A month before the D-Day when the Mahalaya song echoes not just through the speakers but through every soul that connects to it, people start posting pictures of muddy idols, artists putting together seemingly inconspicuous artifacts or just getting a rough draft of the ‘design’. With every passing year what intrigues me more is "what does the artist look at the idol as?" For him is the idol an extension of the divine herself, or is it his own artistic expression which has nothing much to do with the mythology and superstitions, or is it just a job he has taken up for survival?
Before I go further let me understand the word ‘brilliance’. Brilliance happens where there is an undying interest, an unfathomable search to learn more, and an indelible label of being an unrelenting student of whichever discipline that interests the individual. And to retain the tenant by the name ‘brilliance’ one has to pledge nothing less than a lifetime of dedication and respect.
If you have been lucky to witness the ‘celebration of art’ as I put it, I am sure you are no stranger to the brilliance I am talking about here. Every nook and corner of the make shift structure that suddenly sprouts out during the festive season demands in a profound yet subtle manner a piece of your attention.
Earlier there used to be flickering lights unaware of the bigger story it was actually conveying. Sometimes it conveyed the whole life of the goddess or depicted a social issue in a very palatable manner. With the lights outside the work of art was mainly limited to the insides of the ‘pandal’. But as time went by and people soon realized stories are best told by people who know them first hand. And very soon there was an upsurge of artistic storytelling sometimes even spilling over the streets!
Now let me draw a few analogies and see what could be drawn as a conclusion from the same. Lets picture a newly wedded couple, doing all they can to set their dream house, an entrepreneur who is running pillar to post to see his dream venture spiral into the next orbit, and an artist who is giving life to an idol which has to look worth the title of ‘God’. I believe none of the three have the luxury of being lackadaisical towards the task in hand. None of them have the net ready to save them as a trapeze artist has. None of them could have a comprehensive response to the ‘what if it goes wrong’ phrase.
When I tried to study each situation I noticed a stark learning that emerged as a winner.
The newly wedded couple couldn’t readily accept the fact that the T.V had to go back to the showroom thanks to a failed EMI. The entrepreneur couldn’t acknowledge the fact when reality clearly pointed that he had his money on the wrong idea. But the artist who visualized year round to create the ‘God’ for millions never complained when she was taken away from him first to the dais of the ‘pandal’ which was off-limits to him and then taken to the ghats of the Ganga where all he could do was stand witness to the act of letting her go with the unceasing tide lapping every-bit of his baby which others saw as ‘Ma’.
The artist’s ability to disengage is something that hit me like a bolt. The lack of emotions during the drift surely cant be seen as indifference.
The brilliance of the artist comes with the fact that he could give his best and beyond to create the ‘God’ for the world and still disengage the moment he realized it was time to let her go. The response to the most insatiable urge- ‘I want happiness’ lies in the ability to disengage. We might pray for happiness when we stand in front of the ‘God’ but in reality, the answer to our prayers gets demonstrated maybe in a dilapidated shed where the ‘artist’ creates a something for us to... worship.
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