Nature of expressions

Curating a just-concluded exhibition in Delhi on the theme of the seasons, involving a range of contemporary artists, brought me not gnly a measure of satisfaction in itself: it somehow reaffirmed the need for us to try and recover the context of wholeness in which the arts used to be viewed in our culture once. The seasons are not a new theme in themselves, but the manner in which the show – titled "Ritu: A Gathering of Seasons" – was structured had, I believe, something different to offer. For while the core of the exhibition was visual, consisting as it did of paintings, around it were organised events that pulled in the performing and the literary arts together.

On the day of the opening there was a Bharatanatyam recital by Malavika Sarukkai who, drawing upon the theme of the seasons, lit the place up by a luminous performance. On the evening that followed, there was a session of poetry reading, with Ashok Vajpeyi reciting his own compositions in Hindi and I contributing some bits in Urdu, all harking back to the seasons. Then there was a classical vocal recital by Shubha Mudgal, who dipped into the riches of the past, invoking the seasons in her dulcet voice.

Everyone present on this occasion had the distinct sensation of being wrapped in a different kind of experience, with the arts blending seamlessly into one another, coming together in the manner that they were always intended to. The work of the painters who had been invited to participate in the exhibition, also somehow came together, though they were very different from each other.It had all begun by their being asked to respond in their own fashion, and idiom, to the traditional miniature format, sending in ‘small works on paper’, in the awareness – if they so liked – of the work that had been done in the past in our land on the theme of the seasons. Almost as a reminder of what already existed, there were in the show some works by a traditional artist, Shakir Ali, who brought in some works from the Baramasa repertoire almost exactly as they used to be painted some 200 years ago, and a complete cycle of the twelve months of the year by another traditional artist, Kripal Singh Shekhawat, who, however, produced playful variations upon the theme in a style not generally associated with Baramasa pictures.

The contemporary artists, five of them from Pakistan—Aisha Khalid, Muhammad Imran Qureshi, Nusra Latif Qureshi, Saira Waseem and Waseem Ahmed— two from England—Amrit and Rabindra Kaur, or the ‘Singh Twins’ as they have come to be called—and six from India – Amit Ambalal, Gulammohammed Sheikh, Manisha Gera Baswani, Manjit Bawa, Nilima Sheikh, and Viren Tanwar, took over. Each of them evoked, invoked, recalled, and interpreted, the seasons differently in his or her work, some among them treating the seasons simply as the equivalent of change, and of cycles. One could see natural and significant references to the past in their work but essentially they were producing responses not only to the themes long honoured in the tradition, but also to scale and process and aesthetics.

Within the relatively small works that came in, one was able not only to recognise nods of homage to the past, but also to pick up strands of appropriation and subversion, quiet provocation and witty defiance.

This is not the place to go into each artist’s work. People have always tended to think of the seasons differently, for geography, context, temperament, and mood are constantly at play.Even the words we generally use for them come from diverse sources, leading thoughts in different channels. The English ‘season’, thus, traces its root to Latin serere, ‘ to sow’; Sanskrit ritu is related somewhere to rita, ‘that which is proper, right, apt’; and therefore means a settled point of time, as much as a period of the year; Persian mausam stands for time, but, equally, for the place of meeting, especially in the ‘season when pilgrims assemble at Mecca’.

In each case, the resonances one picks up are clear, but different. Not only this, there is no agreement even upon the number of seasons. In the West, they speak of the ‘Four Seasons’ – Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. Here, at home, the term most familiar is shad-ritu, the ‘Six Seasons’, these being Vasanta, Grishma, Varsha, Sharad, Hemanta and Shishira. Suddenly, I find myself wandering into the area of dry listing.

One should perhaps recall to one’s mind something like that great, sound- and image-rich, classic poem of Kalidasa, Ritusamhara, which takes in its majestic sweep the colours of the land parched under the burning sun, the renewal that the rains bring as emeralds cover the Earth, the golden plenitude of autumn, the cold glitter of winter. And speak, as he did, of Fine woven silks dyed scarlet with mallow juice/swathed round hips, delicate silks saffron-dyed/shining pale gold, (that) veil the perfect orbs of breasts;/ and women (who) now dress with light-hearted elegance…

(This article was published on 30 January 2005)