[Reader-list] J &K painting poetry at Habitate

[inder salim]

----------  Dear All are invited to join.


  Strains of the Himalayan Spirit. event initiated by Keshav Malik

(Paintings and Poetry from J&K)

India Habitat Centre

On 12th oct  5.7 pm

Heart Has Its Reasons

Why a motley gathering of art works and poetic voices? Because this
fraternity of the pursuers of the creative arts-- from the divine
flute playing Jammu and those from the blessed Vale-- have not yet
drawn a line around their hearts so clearly; because its impossible to
tell where one begins and where one ends; and because its hard to say
'no' to love.

Oh yes the truer among the artist community know by instinct that all
parts of the universe are interwoven with one another and that the
bond is sacred. The muses instruct them that to be enlightened is to
remove the barriers between self and self. Indeed to be creative is to
forget the self.

Now, though this event is modest, a mere flash in the pan, yet the
sufferings, the pangs and sorrows in our own region, as indeed in
several corners of  this great and vast country, has spurred us to a
moment of communion, so that the clairvoyant vision of an ancient
culture finally once again shines forth in the robes of glory.

Surely, a tall talk without a foundation! But then, that is how fresh
beginnings ever are, no matter on shoestrings.

All intent on the learning of the creative imagination have a stake in
an eternal enterprise: to be free from stupidity, from prejudice, from
parochialism, and to be enabled to think and feel for oneself. It is
precisely this sort of freedom that has empowered human beings.
Sagacity about life, as search for meaning, and fraternity, - - all
these are a part of ancient wisdom - - that way alone lies reality.
The other way lies the abyss and the shattered image of the Buddha of
compassion. The 'learnings' of the heart, let us remember, are
enjoined by all who live by the law above all laws.

Let us also remember that the artists of the peak order are people
whose vocation is to see as much as possible, to see the whole of
things rather than their division into categories; they are attuned to
wholeness, they believe it is necessary for humans to be proponent
over the passing appearances. Artists, of this order grasp this very
truth if only by synoptic and symbolic signs, attending to minute
particulars.

Still, we would not wish to romanticize the figure of the artist. Art
is a quest for order and sanity undertaken by people who can at
moments  themselves be disorderly and perhaps not even lovable.
Mercifully, art itself is greater than the sum of the artists. To
create voices in the viewers or listeners, images in the mind's eye,
imaginary presences with lives of their own, requires much self
awareness and self denial - - modesty even - - fascination with a
vision with a life of its own, quite independent of its maker and his
noisy ego. But this is not an image of the artist that comes easily in
an age of personalities, celebrities, show-biz and self promotion,
when people are less interested in the work of art than in what is in
it for them. So, counterfeit art is always with us.

And one sad thing more, that in fact some sort of cultural 'progress'
itself now is founded on barbarism. Art in our own times may indeed
fail to humanize, and in fact subvert the humane; it may completely
forget the actual immediacies of human and social circumstance. So
that such art can become too rarified, and aesthetes are deficient in
compassion. But the truer artist even while exclusively responding to
the order in a work of art, will yet at the same time never be
inattentive to, or passive in the face of the reality of injustice, of
enslavements, of massacres.

Thus, even when the arts must retain their highest standards at any
cost, yet they must not remain merely content addressing themselves to
the privileged few.  The 'masses', though they are liable to be easily
swayed by base or blind emotions, could nevertheless, by the artists'
labours, be turned into reflective, inward looking individual persons.

All in all, we sincerely believe that the arts are the highest
expression of the human spirit: and that we humans yearn to transcend
the merely ephemeral, and to participate in something mysterious and
shared called 'culture' and that this yearning is as strong in the
human species as the yearning to reproduce the species.

Even through the local, or the regional, (e.g. Ladakh, Jammu and
Kashmir) individual expressions and voices are aimed to create works
that speak, to fellow humans who know nothing of them. In their very
obliqueness to one another, an unexpected intimacy and fraternity can
nevertheless be born, that sign of deep affection for the mortals of
one and the same earth.

The individual voice, then, is the voice of the whole community. The
regional voice, the universal voice. Let us therefore bless all
mortals. Did not the seers of the Himalayas teach exactly that?

KESHAV  MALIK



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