It was the last week of the ‘Sacred Made Real‘ exhibition and last Sunday, the boyfriend and I decided to skip the routine of weekend lazing and head to the National Gallery for a dose of high culture. It helped that it was an uncharacteristically beautiful winter day with ample doses of sunlight, a scarce resource this time of the year; we were in rather a sanguine mood when entering the exhibition.
We were pleasantly surprised to note that the free exhibition guide (yes, it’s online too!) presented a page of commentary for each piece on display and its history, which made for a great supplement to our audio guides, an accessory I consider essential for a wholesome experience at the gallery. The audio guide contained detailed commentary on over 75% of the pieces on display, and included additional material such as 20mins of music specifically composed and orchestrated by Stephen Hough for this exhibition.
This was an exhibition with timed entrances, presumably for reasons of crowd control, and yet the rooms were chockablock full with people. Anymore, and the freestanding displays of Spanish multichromed sculptures would have people pressing right up to them!
What was striking to me from the moment I entered the exhibition was how familiar several of the Biblical images, especially those relating to The Passion, seemed to me. The images of the Crucifixion displayed in Spanish style were strongly reminiscent of what I saw in India, growing up under the influence of a Catholic Church which drew great inspiration from Spanish & Portuguese tradition. The hyper-realistic theme through that era of Spanish painting and sculpture is striking, especially in the lighting arrangement at the National Gallery – some of the sculptures proportioned to be life-sized seemed so real that I wanted to touch their outstretched arms.
The exhibition had the usual suspects – the Spanish masters, Velázquez (who, along with Delacroix & Gericault, is one of my favourite European artists) and Zurbarán – and also showcased gracefully the masters in sculptures who are not remembered often enough – Juan Martínez Montañés and Pedro de Mena, for example. The most memorable and shocking piece in the entire exhibition had to be the sculpture which meditated on death, ‘Dead Christ’ by Gregorio Fernández – the blue-ish tinge of the parted lips, the glassy eyes, the angular posture – it is a morbid fascination with death itself that draws the viewer to the sculpture.
The couple of hours we spent going through the 30 exhibit pieces thoroughly, listening to the accompanying music, appreciating the techniques (a separate room showed the painting and sculpting process in great detail) and watching some artists making sketches while standing in the gallery left us quite enervated. The violently real imagery in the paintings and sculpture of the time is emotionally exhausting to take it all in together. A latte and a Chelsea bun with raisins at the National Gallery cafe was a fitting finish to an exhibition which left us enriched spiritually, even as it depleted us emotionally.
As my previous post on the Google-China issue might have hinted at, I am definitely NOT a fan of the arm-twisting tactics the Chinese engage to gain capitalistic success while denying its citizens the basic elements of a democracy. That said, something about the juxtaposition of the old world/new world paradigms in this HBR article by Haque kindled some annoyance within me, not necessarily on behalf of China, but on behalf of all developing nations.
I do not wish to cast aspersions on Haque’s intentions but this cynical voice within refuses to stop asking this uncomfortable question – right, so when the white Western world wanted to make its riches and various western European nations wished to reach their respective ‘developed world’ status, they were allowed to indulge in slavery, hegemony, colonialism, racism and so many unforgivable crimes of humanity, but that’s OK? And while we all know that freedom of speech and thought is fundamental to the very idea of freedom, most of us would also concede that restricting someone’s freedom of speech is not as inhumane as, say, shipping human beings from a continent to do manual labour and using them as resources towards building empires.
I do not mean to say that two wrongs make a right, or that developing nations should be allowed to run amok with human rights to accommodate for the several crimes done to them in a different era – nothing can ever compensate for the past mistakes. Several modern business practices in India & China, especially child labour and sweatshops, are deeply reminiscent of the crimes committed by the Imperialists and colonialists and should be censured accordingly. But to say, that, oh, the rules of the game have changed now that the Western world is comfortably rich – that is a bit preposterous, nay? Isn’t this moral righteousness just a tad bit grating on the nerves? Perhaps, it is just me, but I refuse to think of the Western bloc as blameless as they claim to be, when they point fingers at China.
I remember sitting in my entrepreneurship class a few years ago, perhaps in 2006, when people were still marvelling at Google’s stratospheric rise from a startup to an MNC in less than a decade. I think I had just finished reading ‘The Google Story‘ and I was suitably impressed by the brilliance of its founders. I also remember the vehement fanboy-isms among my classmates on how Google had got everything right and how Microsoft was clearly an evil bully. Several discussions often ended with references to Google’s ‘Do No Evil’ policy. I remember being glared at in class for suggesting that people were so much in love with Google only because it made for such a cuddly David in front of the massive Goliaths that Microsoft, Sun & such were.
I have to admit, it was (and is) fashionable back then to be staunchly anti-Microsoft and I might have been more than slightly unkind to them. Yet, I also rolled my eyes at fanaticism towards Apple & Google. Perhaps, as a result of having worked in large corporations myself, I knew that the persona that Google projected in its early days would be hard to sustain as it grew bigger. And indeed, as Google became the big boy in the Silicon Valley, people worried about its clout, the weight it could afford to throw around and, predictably enough, were laudatory of the newer, smaller kids-on-the-block.
It has been a few years since, and I keep catching myself indulging in brand/tech fanaticism and evangelising (Firefox, Billmonk, WaveSecure have been a few of my favourite things). But I’m trying hard to be more tame in swearing allegiance to ANY tech camp; experience has taught me that, in time, even the coolest of technologies can seem stodgy and outdated, so being open and somewhat skeptical is so much better.
But today, I’m going to indulge. I’m feeling all warm and fuzzy about Google thumbing its nose at China by taking a stand on freedom of speech – I am a fan of Google for not abetting the crackdown on human rights activists, as Yahoo has previously done in China. At a cerebral level, I am aware that such decisions are not necessarily made for ideological reasons alone, but because business might dictate it too, as several skeptics have pointed out and yet, at an emotional level, I just can’t help signing up onto the Google Groupies Foreva list (Ok, I jest, there is no such site or list. Sorry.) Even if this is merely a marketing tactic, to follow up on the somewhat underwhelming response to Nexus One, by God, what a bold move indeed.
Jokes aside, this is an important move, not only in technology and business, but in the political arena too. As Fallows rightly points out, this incident and the way it has got everyone talking about it, heralds the ‘Dick-Cheney era’ for China, the ‘bad boys’ if you may, while everyone fawns over the wunderboy that Obama is.
To get an inkling of the annoyance/outrage one might feel upon having information held back from them, try this exercise. And Do No Evil.
…On whether India should deploy troops to Afghanistan, it can be reviewed here. On the panel were Nitin, aka Acorn, Sushant from Pragati & Rohit, aka Retributions. Unfortunately, the panelists’ comments and those of the members of the audience have not been differentiated in this transcript – apologies for some incoherence.
Several members of the audience chimed in with questions and comments and while there seemed to be widespread skepticism towards the proposition, the poll showed that there was a two to one support for sending Indian troops to Afghanistan.
My view was that, apart from the right and the wrong of it, the question to ask is – does the Indian Army have the kind of muscle required to pull off this overly ambitious mission? Albeit in an informal context, it was hard to miss the constant references to the dearth of quality military leadership in the Indian Armed Forces, perhaps because I grew up hearing about it through my childhood! While it is true that India has deployed troops to various regions around the world as part of the UN Peace Keeping Forces, for us to be able to prove ourselves a force to reckon with, our Armed Forces would need to ramp up both technically and in terms of manpower. And then there’s the question of the fickle power play that the US is now notorious for.
And in a timely reference, Pragmatic of INI points to an interview of Lt. Gen VK Singh, who is most likely the next army chief. And as the interview demonstrates, in no unclear terms, the Indian Army is not designed to fight wars on foreign territory. And, my view is, rightly so – India as a developing economy cannot afford a murky war for PR reasons alone, if nothing else. It is foolish to assume that FDIs will continue to come our way, irrespective of our internal and external security issues, especially if we choose to dive headlong into them.
That there is a clear security issue due to Pak MJC cannot be denied but to fight them, we need to engage with them directly, not fight America’s war in Afghanistan and lose goodwill in the international community. Also, it cannot be discounted that Pak MJC (a conglomerate of Pakistan-based Jehadi outfits) can continue to undermine our domestic civilian security despite our best efforts to quell them on the Af-Pak frontier.
And as Pragmatic points out, despite a good case being put forth by Acorn & Retributions, if the policy makers and military leadership see this as an unfeasible operation, this entire discussion is moot.
Barbara Crossette, an old hand at foreign journalism, wrote this rant of a piece, bemoaning the cloyingly positive view everyone seems to have of India, while in reality, India is the true villian in the arena of global policy making, whether it be climate change matters or nuclear proliferation. Several ‘facts’ she quotes in isolation make for a solid case in favour of her argument. However, Ms. Crossette, as a journalist herself, should know that fragments of information do not tell a complete story. Her bias seems to have overtaken any desire for objectivity and she has filtered quotes and statistics to discard any substantiation of a viewpoint contrary to her own. As several people have been wondering on Twitter, what on earth has she been smoking?
A fitting rejoinder, if you may, to Ms. Crossette’s diatribe, has been written by Nitin Pai, better known as Acorn online. It is a well-written response to correct any misconceptions one may develop reading Crossette’s piece and the amusing use of pachydermous metaphors help to maintain some levity even as he displays his outrage. That said, it wouldn’t entirely hurt to acknowledge that, yes, India does have some ground to cover with respect to corruption and that sporadic episodes of communal violence persist and that serious efforts are being made to address them.
Nonetheless, sir, I doff my hat at thee for ripping apart an article reeking of an irrational distaste for India’s increasing influence and soft power in global politics. Oh, and I did buy a Fedora hat last weekend, how very timely.
So someone on Twitter pointed out to me the Yelp ‘Burst’ Birthday Party happening in a few days, and I promptly signed up and RSVP-ed, because it would be a shame to waste a good party like that.
And lo presto, look what they have done – in just over a day, I Yelp-ed over 7 restaurants/pubs and I foresee more of the same. If you are someone who enjoys going out to bars, pubs, restaurants and such in London or even need reviews on hairstylists, specialists stores and more, look up Yelp London, and this here would be my review page – keep up with me and how I rate London’s hangouts, ta!
What happened? Why are people Googling me all of a sudden? See graph of blog-hits today, and the day’s only about half gone…
Good lord, the next decade is truly upon us then, I dithered and hummed and hawed, hoping the new year would just come and I wouldn’t notice but good Lord, it is hard not to marvel on the passage of a decade since those Y2K days. And what a decade indeed, phenomenally convoluted and exciting in various ways, while also being mildly pointless in the long run, something like a rollercoaster ride if you really think about it. Don’t look at me, several people have deemed that nothing good has happened in the decade. Ok, that might be a tad unfair; look at the 50 new things we know this year that we didn’t know last year. So let us just call it a mixed bag, then.
I wish all of you and myself a meaningful and eventful decade ahead – may you have much love, laughter and travels to remember, while also learning much from whatever travails that come your way.
Happy 2010, folks, and hope you had a lovely Christmas too.
