----------------------------------------------------------------- Goanetter Francis Rodrigues (Vasco/Toronto) book launch in London, England @ the World Goa Day festivities on 15 Aug at 7pm Details http://www.konkanisongbook.com
----------------------------------------------------------------- Herald, OPinionatED, 15 Aug 2009 A Question of Aesthetics and Freedom of Expression The difference between nudity and pornography in art By Margaret Mascarenhas The controversy that has arisen over the existence of a work in the Goa State Museum by the world renowned 92-year-old Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan awardee M F Husain, whose paintings were recently auctioned by Christie’s for 2 million pounds a canvas, would be just a storm in a teacup and merely the rantings of a fanatical group grasping for recognition, were it not for the fact that the government is actually having a meeting about it. As everyone who reads the newspapers knows, the origins of this controversy lie in the 1996 ruckus made by similar groups with regard to nudity in Husain’s depiction of Mother India. Husain apologized for hurting any sentiments and offered to appear before a committee that included a VHP member, a lawyer, and an art critic, and destroy any painting the committee deemed objectionable. Instead he was physically manhandled and his home ransacked by Hindu hardliners. He now lives in self-imposed exile in Dubai. There appears to be a pathological disconnect between the fanatical Hindu groups mushrooming today, and their own rich religious and cultural history. Otherwise how would it be possible for them to worship Mahadev as a symbol of male and female sex organs, while simultaneously describing a work of art (“Mother India”) as a communal assault against Hinduism and Hindus. (Since Husain has not only apologized but left the country, the continued hullabaloo seems only like desperate attempt to keep a dead controversy going.) With regard to over-zealous claims of obscenity, I would like to raise this question in all sincerity: do not Hindu scriptures such as the Kama Sutra present the point of view that to attain moksha, one should also experience sexual/sensual fulfillment? In the Purusha Purana, are there not saints who have sinned, sages who have abandoned asceticism for a beautiful woman, deities who have made love to the Sun God, slept with the spouses of others, fathered deer, conceived before marriage? Anjolie Ela Menon has painted numerous nude or bare-breasted Madonnas, and no one seems to be asking for her blood. F N Souza constantly questioned and challenged Christian precepts. No one in their right minds would demand his erasure from the line-up of progressive masters. Nor should they. On the subject of nudity and sexuality, I would like to point out that many temples in India, built between 900-1300 AD, blatantly exhibit erotic art, Khajuraho being the most well known. Numerous theoretical arguments have been advanced regarding presence of erotic depiction at the temples in Khajuraho, the most prominent of which are that it represents kama (desire); that it represents the third purushartha (purpose of life); that it represents a test to the spiritual resilience of yogis; that sensual pleasures should be left behind (these depictions occur on the outer walls, not in the area where the deity is kept); that it is a manual for tantric sex education; and that it is merely a celebration of the sensual on the road to moksha. Whatever the argument, no one, certainly no half-baked, ignorant-of-their-own-art-history Hindu faction has ever recommended that the erotic art of the Khajuraho temples be removed from the public domain. Nudity and even erotica are not synonymous with pornography. And those who don’t know the difference shouldn’t be taken seriously. It is an undeniable fact of history that erotic symbolism and representation exists in the ancient art of Hindus, Buddhists and Jains, and most anthropologists associate this occurrence with a common substratum of beliefs and practices connected with fertility cults and rites. Such fertility rites symbolised the act of procreation, as well as its subtext: the promotion of life, happiness, abundance. The auspicious and protecting properties (alankara) of erotic figures have been amply described in the Shilpashastras and many other authoritative documents in the discourse on temple art. The Brihat Samhita (6th century AD) unequivocally states that mithunas should adorn the temple door. The architectural text Shilpa Prakasha (c tenth-twelfth century AD) states that a yantra should be placed on temples to protect it from calamities and evil spirits. Some scholars posit that because of the curious placement of erotica on the walls between the two balconies in three prominent Hindu Sandhara temples, the architect was employing an enigmatic tantric symbolism or code known as sandhya binasha – a language used by tantric practitioners to obscure their doctrines and protect them from the uninitiated. There is nothing ugly about the body or desire and its fulfillment; it is only so to ugly minds – the same kind of predominantly idle, uncreative, and counterproductive minds who have dynamited the standing Buddhas in the Bamiyan Valley, who have viciously and falsely in the name of religion attacked Salman Rushdie, Deepa Mehta, Taslima Nasreen and far too many others to list here. Art has always been the sacred realm of aesthetics and freedom of expression. And the artist must be true and authentic in the creative process. Freedom of expression is enshrined in the Constitution. It cannot and must not be trammeled by mind-boggling ignorance and pettiness of the kind we are witnessing today in Goa and other parts of the country. -- Whatever it is, I'm against it -- Groucho Marx