O Lord White as Jasmine [Signature line from poetry of 12th century poet Mahadeviyakka]

The previous day had been a challenging one, especially the morning half of it.  My inner disturbance was predictably reflected in what went on around me and trying to grapple with myself took better part of the day. I did however, reclaim the day. I went, as planned, to see a show at Lado Sarai and on the way did some chores too, which was heartening.  

I walked into Gallery Threshold and some bells, a rather persistent tinkling, announced my arrival. Tunty came out of her office and walked me through the ongoing exhibition by the artist V Ramesh. The first tier consisted of paintings that referenced the oneness of being, wherein there were some rather realistic, painterly renditions of fruit – jackfruit or kathal, pomegranate and bananas with a reference to the idea that their form was reflective of the human body. In ‘This is it’, a large [60 x 80”] oil on canvas, three stalks laden with bananas were hyper-realistically drawn, magnifying each  mark and detail of form and colour. On the extreme right the fruit was ripe, ready to be eaten. On the central stalk, it was peeled as if about to be eaten and on the far right, the stalk was devoid of fruit, implying that all the bananas had been devoured, picked or fallen off the branch. Part of a human skeleton, from pelvis up to the ribs, was drawn over this stalk. The imagery seemed like a metaphor for life, wherein I inferred that the life of a banana was not really that different from the journey of life as a human being. Born, ripening, sharing, giving of oneself and then upon death, only our bare bones remain, waiting to be interred or buried.  

The lower floor of the gallery, had massive, floor to ceiling canvasses that obsessively dealt with poems of the fourteenth century Kashmiri saint Lal Ded, to the ‘vacanas’ of Akka Mahadevi, a twelfth century [Shiva] Bhakti saint-poet of south India. These canvasses were more abstract in nature and focussed on a single poem by each of the poets. Somehow, Tunty expected a response from me that evoked her own passion for these works. A long discussion ensued, compelling me to focus upon the works and the one painting that stayed with me through the rest of the day was ‘Pining for an Absent Lover’ based on Akka Mahadevi’s longing for her ‘Lord, white as Jasmine’, or ‘Mallikarjuna’, as the legendary Shiva is also referred to. A large canvas, [96x72”] in dark hues of brown and black, with just a hint of white and some flower buds, was covered with these words in multiple layers:

 

“Like a silkworm weaving                 

  her house with love
  from her marrow,
                                  and dying
 in her body’s threads
 winding tight, round,
 and round
                                        I burn
desiring what the heart desires
                                                
Cut through, O Lord,
my heart’s greed,
and show me
your way out,
                                               
O Lord white as jasmine.”

 Most of the verse was barely visible; the tone of brown it was written with was overshadowed by strokes, textures and marks in black, grey and browns. The only line that was somewhat clearly visible was “O Lord white as jasmine.” [Akka Mahadevi used this as her ‘signature’ or ‘ankita’ in all her poems]. This appeared in fragments, visible intermittently, all over the large, dull and dark expanse, written in white.  On the right hand, bottom quarter of the canvas, in a burst of white, which seemed symbolic of light, the artist had painted a woman, sitting in a meditative posture, clearly in a trance, her long tresses covering her naked body. This light was surrounded by thorn-like lines and a great deal of dark colour. The rest of the canvas was cloudy, dark; with restless marks overlaying the text with glimpses of red or yellow. And then flowers were strewn across the surface as if showering the divine, but the blooms appeared only occasionally. These were painted in the same realistic style as the bananas and pomegranates I had seen earlier. This painting was odd. I did not feel reassured, or sublime. I could not respond without the intellectual process of looking, analyzing and mentally engaging with the work to find some empathy in its sense of struggle - of dealing with darkness and then lightening of this sombre mood – transcending it. The painting itself may not have conveyed much, but I came away intrigued by the idea of an artist working so obsessively on a few lines of a single verse.  When I got home, later that night, I searched my library, for ‘Speaking of Siva’[i], and read through some fifty verses by Mahadeviyakka[ii].

 The poems were evocative of her struggle with her body, being a woman and how social conditioning confined her in her quest for ecstasy. She is said to have roamed, in a gesture of defiance, with only her long tresses as cover for her naked body, seeking the love of the Lord and kindred spirits. I had bought the book five years ago in October 2007, after attending a poetry workshop organized by Caferati in New Delhi. Professor Shivaprakash, who conducted the workshop, had informed us that ‘vacana’ was possibly the earliest known form of free verse where the poet went directly to the heart of experience, to create new words for self expression. The idea had interested me then but I did not relate as much to the obsession with Siva and this has not changed. However, re-looking at the ‘vacanas’ did lead to some reflection.

The saint poets pursued their spiritual ideals by obsessively invoking ‘lord Shiva’ through their verse. Bhakti or intense love for God is an important aspect of Hinduism of the post-Vedic period, possibly beginning with the Bhagavad Gita. I was born into the Hindu tradition of idol worship and my maternal grandmother was a devout Krishna Bhakt[iii].  One would often find her talking to her two- feet tall, murti[iv] of Krishna, bathing and dressing him and singing bhajans[v] with a great deal of shraddha[vi]. I recollect one evening some thirty-five years ago, my grandfather and I had stood outside her mandir[vii] in their summer home in Shimla, listening to her sing and when she saw her husband standing there she blushed a beetroot red, hiding her face in the dupatta that was usually draped over the top and back of her head.  I could never understand this bashfulness, especially after having given birth to four of his children and neither could I relate to this devotion to a stone statue. I recollect my own mother, following the same ritual of doing aarti[viii]; singing ‘Aum jai jagdish hare’[ix] twice a day, sometimes in such a hurried way, it sounded nothing like a devout prayer.

The bhakti tradition in India encourages worship of deities in the form of murtis or sculptures, but I personally do not conform to this even as I do find myself often folding my hands in front of statues if I do visit a temple. I have a couple of them in my meditation room. They were gifts and I did not really know what else to do with them, so they lie there and I clean and use them for the traditional puja at Diwali. It’s complicated. Inherited ideas regarding faith make it complex and I find myself constantly re-defining its parameters for myself.

In that last two years a statue, being constructed by some locals in Chauma Village in the Palam Vihar region, grew to its full height of 64 feet and a larger than life Shiva, snake coiled around his neck, a Trishul[x] reaching for the skies and accessories traditionally associated with Shiva stood before my eyes. It does not face me but with its back to the East, faces West, or possibly even South west which means that I see the right side of the Shiva statue’s profile. As I draw up the blinds each morning, this is pretty much the first thing I see and often during the day, as I look into the expanse beyond it, in a moment of contemplation, my eyes rest on this bronzed cement statue. Prior to this, when I lived in Friends Colony, there had also been a small Shiva temple, constructed by Dhirendra Brahmachari, a close associate of Indira Gandhi, just two doors down. And even though I was not a devout Hindu, I took to visiting this temple each day on my way home from an evening walk. It may have something to do with the fact that my mother would regularly visit a Shiva temple and chadao jal[xi] on the linga[xii] that somehow it got passed on, like traditions do, or maybe it was the proximity of the temple and the need for a crutch that led me to doing the same for a while.

 The idea of Shiva does intrigue and looking at this visage each day has generated more than just causal curiosity. There are many stories surrounding this unusual being, typified as the God of destruction. Part of the Hindu Trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, his place in the pantheon has had a chequered history where his innocent but angry nature has earned him much affection as also alienation. For me it is the idea of a God imbued with such human traits that endears. He loved with a passion and carried mementoes of his lost loves around his neck as a mundmala[xiii]. He was an ascetic with a volatile temper but found compassion when he finally gave into Parvati’s[xiv] pursuit of him and married her. He was brusque and not very finessed, but even so he is a prominent Hindu deity today.

 

After reading the ‘vacanas’, I went to sleep thinking about what I had read. The next morning I was sitting quietly in the kitchen waiting for some water to boil. There was no-one in the apartment, except for me. The silence of this part of the morning, of quietude carried over from a night of restful sleep and the early morning calm, is something I cherish. This morning, I tuned into the drone of the washing machine and microwave oven whirring simultaneously and wondered about objects of worship. I thought: if we can pray to a stone statue and find God or a connection with God through this, why could not these sounds I was hearing at this point, be as evocative of the same God?
 

Why is it only in birdsong and a river gushing down the stream that we think of as connecting us with God? Why is it that machines, which have been invented by men, who are also part of the same spirit, therefore also evocative of God, not worshipped? And then I remembered Vishvakarma the 'divine' engineer of the universe who is worshipped each year, the day after Diwali, when it is customary for all factory workers and craftsmen to worship their tools in his name. But is it the same thing I wonder.

I rather like the idea of worshipping everything from men, women, trees, rivers and birds to tools of one’s trade, but somehow feel that most of this is done as part of a ritual rather than any realized veneration.  In essence we need to find ways to find our connection with God or spirit through everything we do each day. In ancient India, everything was designated an art because it was not what the activity was but how it was done. It was the level of devotion which imbued everything- from cooking, kissing or weaving that made it an art. I guess the key to this would be to find the silence within, however we do, and then keep that as we go through the day, living with awareness of how everything is really just an extension of one’s own being and it really does not matter which path we walk. What matters is that we stay connected and feel empowered by this, writing poetry, walking naked in the forests or painting words on a canvas. 

What matters is not what we do, but how we experience life through it, to arrive at the ideal where everything, every experience is accepted with utmost faith.  This ultimate human endeavour is easier said than done, where as Akka Mahadevi wrote: 

“If sparks fly

  I shall think my thirst and hunger quelled
  If the skies tear down

  I shall think them pouring for my bath.
 
If a hillside slide on me
I shall think it flower for my hair.
O lord white as jasmine,
if my head falls from my shoulders
I shall think it your offering.”[xv]

---

[i] Penguin Classics ,translated by A.K Ramanujan

[ii] Akka Mahadevi [another way of addressing this saint poet]

[iii] devotee

[iv] statue

[v] Hymns/songs of devotion to God

[vi] devotion

[vii] temple

[viii] A prayer that is sung during an offering of light to the deity - a plate with lighted candles[diyas] is circled before the statue of the deity

[ix] Hail the lord of all creation/God

[x] Trident

[xi] Pouring milk mixed with water

[xii] Shivling/ lingam – representation of the HIndu deity Shiva used for worship in temples. The lingam has been interpreted as a symbol of male creative energy or the phallus and is represented with the yoni, a symbol of thegoddess r Shakti, female emergy. The union of lingam and yoni represents the indivisible " two-in-oneness of male and female, from whinc all life originates"

[xiii] Necklace of skulls

[xiv] Shiva’s consort

[xv]  Verse 65, translated from Kannada by A. K Ramanujan. Penguin classics pg 102

The Purple Chair Meditation

 

What a Chaotic day!

 

I was finding it difficult to sleep. It was not peaceful or reassuring when I turned off the light. My mind screeched in the darkness. So I switched it back on again and found that I was less afraid to let my thoughts tumble out. Tired, after a hectic day and an eight hundred metre swim, I was somehow still disturbed and restless. The first annoying factor had been an altercation I’d had with the condominium management.  In 42 degrees Celsius, the guard room did not have even a fan. The new manager cited protocol and all manner of excuses not to install one, callously stating that it was a holiday for his office the next day, so maybe two days hence, he could try and rectify the situation. God, this annoyed me. I shot off an email to the secretary of the society, but it meant the guards would have to endure another two days of inhuman conditions, at the very least.

A lot of other things also happened during the day.  There was labour all over my apartment.  In the gruelling heat, they kept all the doors and windows opened, all through the day. I realise that they had to in order to repair them, but it was unbearably hot sitting indoors and worse outside. The rollers of most of the channels of the aluminium sliding doors and windows needed to be changed. Their locks had to be replaced and other minor adjustments made. It took the whole day, and to endure the hot and humid weather with drill machines and hammers banging away was tough. There had been no time to write in my journal as I usually did and this meant that things were not quite put into perspective at the start of the day.

 I did complete sundry chores and respond to emails. I also managed some reading and then somehow did an hour of meditation in the heated cacophony but this only brought the underlying restlessness to the fore. I needed to write, but the moment I thought of getting out the laptop, something else needed attention. I was fasting, but this did not seem to quell the growing anxiety building up inside, either. A vigorous swim helped, but at the end of the day when I also had to switch rooms, as the air conditioner in my bedroom had stopped working because the erratic power supply that came and went every five minutes had blown something, it was the last straw.  I was grateful to have an alternate space to sleep in, but there was so much else playing on my mind. 

Unable to sleep, when I turned on the light, the first thing that caught my eye was the purple chair. Styled vaguely along the lines of furniture developed during and around the brief reign of Anne, Queen of Great Britain [1702 – 1714], this particular chair had once been part of a set of six dining table chairs. I remember it from those years when we lived in an apartment in Tivoli Court in Calcutta’s Ballygunge area in the 1960s and, also later, when we moved to Delhi, living in a rented bungalow in Maharani Bagh. This set, however, was replaced when we moved into our own home in neighbouring Friends Colony.  A new ornately carved set of six, also a variant of ‘The Queen Anne’ style, was made by Yasin in his workshop in East of Kailash. I remember my father would visit him often to check on the progress, sometimes taking me and my sisters along. Papa had chosen the design himself and wanted to ensure that Yasin and his associates did a good job of copying it from the foreign magazine he’d found the pattern in.

My mother used four of the old, now replaced set, to play Bridge with her friends and the two remaining chairs have stayed with me for well nigh thirty years; moving when I did, like faithful friends, from Delhi to Gurgaon. There was a time when I used to sit on them to work, drawing, writing and embroidering for many hours.  Now, these regal but old chairs grace my meditation room, which is where I slept last night. During meditation, I sit on one of them, with a cushion under my feet. They have, over the years, been upholstered in many different hues and fabrics.  At this point, they don a plain, cotton handloom textile which has a fine rib-like structure even though it is technically just a plain weave, dyed in a sort of lush lavender bordering on lilac, with a hint of purple.   

The front legs are round and narrow with a simple moulding of two circular parallel lines, at top and bottom. A narrow waist-like indent which creates an hour-glass figure between the two protruding lines of the upper set is one of the distinctive features of these otherwise non-descript chairs. The back legs are based on a square format. The base is about two inches, slowing increasing as it rises upwards carved in an  arch, curving in and then a little out, but not as far out, as the base of the foot. An upholstered high back with a slight slant arches back, slightly away from the seat of the chair. This is finished with a swoop on the top, like a wave coming from the left, rising at the centre of the back-rest and then vanishing on the right side. The effect is simple, yet quite regal. The legs are slender and polished in a dark shade of mahogany but most of the moulding and colour have been chewed into by the three black Labrador puppies that lived and grew up with us, leaving a rather mottled effect, revealing the raw sienna of the wood’s natural colour. 

 

 

  In my hurry to get the room set for slumber, I had picked up the cushions from the diwan and just dumped them on one of the chairs. The visual I saw, in those moments before I finally did fall sleep, despite the innocuousness of its mundane-everydayness, made a rather enchanting picture.  Carelessly piled, one upon the other, were four puffed up squares of peach, beige and lavender.  A rich peach with a slender, four-sided piping in a shade similar to the lilac of the chair, but in a chequered rib fabric, was the first to sit on it. Under fluorescent light, this lilac piping looked strangely blue; almost a sky blue. Piled on top of this were two in beige, squared off with a lavender line around their middles, a charismatic bulge spilling out on both sides. But one of the beige pillows was clearly more assertive than the other. It had managed to push the lower one awkwardly off centre while it sat above it, albeit slightly tilted too, but poised nonetheless. Above this, was another one of those soft and cuddly, comforting, swollen with poly-fill, sixteen inch squares, in the same colour and fabric as the chair, complemented by peach coloured piping.

It made an appealing picture. I loved the way all the colours had come together. When I had planned the scheme for this room, I chose lilac because it is said to enhance concentration while meditating. Beige offset the blandness of a single colour scheme without distractions. But I decided to be a bit daring and added rich peach. Just one square cushion, to bring out the blues in the lavender and keep the beige warm, preventing a dirty, greyish influence seeping in via the lilac. Laxman, who upholstered the chair and made the cushions, did not approve. But I liked the peach; it added character without detracting from the intention of the lavender.  These colours had never looked as good together as they did that night. The ad hoc, careless way I had dumped them seemed oddly comforting. I marvelled at how it was all balanced, despite the lopsided arrangement and smiled. It had a touch of synchronicity: cushions vying for space by almost toppling each other off the chair eloquently reflected my state of mind.

 

In that brief moment of quietude at the end of a hot, sweaty and chaotic day, as I looked at this visage, reminisced about the chair and observed the cushions rising oddly up its high-back, echoing the madness in my head, I found solace. What a day it had been: in addition to dealing with labour and callousness around me, I had also, inadvertently, been locked out in the veranda with Mahipal. The aluminium guy in showing off his workmanship by sliding the door shut with a flicker of his wrist, did not realise there was no one inside the apartment to let us back in. And by the time I realised what he was about to do, it was too late. The door latched shut with as satisfied a click as the smile on Islam’s face. Well, we were lucky, it was seven in the evening so we did not face gruelling heat and sunshine and Mahipal had fortuitously left the front door open, so Islam called his assistant who was waiting down below, on his mobile, and we got out soon enough. But then I had to make the rounds of three ATM’s before I could withdraw cash to pay him. A lot did get done. I even spent a couple of hours working on some embroidery later in the evening, but could not write and therefore sort my thoughts out.  

 However, when I finally turned off the lights, I had been oddly reassured by my ruminations around the purple chair and cushions. The more lopsided and random life is, the more there is to it. And given time, everything find’s its own place is the insight that finally allowed me to relax enough to fall asleep.

Restrained Rebel

She is not an artist by profession, but an economist and a cultural anthropologist, who finally decided that art was where her inclinations lay. Through her elaborate educational process, she discovered that all the things which ailed the world could not be solved, as she had hoped, through what she had studied. Instead, she took to making abstract art, using nails, glue, cement and other tactile material. With emphatic gestures she layers cement and paint, slashing her canvasses and stitching them up again; sometimes adding fragments of the lyrical, Urdu script, from letters her mother wrote her. She works with textures and moods in protest and in reconciliation.

                                                       

 We share some things in common. We make art, and enjoy Western Classical music and poetry too. I wondered if there could be a parallel in the way we worked, even though our medium of expression is different. Curious about her process of working and the materials she paints with, I went to meet Saba Hasan at her studio in Safdarjung Enclave in Delhi.

 

Walking up two flights of stairs, I entered a semi-dark room, where a young man was seated at the piano. The simple harmonies that tinkled across the room were so poignant that for days thereafter I listened in deep silence, searching for those sublime notations in memory. The music was written by the French composer Jean-Phillipe Rameau for the harpsichord, later transcribed for the piano. Composed mostly for social gatherings of a rich patron, Rameau’s eighteenth century compositions have a soulfulness that defy the images of debauchery associated with the time. The piano was being played by Saba’s college going son, Aman, who was home from the US for a holiday.

Saba is also a student of the piano. I however, no longer play. My piano is too old now and the piano tuner has given up. So I console myself, saying that years of playing have enhanced my appreciation and enjoyment of the music that others play. However, this is not the whole truth, because I do miss playing the piano, a lot. But, it will have to do.

                                                                          

    The piano is in Saba’s living cum dining room where the wall running parallel to the dining table is covered with masks, collected from all over the world. And the table has become a make-shift work space. Strewn with jottings from verses, books, pigments, stones and her laptop, this arrangement caused her husband’s much chagrin for it curtailed their socializing at home. The studio is one floor above. It is no ordinary barsati but an elaborate space with large French windows on all sides, letting in plenty of light. It was a hot summer afternoon, but the air-conditioning so effective that one did not feel the heat. An expensive, pine-wood work table took centre stage of this studio, while most of the wall space had canvasses stacked against them. Over cups of green tea, looking at her canvasses, we discussed the inspiration behind her art.  The studio is built atop her residence which overlooks the deer park in Safdarjung Enclave and Saba says that peacocks come visit her during the rainy season. The studio sits virtually in the middle of the floor space, and I momentarily imagined peacocks with their feathers spread out, frolic in the rain, circulating the perimeter of the studio walls in an ecstatic dance, watching the artist at play

 

What an inspiring place to be able to work in, I thought to myself, as I sat down to work the next day, my threads, fabrics and other tools spread out on my bed. I have a study, where I normally work but, somehow, I find it very comfortable sewing on the bed. It’s spacious and sitting against the back-rest, my feet sprawled on the bed, is good for my posture: I do not hunch over the fabric as I embroider. I looked out of my window on the eighth floor in Palam Vihar and sighed: no chance of any peacocks dancing here. Instead, I have dull grey pigeons and their smelly poop for company, with the occasional, yellow beaked Mynah to add colour.

Saba has a very involved process of working which could take as long as six months to a couple of years to finish a canvas. She works with unconventional materials, using thick cement and so much Fevicol that an art restorer once told her that she could build a house with her canvasses. Saba says that when working, she does not ponder on a definitive idea, nor try and build any kind of narrative. She just lets her emotions guide her. When you talk to Saba, she is very articulate, well read and highly opinionated. And the latter is reflected in her canvasses, albeit in an abstract sort of way.

 

The heavy impasto and multiple layering give a much textured look. The canvasses are burned, or slashed and then stitched; the cement left to crack and then rusted nails hammered in. Listening to her speak of her process, I could feel the violence, the dissent, rebellion and anger which I often hear when we discuss art and her views on other issues. She says, “There is a protest, there is conflict, resistance. There are wrongs in this world, I do protest.”

Though not a practitioner, or a believer in organized religion, Saba was born in a Muslim family in India who chose not to go to Pakistan at the time of partition. She is married to Amit, a Hindu by birth. Amit’s father and grandparents were from the North-west frontier, now in Pakistan, and had to forcibly leave to take refuge in Delhi. Neither Saba nor Amit practice their respective faiths. Yet, despite this, she feels upset at the kind of prejudice there is regarding Muslims today. I guess, identity is something we have been conditioned to find, through profession, nationality and the religion we belong to, whether we practice or not. And even though her work is steeped in the abstract, the underlying thoughts do pertain to and arise from engagement with the physical world.

Her art is difficult to define. There are many definitions of art and I think each artist, more or less, re-defines this by the art they make. And as such the parameters of what is art or not are in a constant state of flux. There was a time in the history of art when abstract work was related to the spiritual dimensions of being, but I wondered, as I studied Saba’s canvasses, if this was true of abstract art today. She speaks of her art, as “a visceral, emotive response to the world” which seems to be more about emotions than detachment from being in the world and dwelling on the essential spirit that is unchangeable, unaffected by the dramas of life that move us to tears, rage and more.

A lot of my own work, because of the process by which I erase form rather than create it, could be classified as abstract, but that is not how I think of it. The works I do also arise from what I am feeling at the time. It’s usually at an intense, emotional state, when there is little mental clarity, that I do most of my embroidery. I am not as focussed on the divine to access the essential peacefulness of the spirit as I am able to during meditation. But in the process of letting the thoughts spill out, not always analyzing them, I do feel refreshed. I also find the repetitive process of embroidery therapeutic and calming. Saba, on the other hand, reveals that she experiences complete physical exhaustion, with a mental high. Becoming quite obsessive about what she is working on, her mind she says “doesn’t stop ticking”.  

 

 In the 1970’s, when Saba was debating career options, art was not something those with good academic grades opted for. It was somehow not considered a reliable profession because earning through art could be a very difficult task. I relate well to this, not because I made similar choices, but this prejudice has tailed me throughout my life and being a full-time artist has been difficult to adjust to. Somewhere, deeply embedded in memory, is the idea that this is not work and even today, I do my embroidery late at night when all my other work is completed.

 

She does not use vibrant colour. Most of the canvasses in front of me were in shades of ecru, ochre, white, beige and different tones of brown or grey and black. A heavily textured, off-whitish canvas stares at me: it looks as if sand granules have been used to form the base texture. In some places, waves of this textured surface overlap each other. It is a bit like the sea-shore, without the softness of sand and in between two such layers, a rigid, white space of plaster, cracks. And then some nails come into focus. Small, blackish things protrude from the surface. They are not straight but bent, some this way and some the other, evocative of a torturous path. Some nails are embedded in the cracks and even though they are small, they create a sense of foreboding.  

The work disturbs: I feel the violence that has been enacted and of the response of the material that’s been violated but I also see elements of restraint. After all, the material she uses is inanimate; the nails being hammered are iron, not another human being bashed against a wall. It’s like when I sew, thoughts go in and out of the fabric, causing a rupture in its construction, which is evocative of the way I feel, but the repetitive motion is meditative and heals the rupture in my equanimity. The feelings may be angry or venomous, but the actions are restrained through such processes: the emotion sublimated. In Saba’s work too, I get a sense of something similar being enacted through her art-making process .
                                                                         

I see frustration and rebellion in the way that I assume Saba must throw the thick layers of cement and plaster, for the textures I see on her finished canvases. These highly tactile canvasses, which could support the roof of a home, seem as solid as her convictions. A thick layer of white cement is left to crack in changing temperature, without controlling the moisture as construction workers do when they carefully build the walls of a home. I Imagine Saba cracking open somebody’s close mindedness, in a similar way. Then as she nails it in, I laughingly envisage that this is how she keeps the dimensions of a mind she has opened in place: by hammering the point in.  

Whose Land is it Anyway...

Truckers @Bijwasan

At the outset, tea was the focus; my window to the world.  I was looking at people on the streets who made and sold tea; at truck drivers sipping tea at the chaiwallah[i] stalls or dhabas[ii] as I passed by the Hindustan Petroleum depot at Bijwasan en route to Delhi, and more. This street life interested me but gradually I saw that drinking and making tea was integral to everyone’s daily life. Whether it was going to an exhibition opening or interviewing an artist, dropping by to see a friend, reading a book or reflecting over the previous day’s events over a morning cuppa, everything seemed to be linked to tea, including the dramas with my domestic help. However, the flavour that one found in the street settings was in many ways a contrast to this. And these people with their different life-styles and culture added that extra dash of colour to the canvas of my ‘garam masala chai’.   

Govind

When I started consciously looking around me, my first encounter was with Govind from Bihar who had a moveable cart as a tea-stall, just outside Celebrity Suites in Palam Vihar. I had barely left home when Bhupinder, who was driving my car, pointed him out to me. I was surprised not to have noticed this stall in all the years I have taken this route to Delhi, so ventured enthusiastically to take photographs but Govind was hostile. I was not about to be derailed on my first stop so explained what I was doing. He was neither impressed nor interested and barely seemed to listen. It was not a great start for me but I persisted and it took a good half hour or so before he eased up. He made some tea; I’d just had some before leaving home, so Bhupinder had a cup. Govind kept his utensils clean and neatly arranged. He served biscuits and gutka[iii], supari[iv] and crisps along with tea. People came and went, but not many. He was rather self-conscious and did not respond affably to questions about his life. Physically, he made quite a picture: well built with a growing pot-belly, bulging out from beneath his pale blue T-shirt, under a khakhi-coloured jacket whose buttons were left open and, his odd, sort of pointy, knitted cap.

Bhupinder drinking tea at Govind's tea-stall

 He was not to be seen in that space for a long time, after that. The cart lay abandoned for months and then, one day, he was serving tea again. I went up to say hello and asked where he had been and was told that he’d gone home to tend the fasal[v]. Sometime later, I found someone else at the stall. His younger brother had come to take care of this business while Govind handled farming duties back home.

On my exploration, I was to discover that numerous tea stalls, in and around Delhi, were run by people who had migrated from other parts of the country. I was also intrigued by the idea that tea, which was not really a native drink, but ‘imported’ into the country by the British, had somehow become the mainstay of the man on the street, both as a beverage and a business.

Naina Devi's customer

Historically, this expansion of tea consumption, brought about through the development of ‘chai’, occurred only after 1947. The evolution of this kind of tea, made by boiling tea leaves in a mixture of milk, water and sugar, with optional spices such as cardamom, cinnamon, clove, ginger and black pepper, came about with changes in the technology of tea processing. The full-leaf black teas were replaced by CTC ("crushed, torn, and curled") leaf which not only enabled tea estates to double their production but consumers could brew stronger infusions from smaller quantities of the more potent, tightly-rolled leaf granules. This lowered the cost of producing tea, making it accessible to the common man on the street, such that sixty-five years later, it has acquired a strong ‘Indian’ identity. 

Coming from Gurgaon on the outer Ring Road, just near Vasant Vihar, an old woman sits near tyres and tubes catering to a steady custom from the neighbouring petrol pump. White haired and petite, she squats comfortably on the pavement, making tea and omelettes. I love these omelettes rustled up on the street, with plenty of green chillies and stuffed between two slices of white bread. She also serves mathris[vi] favoured by workers from the petrol pump. 

Ramvati at work

There was a tremendous amount of curiosity from helpers at the gas station and passersby as I took photos of this diminutive, forlorn looking woman busy at work. But she was too busy serving her customers to even notice or care who came and did what, as long as you drank and ate something from her stall. It was winter and she was clad in a pink saree with a russet, almost dirty brown coloured shawl, carelessly wrapped around her shoulders with cheap nylon socks covering feet that were awkwardly shod in black plastic chappals[vii]. Sitting against a discoloured, greyish wall, surrounded by bright white eggs, dull aluminium pots, black tyres and tubes, she made an interesting study.

Every time since whenever I passed by, I saw her dressed in the same printed, pink polyester saree I’d photographed her in, when I first stopped by for tea and an omelette. Then, I noticed she was missing from her spot by the petrol pump. I thought that the MCD[viii] must be doing some sort of clean-up and she had been asked to move. Some months went by, I kept looking out for her and then one day her pink saree caught my eye. 

Ramvati on my second visit

 I was curious as to why she had been missing for so many months so stopped by to talk to her. It turned out that her son had cirrhosis of the liver.  He’d been admitted into hospital, so she’d shut shop to take care of him. She complained that he drank too much and as a ‘baccho ka baap[ix]’ his behaviour was irresponsible. Ramvati and her husband Hangal had come to Delhi from Burari in Uttar Pradesh, as she recounted: “When India fought the 1965 war with Pakistan and Lal Bahadur Shastri was the Prime Minister of India.”  Ramvati was, by her estimate, over sixty years old, had been married at the age of fourteen. She and her husband lived in a jhuggi[x] near a private school in Vasant Vihar.

I came across another migrant tea-stall lady in Palam Vihar, right at the Delhi-Gurgaon border post. The ample bodied Naina Devi was dressed in a printed salwar kameez[xi], wearing a pale olive-ish green sweater embroidered with red and white flowers over this, and a peacock-ish blue dupatta covering her head. She sat crossed-legged on her cart, inside it, making tea. Her young daughter Poonam played nearby while Naina served a steady stream of customers. Residents of posh Palam Vihar, labour working on construction sites, local policemen, drivers from neighbouring houses to passersby who came on foot or riding motor-cycles, all patronized her stall.  Naina Devi hails from Ajmer, Rajasthan. Naina was the only one left here with her stall because at the time of the CWG[xii] clean-up, the authorities had moved everyone else away. She now had her cart positioned at the periphery of some private farm land and paid to park it there. 



Naina Devi with her daughter Poonam[top left],

 the security guard[top right and bottom left] 

serving some customers[bottom row centre] 

Her husband worked in Delhi for a ‘company’ while she sold tea. Naina was friendly and asked why I wanted to take photos of her and her cart. She posed obligingly and so did her customers. Her clientele was mostly labourers who took the tea in plastic bags because it dispensed with the tedium of buying, carrying and storing an aluminium kettle. To others, she served tea in plastic cups. Unlike most chaiwallahs she did not make tea in the ubiquitous aluminium kettle. She used a cup-like ladle to pour milk into a dekchi[xiii] where she ‘cooked’ the tea. This was also used to pour tea into cups. For those who took tea in the plastic bags, a small, ridged, thickened, greenish glass, often seen in a chai ki dukan[xiv], was used as a measure.

Serving tea in plastic bags

A pile of debris lay beside her cart. I assumed it was either left there or swept into a corner at the end of the day and wondered why a dustbin could not be used instead. Some labourers drank the tea sitting on their haunches on the pavement, crouching on a large stone or on the ground itself, comfortable almost anywhere it seemed. But when it came to disposing of the cup, they just chucked the plastic cup in the air, letting it land wherever it did, uncaring of cleanliness. 

Dhabas outside Bijwasan Oil depots

Most of these people seemed to come from rural areas and small towns. They come as labour to build other people’s homes or as businessmen, selling tea in between harvesting the crop in their village lands.  Did this create lack of a sense of belonging? Was it their reason for not keeping the place clean? I also noticed that the dhabas patronized by truckers in Bijwasan just threw their garbage onto the street.  The trucker drivers didn’t seem to notice or care. They kept their vehicles in tip-top condition but did not care the same way for the streets they roamed. Mongrel dogs sat at their feet and fed off the garbage whilst they sipped tea and chatted. This apathy reminded me of countless occasions when I’ve seen even relatively affluent households sweep garbage away from their doorstep onto the street, as if the responsibility for cleanliness and hygiene ended there. It has always irked me to see people deface the walls, throw refuse onto the streets from moving cars, spit and urinate on the road. They do not think the streets belong to them, which really baffles me because, if they do not belong to citizens of the country, then to whom do they belong? 

Post independence, advertisements promoting tea encouraged the idea of an energy-enhancing drink which was good for individual and national health. Some even suggested that tea had the ability to create “alert, energized citizens”, free of the "lassitude" that the British commonly attributed to their native subjects”, towards building the ‘New India’.  Sixty- five years on, a lot has changed: we have been advertised as ‘India Shining’, ‘Incredible India’ and more. Tea, once the elite Colonizers’ drink has become a national beverage but has it made us the “alert, energized citizens” of the envisioned New India? [xv] 

Glasses and mugs being brought around for sale to dhaba
owners at Bijwasan

Realistically speaking, neither tea nor any beverage for that matter, can possibly take on such an onerous task; however we can, but do we? The larger question that troubles me is why is it always someone else’s problem, fault or garbage?  When will we start taking responsibility for little things in our daily lives and feel a sense of belonging? Delhi is made up of a large migrant population. My own father’s family came here after partition and there are many of us who have thus become Delhi-ites or residents of Gurgaon. These migrant tea-wallahs made me question the idea of belonging: what does it take to claim ownership in little the things that make up a nation?

 

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[i] Tea sellers

[ii] Roadside eatery

[iii] Tobacco mix

[iv] Beetel nut

[v] Harvest/crop

[vi] Savoury biscuit

[vii] chappals

[viii] Municipal Corporation of Delhi

[ix] Father of children/parent

[x] Slum dwelling

[xi] Loose,pleated pants and tunic

[xii]Commonwealth Games

[xiii] Saucepan/cooking pot

[xiv] Tea shop

[xv] Quotes from Tasveer Ghar