest: Paintings of Rabindranath Tagore. New Delhi, Ministry of Culture. Kapur, G. (1982) Six Indian Painters. London, Tate Gallery. Lachman, G. (2008) ‘Kandinsky's thought forms and the occult roots of modern Art’, in Quest. Vol.96, No.2, March-April. O’Connell, J.T. and O’Connell, K. (Fall 2008) ‘Introduction: Rabindranath Tagore as cultural icon’, in University of Toronto Quarterly. Vol. 77, No. 4: 961-970. Parimoo, R. (1989) Rabindranath Tagore Collection of Essays. New Delhi, Lalit Kala Akademi.

Image and Word / Rao Ringbom, S. (1966) ‘Art in 'The epoch of the great spiritual': Occult elements in the early theory of abstract painting’, in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes. Vol. 29: 386-418. Ringbom, S. (1970) ‘The sounding cosmos’, Acta Academiae Aboensis, Ser. A. 38 (2), Abo Akademi. Robinson, A. (1989) The Art of Rabindranath Tagore. New Delhi, Rupa Co. Sen, A. (1990) ‘Beyond borders: Rabindranath Tagore’s paintings and Visva-Bharati, Rupkatha’, in Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities. Vol.2, No.1, Special Issue, Visual Arts: 34-43. Stevens, Wallace. (1972) ‘The Relations between Poetry and Painting’, in Modern Culture and the Arts by James B. Hall and Barry Ulanov, McGraw-Hill Book Co: pp. 331-341. Subramanyam, Kalpathi Ganpathi. (1988) The Living Tradition: Perspectives on Modern Indian Art. Calcutta, Seagull Books Tagore, R. (1912) Gitanjali (Song Offerings). London, Indian Society. Tagore, R. (1936) 2002 Collected Poems and Plays of Rabindranath Tagore. New Delhi, Rupa Co.

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The Privileges of Diaspora: The selected work of Indo-Trinidadian artist Shalini Seereeram Sharda Patasar Independent Researcher sharda.patasar@gmail.com

Abstract Men and women in traditional wear; groups of coolie labourers posed looking into a camera; sugarcane plantations; bullock carts hauling cane from fields to factory – these are all familiar images of the East Indian experience in the West Indian colonies. The settings are usually rural and the eye looking in is almost always male. Over time as local artists began to depict their own experiences, again, it was mainly that of the male looking in on scenes. Sometimes it was a colonial gaze – one that celebrated simpler times, exoticized it; sometimes it was one that celebrated heritage and festivals, more often than not, Hindu and sometimes again, the plantation experiences that were rarely depicted in its hardship. It was an exercise in the making of a nation and a people in which the female subject found expression only through the male gaze. This paper attempts to explore some of the works of the artist Shalini Seereeram, as a way of introducing the idea that the diaspora is a space of privilege for the creative impulse. This paper is interested primarily in the work of Shalini Seereeram, the first openly female LGBTQ artist in Trinidad. The conversation around LGBTQ rights is yet in a marginalized space, hardly a feature of popular discourse. The paper looks at the way in which Seereeram’s work challenges this lack of discourse and prompts the viewer to consider the body as a medium of affirmation - of sexual orientation, self and consequently citizenship. The traditional physical limitations of the body are erased as the artist narrates the human self into being. This work represents research in its preliminary stages, part of a larger work on contemporary Indo-Trinidadian artists and it makes reference from time to time, of another young, upcoming Indo-Trinidadian male artist by way of comparing how each artist conceptualizes his and her ethnic identity and place in the nation as one aspect of the movement towards naturalization.

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Keywords: Indian art, Caribbean diaspora, LGBTQ Trinidad, Shalini Seereeram, Indo-Trinidadan female artists

Introduction: The Artist and Her World Bodies – singular, dual – undulating bodies, material manifestations of terrains and channels through and over which the woman narrates herself into form. Supple, flexible bodies that contain the capacity to shape shift. They merge with self, other, environment, yet the eyes look in and out, a somewhere elseness in their gaze.

Figure 1: “Belonging” Artist: Shalini Seereeram

Shalini Seereeram’s titles are open to multiple interpretations. Her work is entirely process oriented.

The Privileges of Diaspora / Patasar “It’s not a conscious thing…it just forms as I draw and I go with that flow. Maybe it’s residual component from past life, who knows…” 1 She is also not bound by past influences. She gives the impression of the artist of nature, her creative emergence a bond with the natural surroundings derived from loss and her family’s struggle to rebuild. In essence she is a modern migrant, moving from one space to another when her family lost their home in a fire and was forced to relocate to what is now their current residence. “When we came to live here you had to be creative. When I came to live here we had lost everything in a fire in Chaguanas. My sister found salvation in running away to my cousin and my brother he spent most time in Chaguanas by my uncle’s place. So basically I’m here... I was fortunate to have this great imagination to create things. So when school asked you to do things for the Aztecs and the Incas (I was) like let’s play with mud and create necklaces. I enjoyed coming to live here because the creativity actually sprung forth. Although the river can be a little…menacing now…when I came to live here it was just a nice little meandering drain on the side of my home where you did the tyre hanging from the roof thing. It was clay, it was mud and creativity…” 2 Her work began with nail polish, small brushes and brilliant colours that were once ‘coolie colours’, colours that were denigrated by the rest of the society and even those within the community who saw the bright reds, pinks and greens as representative of people who couldn’t afford much and whose exuberance was seen as the expression of the uncultured. Even today, in small pockets of the Indo-Trinidadian society, there still persists this notion of the coolie colours as a lower class expression. But filmmakers like Patricia Mohammed for instance overturns this notion of the uncultured to celebrate the Indian aesthetic traditions in the short film Coolie Pink and Green (2009). Shalini Seereeram’s work too is a celebration of this part of her heritage. “I didn’t allow pre-things that existed before influence me. The whole idea of me even doing Indian was that trade fair 3... It was material. It was just the material, the saris, the colour, those things I love. And that is really the influence. And then who would have worn the saris better, I believe the Indian women even

Facebook correspondence with Shalini Seereeram, September 16, 2017. Interview with Shalini Seereeram, August 17, 2017. 3 The Indian trade fairs selling clothes, jewelery, shawls, music, Hindu images and other products from India are now a resident feature of Trinidad. Located mainly in Central, South and East Trinidad, the trade fairs bring ‘the latest Bollywood fashions’ and products. 1 2

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though you see now everybody wearing the saris, everybody celebrating things.” 4 Her initial foray into painting began with a lack of material and it pushed her to improvise. “It was naturally adapting yourself to the material you had. When we came to live here we couldn’t have afforded much,” she reminisced. Shalini’s story is very much a story of diaspora, its privileges and limitations, the latter of which she continues to work against. The diaspora as a concept lends itself to a heightened human agency for the mere fact that on an imaginative level there are no stated expectations, yet on the material one, there are limits. These limits are self-imposed ones to a large extent. For the East Indian migrant in Trinidad, the affirmation of identity was and still is a means of selfpreservation. In an alien land, retentions are the natural way towards cultural and self-preservation. These retentions are constantly being challenged through economics, politics and social hierarchies and artistic work is naturally influenced by these challenges. The creative impulse is often caught between the market and authentic self-expression, cultural retention versus alienation from the group. But unlike another Indo-Trinidadian artist Wendy Nanan, of whom Patricia Mohammed writes, 5 Seereeram’s audience and the artist herself are not so much preoccupied with notions of a return to ethnic purity but rather a concern with identity and belonging as expressed through sexual orientation under which the overarching desire to be seen and respected as human is couched. To be understood and accepted for her sexual orientation is also naturally tied to discourses on nationhood and belonging for if a citizen should be marginalized for her alternate sexual orientation, then how does she belong to the nation? When does she become a natural citizen of her birth country? When does she simply become human, not identified by any other categories but simply that of the human? “Belonging” (Figure 1) challenges the viewer to move beyond the two figures and consider who belongs where, how do we belong and what are the limitations of belonging. Like “Belonging” “Sindoor” too pulls from Hindu tradition in which Shalini Seereeram, August 17, 2017 Patricia Mohammed, "The Point of No Return: Wendy Nanan as Post-Indenture Female visionary Artist in Trinidad.” Small Axe 53: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism, Duke University Press. Special Section: Arts after I ndenture 2017. 4

The Privileges of Diaspora / Patasar the artist revisions the application of sindoor, the sacred act reminiscent of belonging where marriage is not simply a marriage of bodies but souls.

Figure 6: “Sindoor” Artist: Shalini Seereeram

These intertwined bodies seem to reflect Seereeram’s question “Are there even any more in Trinidad…any clear distinctions between people?’ But I ask, ‘are there any clear distinctions between people generally?” Ancestry.com and other DNA advertisements now signal a movement towards expanding the world, proving that we are made of multiple ancestries. What does that mean for an individual? In her world of entwined people, that breaks the limitations of the body, the female body, once a metonym simply for child bearing and repository of traditions, becomes every woman and every man. She is love and understanding, she is goddess of speech, art and intelligence. She is the possibilities of diaspora, the imagination unbounded and unfettered.

Situating the Indo-Trinidadian aesthetic The Indian diaspora in the Caribbean is mainly concentrated in the Southern Caribbean. However, the ‘…Asian impact,’ as Patricia Mohammed writes ‘on the continuing evolution of the Caribbean remains unmapped’ (Mohammed, 2009: 249). 6 While the Indo-Trinidadian population has been well represented in fiction, history and anthropology, their work and representation in the visual arts Mohammed uses Asian to signify the population drawn from the Asian subcontinent – Chinese, Indians and Indonesians. 6

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like photography and painting have been far less explored. This paper therefore attempts to fill a part of this gap in its interest in the contemporary artists and the way in which a new generation of artists born in the 1970s onwards have conceptualized their place within the country. They straddle multiple worlds - the colonial, the post-independence and the internet age. Incidentally 2017, marks the fifty-fifth anniversary of the nation’s independence as well as the centenary anniversary of the legal abolition of indentureship. Trinidad is a new nation with a political system and cultural space that is as yet in the process of making itself. Problems of governance plague the island with crime on an increase and the oil and gas reserves which once sustained the economy in threat of depletion. The diversification of the economy is a project well removed from governments’ list of urgent matters. The race divisions that generally surface in political scenarios are well known and have been one of the major reasons behind the lack of continuity in the way systems like education, crime and law work. The distribution of resources for cultural production and identification of what constitutes national culture is naturally determined by what the ruling party deems national culture. East Indians have generally claimed marginalization in the distribution of resources and until recently one activist for Indian rights has found himself on the Caribbean Examinations Council Board (CXC) after persistently bombarding social media claiming CXC’s exclusion of Indians from the history and literature syllabus (See Bisram, 2017; Mahabir, 2017). This ongoing battle is neither new to popular debate nor academic inquiry. Viranjini Munasinghe explores this in detail arguing that two national narratives arose from the way in which race was configured in the colonial period of British rule. The divide and rule method applied by the British to serve their economic interests persists. The first narrative is one of homogenization through racial and cultural mixture which brings to the fore the concept of the Creole, while the other is based on the continuation of ancestral diversities (Munasinghe, 2001: 6). I would like to use here, the term recasting 7 when speaking about identity, as casting here plays on two ideas. The first is the term caste, a boundary that was I was searching for a term that encapsulated my concept of identity in the Indian diaspora as unfolding rather than a remaking of Indian-ness. There is in my view, no set mould from which identity is remade since the diaspora itself comprised East Indians of different caste backgrounds and as evident the pursuit of different types of art forms for instance represented people’s ideas of Indian-ness. An example of this is those who sing Chutney songs versus those who practiced North Indian Classical music. Caste disintegrated in the Caribbean although there were still hints of it when marriage alliances between families of two different ‘caste’ backgrounds had to be 7

The Privileges of Diaspora / Patasar crossed from the first step onto the vehicle that took the East Indians across the Kala Pani where Kala could translate as black or Kala as time depending on the reading of this English transliteration. Kala in both cases caused the disintegration of the idea of boundaries. Seen in the first instance as unclean, impure, this journey was the first step towards disruption – disruption of previously held purity concerns, that of life, families and space. It signified the movement towards transplanting, itself a disruption if one thinks of the idea of transplanting a tree of plant, one that involves digging up the dirt to place into another pot or space, the idea of recasting or reshaping both plant and dirt. The group were also simply ‘coolies’ a homogenizing term that saw the East Indian indentured workers as labour and nothing more. This disruption of caste identities would however allow for the invention of new identities. In many cases the creative impulse that may have been present in classes of people who were formerly jewellers or potters or artisans of some sort, would remain embedded in people’s consciousness and would come to the fore when some reverted to former professions after their terms of contract ended. There is little research on these traditions but evidence of jewellery work continues in some families like Bhagwat Jewellers whom Patricia Mohammed references in her chapter ‘The Asian Signature’ and the potters who have from time to time appeared as a subject in the local newspapers. The tattoo artists, identified as ‘Madras people’8 now dead, left their imprints on the arms of many elderly women in Trinidad.

made. Professor Patricia Mohammed, professor of Gender and Cultural Studies at The University of the West Indies, suggested using the term recasting given that it also plays on the idea of caste and encapsulated the idea of culture as performance. Email correspondence, September 7, 2017. 8 This information was culled between 2014-2016 during which time I was engaged in research on the Ganesh Utsav in Southern Trinidad during which time a photography project also emerged which entailed portraits and interviews with elderly East Indians over the age of 80. A part of this entailed photographing the hands of the elderly and as such the tattoo art project emerged. The tattoo art tradition was a means of marking a woman as married property. It was a tradition done after marriage and young girls, ranging from pre-pubescent to sixteen which was usually the age of marriage for Hindus were supposed to have their forearms tattooed so that they would then be considered pure and their in-laws would then accept food and water from them. A tattoo on the female’s chest was said to ensure that after death, she would be reunited with her mother. The majority, if not all the interviewees referenced the tattoo artists as ‘Madras people’ who spoke a different language to the general ‘Hindi’ speaking population. In Trinidad often one hears Bhojpuri referred to as Hindi, Hindustani or Indian.

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Figure 2 and 3: Tattoo art on chest of an elderly woman, Tattoo on forearm of elderly woman. Photograph: Nyla Singh

Recasting therefore also employs the idea of the stage where identities are played out and continue to be played out as time passes. The Kala Pani continues to be reworked as circumstances shape it. But growth happens as an inevitable consequence of existing. So too I envision the shaping of identities. But unlike the systematic growth as happens with the human body, the making and shaping of identities is hardly a linear process. This is by no means a novel idea. Group identities for instance are played out in social places like festivals or music concerts, while even within this perceived group setting, there are hierarchies of behaviours – the lower and upper class - the type of alcohol consumed which gives an indication of style and class, the people we associate with within the group and so forth are identity markers. People constantly work within personal, group and national identities. And so a study of the Seereeram’s work is really a study of this process of recasting. Creolization needs to be briefly explained here as to how it is conceptualized by the common man. When one looks at Seereeram’s work, one if struck by the hybridity of her female forms, the lips that seem more Afro-centric, the dark bodies, hair that seem mixed race, stereotypical qualities that the Trinidadian audience will perceive, yet, the Indo-Caribbean quality is difficult to evade in her paisley designs, the flowing material reminiscent of saris, the colours and textures that would allow a reviewer to say that Shalini Seereeram’s work is ‘an established distinctive style of…vibrant colours and intricate patterns representing Indo-Caribbean culture. While the influence of Indian customs and traditions, Hindu specifically, are clear in her work, she also offers a reflection of

The Privileges of Diaspora / Patasar Trinidad as a racially and culturally diverse space’ (Nixon, 2014). Richard Rampersad, a younger, upcoming artist relates his experience in the art circuits. His audiences unlike Shalini’s are more concerned with identity and ethnic purity. Rampersad explains, “In my early twenties… I had not done one single Indian themed work. If I had done one it would have been a commissioned piece. That had a purpose. And the rationale, the reason was persons wouldn’t buy it. People wanted something with more of a Caribbean appeal if you want to say a little more African quality. That is why you would have seen my African women I did that when I was around twenty-three going on twenty-four. And I told myself I am doing this because I know this is what people would want, it’s Caribbean, it would sell so it is with that type of sensibility I went on to do that because I fear that the Indian works wouldn’t have sold because when I was like about eighteen or nineteen, I did do a series of Hindu gods and goddesses and it just remained there. A lot of times people say I only do African work, I do get that a lot. This recent body here with the dancers, a few persons are now telling me ‘he found back his Indian roots.’ It’s not that I found it back, it was always there.”9 However these criticisms are not new to many Indo-Trinidadian artist.

Figure 4: “Nartaki” Richard Rampersad, 2017

Interview with Richard Rampersad, September 15, 2017.

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Audiences of artists identified as Indo-Trinidadian expect certain types of works. There is a constant preoccupation with purity and culture. So therefore, where the term creole can work as an academic term to mean the making of newness, in layman’s language it is interpreted as the tendency to Africanize. Hence many Indo-Trinidadians particularly in the field of music, resist this description of their work, viewing it as a derogatory term. Among conservative Indians the implication of Africanized behaviour represents a detour away from Indian morals and values since the African is generally seen as someone of looser morals and lower culture. The historical positioning of the African from the colonial period encouraged this perception. Hence although musical forms like chutney and chutney soca are creolized forms, having adopted into them calypso and soca rhythms along with the folk rhythm of Indian folk songs and in this new age, Bollywood songs mixed with reggae, rave and other world music’s, their listening audience are mainly Indo-Trinidadians. Modern musicians are gradually releasing their hold on authenticity although their musical base continues to be Bollywood music (For further reading on the development of Chutney music, see Ramnarine, 2000; also see Niranjana, 2006; Patasar, 2013). Yet there are those who still retain a symbolic authenticity or what they deem to be the authentic Indian musical identity and endeavour to stray less into the creolizing mission. Instead, they focus on reworking existing folk songs into a medium that is still heavily East Indian using markers of Indianness like Hindi or Bhojpuri in song lyrics or instruments like the dholak and dhantaal to maintain an Indian musical sound. This enactment of multiple identities versus the purity of ethnicity is present in the visual arts space as well and is not helped by the fact that while there was an East Indian creative impulse in such practices as rangoli designs or decorations for yagyas, and other artistic practices found it religious observances, there were no established traditions of Indian art from which artists were working. Seereeram’s work therefore occupies an important position in this context as art that creates its own tradition.

The Development of Indo-Trinidadian Artistic Traditions My research in mūrti making in the context of the Ganesh festival in Trinidad yielded artistic traditions that were largely contained within small village communities. Out of the six interviewees, only two were formally trained – one a trained artist who transferred his artistic skill into making mūrtis while the other was a trained mūrti maker. The others sculpted out of a devotional desire to do

The Privileges of Diaspora / Patasar so. In two cases there existed what may be the closest to a lineage of artists, students of people who themselves had learnt from an earlier artisan whose impulse towards mūrti making usually emerged during the Ganesh festival. The absence of formal schools of art is not surprising for as Patricia Mohammed notes ‘Few fine art traditions had traveled with such disrupted cultures and generally migrants were acquired from among the poor and disadvantaged. Trained artists or craftsmen, the transference of materials and methods, or defined schools of painting were secondary to able-bodied capacity for work, and records are silent on the skills of these groups or individuals other than as units of labour for the colonial enterprise…Africans and Indians nonetheless established “festival arts” based on celebrations linked to religious or work relief practices as their primary aesthetic expressions’ (Mohammed , 2017). The mūrti maker, the only known one in the country who had the opportunity to study the art in India reveals an experience of eclectic learning where because he was an outsider, he was not accepted into any formal lineages of mūrti making. Because his scholarship was only three years, he had to learn as much as he could in that time and was therefore forced to go from person to person attempting to learn as much as he could. His education therefore comprised a pulling together of different styles from various teachers. His story highlights an important point however, as it pertains to the construction of an eclectic vision, one that pulled from various strands. This construction of a way of seeing and learning in an eclectic fashion is not a new notion to IndoTrinidadians or the Caribbean as a whole. The people who comprise the modern Caribbean retain the cultural memory of displacement, a neither here- nor thereness, particularly in fractured societies like Trinidad and Guyana that are still scrambling over the hurdle of race relations and its influence on cultural and political power. Shalini Seereeram’s work references this fracture and the eclectic building of traditions. Her bodies are generally never straightforward, on one level, representative of her search for love while on the other, the fractured society to which she belongs. The bodies seem comprised of various parts and patterns placed together, a mosaic of sorts. One notes in ‘The Promise’ the compilation of several patterns so much so that the leg of one body is separated into two as the background comes into focus. Hair blends into one smooth flow and the viewer is not completely sure where one body ends and the other begins.

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Figure 5: “The Promise” Artist: Shalini Seereeram

This is a statement of belonging too, a promise it seems to belong, a promise of acceptance. The closed eyes (a very rare occurrence in Seereeram’s work) a measure of comfort while the open eyes continue to look. There is, despite its calm, a feeling of unease, as if one is constantly looking out for a perceived threat. The protective embrace of one also becomes the guarded embrace. There is also the complex internal politics of belonging that play out in the IndoTrinidadian community ‘Who is an authentic Indian?’ Is the lesbian woman then a part of this Indian-ness? One is thrown back to the film Bend It Like Beckham when Tony, Jess’s friend reveals that he is gay, and she exclaims “But, you are Indian!” These authentic practices occupy a shifting hierarchy. For some, the cultural baggage brought by the first generation is authentically Indian, versus the imported from film or travel. For others, the ‘real’ Indian is a combination of someone speaks Hindi (in some cases), vegetarian and practices Hinduism in a serious way, someone who has broken away from the village customs and language brought by their forefathers. And then there is the creolized, the modern Indian who perhaps lives in and around the capital and whose distance from Central Trinidad has made him a modern man or woman. And now, the lesbian woman who lives, by all appearances in the heartland of Indian culture and traditions, who is born Hindu yet, rejects traditions and assumes her own spiritual path through her artistic work, whose art itself draws heavily from Indian culture, yet still strives for a sense of belonging and citizenship.

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These identities condition artistic expression. Rampersad’s experience mentioned earlier is reiterated in the report of one journalist who noted, when speaking of national artist Shastri Maharaj, “Trinidad is hardly an easy place for a painter to work in, given the burden of expectations among audiences and critics for adherence to ethnic archetypes. That this has often threatened to limit the ways art is received is perhaps more true now than ever before. But Maharaj subverts and frustrates the easy assumption that his paintings should ooze traces of IndoCaribbean-ness…” (Art Beat, 2017). When by 1935, the first Hindi film was brought to the island the East Indian population would inherit ideas of religion, dress, language, behaviour, music and stories from the Hindi feature. To these diasporic people, those few hours in a cinema hall would reconnect them with an idea of home, not necessarily one that they themselves had known, but one that they now had the capacity to create in a land with new forms of Indian nationalism. For many years, their eyes would continue to drift from India to Trinidad, a double-consciousness that would persist for a long time. The double-consciousness became further entrenched with politics and the establishment of political parties that were associated with a particular racial background. There was the Indian party and the African party, even while both were Trinidadians. The People’s National Movement from the outset was led by the Afro-Trinidadian Oxford educated historian Dr. Eric Williams while the Democratic Labour Party by Bhadase Sagan Maharaj, a man who was by 1956 the voice of the Indians and Hindus. 10 The task of the politician in the preindependence and post-independence eras remained and remains that of educating people into the idea of a Mother Trinidad. The vision still applies today as it was fifty-five years ago when Dr. Eric Williams wrote: "There can be no Mother India, for those whose ancestors came from India....there can be no Mother Africa, for those of African origin. There can be no Mother England and no dual loyalties..... The only Mother we recognize is Mother Trinidad and Tobago, and Mother cannot discriminate between her children" (Williams-Connell, 2012: 279). 10 The Sanathan Dharma Maha Sabha (SDMS) founded by Bhadase Sagan Maharaj remains to this day one of the dominant voices of the Hindu/Indian population. The SDMS also established Hindu schools since 1952 and is today responsible for over 31 elementary schools, 5 high schools and several temples across the island.

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While Trinidad is often portrayed as a callaloo nation celebrated through its Carnival to be a rainbow country where everyone lives in harmony and for the most part this is true, yet, it is within creative work that the political reality lies. As Gayatri Spivak notes ‘Every diasporic feels a pull of somewhere else while located here’ (Spivak, 2009). But one will note that this notion of being pulled into a there necessitates that the diasporic establishes a sense of here. The essential question is and has been ‘how do we do that?’ The nationalism debate has raged on for over fifty-years but in that time, the world itself has moved quickly into an era of information and interconnectedness at a faster rate than previous centuries. Nation remains an abstraction. While they are natural citizens, whether certain racial groups particularly the East Indian community feels itself to be a part of the island is still debatable. It raises the question of the natural versus the naturalized citizen. Natural citizenship is a birthright, but this is more place sensitive than an reality for imaginatively some Indo-Trinidadians still feel an allegiance to an Indian/Hindu past and Indian values. But is this nationalism or is it simply identifying with something in which the individual feels a sense of comfort? 11 I feel a sense that most migrants are in a sense in the process of naturalization even while occupying a space as natural citizens. And today, in the context of human rights, for people of alternate sexual orientations, that process of naturalization is still ongoing. It gives rise to another concept of the natural citizen. In Trinidad and many other nations, LGBT individuals are not natural, but citizens to be naturalized, for they fall outside the usual category where they do not enjoy the rights to certain privileges enjoyed by heterosexual couples. And so while Seereeram’s work aims at destroying borders, it takes on a political task of affirming the LGBT right to belong, to be a citizen. This is unavoidable when one speaks of belonging. How then is the Kala Pani now reworked in the eyes of such marginalized people?

Conclusion: Nation and translation The term Kala Pani, originally meaning ‘Black Waters’ represented the Hindu vision of the sea. While water purifies, crossing the water however was seen as 11 This idea is borrowed from Gayatri Spivak’s essay ‘Nationalism and the Imagination’ where she confronts nationhood as a deceptive category for ‘we allow it to play with our imagination as if it is knowledge’.

The Privileges of Diaspora / Patasar unclean. Travel across water, on ships where various classes would be bundled in for the long trip to the West Indies, would mark this loss of caste as people came in touch not only physically but psychically for ritual purity after all is an imaginative construct. I am however interested today in how the term ‘Kala’ can now be reworked and has been reworked symbolically. Transliteration lends itself to severe misinterpretations yet allows room for reinterpretations. The written does not in fact cement meanings but rather in translation, allows open space for the imagination to roam. In its transliteration from Hindi to English the vowel sound ‘a’ in Kala is open to re-visioning and the imposition of new identities onto the word. The term Kala Pani (Black waters or the Waters of Death) destroyed as mentioned earlier, the idea of the boundary by its imagined ability to disintegrate caste. But it also allowed for the recreation of caste identities in Trinidad. The literate labourers for instance, quickly established themselves as the learned and took on the roles of pundits, taking upon themselves the caste of Brahmins. This prompted one historian to dub them ‘Brahmin by boat, not birth’. Though historians have claimed an erosion of caste, the caste sensibility remained intact among many Indo-Trinidadians. Caste now reformulated as class was often constructed along the lines of skin colour so that upper castes were generally of lighter skin as opposed to the dark Madrasis for instance. The term, ‘fair like them Bombay Indians’ quickly became a common expression no doubt gathered from the light-complexioned film heroes and heroines of the Hindi movies. Even today, it will not be uncommon to hear an elderly East Indian refer to certain skin complexions and facial features as Chhatri (Kshatriya) or ‘I don’t know any black Brahmin’ where black is the colour of the chamar caste. The reconstruction of caste in this way, allowed for the persistence of certain traditions particularly when it came to the issue of marriage. V.S. Naipaul’s own account of his encounter with caste difference in the rumoured marriage of a distant relation to someone of chamar (leather-worker) caste is a fitting example of the sensibility that persisted in certain areas of life (Naipaul, 1968: 33). However as he notes “In Trinidad caste has no meaning in our day-to-day life; the caste we occasionally played at was no more than an acknowledgement of latent qualities; the assurance it offered was such as might have been offered by a palmist or a reader of handwriting” (Naipaul, 1968: 33). And so, such erosion of usefulness would allow space for the reconstruction of traditions. The lota (water pot usually made from brass) for instance, once a tool

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simply for holding water either for drinking or cleaning oneself, became a sacred object used in pujas. Such revisionings were part of the practice of reconstructing India and the memory of India, that fragmented, abstract notion of a nation where the authentic traditions lay. Memory therefore became enshrined to a large part in religion and customs so much so that one popular Trinidadian historian quipped that Hindus who had converted to the Presbyterian religion were really Presbindus. While these converts exhibited names and dress that were Western in nature and spoke the Queen’s English, the internal Hindu sensibility remains. It is not unlike Naipaul’s own confession that “I had rejected tradition; yet how can I explain my feeling of outrage when I heard that in Bombay they used candles and electric bulbs for the Diwali festival, and not the rustic clay lamps, of immemorial design, which in Trinidad we still used? I had been born an unbeliever. Yet the thought of the decay of the old customs and reverences saddened me…” (Naipaul, 1968: 36). And it is in keeping with my own experience of India when a childhood memory of Diwali in Benares, that most sacred of cities, came with candles rather than the clay lamps that Naipaul spoke of. Or that meat was served on Diwali day at our Punjabi friends’ homes. These experiences went against the traditional view of India that my parents had and for us children, they were simply different. As I grew older, the memories represented India’s modernity, one that scandalized the Trinidadian Hindu’s sense of purity when I retold the story to Trinidadian Hindu friends. It was only later on when I had myself rejected tradition and had begun my university education that these things made sense, that these instances moved from being expressions of modernity to the understanding that India was not a large homogenous mass of Hindi speaking, Hindu people - that being Hindu itself had different faces and traditions. And that the point of the candles was not that there were necessarily modern, but that they were also cheaper that coconut oil and that Divali was about the light, not the source of it. Thus while the Kala Pani had removed certain boundaries, it had imaginatively erected others as Indians sought to reconstruct not from the lived experience of India but a combination of fragments retained from memories that entailed fragments of a lived experience of India, the oral traditions passed down from one generation to the next and those images borrowed from snippets of travels where tours took travelers mainly to the holy sites and shopping centres; films, photographs and other visual and audio aids that created images of a Bollywood set. South India for instance had little to no part to play in our constructed image

The Privileges of Diaspora / Patasar of India. But we had become more India than India itself. We, the people looking in on India could teach India its culture as one Pichakaaree song related. 12 And it was therefore necessary for Indo-Trinidadians to hold on to pieces of time that were in threat of slipping away onto another boat. But, in today’s world, the feeling of something slipping away in some quarters opens the Kala Pani to further thought. Kala holds the power to be Kal, Kāl or Kalā as its transliteration leaves those vowel sounds in the adjective open to play. Language after all, has the capacity to construct the way that one sees the world and can also be manipulated for our own uses. In the first two incarnations of Kala, time becomes its major feature – Kal, meaning tomorrow, a future towards which we walk and is largely unknown to us for the most part, and Kāl, time. But Kāl is also used in reference to death however, even death is unknowable as is the future and therefore both Kal and Kāl share not only time as a core concept but the reality of the unknown and unknowable. But it is this space between times - present time and the unknown that we live and create. This in-betweeness is fodder for the imagination and the artists here too play with the movement from known to unknown. In Richard Rampersad’s work one notes separate worlds, his India, his Trinidad. And as he mentions ‘My preoccupation with Indian art I think, I see it as an assertion of my Indo identity. Apart from wanting to communicate how I want to respond to a social reality, I see it as a way of wanting to assert my Indian-ness identity…I just think that I have a responsibility as an artist to make this statement and throw it out in the public domain. Somehow I think that we are losing it too….losing the Indian-ness, the Indo-centric consciousness that we should have…And this is my very small and minute way of celebrating it and propagating…and promoting it.’ 13

12 Pichakaaree songs are a local creation by the Hindu Prachar Kendra. They are songs that ranged from political and social commentaries to festive and are sung during Holi or Phagwa. ‘Panday In India’ is a song that spoke of (perhaps a fictional account) of when the Prime Minister Panday’s visit to India yielded a country where women wore mini-skirts and men wore trousers while we in Trinidad could teach them a thing or two about traditions for our women still wore their ghangris (long skirts) and men, their dhotis. 13 Author interview with Richard Rampersad, September 15, 2017

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The crossing of the water not only moved indentured labourers geographically from one time zone to another, but it would move them imaginatively back and forth as they sought to build their lives in the new space. The resulting culture of the Indo-Trinidadians acquired over time through the multiple received and borrowed images is one that still moves uneasily between the perceived ‘original’ culture, the need to preserve and rejuvenate versus the nation that attempts to erode. Time is of essence here and the difficult relationship between pockets of people is an issue of temporality, for the Indian identity in Trinidad is layered. There are various ways in which people imagine their Indian-ness, not unlike many migrant nations. For Trinidad, often Trinidadian-ness is contained in the steelpan and Carnival, while cricket contains the location of regional identity. The relationship between state and citizens is usually a troubling one hence the race politics that still persists up to today. There is in the minds of citizens no party that represents everyone and the society is thus in disharmony over distribution of resources. Issues of which racial group gets more, which culture is sidelined, which is seen as belonging, are still ones that are being worked through. And therefore it brings us to another interpretation of Kala’s Kalā, the performing art into which one can throw culture and identity. Should identities be considered a performing art, it therefore insists on having the flexibility to improvise. And so too, one can consider the way in which this is applicable to cultural identities. For Seereeram, unlike Rampersad, there is no evidence of a feeling of loss but rather a need to belong. For her, the translation between visual languages is automatic. She doesn’t need to think of it. When asked about her designs she responds ‘I can’t get the paisley out. It’s just there. I simply need to work with it.’ 14 Like her flowing garments she too flows with her sense of authenticity. It does not appear contrived. Her cultural identity is inherent and manifests in the flexibility to move seamlessly between cultures. As Rampersad notes of her work “Her women are not straightforward... Sometimes you are not sure whether it’s a goddess or a woman. There’s a lot going on in her visual vocabulary. Although a lot of her designs are Indo-centric, the flowing fabric..the features. She may put a hibiscus in the hair simulating a Caribbean woman yet still maintaining Indo-centric qualities in the work. Her work is a good microcosm of Trinidad… It just pulls and takes from all over. It’s 14

Author interview with Shalini Seereeram, September 17, 2017

The Privileges of Diaspora / Patasar not one thing in its purest form. She is positing something very unique.” 15 Hers is a borderless world, one that flows into removing the limitations of body and mind. “I think my conversation with myself, really acknowledging me, and to embrace that feminine love because I don’t think it’s a feminine love you can have with somebody else, it’s really a feminine love you have to have with yourself first. Even in intertwining the people, that I have all the embraces…The embrace is almost… unrealistic or you try to hold on to the embrace but when you look at it it’s really having a conversation with yourself and then the love is extended in someone else. You look for people who can reflect that love and that reflection is almost an extension of yourself, in somebody finding that in somebody else so that’s it. Your desires or whatever you find in somebody else is like self-love.” Seereeram, as an artist with her own sense of personal spirituality rather than a belief in religion assumes the diasporic right to pull from strands of her cultural heritage, a cultural heritage that crosses borders. She is neither Indian nor Trinidadian, neither African nor East Indian. She knots her fragments loosely in ways that work towards the revisioning of place, belonging and identity as she journeys towards a wholeness that can be only be transcended by a natural movement across languages and borders to become as Naipaul once declared ‘a citizen of the world’.

Author interview with Richard Rampersad, September 15, 2017

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References

“Art Beat”. (2005) Caribbean Beat Magazine, Issue 72, April/May 2005. http://caribbean-beat.com/issue-72/art-beat#axzz4sOK4rGqJ. Accessed September 4, 2017. Bisram, Vishnu. (2017) Letter to the Editor. The Guyana Times. March 6, 2017. http://guyanatimesgy.com/public-should-support-call-to-combat-racismat-cxc/. Accessed, September 3 2017. Interview with Richard Rampersad, September 15, 2017. Interview with Shalini Seereeram, September 17, 2017. Mahabir, Kumar. “CLR James films show how Whites collude with Blacks to exclude Indians.” Jamaica Observer. June 20, 2017, http://m.jamaicaobserver.com/opinion/clr-james-films-show-how-whitescollude-with-blacks-to-excludeindians_102397?profile=1288&template=MobileArticle. Accessed, September 3 2017. Mohammed, Patricia. "The Point of No Return: Wendy Nanan as Post-Indenture Female visionary Artist in Trinidad.” Small Axe 53: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism, Duke University Press. Special Section: Arts after I ndenture 2017. Mohammed, Patricia. Imaging the Caribbean: Culture and Visual Translation, Oxford: Macmillan Education. 2009. Mohammed, Patricia. Mohammed, Patricia. “Intersecting Trajectories: Chinese and Indian Artists in Trinidad in the Early Twentieth Century” Circles and Circuits: Chinese Caribbean Art, Editor: Alexandra Chang, Duke University Press, forthcoming Dec 2017. Munasinghe, Viranjhini. Callaloo or Tossed Salad, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2001. Naipaul, V.S. An Area of Darkness, London: Penguin Books, 1968. Niranjana, Tejaswini. Mobilizing India: Women, Music and Migration Between India and Trinidad. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2006. Nixon, Angelique. ‘Terrains of Female Desire: Women Loving Women and Radical Acts of Self-Care in Shalini Seereeram’s “Intimate Moments”.’ Arc Magazine, December 23, 2014. http://arcthemagazine.com/arc/2014/12/terrains-of-female-desirewomen-loving-women-and-radical-acts-of-self-care-in-shaliniseereerams-intimate-moments/. Accessed September 15 2017.

The Privileges of Diaspora / Patasar Patasar, Sharda. “The Ritual Art of the Ganesh Utsav in Trinidad.” Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas Volume 2, Issue 3, 2016. pp.181-199. Patasar, Sharda. ‘Sounding the Landscape: Indian Musical Identities 1935-2013’, PhD. thesis, The University of Trinidad and Tobago, 2013. “Pichakaaree Music: Dialogues with the Nation.” The Musicology Review, Issue 9. University College, Dublin, 2016. Eds. John Millar and Simon Nugent.

https://www.themusicologyreview.com/wpcontent/uploads/2015/11/Sharda-Patasar-Pichakaaree-Music-Dialogueswith-the-Nation.pdf

Spivak, Chakravorthy Gayatri. “Nationalism and the Imagination.’ Lectora, 15: 75-98. (2009). https://dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/3102697.pdf. Accessed August 24 2017. Tina Ramnarine, Creating their Own Space: The Development of an Indian Caribbean Musical Tradition. The University of the West Indies Press, 2000. Williams-Connell, Erica. ‘Yet to Fulfil Vision of Williams.’ Trinidad Guardian, August 30, 2012. http://www.guardian.co.tt/business-guardian/2012-0921/yet-fulfill-vision-williams. Accessed September 11 2017.

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The Two Talking Yonis: the use of Hindu iconography in conversations of race, identity, politics and womanhood within contemporary South African art Reshma Chhiba Exhibitions Coordinator, Wits School of Arts

Abtrstact This article looks at the use of Hindu iconography within South African visual art practice and its relation to race, identity, politics and womanhood in the work of Reshma Chhiba. It draws primarily on work from the 2013 exhibition entitled The Two Talking Yonis: Reshma Chhiba in conversation with Nontobeko Ntombela, and discusses Chhiba’s use of the image of the goddess Kali, the concept of yoni, the use of Bharatanatyam and understandings of feminine energy in relation to womanhood. It also threads a narrative of Chhiba’s ancestry through a poetic description of her grandmother’s journey from India to South Africa, and the embodiment of Kali as a form of defiance not only in her work, but also in her grandmother.

Key words: Kali, yoni, bharatanatyam, Shiva Shakti, feminine energy, South Africa,

For many years I have been interested in feminine energy and the creation of ‘alternative female identities’ within a patriarchal society. This has most often been inspired by the position of the Hindu goddess Kali (Fig.1), who through my reading of her, has come to represent a fierce, ferocious and defiant form of female identity within my production. While my Indian ancestry and heritage has influenced my interest in Kali and this goddess has been my most immediate reference to a mythological woman of power throughout my life, my production cannot simply be reduced to readings solely from a Hindu perspective, nor is it in any way focused on ‘religious’ art. This paper discusses the use of Hindu mythology and iconography, in relation to race, identity, politics and womanhood within a contemporary South African art discourse through The Two Talking Yonis project, my solo exhibition, curated by Nontobeko Ntombela - a three-part exhibition that was displayed concurrently in three different venues in Johannesburg.

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…Ajima 1… This is where the conversation begins; she is the starting point, my late maternal grandmother, Devi2 Parshotam, née Chhiba. 3 She - who travelled (circa 1950) with her seven-year-old son by ship from Gujarat, India to East Africa, and finally taking a train ride down to South Africa - was a woman who overcame great difficulty in a foreign land. She - who spoke a foreign tongue, and battled patriarchal systems within her home and within the broader South African context, yet all the while embodied Figure 1

the innate strength, beauty and power of the goddess, something many around her would witness. She was a young woman in her 20’s (exact age unknown) and suddenly had to assimilate to another culture, space, way of being, and to a life she probably never imagined for herself. To me, my Ajima was an embodiment of Kali. They - Kali and Ajima - are synonymous. Ajima informs my practice. Years after her passing, I probed a conversation with her. This imagined conversation with her, the absent yoni, the original yoni, started in 2005. I ask: What is it that draws me to this space of

engagement with that which cannot be attained? And how do I do it? …It is ongoing.

Ajima and Kali both arrived in my space around the same time but perhaps it was Ajima who arrived first. And it was her arrival that invoked the sudden presence of Kali as a being of female defiance within my artistic production. Their joint arrival cannot be coincidental. They are simultaneous. The more I learnt about the goddess, the more I felt the presence of Ajima, not in the sense of her physically being in my space, but rather that the embodiment of ‘the Kali’ was present in the life of my grandmother. I learnt

This is what I called my maternal grandmother; it is a Gujarati word. Literally translating as ‘goddess’. 3 While my grandmother’s maiden name happens to be the same as mine, there is no confirmation that the spelling would be the same; there is no written record of this left in the ‘family archive’. For the purposes of this essay and symbolic meaning to me I have kept the spelling the same. 1 2

The Two Talking Yonis / Chhiba about my grandmother’s life through conversations with my mother. The more I dug into her life, through my mother, the more I realized the innate power of women of her generation. And while the story of her life is specific to her journey and ancestry, her story of power and ability to overcome is not outside of the context of ‘being woman’, of fighting patriarchy, of gender, of ethnicity, of race. In my ‘conversations’ with Ajima I realized that her push back was towards more than just survival in a foreign space. The choice to speak languages that were both of this context and not, Fanagalo 4 and Gujarati 5 , but with a purposeful rejection of the colonial tongue or language was her very first act of Defiance. It is in the unpacking of her life that I learn about the unfairness of patriarchal communities, particularly the South African ‘Indian’ community. It was in the anger that arose during this digging that I realised that Kali was undoubtedly personified through my grandmother. This personification enforces her ability to take economic ownership of her survival rather than to simply…endure. Instead not only did she take economic power by choosing to sell atchaar and samoosas from home, but she also took charge of running the monthly budget in her home. Defiance again. And like a great motherly goddess, she lived a life of ‘making big’ 6 many children, and like many women of her generation, she did this ‘alone’. Ajima’s generation lived by the principle that women stayed home to raise the kids and look after the home, while men went out to work and be the financial providers. In this sense, she single-handedly raised her kids, yet was always tied to patriarchy, always tied to “expectation”, yet she did it in a way that would ‘make big’ a trail of female ‘warriors’ in her shadow, of more Kali’s to come. Defiance again.

Also spelled Fanakalo It would always be a barrier in our real conversations – the fact that I had never grasped my (grand) mother tongue well enough to converse with her. This misfortune will always be a regret for me. 6 Making big is a colloquialism used by some South African Indians, particularly those for whom English is not a first language. It has over many generations become part of the vocabulary of this community, without necessarily being recognised as something grammatically “incorrect”. The act of “making big” implies a nurturing motherly role by the person performing it, and also perhaps implies something sacrificial in this act. 4 5

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The embodiment of ‘the Kali’ is more complex. It is not simply about pushing against a system in aggressive ways. It is the ability to overcome, to transform, and to move beyond that space of difficulty. This I see in so many of the women in my life. I encounter these stories in so many conversations. …Kali… From the many descriptions 7 and images of Kali I have encountered, she can be described as follows: She is most often represented as naked/semi-naked, and wears a girdle of human arms, and a necklace of human skulls or heads. Her hair is unbound and dishevelled; her outstretched tongue drips with blood, evident of her aggressive temperament and suggestive of her erotic sexuality as a goddess. In various depictions she is shown to hold in her many hands a severed demonic head, a pot of blood, swords, daggers, scissors and numerous other weapons, but is also sometimes shown with the gesture of abhayam 8 (protection), as are most Hindu deities. While my interest in mythology and use of Kali iconography as a point of departure has not changed, there was a definite shift in my thinking and positioning leading up to The Two Talking Yonis project. I am a secondgeneration South African born woman of Indian ancestry, who also occupies a space of complicating the idea of being ‘black’ in a South African context. I see myself as South African before Indian, yet I cannot separate myself from this ancestry. This complicated position or identity is at the forefront of my thinking, my way of being and most especially when creating art, exhibitions or dance. It is through the use of Kali iconography that I feel I am able to speak to this complication. Kali also becomes the ideal manifestation of the alternative female identity that I aim to present in my work. As Sharlene Khan (2012) points out in her essay Becoming: The Art of Everyday Performativity “…the notion that identity could be the result of a series of repetitive performances […] opens up the potential for alternative scripting and subversion”. 9 Thus rather than to simply represent the goddess, my intention is to use her iconography to subvert that that is Some examples of references to her are the writings of Ajit Mookerjee, Seema Mohanty and Thomas Ahsley-Farrand - see reference list for full details. 8 Abhaya hasta is a gesture commonly used in classical Indian dance to show protection or blessing when portraying various deities – see Abhinaya Darpana by Nandikesvara (1917) 9 Khan, S. (2012) Becoming, The Art of Everyday Performativity, in Stemberger, C.M. (ed) Alterating Conditions. Performing Performance Art in South Africa. Vienna: Goethe Institute, p. 16. 7

The Two Talking Yonis / Chhiba understood to be an expected way of talking, of thinking, of dressing, of being woman under patriarchal rule. The enactment of ‘the Kali’ is then something that can actually be embodied by woman as an alternative way of being. To me, Kali is in every lived moment, she is both in the light and the dark. The moments of defiance and acceptance, she is the ability to transform, to exist in spaces of duality and non-duality. She is both the ferociousness of a mother protecting her child and the defiant roar of the woman walking down the street being cat called. She is both without fear and of fear itself. She has the ability to choose outside of societal expectations while still able to operate meaningfully in those spaces. Just like Ajima. She is the ability to constantly overcome and stand naked and vulnerable through battle and yet still be beautiful in her ‘unbridled-ness’, her ‘un-convention’, her deviance. She is without ancestry and simultaneously of it; she is Indian in her blackness and black in her Indianness. She is the intersection(ality). …yoni… Expanding beyond my aim in previous projects, The Two Talking Yonis exhibition was intended to use Kali iconography to speak to a wider contemporary South African community rather than be located only within discourses about ‘Indian culture’ in South Africa. Outside of simply using iconography taken from the image of Kali, a shift occurred in my production when I encountered writings on the idea of the yoni or vulva as a space of sacredness and innate feminine power. Ajit Mookerjee (1988) in his book Kali: The Feminine Force points out that, “The yoni is extolled as a sacred area, the transmission-point for subtle forces, the gateway to cosmic mysteries”. 10 It was this notion of the subtle power of the yoni that became the starting point of The Two Talking Yonis project. I had envisioned a space that was an all-consuming, overpowering space of containment that resembled a cavity of some sort and could be likened to a yoni, a vaginal passage and a womb. But, the yoni was more than just the “sacred area”, it was multi-layered. It was personal. It was political. It was defiant. It addressed my interest in goddess 10

Mookerjee, A. (1988) Kali: The Feminine Force, UK: Thames & Hudson Ltd, p. 30.

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energy and the spiritual power believed to be stored and birthed from the vagina. It was site-specific and thus intended to be political as well - housed in the former women’s jail. The vagina in this context aimed to give these women, i.e. former prisoners, albeit in their absence, the power and agency to reclaim this space as one of protest. The exhibition also addressed the placement of me, either as Kali or as Reshma [The Talking Yoni] the artist, within this space. It was also my decision to invite Nontobeko Ntombela to curate the exhibition that brought my positionality and my politics to the forefront. Through the many conversations, disagreements and agreements with this collaborator, this sounding board, the other yoni of The Two Talking Yonis, my work was able to move beyond simply the aesthetic(s) of ‘Indianness’. The space of the prison also spoke back to Ajima. I ask: Were patriarchal homes

not another type of prison in themselves? Were the women of this generation not quietly accepting yet inwardly finding strength to push against this very system that they enabled? All I know is that it must have taken great courage and strength to accept (without choice) the lives that they lived, and it is in those moments that the role of the muted ‘the Kali’ is enacted.

…the exhibition… The project consisted of three installations of series’ of works that took place in the Women’s Jail (Constitution Hill), Room Gallery, and Kalashnikovv Gallery, all located in Johannesburg. The exhibition was curated in a manner that separated the various media (i.e. a media per exhibition space), which read as separate bodies of work within the broader thematic of the project. The show was intended to present a set of questions that were about the idea of relooking, re-examining and re-investigating the position of the female inherent in my production. Ntombela’s interest in my work was premised on the complex questions about the forms of representation of ‘female energy’. As the title of the exhibition The Two Talking Yonis suggests, over a period of a year Ntombela and I were engaged in discussions about the work that was being produced during that time. In turn these conversations shaped how the project evolved and was eventually realised – this is where the curatorial started to happen. These discussions were also centred on the yoni as a creative space, not just as a space of birth, but rather as a space of power and defiance. These spaces, as we considered them, were spaces of complexity that spoke to the yoni as a 49

The Two Talking Yonis / Chhiba metaphor and an abstract idea. In that moment the yoni became a space of criticality, protest, mockery, battle, revolt and femininity. This obsession and regurgitation of the yoni was a reaffirmation of femininity that was intended to speak about a possible mass identity, rather than just tying the discussion of the yoni to Hinduism or ‘Indianness’, its intention was to speak to a broader understanding of womanhood, position, race, power and defiance. Performance has always been a constant thread in my visual art aesthetic; that which can be traced through the process of sewing into the sari, classical Indian dance to interpret the different manifestations of Kali, and the making of the yoni. These processes, along with my engagement with Ntombela, set up a conversation between tradition and contemporary, mythology and reality, feminine and masculine, black and Indian, and artist and curator, as some of the main concerns that the project aimed to address. The project also dealt with critiquing exhibition practices in relation to role or relationship of the curator and the artist. It challenged the task of curating a solo show, working with a singular artistic concept, yet allowing for a space of negotiation, disagreements and exchange of ideas. These conversations, as Ntombela and I see it, will continue as a life-long conversation between us that will take on varying manifestations in years to come - currently the project is in its second iteration as a book project – The Yoni Book (published 2017) which Ntombela and I see to be a re-curation or re-exhibition of the initial Two Talking Yonis project. I believe, as a South African woman whose voice and position is currently probably one of the most invisible in contemporary society, that it is through negotiation, discussion and disagreement that these marginalised and invisible voices can claim a place of relevance and importance. Of course I speak from a position of my personal experience and understand that this may not be the case for all ‘Indian’ females in South Africa. But within an art world context that is so small and where practicing female artists of Indian ancestry a so few, I do believe that we are most often marginalised or our production perceived to be insignificant or stereotypical.

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Figure 2

The Two Talking Yonis project was aimed at addressing some of these issues

of racial minoritising, my deliberate decision to invite Ntombela to curate the exhibition was based on the premise that most often our discussions were always argumentative, with particular emphasis on me choosing a position of a South African ‘Indian’ female (at the time of our initial meeting), rather than calling myself a ‘black female’ artist – my ideas and politics have since developed into something more complex. But it is this complication of blackness that I think is important in our current socio-political climate in South Africa and was a constant conversation point during the making of this exhibition.

In this project, rather than positioning Hindu iconography or myself as marginal or inaccessible, my intention was to present this as something that is part of the fabric of this land, which it has occupied for over 150 years. While at the same time being cautious not to fall into the role of stereotyping Indians or ‘Indianness’, or being the stereotype for that matter.

The Two Talking Yonis / Chhiba I will very briefly describe the two exhibitions at Room Gallery and Kalashnikovv Gallery, which were, at the time, located next to each other along the Juta Street ‘art strip’ in Braamfontein. Room Gallery consisted of a series of paintings, which showed the goddess either in positions of sexual union with her male counterpart (Fig. 2), or in her form of Chinnamastā (the goddess who decapitates herself), or shown as a female figure who squats while she menstruates back into the earth. These various depictions – some my personal interpretation of texts or images and others actual found images taken from Tantric Hindu iconography or temple sculpture, speak to the latent power that lies dormant within both female and male bodies – that is, the Kundalini 11 Shakti which lies at the Mulādhāra 12 chakra. This merging of the feminine and masculine through sexual union speaks to the idea of duality within non-duality, where one cannot exist without the other. An example of this (non-)duality is the image of Shiva in the form of Ardhanareshwara 13 , in which he and the goddess take on the form of an androgynous being that is half male and half female. Shiva (male), is consciousness while Shakti (female), is primordial energy. For Shiva to become kinetic consciousness he must be empowered by Shakti. Without Shakti, Shiva’s consciousness is dormant, but when awakened by his Shakti, the “cosmos [is] moved from mental construct to constructed reality”. 14 Similarly, Kali straddles Shiva and as “Smashānakālī [Fig.3] is often shown engaged in virparīita-rati (sexual union in which the female partner is on top) with Figure 3

Mookerjee explains it thus, “The Kundalini Shakti, the coiled and dormant cosmic power, is at the same time the supreme force in the human body. According to tantra, this coiled-up energy remains unmanifest within us and is said to be a latent reservoir of psychic power” (Mookerjee 1977:21) 12 One of the seven energy centres within the human body, this is the “root centre of the physical experience.” (Mookerjee 1977:21) 13 Literally translating as half woman 14 Ashley-Farrand, T. (2003). Shakti Mantras. USA: The Random House Publishing Group. p.53. 11

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Siva, a realisation of non-duality in which there is no separation, no linear flow, just fullness, completeness.”15 The paintings at Room Gallery consisted of line drawings of naked goddesses stitched onto sari (found saris worn with use by women who are close to me) and then painted onto with kumkum 16 powder. The goddess’s nakedness on a garment that is intended to cover speaks without the need for explanation – that which is meant to conceal, now reveals. All these paintings draw attention to the goddess’s ‘yonic’ area, either through erotic or menstrual display. But it is also intended to portray the yoni as a space of spiritual power, by making subtle reference to the latent Kundalini Shakti. These works also intend to speak politically and socially, rather than simply draw attention to the unfairness of patriarchal systems that still govern our spaces, our lives, and our ideas – these paintings subvert normative ways of being, particularly in relation to womanhood. They present the alternative female identity, one in which she physically takes a dominant role. And as Khan points out “…in recognising what it takes to ‘fit in’, one can choose to not or indeed to extend or contest what ‘fitting in’ means.” 17 Here ‘fitting in’18 is not about being accepted into patriarchy but rather re-scripting it and contesting it with new presentations of womanhood. There

Figure 4

Moorkerjee 1977:63 A substance that is often used in ritual workshop of the goddess made from turmeric and various natural substances. In this case I use a maroon coloured powder. In my work it also speaks indirectly to Sindoor (the marking on a Hindu woman’s path, signifying that she is married). 17 Khan, 2012: 16 18 In her essay Khan speaks about ‘fitting in’ with particular reference to ways of being under apartheid law, however I am arguing that this concept can also be used in relation to ways of being women within patriarchal states. 15 16

The Two Talking Yonis / Chhiba is a conscious use of imagery of the female body that is often associated with the grotesque or that which is believed to be ‘un-ladylike’. They challenge patriarchal expectations of womanhood by simply portraying the goddess in her fiercest yet most natural forms. Of course, the philosophical underpinnings of each portrayal are much deeper than one would encounter on the surface, but not explaining this to a ‘non-Hindu’ audience is a deliberate attempt to force the viewer into further research into a culture and philosophy they may not be familiar with. As Khan articulates “one-to-one sign/signifier/signified relationships become endlessly ungraspable for those who are normally in the dominant position of articulation” 19, in this case, the dominant becomes the dominated. In Kalashnikovv Gallery, which was transformed into a black box for the exhibition, a series of ten photographs portraying the Dasā Mahāvidyā (The Ten Transcendental Wisdoms) (2013) (fig.4.) 20 was displayed. As mentioned previously, performance has been a constant medium in my production; this comes through most obviously in my photographic works. Here, I use a classically trained dancer 21 to portray these ten manifestations of the goddess. In these images, the dancer uses abhinaya 22 to enact these various transformations of the goddess. Theatrical mechanisms of dramatic lighting, costume and makeup are used to transform the dancer from nurturing and benevolent to ferocious and horrific, and once again to motherly and benign versions of femininity, goddess energy and womanhood. These portraits also aim to critique Muttiyettu 23 , the theatrical folk dance practice of Kerala, in southwest India. As Sarah Caldwell (1999) points out in

Khan, 2012:23 The series comprised ten images, this one is titled The Unsatisfied Desire 21 I have photographed and worked with the dancer Anusha Pillay on many visual art and dance projects for over 15 years. This is another ongoing conversation in my production. 22 The storytelling aspect of classical Indian dance – using facial expression and gesture – an ancient technique based on gestures and expressions taken from the Nātyashāstra, which is an ancient Indian treatise of the performing arts. 23 In this dance, which is performed inside a temple, the main character who is said to portray the goddess Bhadrakāli, wears a costume that is adorned with a tongue-like object that hangs around his waist – this quite obviously starts to read as an exaggerated phallus when worn on the male body. If we look at Kali iconography, the outstretched, blood-stained tongue is the quintessential feature that distinguishes her from all other goddesses. Seema Mohanty (2004) in The Book of Kali explains that the most common mythological explanation for her tongue’s appearance is that while Durga battles with the demon Rakta-Bhija, in a moment of extreme rage, Kali jumps out of Durga’s third eye and with her protruding tongue laps up the demonic blood, which eventually leads to his demise. 19 20

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Oh Terrifying Mother: Sexuality, Violence and Worship the Goddess Kali, this

folk dance theatre is an invocation of the goddess Badrakali 24. According to Caldwell, in the tradition of this region, only men are allowed to perform this dance theatre. Women are seen as impure and therefore cannot perform the folk theatre (I will not expand on this in this paper). Borrowing from this folk theatre Muttiyettu, the Bharatanatyam dancer’s costume in the Dasā Mahāvidyā series is also adorned with an enlarged tongue, which was hung around her waist. This was intended to once again draw attention to the yonic area where this dismembered, distended tongue became an exaggerated clitoris. This series was intended to use one tradition of dance to challenge another tradition of dance, which I understand to be patriarchal by nature. This metaphorically challenges the notion of patriarchy in a broader sense, as it is not dissimilar to many spaces of male dominance where women are pushed to the periphery and forced into submission. Here the goddess dominates. Moving on to the third and final component of the project - What eventually developed as the central discussion of The Two Talking Yonis exhibition project is the third space (which was in fact marked as space #1 when visiting the project) where the work Come Inside (2013) was housed in the Women’s Jail, Constitution Hill. A historically charged space that once incarcerated both criminal 25 and political prisoners but is now used as a temporary exhibition space and also serves as a reminder of the political prisoners that were once trapped between these walls.

Come Inside (Fig. 5) was a 12 metre deep

passageway, an imagined vaginal cavity. As suggested by the title, the work invited

Figure 5

A popular form of Kali worshipped in Kerala. A point has to be made here that given the time of these incarcerations one has to ask what the definition of “criminal” was under apartheid law. It could have been something as simple as moving in a public space without a passbook or being caught in a relationship with someone of a different race. 24 25

The Two Talking Yonis / Chhiba the viewer to enter it, but also acts as a cheeky lure, playing on the word ‘come’. The Women’s Jail was temporarily transformed into a womb-like space of containment, which was intended to completely consume and overpower the audience. Protruding from the entrance of the constructed ‘tunnel’, was a 12 metre long tongue made of stuffed and stitched red fabric that acted as a floor bed, almost like a spongy red carpet, beckoning, and enticing the viewer into the passageway. Before entering the vagina, by means of floor text, viewers were instructed to remove their shoes, thus immediately alerting them to the potential of entering a space of sacredness. The mouth-like entrance was covered with black synthetic wool, creating a curtain of ‘pubic’ hair, the threshold to another world, into an unknown space, a space of power, defiance and sacredness. Beyond the fleshy lip-like cushions that flanked this doorway, the viewer traversed this shadowy fabric covered tunnel, precariously wobbling along the uneven tongue below until finally met by a portrait – a self portrait entitled I am Kali, I am Black (Fig. 6). In this self-portrait, I had taken on the persona of a Kali-like figure, almost like an alias, where she (I) performs the “alternative scripting” 26. As the title suggests, I am speaking of both racial classification and making reference to the meaning of the word Kali – black. In this portrait Kali is shown as light and dark, subtly referencing the dual principles of female and male, white and black, Indian and non-Indian, tradition and contemporary, and myth and ‘reality’. Her left side is covered in shadow, as a mysterious eye peers through the Figure 6 shadows at the viewer, here referencing the dark mysteries of the sacred and powerful feminine but also the unknown fierceness that is embodied in the being - Kali. Her right side flooded with light, glaring back in defiance and confrontation. Light caressing the contours of her face, her suggested nakedness below, she subtly references the masculine that is innately a part of her. Her tongue outstretched in defiance 26

Khan, 2012 – see first quote

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and locks wild and dishevelled frame her face; she represents that which is undomesticated, unbound by or to societal expectation and is ferocious in her confrontation. According to Seema Mohanty (2004) in The Book of Kali, hair is traditionally seen as a metaphor for sexuality, and defines a woman’s life stage in relation to her having or not having a husband. 27 The three types of woman that Mohanty speaks about are, the unmarried virgin who wears her hair in a plait or braid; the married woman, who oils, parts and knots her hair; and the widow, whose hair is shaven off. The metaphor translates as follows: “poised for fulfilment in the virgin, domesticated and controlled in the married woman, and stripped away in the widow.” 28 Kali’s unbound and dishevelled hair thus comes to represent her wild and unbridled sexuality. In this portrait she confronts her viewer, who is powerless in this passage of containment. On either side of the passageway (Fig. 7), the viewer encountered two hidden circular pockets; these imagined ovary-like spaces contained objects relating to the goddess. The left pocket contained smaller ‘erect’ tongues which threw phallic shadows onto the velvety wall upon which it was hinged, Figure 7 while the right held swords suspended from its lush red ceiling, a reminder of the weapons held by Kali. A surprise element, a shuddering high-pitched scream filled the space, like a battle cry, shortly followed by a mocking laugh. A reminder of the goddess who unbinds her hair and screams in rage as she is about to enter the battleground to face her demonic opponent, and laughs at him in mockery as he is about to meet death at her hands. These sounds consciously created with my own voice, intended to act as another version of a self-portrait as Kali. This

Another emphasis on patriarchal systems of belief, that one is seen as less than a women if she is without a husband, whether widowed or by choice 28 Mohanty, S. (2004) The Book of Kali. India: Penguin Books India. p. 12 27

The Two Talking Yonis / Chhiba surprise element played intermittently inside the vaginal cavity, punctuating the silence around the viewer with both terror and humour. The various elements that constitute the Come Inside installation – the different tongues, self-portrait, swords, scream, laughter and the vagina itself - all come together as a singular protest and revolt against the space within which it is housed. The vagina consumes the space in which it is built and literally screams in protest. Here the vagina was intended to speak against a historically charged space, while at the same time overwhelm its audience into powerlessness by its capacity to consume the space and viewer, transforming it into something sacred, powerful and defiant. …conversations…

The Two Talking Yonis project aimed to use the yoni and Kali iconography to

speak of race, identity, politics, womanhood, and spirituality.

As I stood at the door of the Women’s Jail in August 2013, I felt my Ajima take me by the hand and guide me through its making, the manifestation of The Two Talking Yonis. She quietly allowed me to feel the presence of ‘the Kali’ through her guidance, the original yoni was present in that space. Without Ajima, I would not be here today, both literally and figuratively. Without her I would not have encountered Kali, which in turn led me to the texts of the secrets of yonic power. Without her there would be no Talking Yoni. I would never have found the Defiant spirit that led to arguments with Nonto (about race, gender, politics, and positionality). But these are on-going conversations, on-going investigations, on-going portrayals and questions. And as Khan states “It talks about a constant state of making, moulding and reshaping without necessarily attaining the possibility of having ‘become’.” 29 And suddenly, without trace or warning, after the chaos around the exhibition had subsided, I felt Ajima leave me and transcend to another space. A space that is certainly unattainable to me now. But then I looked around me and realized she actually left me amongst ‘the other yonis’, the other collaborators who will be on this journey with me. I found myself left alongside the Nonto’s, the Sharlene’s, the Tracy’s, the Aunty Betty’s and the Anusha’s 30. These many

Khan, 2012:24 Nontobeko Ntombela, Sharlene Khan, Tracy Murinik, Betty Govinden and Anusha Pillay have all contributed to The Two Talking Yonis project. 29 30

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yonis, many collaborators, many sounding boards and women who already embrace and embody ‘the Kali’, who will surely be future collaborators and reminders of the very first yoni, the very first conversation…with my Ajima.

References Ashley-Farrand, T. (2003). Shakti Mantras. USA: The Random House Publishing Group. Khan, S. (2012) ‘Becoming, The Art of Everyday Performativity’, in Stemberger, C.M (ed.) Alterating Conditions. Performing Performance Art in South Africa. Vienna: Goethe Institute. Mohanty, S. (2004) The Book of Kali. New Delhi: Penguin Books India. Mookerjee, A. (1988). Kali: The Feminine Force. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd. Mookerjee, A & Khana, M. (1977). The Tantric Way. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd. Caldwell, S. (1999). Oh Terrifying Mother: Sexuality, Violence and Worship the Goddess Kali. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Coomaraswamy, A. (1977). The Mirror of Gesture. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt, Ltd.

Image list Figure 1: Kangra(region); Kāli; c. 18th century; gouache on paper sourced from Mookerjee, A & Khana, M. (1977). The Tantric Way. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd. (p.83) Figure 2: Divine Copulation, 2013, kumkum powder, thread and coal and thread on sari, 1 x 1.2m, image courtesy of the artist Figure 3: Orissa (region); Sakti seated in union with Siva; c. 18th century; brass sourced from Mookerjee, A & Khana, M. (1977). The Tantric Way. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd. (p.17) Figure 4: The Unsatisfied Desire (ed. 1/5), 2013, digital print on fibre paper, 1360 x 900mm, image courtesy of the artist Figure 5: Come Inside, 2013, fabric, comforel, wool, batting, wood, swords, light, photographic print, sound installation, approximately 12m deep x 3m wide x 2.5m high, image courtesy of the artist 59

The Two Talking Yonis / Chhiba Figure 6: I am Kali, I am Black (ed. 1/5) , 2013, digital print on fibre paper, 81 x 68.3cm, image courtesy of the artist Figure 7: Come Inside, 2013, fabric, comforel, wool, batting, wood, swords, light, photographic print, sound installation, approximately 12m deep x 3m wide x 2.5m high, image courtesy of the artist

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The Spell of Indophilia in the Imagination of South Africa Nalini Moodley-Diar Tshwane University of Technology South Africa moodleyn@tut.ac.za

Abstract Visual culture and its transformative academic agenda has received much attention in the past few years, particularly so in South Africa from a broad spectrum of study. The commodification of Hindu deities is seen as a means of popularising these images while at the same time stripping them of the fundamental value as accredited to them by Hindus. The commercial viability of the pious image against the chaos of contemporary society is positioned as a capitalistsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; dream. This article will look at the challenges experienced by Indian Hindus within a multicultural and post-Mandela South Africa. It will engage with particular images and forms which seem to compromise and bring insult to religious representations of Hinduism in contemporary South Africa. Various community newspapers bring to the fore the question of artistic freedom in conjunction with the question of contemporary religious practices which are operating within the historiography of a complex South African landscape. The phenomenon of cultural migration bears witness to the process of objects/cultural forms moving from one country or place of residence to settle in another. In this process the contemporary religious market, where images of the Hindu religion are appropriated, becomes a contentious issue. This type of commodification brings with it a narcissistic tendency which links to the controversial notion that any form of religion or spirituality can be appropriated freely, especially if it is not your own.

Keywords: Indophilia, commodification, South Africa, Hinduism, visual form

Introduction: Polluting consciousness The story of objectionable and offensive objects, images or forms of creative arts go beyond any one moment in time. History tells us that even when theatre goers were offended by what they saw they vented their dissatisfaction through a process of hurling objects such as stones, dirt, eggs, tomatoes and the like, at the offending party. In some instances they would even be invited to do so which could be seen as some form of societal therapy allowing the community to share their outrage and

The Spell of Indophilia / Moodley ensure an opportunity to safe guard their environments from oppressive lawmakers, ruthless politicians and others of their ilk. A recent painting of South African president Jacob Zuma with exposed genitals caused an outrage with ensuing public protests and significant defacing of the painting itself. This painting by artist Brett Murray was shrewdly titled “The Spear” and was a reworking of a propaganda poster of Marxist revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin. The work was here part of Murray’s exhibition titled “Hail to the Thief II” held at the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg in 2012. The public persecution of the artist together with the public support for the artist in line with ‘freedom of artistic creativity’ as enshrined in the constitution, presented an ideal platform for the public to vent their dissatisfaction with the offending image and to some degree the artist. As such two members of the public ‘vented’ by defacing the painting while it was still hanging in the gallery. 1 However, it is worth noting that these members did so very carefully and deliberately. Instead of violent defacement the first painted a red cross slowly over the face and genitalia of the image, while the second member chose a strategy of protection and modesty in his covering of the presidential image with black paint. Thus this could then be read as an act of defence against a ‘valued’ image rather than be seen as act of vandalism. Subsequently, whilst both were arrested and charged, this remains a contemporary moment in South African history when viewers registered their objection to an offending image. The picture changes somewhat when the image needing protection is a sacred one which leads one down a slippery slope to blasphemy. In a not so dissimilar way the #Rhodesmustfall campaign of 2015 also signalled a moment in South Africa where students vociferously voiced their discomfort with the presence of the statue of the colonialist Cecil John Rhodes being displayed at public universities. While this campaign, which started at the University of Cape Town, originally centred around the removal of the statue, it swiftly led to calls for widespread transformation of the university including the ‘decolonising’ of the curriculum as well as raising awareness around artworks which are seen to promote institutional racism in the institution (Bosch, 2017:221-222). Amidst the history of colonisation and the project of apartheid, young South Africans were seeing images differently and focused now on their (the pictures) ability to wound and offend. This reflects the power that images have to affect and effect society, history, human emotions and activity as well as become catalysts for change. The violent removal of the statue was a clear indication of the impact the image had had on the material lives of the students and their histories. The aggressive physical fall of the statue thus became an articulation of the contestation of the space which is unsurprising within the current South African socio-political climate. Defacing The Spear. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HHJG2fyktc. Accessed 17 November 2017. 1

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This article is an attempt at exploring the divide between the verbal and the visual and examine how particular images, venerated by some, are appropriated in ways which offend sectors of the world’s population. The impact of globalisation as a contributing factor to this indiscriminate use of imagery, plays a significant role in the fetishisation of particular images which are regarded by the broader public as objects of free access devoid of any human or sacred attachment. Michael York’s (2001:363) approach that globalisation is the championing of capitalism against the sanctity of the weaker force, aptly defines this power play especially as it is experienced in South Africa today. This article will further deliberate the explosion of the commodification of Hindu visual culture within what is positioned as being a transformative agenda in South Africa. It attempts to scrutinise why some images are found to be objectionable amidst a society that is grappling with zealously maintaining minority culture. Here the transformation agenda plays a pivotal role in determining the nature of a democratic society. Within this context the commodification of Hindu deities is seen as a means of capitalising on the popularity of these images while simultaneously stripping them of the fundamental value accredited to them by Hindus. Mitra (2016:114) observes that the rise of commodification has resulted in not only the mass production of goods but of gods as well. The commercial viability of these images against the chaos of contemporary society is thus positioned as a capitalists’ dream which straddles secular and sacred spaces as well as the realm of virtualisation of religious iconography. The fact that Hinduism outside of India develops in the diaspora differently from within India is also a critical aspect to consider when deliberating from the South African diasporic position. Hindu communities the world over have constituted themselves in ways that have allowed them to sustain vibrant manifestations of devotional Hinduism and further zealously guard the icons of their devotion. This article will first present an overview of the nature of Hindu imagery appropriated throughout the world which compromises the Hindu religion. It will then focus on particular examples within a multicultural South Africa which call into question notions of transformation, democracy and the rights of South Africans as enshrined in the constitution.

Religious Danger Religion is a complicated and dangerous game to play; particularly in a country where Hindus are a minority. However, in the global village it seems normal for images to flow across continents to find varied spaces for representation. This phenomenon of cultural migration bears witness to the process of objects, images or

The Spell of Indophilia / Moodley cultural forms moving from one country or its place of residence to settle in another and in some instances return in new configurations to its place of origin. In this process the contemporary religious market, where images of the Hindu religion are appropriated, becomes a rather intractable, contentious issue. As a result commodification brings with it the attached narcissistic tendency which links to the controversial notion that any form of religion or spirituality can be appropriated freely, especially if it is not your own. Many scholars have written about this commodification 2 but this degree of appropriation is not as common in other religions in South Africa. Admittedly there is an intimate connection between commerce and religion and celebration and consumption (Mitra, 2016:113). For example during, religious engagement there seems to be greater focus on fashion and food which sometimes sees the deities taking the back seat (Mitra, 2016:113). But while commodification takes food-ways and clothing across the globe it also creates a ‘disconnect’ in the transferring of deities around the globe in markets that have unintended consequences.

The global marketplace During the past few years Hindu deities seem to feature on an array of items and objects which problematize the image as they appear within a decontextualized environment. As such the complex question of what contributes to this degree of global attraction needs some consideration. Could it be the “sexiness” of Hinduism which attracts such attention to its objects, images or spirituality? Perhaps as the authors of the Kama Sutra there is great mystery to Hindu culture and religion which is what fuels such entitlement. Perhaps it is the popular, booming multi-billion dollar Yoga industry and meditation culture which lends itself ideally to a global culture aspiring for calm in an increasingly stressful world. Presently there is an explosion of yoga types and gear; even International Yoga Day. Further, the sense of the ‘exotic’ in colours and clothing seem to act as a magnet for non-Hindus the world over. This burgeoning trend has become part of an Indo-chic or Asian Chic or Indophilia within a western landscape. In South Africa the past few years have witnessed a proliferation of Hindu deities in popular culture. Not unlike in other countries and communities these include primarily T-shirts with similar images located in cartoons and intended for humorous, socio-economic media representations and commentary. Interestingly these forms are not deemed inherently disrespectful to the Hindu community as it even has a significant support base within the diaspora and in the subcontinent as well. What is 2

See York, M (2001); Ramachandran, T (2014); Mitra, S (2016); Sinha, V (2011)

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considered offensive are those images that provoke outrage as they seem to blatantly insult the Hindu religion and its imagery. Ramachandran (2014) in A call to multiple arms! protesting commoditization of Hindu imagery in western society presents a detailed discussion of the ignorance and carelessness of commercial appropriation of Hinduism in western popular culture. Some of her examples have been summarised and presented below to illustrate the depth of the appropriation. In 1999 toilet seat covers from Sittin Pretty Designs in Seattle (USA) caused an outrage after they used the image of Goddess Kali and Lord Ganesh on their toilet seats. This resulted in the company withdrawing their products and apologising. In 2003 flip flops from American Eagle Designs featured prints of Ganesha on the inner soles and after numerous complaints the company stopped production and issued an apology. In 2004 Italian designer Roberto Cavelli used various Hindu deities on his range of underwear and once again after an uproar from Hindu protest groups apologised and withdrew these items. In the same year a high heeled platform sandal from the company Fortune Dynamics featured a range of Hindu deities and in the following year the Minelli shoe brand in France came under fire from various Hindu activists resulting again in the withdrawal of the item in question. The famous Converse brand also presented casual shoes in 2010, with images of Luxmi as well as Jimi Hendrix depicted as Vishnu. As the trend reveals, after protests, the company apologises and withdraws the offensive items from the shelves. In Australia, in 2011 there was radical outrage over an Australian designer, Lisa Blue, who created swim suits with Hindu deities used as a print. Once again after activists took to the streets to voice their frustration and anger, an apology was issued and the offending items were withdrawn (Ramachandran, 2014). In 2016 Amazon.com was selling Doormats depicting brightly coloured Hindu deities which resulted in the #BoycottAmazon campaign 3 which soon resulted in, the offending items being swiftly withdrawn from their inventory. However, at the time of writing this article the two doormats below were evidently still available on Amazon.com. The first (figure 1) is a circular image described as a “Colorful Mandala

Hindu Lord Round Home Doormat Entrance Entry Way Front Door Mat Ground 23.6 Inch Rugs For Decor Decorative Men Women Office”. The second (figure 2), is an image of Buddha and also available on Amazon.com with the description “Minicoso Doormat Asian Decor Eastern Spirituality Deity Icon Statue over Hazy Religious Zen Yoga God Calmness Image Red.”

http://www.india.com/buzz/lord-ganesha-eating-meat-in-australian-ad-offends-hindus-hurtnetizens-trend-boycottlamb-in-retaliation-2453385/ 3

The Spell of Indophilia / Moodley

Figure 1: Ganesha Doormat Accessed from amazon.com

Figure 2: Buddha Doormat. Accessed from Amazon.com

In September 2017 the Meat and Livestock Australia’s television advertisement4 was found to be highly offensive as it depicted Ganesha (together with others) seated at a table to eat a meal of lamb. The campaign titled “You Never Lamb Alone” was considered highly controversial and went viral in Australia with a #BoycottLamb and #StopBuyingLamb campaign that followed.

Figure 3: You never lamb alone. 5 Advertising Meat and Livestock Australia. Accessed from http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2017/09/07/hindus-are-mad-about-australias-insensitive-newlamb-ad-depicting-god-ganesha_a_23201054/ 4

You Tube Video of the advert https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcyffOn0bu8

campaign

“You

Never

Lamb

Alone”

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While the examples cited above have been located outside the South African diaspora, in 2015, South Africa, bore witness to the international perfume company Jean Paul Gaultier being requested to withdraw a fragrance which depicted Hindu deities on their provocative bottles. This particular range (figure 3), “Deity Summer Fragrances” featured an array of Hindu deities printed on the buttocks and genital area of the bottles. Local Hindus were fuming over these bottles resulting in the South African Hindu Maha Sabha (SAHMS) 6 requesting the distributors to stop their distribution and withdraw their stock (Pillay: 2015). According to the president of the Sabha, Ashwin Trikamjee, this demonstrated a callous attitude towards Hinduism hereby showing insensitivity towards the beliefs of Hindus (Pillay: 2015). After an uproar from the Hindu community which went viral, these items were also removed.

Radha

Dancing Shiva

Baby Krishna

Figure 3: Deity Summer Range: Jean Paul Gaultier. Available at https://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/the-witness/20150720/281479275102790

In Figure 4 a Shiva Sakti photographic image, featured in the Top Billing magazine (October 2004) was strongly criticised by Hindus as a misrepresentation and exploitation of Hindu deities. The photograph is a depiction of a bare chested Shakti with a representation of Shiva both of whom are painted blue. In their response to the image, the SAHMS explained that this was considered “sheer exploitation of revered Hindu figures and deserved to be condemned in the strongest terms” (Kalideen: 2004). The SAHMS went on to explain that Shakthi is revered as the mother Goddess and the supreme form of energy and should not be depicted in this manner. In their response, the couple defended their action by saying that this was a true reflection of a beautiful religion and this was done with utmost respect (Singh & Naran, 2004).

The South African Hindu Maha Sabha is a national body representing the cultural and religious aspirations of the South African Hindu community.

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Figure 4: Shiva Shakthi. The Sunday Tribune

Within multicultural societies there is a multiplicity in the use and abuse of imagery. And Hindu imagery is no different. However, in order to appreciate the degree of offense of the image it is critical to realise how these Hindu icons are engaged with. One of the most common religious engagements of Hinduism is ‘darśan’ which happens when the devotee gazes upon an image of god or the act of being seen by the god or goddess (Ramachandran, 2014:57; Grieve, 2010:58; Mitra, 2016:118). According to Diane Eck darśan means seeing (1996:1). She explains that this is a central act of Hindu worship where the devotee stands in the “presence of the deity” with the desire to “behold the image with one’s own eyes, to see and be seen by the deity” (1996:1). Further, this visual appreciation of the image is charged with religious meaning and becomes an auspicious sight (Eck, 1996:3) and thereby becomes a mode of communication with the deity (Mitra, 2016:118). Scholars on this subject of darśan agree that it is the most common and significant element of Hindu worship and certainly not confined to a temple or shrine but can be applicable in various scenarios and contexts. Thus the image on a T-shirt becomes imbued with the religiosity of being seen while a shoe with the image of a deity problematizes the notion and signification of darśan.

Appropriating Offence Implicit in the above are issues of cultural appropriation, imperialism, ownership, authenticity and the construction of a globalized Hindu identity within multicultural societies. It seems obvious that in a postcolonial era, multiculturalism does inevitably involve some degree of cultural appropriation. According to Ramachandran (2014:58) appropriation is a power dynamic where one group assumes ownership over another group’s cultural artefacts, images and meanings. For York, the free market opens up opportunities for exploitation and even capitalist imperialism which translates easily into the justification for appropriation (2001:368). Deborah Root calls this appropriation theft given that the people whose images are being used have not been consulted and the image owner has not acquired any financial benefit (1996:77). York presents an interesting perspective when he suggests that all

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spiritualties are now no longer private property but belong to the public domain where they can be appropriated and freely marketed (2001:368). This ‘free market’ creates a space for conflict in the public domain where a lack of accountability and free access, threaten a minority who become a targeted community. Images appropriated and carelessly employed in term of socio-religious correctness are done so for capitalist gain. In the T-shirt design presented in Figure 5, the image features a khaki-clad, bearded man with eight arms, sitting crosslegged on a large plant. His appearance likens him to a stereotyped Afrikaner farmer who is here presented in the seated lotus posture of a Hindu deity. The lotus posture is a common meditative one and can be found in Hinduism and Buddhism across the subcontinent and South East Asia.

Figure 5: Marais, Boerdha [Accessed from http://www.tshirtterrorist.co.za/two-designs-under-fire/]

In his eight hands he holds a protea, South Africa’s national flower, a beer bottle, slingshot, rugby ball, braai (barbeque) tongs, mealie cob and a springbok head in his lap. The design is obviously making commentary on the South African Afrikaner culture with its common cultural attachments. Unfortunately, it is doing so using the fundamental layout common to Hinduism which problematizes this image significantly. The title, Boerdha, is a portmanteau of the Afrikaans word boer which translates to an ‘Afrikaner farmer’ and Buddha which is a reference to the teachers of Buddhism. The subtitle embedded in the image reads “wat jy saai, sal jy maai’” and refers to the English maxim which says ‘what you sow, you shall reap’. This image is evidently based on Hindu deities and while it bears no insult to Hinduism, it does trivialise the religion. The consumption of religious objects and the materiality of religion needs mediation; in fact it depends on mediation. This is because descriptions of the world are culturally located and what seems to be ‘naïve’ descriptions are neither innocent not objective (Grieve, 2003:59). Unless images like

The Spell of Indophilia / Moodley these are mediated they could result in exacerbating intolerance within complex societies such as a post-apartheid South Africa. Here, historically generated mechanisms such as the memory of division and separateness are brought to the fore thereby reinforcing deeply embedded power relations. Thus the resistance to imagery appropriated in this manner is exemplified by “an implicit judgment of inferior status” (York, 2001:368) of the original image. An erosion of ethnic identity against the backdrop of minoritisation and zealous guardianship of such images, brings into question a deepened diminishing of the iconography of Hindu South Africans in particular and Hindus throughout the world in general.

Kalifornia (Figure 6) is another image from South African T-shirt designers and online company, T-Shirt Terrorist. This satirical work uses the image of goddess Kali as the basis for a design that comments on the downfall of American society, capitalism and globalisation (Naik, 2011). This is a satirical representation using goddess Kali with various appropriated forms of popular western culture such as Mickey Mouse, an Elvis coiffure, a hamburger, a wad of dollars, a smoking gun, a US flag and a syringe. When asked to respond to the concerns of the Hindu community, their response clearly indicated that it was not “intended irreverence” (Naik, 2011) but the reality of how images are received highlight the power of images and the realisation that they are indeed never powerless. This fetishisation of the religious image leads to mass hysteria (Mitchell, 2005: 96) in a minority community where this disrespect is exponentially received.

Figure 6: Marais, Kalifornia. Accessed from http://www.tshirtterrorist.co.za/two-designs-under-fire/

Within a frustrated community a Democratic Alliance 7 councilor, Sharon Chetty lodged a complaint with the country’s religious and cultural watchdog body, the 7

The Democratic Alliance is the official opposition party to the governing African National Congress.

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Commission for the Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities over the satirical T-shirts, which mocked the Hindu deities (Mbonambi, 2011). Chetty said that the designers, Michan Marais and Harry Fokker, had made a mockery of Hindu culture by designing T-shirts resembling the Hindu gods of Shiva and Kali, the Goddess of Destruction (Mbonambi, 2011). Marais in her response shared that the “people in my (Afrikaans) community used to say Hindu art was scary… But I thought it was beautiful.” Thus on the one hand the design is attempting to satirise the Afrikaner community while on the other hand, there is the claim that it is a satirical take on the “moral and ethical dissolution of popular American society and does not intend to mock and or demean the dignity of Hindus or the Hindu community” (Mbonambi, 2011). The designer goes on to claim that “it’s merely a two-dimensional satirical illustration and is in no way inciting hate, intolerance or persecution of any political, cultural, racial or religious group…” (Mbonambi, 2011). Further, emblazoned on the image is an offensive expression of slang which has its origins in the language of Urdu and Hindi and the dialects thereof. The use of this demeaning term attached to the image complicates and problematises the real meaning that is trying to be conveyed. In response, the SAHMS referred to the image as “obnoxious symbols” which are unacceptable and show careless disregard for Hindu deities and the religious beliefs of others in South Africa (Mbonambi, 2011). Undoubtedly, the Hindu community is outraged by this form of appropriation where the deity is fetishised in a manner equated with what Mitchell (2005:161) calls “crude materialism” that lies in stark contrast to the sensibilities of the Hindu religion. The last set of images (figures 7, 8 & 9) discussed in this article is a selection of photographs from a larger body of work which were part of a photoshoot in 2014 that cast a spotlight on the question of religious tolerance and respect. While multiculturalism is a trope that is offered in popular South African discourse, it also employs the notion of celebration as part of the consumption of religion. As a result appropriation of revered forms are often defended within the framework of celebration guised as a justification for the offense.

Figure 7: Wins. LSD In the water. Jhblive.com

The Spell of Indophilia / Moodley These images were taken at the Smoking Dragon berg Festival and was published under the heading Is this offensive…or is it art? in the Post newspaper in January 2014. The original photoshoot was presented in the gallery of JHBLive.com website with the heading LSD in the water? Referencing lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) which is an illegal drug known for its psychological effects (Soobramoney, 2014). The photographs show members of a local rock band posing in a stall trading in various Hindu iconographic forms that could be referred to as ‘framing pictures’ or ‘god posters’ which has emerged as one of the most ubiquitous consumer products of the 20th century (Lutgendorf, 2002:84). The models use the Hindu imagery as props for their shoot attempting to bring movement and a sense of creative vigour to what is usually a photoshoot of drunken spectators (Soobramoney, 2014). In figure 7A, the model ‘wears’ the image of Shiva on her head thereby attempting to give three-dimensionality to the two dimensional form while in 7B the image is problematized through an attempt of androgyny. This subversion of the image of Shiva raises questions around the attempt to regender the male deity and escalates the discourse of protest around such forms of denigration. This type of imagery in the public domain provides ample justification for such discourse around issues of appropriateness and sanctioning of usage and placement of divine Hindu images (Ramachandran, 2014:70) in popular South African culture. This subversive attempt to transform the sacred to the profane belies the defensive commentary which claims innocence, beauty and ignorance.

Figure 8: Wins. LSD In the water. Jhblive.com

Figure 8 is an attempt to recreate a multi-armed deity with the image of Shiva of the T-shirt and the protruding tongue of the model indicative of the deity Kali. Once again the androgyny of this newly packaged image against the nature of the divine religious icons of Shiva and Kali, requires mediation within this subverted space of engagement. Once again the subversion of the sacred image realises the fetishisation of Hindu iconography in relation to common interpretation in South Africa. The intersectionality of traditional objects/images of worship and emerging objects/images of popularised culture complicate the issue of tolerance, dignity and integrity as experienced by the minority community of Hindu South Africans.

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Figure 9: Wins. LSD In the water. Jhblive.com

Figure 9 is a representation of a woman whose breast is exposed (as a result of a raised T-shirt) while being groped by another participant. The model is surrounded by various Hindu deities and one particularly clear image is that of Hanuman, the monkey god, who is exposing his chest to reveal Rama and Sita who are mythologically enshrined in the heart of the deity. The attempt to appropriate the image of Hanuman and reproduce a modern interpretation of it is a clear indication of how religion becomes commodified within a multicultural power dynamic. This power dynamic is not only realised when cultural appropriation involves profit as posited by Ramachandran, (2014:58) but also when the cultural appropriation is decontextualized creating an ever widening gap in the mediation of the artefact under scrutiny. The Post newspaper engaged numerous roleplayes in delivering comment on this photoshoot and as with the other images there was deep hurt, anger and confusion regarding the choice of the Hindu icons. For example, Suntosh Pillay (Post, 2004) who acknowledges that we live in an open society and therefore cannot dictate how images are used, indicates that it is important to realise that to feel offended is acceptable. Pregasen Pillay on the other hand said the images were disgusting and as the chairman of the Hindu Youth Network would call on the editor to withdraw the images and apologise for mocking their beliefs (Post, 2004). Nas Who, the JHB.com editor realised the sensitivity of the images but claimed there was no intentional statement being made about Hinduism while the artistic director stated that the pictures were used because they looked good and she would not be removing them (Post, 2004).

Offending apologies The above discussion highlights the apprehensions of South African Hindus with regard to the appropriation and misappropriation of their revered, divine imagery.

The Spell of Indophilia / Moodley The examples presented also focused on how the discourse of protest becomes a trope to dismantle previous colonialist and apartheid strategies of division and second-classness in maligning the iconography of the ‘other’ in South Africa. Paradoxically, Ramachandran (2014:69) offers that it is the tenets of multiculturalism such as celebration, which enables the use and abuse of Hindu imagery within the western paradigm. The subsequent discourse of apology and ignorance veiled as innocence is a golden thread in defence of the commodification and misappropriation. The significant discourse around religion and globalisation and the attached championing of individual freedom pitted against traditions (York 2001:363) contributes to creating contemporary markets for those with greater financial clout in the name of entrepreneurship. As mentioned earlier, the practice of Hinduism within a global diasporic landscape and capitalistic environment has given rise to the continuous flow of objects from its place of origin to reside in other parts of the world resulting in the merchandising of religion and religious paraphernalia such as calendars, incense, T-shirts, bags, clothes and so on. This commodification of religion and the freedom to appropriate within a captivated audience and willing market is described by York as the “religious consumer supermarket” where the entrepreneur thrives on offering spiritual commodities (2001:367) towards material success. Unfortunately, in the process of consumption there is a silence in the mediation and negotiation of meaning which would offer some succour to the minority Hindu South African as this would have offered an opportunity for the deeper appreciation and understanding of this religion and its teachings.

Conclusion

In South Africa the advent of democracy in a country defined by its history of colonialism, apartheid, racism and exclusion, created a platform where all religions were now exposed to each other; particularly those of the minorities. The Mandela era brought a sense of euphoria after having wrestled with difficult issues such as belonging and connectedness. But post-Mandela the country is grappling with a range of issues, one of which, is minority cultures contesting for respectful forms of engagement. It is against this background that Hindu South Africans become less tolerant and more parochial in their citizenship. Hindu gods and goddesses have found themselves appearing in a diverse array of places and spaces due largely to the global village and computer technologies. The depth and reach of their appeal has extended far beyond the control of those for whom they are sacred. The scope and scale of their reach is far beyond the ambit of this article but certainly an opportunity for future research and publication. The virtual landscape of online gaming is also one that is increasingly using divine Hindu iconography. For example, Smite, Asuras Wrath and Final Fantasy, are online games where deities like Kali, Agni and Shiva are used in violent acts of manipulation at the will of the joy stick. While Hindus the world over are lodging complaint after

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complaint against this new trend gaming designers and companies are expanding their material grasp over a captivated audience. There may in the end be no final solution to ensure the protection of the integrity of the Hindu religion from a capitalist onslaught and in this new world cultures appropriate from each other vis-a-vis hegemonic global culture. However, there should be collective agreement in principle to appease religious and cultural sensibilities simply because these are so deeply felt and in South Africa given our history, social justice demands that we recognise and respects the beliefs of others and avoid cultural pain at all costs.

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Colorful Mandala Hindu Lord Round Home Doormat Entrance Entry Way Front Door Mat Ground 23.6 Inch Rugs For Decor Decorative Men Women Office.

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[Image] Available at:https://www.amazon.com/Minicoso-DoormatSpirituality-Religiousalmness/dp/B077CN92JC/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1511182686&sr =8-1-fkmr1&keywords=doormats+with+hindu+deity [Accessed 15/06/2017]. Mitchell, W.J.T. (2005). What do Pictures Want? Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mitra, S. (2016). Merchandizing the Sacred: Commodifying Hindu Religion, Gods/Goddesses, and Festivals in the United States. Journal of Media and Religion [Article], 15:2, 113-121. Naik, S. (2011). T-shirt design angers S.A. Hindus. IOL. Available at: https://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/t-shirt-designs-anger-sa-hindus1191549. [Accessed 04/04/2017]. Pillay, K. (2015). Maha Sabha, local Hindus fuming over fragrance bottles. Available at: https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Maha-Sabha-local-Hindusfuming-over-fragance-bottles-20150721 [Accessed 05/12/2016]. Ramachandran, T. (2014). A Call to multiple arms! Protesting the commoditization of Hindu imagery in western society. Material Religion [Article], 10: 1, 54 – 75. Root, D. (1996). Cannibal Culture. Colorado: Westview Press. Shiva Shakti, (2004). Outrage over topless ‘Shakti’. Tribune Herald, Oct 17. Singh, N. & Naran, J. (2004). Outrage over topless ‘Shakti’. Tribune Herald, Oct 17. Soobramoney, V. (2014). Photographs from Smoking Dragon berg festival have Hindus up in arms. Post, Jan 15-19:1 Two Men Caught Defacing Controversial Zuma Painting. (2012). [Video]. YouTube: eNCA. Wins, S. (2014). LSD in the water at Smoking Dragon. Available at: http://www.jhblive.com/Photos-in-Johannesburg/event/lsd-in-the-water-atsmoking-dragon/1004 [Accessed 22/11/2017].

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York, M. (2001). New Age Commodification and Appropriation of Spirituality. Journal of Contemporary Religion [Article], I6: 3, 361-372.

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Book Review Gold, Ann Grodzins. (2017) Shiptown: Between Rural and Urban North India. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 332 [ISBN: 9780812249255]. Market towns are a common phenomenon throughout India. I grew up in one of those in my early childhood in a little known town in Andhra Pradesh, South India. It is not too far from the neighboring farms and I grew up watching rural farmers coming to my town centre to buy their weekly supplies and watch a movie on their way back. Rickety buses would bring them into the bus station which is surrounded by vibrant markets where one could find virtually everything, at least for Indian needs of that period in the 1950s and 60s. The book under review by Gold brought memories of my childhood era for me. Gold effortlessly describes many facets of rural/urban life of Jahazpur which she aptly calls ‘Shiptown’. Market towns, known popularly as Casbah (qasba) are in between places that are neither cities nor villages. They are perceived differently depending on from where one views them. Introducing Jahazpur, Gold says that “[I]f the view from the big city deems Jahazpur only dubiously urban, the view from the village understands it as a place with urban amenities (suvidha) both domestic and public” (p.2). The term qasba, Gold points out, comes from the Arabic background used in French speaking Algeria, but entered Indian usage from a different route, but she does not dwell on which route it came through. In its original Arabic sense the term would have referred to a citadel or a fortified place with dwellings inside, but in its South Asian usage it has come to mean simply town, says Gold. Shiptown is an interesting read both from a scholarly point of view as well as from an ordinary reader’s view and the style in which Gold has written the book has both the scholarly and the popular appeal. She has divided the book into eight chapters bounded by a useful introduction and an epilogue. The eight chapters are thematically divided into two parts—Part 1 dealing with ‘Origins, Gateways, Dwellings, Routes, Histories’; Part 2 deals with ‘Ecology, Love, Money’. In chapter 1, Gold traces some of the legends about the origins of the name of the town. Jahazpur is nowhere near the sea and yet is called as such and people she interviewed seem to bypass her inquiry into the reason why it is called so. It seems sufficient for people to understand that it was a corruption of the original name ‘Yagyapur’ where the mythical King Janamejaya performed a snake sacrifice, or a ‘pitiless land’ where snake oblation was offered. Leaving aside the epic referenced narrative of the name, Gold pursues in the folklores the motifs of agriculture and the harsh realities of contemporary life where everything has to be paid. Gold finds the ambivalent affinity of local people with their town—locals seem to feel that there is less kindness in Jahazpur (p. 27) intriguing and she chooses to end the chapter with

Book Review / Kumar a positive motif that “[T]here is comfort in knowing that the land without compassion is bounded” (p. 28). In chapter 2, she explores the multifaceted nature of the society in Jahazpur through what she calls “entries”. Through the five gates and a minor window gate—Royal Gate, Delhi Gate, Bindi Gate, Mosque Gate, Hanuman Gate and Window Gate—she peers through multiple themes—commerce, history, sociology, plurality, ecology and ethnography—that characterize the life of the qasba. Although none of the topics in this chapter are dealt with comprehensively, but they do offer interesting insights into Jahazpur qasba—e.g., people displaying their ambivalent relationship with the collective cattle of the town by voluntarily feeding them on festival days and chasing them off on normal days (p. 41); that caste in the qasba is not the primary lens through which people see themselves (p. 51); an ethnographer’s realization that no matter how many windows one could peer through, the vision remains limited (p. 64). In chapter 3, she steps out, as it were, of Jahazpur qasba and looks at the adjoining residential colony life, Santosh Nagar. Here she focuses on women and their experiences of the colony and the qasba. Santosh Nagar emerged from a land that was once called Bhutkhera (Ghost Land) and was named Santosh Nagar. Once it had no access roads, it is where local tribes sold wood, and horses and camels belonging to the royal household grazed. It is here Gold chose to reside during her research and it is in this colony that she finds ‘women’s viewpoints’. Gold observes that in the observance of rituals and devotional practices, such as ‘Three-Panoti vow’ that the women of Santosh Nagar are able to “forge solidarities and sustain or transform identities in often subtle ways” (p. 88). But Gold’s most illuminating experience of the colony came from the unsolicited “perpetual presence” (p. 90) of a young woman called Suman, whom Gold calls “The voice in My head” (p. 88), whose views and judgments are “integral to the fabric of Shiptown” (p. 89). What is significant about Gold’s interaction with Suman is the ethnographic methodological insight that she derives—“The situation with Suman was unscripted, always improvised, and without skewed power dynamics of even the most relaxed interview situation. It was, after all, Suman who beckoned to me, who put questions to me. It not, I would have walked right past. It was she in fact who initiated the relationship from which I benefitted so much, but which she controlled and enjoyed. I would like to believe that my friendship with Suman was more mutual, less extractive, than interviews” (p. 99). In a way, taking the cue from her relationship with Suman, Gold offers a methodological insight that very often in ethnographic situation a researcher is less in control of the project than the various players that the researcher encounters, who perhaps have greater power to shape the outcome of the project results. In chapter 4, Gold explores pluralism through public religion—“external manifestation” such as festivals. She explores religious identities as well as tensions that manifest in public religion. Having surveyed quite in depth the religious life of Jahazpur pointing

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out the complex memories of the three riots that the qasba was associated with— 1947, 1984 and 1989—Gold gives a positive outlook of the town rather than emphasizing the divisions. She points out, “[O]nly the very elderly today like to reminisce about a time of pure love and fully cordial sociability among the town’s Hindus and Muslims….Younger people in my experience are edgier, more suspicious, products of a more dangerous era. Nonetheless, the majority of Jahazpur citizens of all ages are habituated in multiple ways to a plural social universe, to shared commercial and residential spaces” (p. 149). In chapter 5, Gold profiles two significant communities whose association shaped the social history of Jahazpur—the Minas and the Jains. Minas, despite their many different lineages—e.g., Mautis, Pariyar—belong to the category of Scheduled Tribes (ST), but have become “well integrated into agricultural and pastoral modes of production as well as Hindu practices” (p. 158). Minas are worshippers of Malaji and Chavundia Mata (Goddess), but they also have Vaishnavite leanings as they play a significant role in the Vaishnava festival in the qasba. They once lived within the qasba, but gradually moved out and established twelve hamlets and became agriculturalists. The other community that is closely associated with the qasba of Jahazpur is the Jain community. Both the Digambara and Svetambara Jains that live in Jahazpur are generally described as those that respect the images of the twenty-four Jain teachers (p. 171). According to some accounts, their association with the Jahazpur qasba dates back to the period of the Gupta dynasty (320-550 CE) (p. 172). Probing the interrelationship between the Jains and the Minas of Jahazpur, Gold points out that many of the temples of the Minas might have been once Jain temples—e.g., Chavundia goddess temple (p. 174). Gold notes, “[A]t some point in history, after the departure of the original group or groups of Jains, Minas who inhabited the part of Rajasthan took over or took care of structures and images the departed Jains had left behind” (p. 177). Gold skillfully tells the various stories of how the buffalo sacrifice performed by the Minas became a defining feature in the hierarchical relationship between Minas and Jains. The Minas would offer the buffalo sacrifice to their goddess and carry the buffalo head to the leader of the Jain community as a symbolic gesture of offering and the Jain leader would touch it and then gives it back to the leather workers who would eat the meat. This complex relationship of non-vegetarian and the vegetarian communities is maintained in Jahazpur despite government attempts to stop the buffalo sacrifice. And the perpetuation of the buffalo sacrifice was often attributed to the intervention of the goddess herself. Gold comments, “[B]y attributing the victory to the agency of the goddess herself, no one loses face totally. The Minas are glad enough to follow her orders; the Jains are cowed into acceptance by her immanent punishing power. However doubtful we may find the chronology and specifics of these tales, massed together they suggest an orchestrated if uncomfortable sharing of place between Minas and Jains of the qasba, who have long lived in one another’s company. Here the relationship is negotiated by Chavundia Mother” (p. 182).

Book Review / Kumar In chapter six, the point Gold reiterates is that the concern for ecology by religious believers, both Hindu and Muslim alike, is secondary to their religious aim to protect the sacred sites. She notes, that contrary to the oft claimed romantic ‘union of religion and ecology’ the roads that are built to access the sacred sites is a reminder that “the protection of trees on these hills isn’t about nature, biodiversity, or sustainability per se. It is about devotion to revered powers and places. The beauty of a landscape may be a valued side effect of devotion and is often understood as proof of power, but it is not the highest priority for worshippers” (p. 196). The second point she reiterates is that while religious devotion could motivate believers to protect their sacred sites and as an extension the surrounding environment (the trees on hill tops), the very same devotion could not motivate believers to protect and maintain the natural resources such as rivers. I believe that this is a serious indictment against religion in the context of ecological concern. Gold notes, “[T]he desire to have a visible emblem of immediate community, whether it is a sacred grove or a new temple or mosque, appears to be more powerful than the sense of value in a natural resource as a common good that is not linked to any particular group” (p. 209). This finding is contrary to what religionists and theologians generally believe that religion can motivate people to preserve our natural resources and hence have an ecological impact. In chapter 7, Gold, using wedding as an opportunity, offers insights into how rural and urban realities come together in Jahazpur. She says, “[A]t the broadest level of description, my fieldwork aims for 2010-11 were to produce an ethnography of smalltown life in which I would track both continuities and contrasts with village life as I knew it from earlier research. The wedding offered a priceless opportunity to do precisely that. It was in many ways a performative marriage of village and town customs, or even….a marriage of tradition and modernity” (p. 245). Be it the improvisations that the wedding parties had to make, or the village folk adjusting to urban life, urban women from various caste backgrounds trying to sing the village songs or the urban fashioned stage for the wedding ceremony, it all comes together in the marriage as an ‘adjustment’. The chapter is full of details that often betrays the many lessons that Gold as a researcher learned—even after the wedding is over the guests linger—a rural habit or custom that does not disappear in the urban setting. Chapter 8 is dedicated to the business life of the qasba, for it is here she notices the mixing of men, women, shopkeepers and where “[T]ea circulates like a connective fluid among friends, acquaintances, and strangers (p. 248). As businesses compete for their customers, the question that Gold returns to here is whether or not the Jahazpur market place is ‘pitiless’. After collecting several poignant stories of business people about their views on business and life of the town overall, Gold does complete the narrative on a positive note by recounting some of the success stories of some younger men.

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Throughout the book it is clear that Gold is intent on bring out some positive narrative of Jahazpur, despite its legendary notoriety for being ruthless and pitiless. The discovery of Jain images underground and the establishment of a Facebook page ‘Wondrous Jahazpur’ and the Muslim role in excavating the Jain images—all are indicative of a much simpler truth, “[E]ven though there are so many things going on throughout the whole wide world, people love the place where they are born” (p. 281). The book is full of ethnographic and methodological insights from an accomplished ethnographer who perfected her art in the course of a long focused career. It is a must read for those who intend doing ethnography not just in India but anywhere. It reveals the spontaneity that is needed by the ethnographer in times of uncertain and unwelcome interviews and how to make sense of the world from the unexpected data that comes your way when you are least expecting. Gold’s book reveals not only the pitfalls but many opportunities that ethnographers encounter on the field. P. Pratap Kumar Emeritus Professor University of KwaZulu-Natal South Africa penumalak@yahoo.com