NOTORIOUS ROWDIES
CLARE ARNI Text by Zac O’yeah
NOTORIOUS ROWDIES
Produced by
CLARE ARNI Text by Zac O’yeah
F35/36 Dhanraj Mahal, CSM Marg, Apollo Bunder, Colaba, Mumbai 400001. www.tarq.in Photographs by Clare Arni Designed by Anugraha studioanugraha.com
Notorious Rowdies
Clare Arni | Acknowledgments
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank my dear friend Selvaprakash Lakshmanan for his invaluable help and expertise in the creation of this series. I would also like to thank Zac O’ Yeah for his text, Yvette Kersey, Ramona Adhikari and Martin Herring for the use of their locations and Oriole Henry for her unstinting support. - Clare Arni
Notorious Rowdies
Clare Arni | Introduction
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INTRODUCTION TARQ is delighted to present “Notorious Rowdies” – a series of performative photographs by Clare Arni. This show marks Arni’s third solo exhibition at TARQ. The term ‘rowdy’ has a particularly evocative quality in South India. The ‘rowdy’ is an unsavoury character, an outlaw, with a strangely alluring bravado. Clare Arni’s fascination with the figure of the ‘rowdy’ began a few years ago while scouring the crime beat section of a local daily, the Deccan Herald. This captivating section carried sordid tales of the nefarious activities of local gangsters, many of whom carried cryptic and outlandish aliases like Dairy, Chicken and JCB. The crime beat section and its sensationalist reportage style was for Arni, an echo of the garish aesthetic of film posters that are plastered across Bangalore, the city she calls home. The posters glamorized violence, with larger than life characters in ludicrous scenarios. Fascinated by the specific persona of the ‘rowdy’, Arni began toying with the
idea that perhaps there is a violence and drama in all of us; a rowdy under the surface, waiting to leap out. She began her project by photographing friends – fellow artists and writers – in various modes of the ‘rowdy’. The participants were asked to delve into the inner life of the rowdy they had chosen to embody, creating elaborate back stories and crime sheets. What began as a fun project has turned into a series of performative photographs that are simultaneously humorous and macabre, with an aesthetic reminiscent of a low budget film. They unearth the dark fantasies of the subjects while also serving as a mirror to the universal voyeuristic fascination with violence. The exhibition is accompanied by a text by Zac O’Yeah – an author and one of Clare’s first “Rowdies.”
Hena Kapadia, Gallery Director, TARQ
Clare Arni | Essay
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THE NOTORIOUS ROWDIES - Essay by Zac O’yeah
I never knew I was to become an artwork. But I guess I have to accept it now. Blame it on Clare. I had been watching her work from a distance. Admiring it but never quite daring to speak to her. I knew she photographed architecture and important buildings, but the graphic photography when she moved towards human objects, or shall I say humans as objects, thrilled me. Especially an exhibition I saw sometime ago, maybe around the year 2000, when she had shot arty photos of an artist dressing herself up, stayed in my mind1. Clare, to me, seemed like one of the greatest living photo artists. So when one day,not so long ago, she bought
me a beer and asked me to become a model, I found it hard to resist and yet I was scared to accept. She had read one of my novels which had a fair number of rowdies in it and she asked me to become a rowdy. In hindsight, I see it is not an unreasonable request. But for a novelist who deals with fiction it was a difficult step to take. I had my own identity. The characters in the books were not me – they had their own identities. But Clare asked me to merge the two. The following is a factual report of what happened, about two years ago when the photograph was taken, and how I ended up as a gruesome object to gawk at on the wall of an art gallery in Mumbai.
Bengal Lamps Gang 1 Digital Print on Archival Paper 22 x 33 inches In an Edition of 10 2017
Notorious Rowdies
Clare Arni | Essay
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Being a certified action and horror flick aficionado, and having seen more than my share of zombies and gore over the years, I thought I more or less knew what my worst case scenario would look like. And how to handle it. It’s just that this time I’m centre stage, arm-wrestling and pistol-whipping my buddy who’s trying to kill me. His name is Vinayak, alias RIP. The situation is confusing and… above all, it isn’t a dream. We’re by this deep well in an ancient courtyard tucked behind a small shrine, in the maze of old Bengaluru, surrounded by enthusiastic street kids who cheer us on, eager to see who’ll keel over first. Whenever I display signs of losing the battle, one precocious little fellow steps up and directs me in the art of warfare – showing me how to point the 9mm Beretta in a more threatening manner. Hopefully he’s just applying knowledge gleaned from gangster flicks. Another toddler wants to arm-wrestle me, and I begin to feel my mouse elbow
Cop Shiva 2 Digital Print on Archival Paper 33 x 22 inches In an Edition of 10 2017
compounded by the usual carpal tunnel syndrome acting up. Desk jobs don’t exactly prepare you for a stint as a semiprofessional rowdy-sheeter. To add to my feeling of inadequacy, I realize what a top-heavy fatso I am; if Vinayak should push me hard I might topple down into the well. Or, god forbid, I might accidentally shove Vinayak over the edge. By his own admission, Vinayak’s got the paunchy body of a middle-aged accountant and neither of us is likely to be cast as stars in Survival of the Fittest, if that seminal book by Darwin was ever made into a movie – except perhaps as minor side characters unfit for survival. Luckily, Clare Arni, the photo artist who is the boss, calls an end to the inaugural shoot and we move towards the main attraction, the traditional wrestling pit. The exhibition titled Native Women of South India: Manners and Customs, created in collaboration with Pushpamala N. 1
Notorious Rowdies
Clare Arni | Essay
Just a few weeks earlier I’d been a guest at a cocktail party at Clare’s house, where slides of anthropological interest were to be shown, when the British-born but Bengaluru-based photographer insisted that I model for a day in her new work-in-progress, ‘Notorious Rowdies’. She’s persuasive, as she tells me how her imagination was fired by local crime reporting of ‘notorious rowdies absconding’ and ‘rowdy-sheeter so and so, alias so and so, hacked to death by rival gang’. Add to that Kannada action movie posters where ominous gents swing machetes. Now she’s getting the city’s crème de la crème to shed light on their darkest fantasies: a famous policeman playing a cinematic rowdy, a businessman becoming a brothel madam, a respectable lawyer dressing up as a eunuch, innocent-looking housewives transforming into gangster molls, and her own sister to act as a Greek goddess of fury.
pints, I begin feeling flattered and agree to give it a shot. Waking up the morning after, however, it occurs to me that it may be another of those easier-said-thandone things that I habitually take upon myself. Bad habit.
‘It struck me that perhaps there was a latent rowdy in each of us, wanting to be released,’ Clare explains. She says - ‘The idea is that I don’t direct or decide what rowdy they should play but that they should search within themselves and come up with their own personal rowdy persona.’ Clare then helps her rowdies realize these dirty dreams by arranging costumes, the settings, and generally being a sounding board when it comes to plotting their imaginary crimes.
But then for Clare’s sake, I agree to do it. I just need a co-rowdy to make the nightmare real, because although a man can do many stupid things alone, he cannot wrestle himself to death. This being an art project I call Vinayak Varma, CEO of one-man creative studio, mixtape. in and the great-great-great grandson of the legendary painter Raja Ravi Varma, to check if he’d like to become a murder victim. In which case I’d be happy to kill him on the following Saturday. He readily agrees and even promises to oil his moustache.
It is clearly a project of great artistic merit and so later in the night, after a few more
But then again I’m a detective novelist. So who am I kidding – I’ve killed off so many characters in my stories, that obviously what is needed is a reality check. After a few nights of soul-searching and disturbed sleep, I ask myself: “What would be my worst nightmare?” I sleep on the question for a few more nights to find out.
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Butterfly Effect 1 Digital Print on Archival Paper 24 x 16 inches In an Edition of 10 2017
There was one particularly bad dream that recurred: To meet a big fat rowdy and having to defend myself in a life-anddeath pummelling, and end up actually killing that person. It’d be really bad for my karma. Practically murder. I don’t even want to think about it.
Butterfly Effect 2 Digital Print on Archival Paper 24 x 16 inches In an Edition of 10 2017
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Frankie Kid and Big Daddy Rolls 1 Digital Print on Archival Paper 33 x 22 inches In an Edition of 10 2017
Clare Arni | Essay
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Frankie Kid and Big Daddy Rolls 2 Digital Print on Archival Paper 33 x 22 inches In an Edition of 10 2017
Notorious Rowdies
Clare Arni | Essay
What about the scene? In a flash of inspiration I recall a photo exhibition of the dungeon-like old-town wrestling pits with their blood-coloured earth. It turns out Clare knows the photographer, Pradeep KS, who’s spent years documenting these archaic gymnasiums and the fascinating rituals surrounding them, and he’s happy to assist us. Many a heritage conservationist fears that traditional wrestling is a vanishing cultural practice, so it seems like a first-class idea to put one of the pits to good use.
a series of rusty, wrecked cars, one with a streamer stating ‘Love is like a Chinese mobile, no guarantees’. Apart from that reminder of 21st century sensibilities, I’m amazed how vividly this area, known as Ranasinghpete, bespeaks of those heady 16th century days of chivalry when the heroic chieftain Kempegowda founded Bengaluru. Inside is a hundredyear-old garadi mane, with a charming courtyard, a well for washing up and a roughly 200-square-foot indoor wrestling pit.
And so it happened that on this morning, I found myself walking somewhere off the
The form of wrestling practiced here, kushti, is ancient and was established
Chickpete Bazaar towards the location, feeling a little self-conscious about the gunny sack of weapons I was lugging – guns, swords, machetes, cricket bats. Clare had gone into overkill, procuring props, including the rather evil ‘longs’ that are great sharp swords made out of lengthy strips of a car chassis, equipped with primitive wooden handles, and favoured by the Bengaluru underworld.
already by the 1730s when Tipu Sultan’s father, the illustrious Hyder Ali, before becoming the ruler of Mysore state, started out as a wrestler at a garadi mane hereabouts. In those days the city was dotted with such gymnasiums – there may have been as many as fifty, but now only about a dozen remain.
Turning into a narrow back lane, which according to my phone GPS doesn’t even exist, but where houses stand cheek by jowl, we reached our destination behind an anonymous wooden gate built into a nondescript mud wall. As the crow flies, it’s not so distant from my usual reality. Along the approach road we had passed
Yet even today, in this modern age of AC gyms, big strapping fellows known as pehlwanjis gather here at dawn and dusk to battle it out, muscles lathered with Ayurvedic oils. The generous custodians have told Pradeep that we’re welcome to use the place for a few hours in the middle of the day, when it is anyway empty. The fact that pieces of modern gym apparatus stand in a
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corner, surrounded by ancient looking stone dumbbells and iron cudgels, is evidence enough that this is a living place, not a museum. With a single overhead bulb lighting it up, the 12-feet-deep layer of soft earth in the matti pit apparently gets its characteristic colour from vermillion and turmeric, and has been soaked in
Following page: La Pantera 2 Digital Print on Archival Paper 11 x 16.5 inches In an Edition of 10 2017
groundnut oil, medicated ghee and cow’s urine over the ages to make it antiseptic so that wrestlers don’t get skin infections. No alcohol or cigarettes are allowed anywhere near it. The sweat that obviously sinks into the earth too, makes the room feel dank and my own sweat breaks out even before I make any physical moves
Notorious Rowdies
Clare Arni | Essay
I explain my plot idea to Vinayak, Clare and Pradeep: The evil Foreign Hand (me) comes to make an offer the Local Rowdy (Vinayak alias RIP) can’t refuse. But RIP, who is leisurely oiling himself in his pit, does indeed refuse. We arm-wrestle to sort out matters. When that doesn’t do it, RIP twists my neck 360 degrees while I try to chop his head off with a “long”. This leads to us both getting very angry and a duel ensues where we shoot each other in the mouth, following which the Foreign Hand has a midlife crisis. It is like the Greatest Hits of Shakespeare in a nutshell.
breathe. In my crouched position, feeling very arthritic, my bones creaking, I find that I can’t get him off my back without breaking my own neck first. I start to regret not joining my wife at yoga when I had the chance.
Although Clare thinks Vinayak looks too cute to be a rowdy, it all changes once he gets into character. He’s filched his wife’s kajal and starts painting bruises on his face. Meanwhile, looking for a suitable weapon in the prop bag, I happen to pull out a grinning skull (Clare takes her preparations seriously) and am suddenly reminded of my own mortality.
care to not accidentally chop off any part of Vinayak. It requires a fine balance. Especially in the series of pictures where I’m supposed to decapitate him with the ‘long’, I seriously worry that this fiction may, inadvertently, turn into reality.
Because our medical insurances are unlikely to cover accidents arising from this kind of a situation, initially we take it easy. Vinayak pretends to wrestle me down, hands around my neck. But it doesn’t feel convincing, so I ask him to tighten the grip. He obediently squeezes my throat in the crook of his arm. Suddenly it’s very realistic. I can’t
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However, I gradually become affected by the ancient atmosphere and the clammy earth against my soles. Cricket bats, guns, machetes pass through our hands. I feel aggressive, thinking less and less, the alpha male takes over. But being very myopic and further blinded by the sunglasses I’m wearing indoors, in the dim pit, I also have to take constant
La Pantera 1 Digital Print on Archival Paper 16 x 24 inches In an Edition of 10 2017
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Clare Arni | Essay
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Comparing notes, I ask Vinayak: How does it feel to pretend to kill a close friend? He sort of defends himself - Look, I’m usually a fairly peaceful guy. I steer clear of violent confrontations. So for me, this was pure fantasy.’ Though he admits that from a shrink’s perspective what is happening could be termed a ‘subconscious expression of a primordial, masculine, cave-manly id’. Yeah? ‘But I’m not a shrink’, he points out, ‘and, frankly, I don’t know what to make of any of it.’ Well, except that afterwards he does say that he’d like to do it again. While the instinctive part of me focuses on keeping us both alive through the shoot, and the cerebral tries, in vain, to understand why we are doing this, I’m saved by the bell. Although the gates are supposed to be bolted from the inside, the kids have been running in and out to play with our arsenal and it so happens that one slightly tipsy rowdy staggers in, possibly looking forward to an afternoon row.
Kodava Warrior 1 Digital Print on Archival Paper 20 x 30 inches In an Edition of 10 2017
At first he must think that he’s hallucinating – a woman (Clare) has invaded this sanctuary of machismo, this refuge from wives and feminists. Of course, he is himself breaking the most fundamental rule against intoxicants near the pit, but Pradeep, who knows these places better than we do, says that this might be a good
time to quickly wrap up. Being a detective novelist, I connect the dots. Although the drunkard is shooed away, there’s no knowing if he will muster up a big bunch of authentic rowdies, should such an idea get into his head. We jump into our pants, tie our shoelaces, and beat a hasty but respectful retreat – because judging from our physical decrepitude, an escalation of this situation could only have one outcome in real life. It ain’t easy to be a Notorious Rowdy.
Notorious Rowdies
Clare Arni
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The Furies 1 Digital Print on Archival Paper 16 x 24 inches In an Edition of 10 2017
Morticia 3 Digital Print on Archival Paper 16.5 x 11 inches In an Edition of 10 2017
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L to R: Inspector Kodhai 1 Digital Print on Archival Paper 16 x 24 inches In an Edition of 10 2017 Inspector Kodhai 2 Digital Print on Archival Paper 33 x 22 inches In an Edition of 10 2017 Inspector Kodhai 3 Digital Print on Archival Paper 16 x 24 inches In an Edition of 10 2017
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Clare Arni
Soraya 2 Digital Print on Archival Paper 11 x 16.5 inches In an Edition of 10 2017
Scooter Raja Digital Print on Archival Paper 16 x 24 inches In an Edition of 10 2017
Soraya 3 Digital Print on Archival Paper 16 x 24 inches In an Edition of 10 2017
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Underworld don John 2 Digital Print on Archival Paper 11 x 16.5 inches In an Edition of 10 2017
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Clare Arni
Underworld don John 3 Digital Print on Archival Paper 22 x 33 inches In an Edition of 10 2017
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The Foreign Hand 1 Digital Print on Archival Paper 9.5 x 14 inches In an Edition of 10 2017
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Loco Sanchez and Dulce Maria Digital Print on Archival Paper 16 x 24 inches In an Edition of 10 2017
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Clare Arni | About the artist
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ABOUT THE ARTIST Clare Arni’s photography practice delves into the subject of social documentary and cultural heritage. These themes form the core of her series “Disappearing Professions of Urban India” and “Anatomy of Stillness”, both of which were exhibited at TARQ in 2014 and 2015 respectively. Arni’s documentary work also looks at the lives of marginalized communities in some of the most remote regions of India. Her portraits also encompass photo-performance works.
Wild Child Digital Print on Archival Paper 22 x 33 inches In an Edition of 10 2017
Arni’s work has been exhibited internationally at the Mondavi Art Center, UC Davis, California; Essl Museum, Vienna Austria; Grosvenor Vadehra, London; Bose Pacia, New York and Berkley Art Musuem California. Her works also finds place in the permanent collection of the Saatchi Gallery, London, the Freer/Sackler gallery of the Smithsonian Institute,
Washington and Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. In India, her work has been shown at the India International Center, New Delhi; Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai; Bose Pacia, New Delh; National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai and Delhi; Max Muller Bhavan, Bangalore; Dakshinachitra Museum, Chennai; Museum of Goa and TARQ, Mumbai. Arni work also been extensively published by some of the leading publishing houses such as Phaidon, Thames and Hudson and Dorling Kindersley. She has also contributed her work to magazines like Abitare (Italy) Tatler, Wallpaper, The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Design magazine as well as several prominent Indian publications. Clare Arni lives and works in Bangalore.
Notorious Rowdies
Clare Arni| About the author
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Zac O’Yeah used to work at a theatre in Gothenburg, Sweden – the harbour town where his much-celebrated detective novel “Once Upon A Time in Scandinavistan” is set. Since then he has published thirteen books in Swedish – including a biography on Gandhi- “Mahatma!”, which was short-listed for the August Prize 2008 for best non-fiction book of the year. His most recent books include the popular comic thriller “Mr. Majestic! The Tout of Bengaluru”. Finally, 2015 saw the release of its much awaited sequel, the second Mr. Majestic novel, titled “Hari, a Hero for Hire”. He is also a literary critic and columnist with the BusinessLineBLink weekend supplement and contributor to National Geographic and Outlook Traveller. His
writings have also been published in The Caravan, Deccan Herald, Elle, Forbes Magazine, GQ, Harper’s Bazaar, The Hindu Literary Review, Hindustan Times, Indian Express, Indian Quarterly, Mint Lounge, New Indian Express, Open Magazine, Rock Street Journal, Shanghai Daily, The Sunday Standard, Tehelka Magazine, TimeOut Magazine, Times of India, Wenhui Daily as well as in major Swedish magazines and newspapers. Zac O’Yeah is also a translator specializing in introducing Indian writers such as Pankaj Mishra, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and others, to Swedish readers. He has had a long involvement with theatre in as a playwright, director, designer, producer, and occasional performer. He lives in India and is married to the author Anjum Hasan.
www.tarq.in