A Season for Tears

It was sometime in the middle of September, a year ago, on a Friday, around 4.00pm. I’d just had a cup of Earl Grey tea, edited some pictures on Photoshop and done some mundane stuff on the internet before I headed down to the swimming pool. I recollect seeing the sky in the far distance looking very dark and grey but it was at the edge of my landscape, in the far horizon and I did not really dwell upon it. The sky had been overcast most days since July but it had only rained in dribs and drabs. In any case, an overcast sky was not something to cause concern, especially not in the monsoon season. 
 



 

The water in the pool looked as deliciously aquamarine as always. It is a colour I am particularly partial to and reminds me of my Caran d’Ache colour pencils, through which I discovered my penchant for this hue many years ago. Zohrawar, a neighbour’s two year old was trying out his new motor-boat. Once I came into the pool he went to play with his toy in the kiddie’s pool, so I had the larger pool all to myself. I did a couple of lengths and then saw grey clouds rush overhead. I paused, hung onto the edge of the pool to watch this spectacle as the sky darkened. I was enchanted by the shades. How many shades of grey can there be, I thought? And for every five that I counted, nature added another two, or so it seemed. I stopped counting and just watched enthralled. 

 

 I wondered if it would rain today. I’d often hoped it would rain when I was in the pool but it always would begin raining only after I had swum, changed and was ready to go back up again. But my luck changed today. The coach and swimming pool attendants ran inside leaving me with the clouds, the now darkened shade of aquamarine water in the pool and leaf green Ficus hedges around the pool, waiting in anticipation. Even the pigeons had taken shelter, hiding in crevices and windows of the building; some, perched on a cable wire suspended high up on the thirteenth floor. Five of them appeared to be either jostling for space under the eaves or to maintain balance on the cable TV wire hanging precariously from one window to the next. 

At first, it just drizzled. It looked like little steel pins were piercing the water, radiating perfect circles around each point of entry, falling all around me. I thought of those days in school when we used a compass to draw circles for our geometry classes; piercing the paper with one end of the angular tool while a pencil took its cue from this and drew a large or small circle depending upon how wide I stretched the two straight lines of the compass apart. But here, there was nothing other than a delicate raindrop piercing the centre. The rest was a matter of course. The circles radiated out and then vanished as each rippled into the other, blending almost seamlessly with the larger mass of blue-green. 



 

And then I could hear loud plip-plops as larger droplets fell from the sky. I watched with delight as the aquamarine around me which, I am told, also represents the colour of the heart chakra, was jumping up to catch the drops. As the rain intensified, the water from the pool rose up higher with each drop that fell into it. And the heavier the water that fell into it or the larger the droplets were, the whiter the rising splashes seemed.  

Then the rain poured out of the sky and a refreshing, transparent, vertical curtain of water dashes fell upon me. It was heavenly to watch millions of pearly drops dance on the surface of the pool. There was no question of swimming now. I could not take my eyes off this mesmerizing scene.

 

The sky grumbled and lightening tore into the layers of darkening greys that had built up in preparation for this downpour. As the sky darkened even more, electric lights were switched on in many apartments inside the building. People, birds and even the stray dogs stayed away as I stood alone in the aquamarine water, watching nature’s tears dancing with joy at meeting each other in the pool. 

I love to cry. No, I am not a manic depressive; I just find tears very refreshing. I’d rather cry any day than deal with the stress of feeling frazzled and angry and all the rest of it. I know that crying is not everyone’s cup of tea but I find it hugely cleansing, especially when the tears flow effortlessly. But sometimes things get very intense and crying seems like such a luxury, so I envied the joy these rain droplets seemed to reflect in their relief at being able to surrender to the inevitable. 

There is lightness in being able to surrender. I have even experienced weight loss when I can fully express myself. There is this wonderful oral folk-tale “Tell it to the Walls” which A. K. Ramanujan has translated from Tamil into English. I first read it in 1993 and have re-visited it many times since. It speaks of the cathartic function of unburdening oneself, even if it is to a wall, and of the relationship between obesity and keeping one’s sorrow to oneself.

As a young girl, well into my thirties, I used to be plump/fat. I would hardly eat. It seemed that if I smelt food or just looked at it, I would put on weight. I was brought up on the ideal that it was not considered good to speak of the unpleasant things that happened to one, especially not to anyone outside the family. The old adage – “laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and your cry alone” - was the mantra one was encouraged to chant. Or, grin and bear it, because someone else had a far tougher life and sometimes it seemed everyone else’s woes were greater than mine. Until one day, about 20 years ago, when I could bear it no more and everything I had been through just started to tell its own tale. I could not stop myself from speaking. I lost whatever inhibitions I had earlier and also lost twenty-five kilos in less than three months.



Everyone was majorly concerned, but I had never felt better. I let the doctors do all their tests and when I was asked to have a CT scan done as they could not find anything wrong in the numerous tests already conducted, I drew the line and refused to go through another test. And then I read this folk-tale and was reassured.

Ever since I have tried not bottle things up again and have more or less maintained my weight. I relish my tears. It is not easy to face the pain one is feeling but I know that it’s better than adding pounds and the dip in my morale when I see this on the weighing scale. I love old Hindi movie songs. The words and music are so moving, and I love singing the sad ones or watch them on TV and cry. When life gets crowded and the pain becomes an ache in the shoulder or back or some other part of the body, it’s harder to feel it emotionally, and at those points, I often resist these measures too. There’s too much work to be done, how can I cry, I tell myself. My brain screeches overload and then the silliest thing will bring it on. I feel lighter and often get a lot more done than when I was trying to be brave pretending that things were under control. There is so much relief in surrender if one can come to that point, and the exultant dance I witnessed was inspiring me to revisit this state. Nature has a season for tears; surely there is something to be learned from this? 

As the rain abated, the pigeons came back to the water’s edge and their dull grey feathers took on the reflection of the pool’s aquamarine. This was an everyday occurrence but when the sun is shining bright, the shade of blue they reflect is different. It’s delightful too but it was this atmospheric, deeper shade of blue along with the greyness of their feathers reiterated by the clouds in the sky, which charmed. I had watched the rain, shared in her joy at finally being able to descend the angry skies. I saw a million liquid pearls dance before my eyes and wondered if this was how the oysters caught the jewels we humans adorn ourselves with. I have often considered my own tears as jewels to embellish my life with. Not literally but through my creative expression; However, while this is refreshing it is not quite the same as being able to cry.

Later, as I walked through the garden passing by the gleaming green bushes, I heard a whispering of relief among the leaves. And the sensuous fragrance of the Champa flowers too had been heightened by the refreshing rain. 

 

The Pattern of Guns

One of the first things I learned in art school was to make a pattern. I recollect how we were instructed to study flowers, leaves and vegetables and then abstract the shapes by repeating the forms across the page in different ways. This above all aspects of designing textiles has fascinated me. I love pattern; the idea that anything, even an innocuous vegetable like Bhindi [okra], when repeated can become an attractive design, something to adorn your body or environment with, is a fabulous thing.

 

 

 

The desire to decorate is instinctive in mankind and even the most primitive of societies have demonstrated this tendency. The history of ornamentation began with primitive man observing and translating the harmonies he saw in nature into tattoos. From this they progressed to wearing or stamping their bodies with animal skins. This was followed by weaving of straw and strips of bark and then we developed the skill to carve, to decorate weapons of defence after which comes architecture, followed by the sophisticated means of embellishment we now call design.  

 

 

A pattern, generally speaking, is formed when a single unit called a motif is used collectively and then repeated according to a geometric system. In other words when decoration is made by repeating a combination of specific form elements [for instance, the Bhindi] according to a pre-determined scheme they form a motif. When these motifs [or motives] are used collectively they become ornament, which when combined and repeated according to a specified geometric format they form a pattern. In textiles most designs are repeated in half-drop, brick laying or mirrored formats. I remember how we use to make one inch square grids in these formats to draw in the Bhindi motif to see which would be the most complimentary pattern that emerged.

 

 

Textiles patterns are what I have been absorbed in creating and studying for decades. The other day, however, I saw a contemporary, water-colour drawing by an Iranian artist, in the style of a Persian miniature, where the traditional four-sided border that finished the composition was not made up of filigree and flowers but of rifles lined up one after the other, to form a border.  The resultant effect was a repeating pattern. One rifle joined the other with equal spaces between them, the same part protruding and touching the next rifle at the same point across the length of the border. Hundreds of tiny guns were thus uniformly drawn.  

 

 

Now the idea of a rifle becoming a pattern, such that I have learned to imprint on fabric is a frightening thought. But that aside, what interested me, was how something mechanical, with associations of murder, terror and violence could appear almost benign.  The artist had not sought to abstract its form. The rifles that looked like AK 47s were drawn with all recognizable detail and facets. The artist has also constructed medallions with pistols and knives and these formed parts of the extended border. This concept, that anything which becomes a pattern could find acceptance was even more daunting when considering the associations attached to a gun. But there was also something profound going on here, because I did not recoil, but went right up to the painting, to take a closer look.

 

 

In the emotional dimension of being, seers are constantly telling us to break patterns of thought or habitual ways of thinking that limit our perception of people, places and things. As I reflected upon my response to the painting, I was reminded of this. In addition, the paradox of pattern as being both attractive and non-desirable was also coming into play. There are certain things that I do, which I like and some that I dislike. Not so much in the doing but often what happens after. So naturally, I jump to the conclusion that it is the ones that I do not like the consequences of which I need to dispense with. But the rifle border made me pause and reconsider this, because it also showed me that what I think as unacceptable also has the possibility of becoming palatable when it becomes a repeating pattern. In other words, by implication, when you keep repeating something it loses its hurtful associations to acquire an attractiveness you would not generally associate with it? Can that be possible?

 

I wonder. Does this mean that guns, with all their associations of killing, become acceptable as part of life and therefore acquire a quality that attracts us rather than makes us recoil in fear? They have been used for centuries to hunt for food and even game but, these days, they are being used to kill fellow humans in rage, out of revenge, and in the name of religion. None of this is for basic survival, as I understand it. Perhaps the notion of survival has changed because our values have changed and food alone is not enough. We need a sense of self that goes beyond this. While this argument could be plausible, I considered how it could ever legitimize the violence perpetrated by a gun.

 

As I finished breakfast, settling down with a pot of tea, I scanned the post and right on top of the pile of unopened letters was ‘The World Wisdom Review’. I turned to the ‘Book of the Month’ page to read an extract from ‘A Profound Mind’ by the Dalai Lama entitled ‘Identifying the Self’. The passage outlined that “to know and experience the nature of self correctly is to experience nirvana”, but “to know the nature of self in a distorted manner is to experience samsara[i]” thus suggesting that it is imperative to devote ourselves to understanding the difference between self as ‘me’ and the permanent, unchangeable or ever-changing self, distinct from the mental and physical parts of the human being. Where as a ‘Yogi’ engaged in profound, analytical, meditative investigation, we can experience ‘me’ as inherently real, to eventually negate this and merge with the permanent unchangeable self.

In the same newsletter Swami Nikilananda Saraswati of the Chinmaya Mission added that this state of enlightenment cannot be attained by non-performance of action. Meditation, he says, is about transcending action through knowing. “We have to go through each experience, doing whatever we must with a certain watchfulness, to be able to transcend the emotional disturbance that identifies ‘me’ as the doer, towards ‘doing’ with detachedness, because “action is the very nature of nature.”

 Hmmm, so it seems that, in experiencing the world, we encounter a distortion of the spirit and guns and violence are as much a part of this as anything else. And the pattern I saw, which made them look more attractive than my association with their function, seems to fall into this thinking. It is a part of living today, and acceptance without judgment, seems to be the key to transcending it.

 

 

I don’t like violence of any kind, even in film or on TV. And when I encounter any episode or film that disturbs I either cover my eyes with my hands or turn off the TV. More so, I dislike firing guns: saying things that diminish someone’s sense of self. I wish I did not have to get involved in telling someone that what they do or don’t do matters to me and that I do not like it. So I try and avoid saying anything but end up hurting myself because I have not transcended the anger and am curtailing it because of inhibition. When and where it matters, when others diminish your sense of self by their pattern of behaviour, I guess the missives need to be fired. It’s about survival, where identity is still an issue. 

 

Decoding emotional patterns of behaviour is an uneasy subject, but the way the human mind devises patterns both physical and intellectual is a fascinating facet. Take for instance the intricate jaalis[ii] of the tomb of Itmad-ud-daullah[iii] on the outskirts of Agra or the geometric and arabesque patterns of Islamic art as seen elsewhere in the world. When I look at these patterns, the mind boggles.

 

 

It is said the Koran bans figurative representation and thus Islamic art was built upon pattern generation through intricate interlacing of geometric forms. However, the evolution of this ideal is complex and interwoven with Christian Neoplatonic ideas. Geometry was important in the Islamic world as its figures and constructions were imbued with symbolic, cosmological and philosophical significance. The Greeks developed this knowledge and manuscripts containing this were widely dispersed and available to the Arab world by end of eighth century.

 

Revelations of the Koran affirmed a divine unity and Plato’s ideas were significant in reconciling this with Classical and late-Classical philosophical systems. He believed that number and form were keys to a deeper understanding of the universe and was sympathetic to the Islamic perception of the gross material world as a place of corruption and illusion. Plato also had a very low regard for the art of representation, seeing this as ‘a copy of a copy’, removed from the ‘truth’. True beauty could not be conveyed by representation or imagination. It had to express at least some of the eternal quality of his ‘Ideas’, which he found some sense of only in geometry.

The Neoplatonists, who conveyed Plato’s ideas to the Islamic world, had elaborated his philosophical system into a complex cosmology of their own, influenced by Pythagoras, Aristotle as well as Plato. In its later development, it also absorbed Jewish and Christian precepts. In time, Muslim scholars were able to separate out the older Classical philosophies from later accretions and made their own interpretations of the original material.

However, It is interesting to see that the Neoplatonic ideal influenced by many religions and great minds, imbibed and applied by Islam, in whatever stages and interpretations, also reflected ideas that both the Dalai Lama and Swami Nikilananda also spoke of, citing ancient philosophies of Buddhism and Hinduism which correlated with Plato’s sympathetic perception of the Islamic idea of the gross material world as a place of corruption and illusion and affirming the transcendent ideal of divine unity as delineated in the Koran.

Is there a pattern here through which we can transcend that of guns and words firing missives in self-defence? It seems to be a way forward, towards understanding the underlying pattern of existence. Through this could we dissolve those illusionary boundaries defined today by dogmatic religious identities? Ironically, even a cursory study of the basic principles on which each religion is based shows that they all sought to inspire devotees to transcend identity to merge with divine unity of the permanent unchangeable self. But paradoxically, as Swami Nikhilanada suggested, we have to go through each experience, doing whatever we must with a certain awareness, to be able to transcend the emotional disturbance that identifies us with “me” before we can comprehend the subtler realities.

Guns continue to be fired in all parts of the world; on demarcated borders that define countries and at unspoken borders in relationships and more, but are we doing it with the requisite watchfulness to arrive at the point of transcendence? The rifles in the water-colour miniature were neither attractive nor non-threatening but their pictorial form allowed scope for thought which a gun pointed at my face would not. Thus the artist’s voice and vision as the conscience of society gains relevance because this border patterned with guns did not make me recoil in horror, its finessed presentation made me think. It must therefore have made many other viewers think too.

 

And that means there is hope. The ideal may be eons away. It may never be reached but it is hope that keeps us going, aspiring for a better life, greater happiness and a better world.

---

[i] The world

[ii] Carved stone trellises

[iii] Lord Treasurer and Noor Jehan’s father’

The 2.00 am Shadows

Its Sunday, I usually lie in but woke up early today. Actually, I woke up at 2.00 am and oddly, started taking photographs of shadows, of various things around my bedside, created by the soft yellow light I had switched on to drink some water. Thereafter I did not go back to sleep. I tried, but in doing yoga nidra, so that I could relax and get back to sleep I started meditating but, did fall asleep eventually. When I woke up, the first thing I wanted to do was to pick up the camera and examine photos of the scene which had mesmerised me in that half asleep state. 

But, I first made a pot of tea to accompany this exercise. I used Orange Pekoe Darjeeling tea leaves with a dash of Nilgiri. They worked well together. The warm, afternoon flavour of a southern Nilgiri complemented the rather smoky flavour of the north Indian Orange pekoe. I drank my tea, listening to Dvorak’s Cello Concerto in B minor, which is utterly soulful and the sombre cello appropriately reflective of my introspective mood. On most occasions it moves me to tears.  The second movement of the concerto – Adagio ma non troppo[i] is my favourite part. In this 1978 recording I listened to, it is played by the renowned Russian Cellist Mstislav Rostropovich[ii] with the London  Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Carla Maria Guilini. This flawless, incredibly moving performance by Rostropovich is considered one of the greatest recordings of the twentieth century.

 

 [I could not find this Rostropovich recording on the net, but this is a fabulous rendition of Dvorak's Adagio by Jaqueline du Pre]

 

The sublime adagio was written by Dvorak in memory of his pupil Josefina whom he had fallen in love with but who became his sister-in-law, not his wife. His deep affection for her remained and it was news of her failing health that changed the tenor of this concerto, which had started as an essay in retrospection of landscapes, to that of lost loves. The melody moves poignantly from its initial rustic flavour to that of a lover’s anguish. Written in New York in the winter of 1894-95, the Czechoslovakian composer’s passionate melodic outburst includes traces of an earlier composition – a song favoured by Josefina. This sad story always heightens my appreciation of the heart rending music it inspired. This morning, it complimented my soulful mood, allowing me to wallow.

It was September, we had not had much rain this monsoon but it did rain last night, after a long dry spell. The heavens poured and when I woke in the middle of the night, I stood awhile just observing the clouds shed their elongated tears as the earth soaked it all in. After this downpour the sun was out today but, the tone of the day was somehow still melancholic. I lit a candle, in a caddy, to heat up few drops of geranium essential oil for an uplifting fragrance. And then, picked up my point and shoot Olympus camera and studied the photographs I had taken while half asleep in the wee hours of the morning.

It was the same scene I had photographed also around 11.35 pm - of the shadow contours of a tray, a light and wires, created by the bedside light behind them, onto the granite floor, drawing me into the darkness, lines and textures of the imagery. The colour tones are all shades of brown - from almost golden to raw sienna, dark umber and the dark grey of the lamp that I use, when I embroider at night. It has a fluorescent tube which helps balance the otherwise predominantly yellow incandescent light in the room. It helps me work better with coloured threads if the light is neither yellow nor fluorescent. This lamp has a long horizontal, tubular shade to house the tube, but looks different in the shadow where it resembles something akin to an upright vase, with a short stand and then an equally short, but tubular receptacle rising vertically above it. It’s an odd shape. 

 

On the low, marble bed-side table lays an aluminium framed raffia tray with wobbly metal handles on either side. It is an old tray; gifted one Diwali long ago, filled with nuts and chocolates. I now use it to hold the night water-thermos and sundry stuff on my bedside. There is also a wicker waste-paper basket in the vicinity of the bedside paraphernalia and, in the near darkness of the night-photos I am drawn into the odd shapes and patterns of this scene which also features my Reeboks.  They, however, are not creating any shadows. Although slightly yellowed by the light, the otherwise white and blue of the shoe design is clearly visible. It is mostly the heel and contour of the base that is seen. Their lighter colour adds depth to the shadows and the contrast highlights their presence in the picture. I notice they are positioned as if someone had just taken a couple of footsteps.  

The warm tone of shadows around this is comforting even though the forms and the darker hues are disconcerting. More than anything else what perplexes me is that this scene is something which I must see every night, so what is the sudden attraction? Why did I take pictures at 11.35 pm and then also wake up at 2.00 am and take some more? The question of what was I trying to tell myself, by drawing my attention to this incongruous imagery, prompted much thought as I drank a pot full of Nilgiri and Orange Pekoe tea.

 The robust blend of tea and its colour are reciprocated by the warm tones of the granite floor lit at night. Golden tones of brown have replaced an otherwise dull, reddish hue, of pale, washed-out burnt sienna, mottled with blackish dots. It is not my most favourite floor but Ansal’s had built the apartment with this flooring when I bought it and changing it would have been an extravagance. I was also short of time as I had to move in quickly, so the not-so-nice floor tiles stayed.

 

They form a dark but monochromatic canvas of some oddly shaped daubs, amid flatter shapes which are not much more than blobs, or something that I imagine someone called Jackson Pollock-Cezanne may have created, where ‘Pollockian’ paint daubs have been flattened in a ‘Cezannesque’ manner. Even though I do not quite appreciate the design, I have to admit that at 2.00 am they made a perfect backdrop, with their motley dots and flattened daubs, for the sharp, dark, black shadows that fell upon them. 

This contrast is offset by the softer raffia weave of the night-tray which is complimented by the raffia of the wicker basket, and all together it is quite a picture. The Reeboks are placed as if I had just taken them off. This is odd, as I have been swimming and therefore could not have worn them for a while. Is this merely a coincidence, or something that alludes to someone about to run away from the scene? Or maybe it could be an indication of someone walking into it? My shoes, at home, on a night that I cannot sleep and am taking photographs at 2.00 am, is certainly not a coincidence.

 I have learned from years of watching my mind of ‘funny’ things that happen when I do not spend enough time looking at my thoughts. It’s like those weird dreams we sometimes have where everything is jumbled up and seems fantastical, even surreal. The message, however, is not lost on me. At that time of the night, what can I possibly run from but myself? But is that ever realistically possible? And the fact that I meditated for much of the remainder of the night tells me that I did not succeed. But I am really not much wiser this morning and the photos compel me to think.

I have been busy. The last couple of weeks have been hectic. Something or the other needs attention, or so I tell myself, even as I know that mostly what really needs attention is in my mind. I have observed how much my thoughts are responsible for whatever is going-on in the external world, in my life as it unfolds but, still, I seem to be avoiding something. Tricky and discomfiting, but true. 

I understand; I am aware of how things work but feel the resistance nonetheless. I have used my mind for all sorts of tense situations this past week and I really do not want to do more mental work at this point. I’d much rather focus on Dvorak’s lost love, and listen to his heart wrenching anguish than do some deep analysis of my own thoughts. Neither am I silent enough to ‘feel’ things beyond the emotional. In such a scenario, pushing myself only succeeds in getting me to switch on the internet and play scrabble on Facebook instead. Or play detective and study the ‘crime scene’, examining unattractive floor tiles in my apartment, as I have done for the better part of this morning. 

However, this exercise has not been such a waste of time. Through a preliminary study of the photographs and reflections, I realise it is not the shadows that have much to say. They set the tone by highlighting the shoes which suggested someone could be entering, leaving or something along those lines. I know I should do some serious contemplation. A little coaxing always helps and its amazing how in that half-asleep state, I took photos which intrigued, leading to ruminations on the granite canvas, to realise that everything was not quite under control as I had thought when I turned in, to sleep last night.

Fascinating as the subtle nuances of life can be, sometimes I just do not want to go deeper and I do get my moments of reprieve. But, then, just like with these ‘2.00 am shadows’, some unseen energy finds a way to nudge me to into paying more attention to my thoughts and not sleep-walk through life.

 

---

[i] Slow but not too slow

[ii] died recently, in April 2007

Sewing Histories

From 10^th century Bayeux[i] to 21^st century Gurgaon is a very long journey. One I embarked upon while researching embroidery practices that could have influenced my own. Jawaharlal Nehru once said that India’s history could well be defined by the history of Indian textiles. I think he was right. India’s textile diversity and heritage is unsurpassed in the world, its history full of intriguing socio-political implications. These amazing fabrics have been a source of admiration and significant trade with ancient Greece up to present day exports. As a textile artist, I draw upon them for inspiration, as much as focussing upon a concern for the eroding value of crafting practices that gave us these superlative textiles.

 

 It’s been primarily my work with craftspeople which inspired me to espouse the role of artist-craftsperson. I specialized in woven textiles, but have worked with embroidery for almost two decades now. Until recently, I had not looked beyond traditions of the subcontinent to understand its practice in India, aside from some curiosity regarding the flourishing international trade and induction of British, Portuguese and Chinese motifs. What has interested me is the concept of crafting, with its deep roots in the art making of ancient India, which predates these travellers and subsequent trade. Working with the hand interests me even though we live in a fast-paced age, driven by mechanical and digital technologies, in many ways because it provides a counterpoint.

 

It’s been said that the hand inspires the ‘mechanical’ technologies invented. Whatever machines do is what the human hand has made first. William Morris’s[ii] lament and the ideologies of the arts and crafts movement[iii] were based on loss of excellence in design owing to the inferior capacity of machines, at the beginning of the industrial age. But, as technology improved so did the product of machines, and today, in Japan many fabrics made with advanced technologies possibly have no precedent with what the hand has done. Many such ideals have been disproved in time but history enables one to unravel stories of what people thought and did to examine their influence on what we do today.

 

It can be a fascinating journey is what I realized in my quest to discover the cross-stitch connection in my art. Two textile artist friends, Elaine from Boston and Maggie from Perth, strongly recommended reading ‘The Subversive Stitch’ by Roszika Parker. I got a copy from Amazon.com and commenced reading with much anticipation as soon as it arrived. But, I was disappointed. There was little mention of cross-stitch and its inclusion in contemporary stitch vocabulary. I was nonetheless intrigued how art history[iv] had categorised everything that women are and do, as being “entirely and essentially feminine” regardless of economic or social position, especially with regard to embroidery.

 

Apparently, it was the Victorian[v] interpretation of mediaeval[vi] embroideries which led to this thinking. Mediaevalism permeated every aspect of Victorian culture. Of particular interest were mid-century religious revivals where embroideries for the church formed a significant part. This created opportunity to chide women for their decadence, for having regressed from embroidering devotional motifs to pretty flowers and more in the same vein. Mediaeval revival[vii] enhanced the Victorian perception of women as the frail sex, untouched by intellect. But not without contradictions: they, who were at the mercy of their physical weakness and volatile feelings, were also meant to provide the spiritual face of their class thus occupying a ‘higher’, ‘purer’ sphere than men.

 

This perception provided some misleading interpretations of history. The legendary Bayeux tapestry[viii] was cited as the work of a loving wife rather than the collective endeavour it was. This 270 feet x 20 inches tapestry [circa 1086] was supposedly embroidered, single-handedly by Queen Mathilda, wife of William the Conqueror[ix]; a herculean, if not impossible task. Thus Mathilda became a source of inspiration and fantasy. Historians, including women, presented her as an ideal for perfect Victorian femininity – working in private, for love. Her glory, a reflection of her husband’s and reward coming after only death. The image of the mediaeval noblewoman embroiderer became ossified into a stereotype: “Immured in the restricted walls of a convent; needle alone supplied an unceasing source of amusement; with this she might enliven tedious hours, and depicting heroic deeds of her absent lord...... softened by the influence of pious contemplation, she might use this pliant instrument to bring vividly before her mind the mysteries of that faith to which she clung”[x].

 

With years of colonialism and influences thereby, there is a possibility these ideas could somehow have found their way into the Indian cultural psyche, which got me thinking. In re-examining the reasons why I choose to embroider, I wondered, whether somewhere deep in my socio-cultural make-up, I was drawn to this because it’s been considered ‘women’s work’. To the best of my knowledge it was men who did the embroidery work in India, especially in the professional karkhanas[xi] but, in the Western world, the embroiderer became part of the feminine stereotype. Eyes lowered, head bent, shoulders hunched - characteristic posture of a person sewing became symbolic of repression and subjugation.  

 

In addition, silence, as stillness of the embroiderer, was interpreted as either serious concentration or a cry for attention.  In terms of the stereo-type, the self-containment of the sewing woman was interpreted as seductiveness, a sexual ploy. In some cases the silence of a woman bent over her needlework was cited as submissiveness or deference to men. And some interpretations also cite the image of the embroiderer deep in her work as disturbing: “Bel-Gazou is silent when she sews, silent for hours on end, with her mouth firmly closed ............She is silent, and she – why not write down the word that frightens me – she is thinking”[xii]

My curiosity was stoked. This ‘historical’ power of silence whilst engaged in embroidering intrigued me. That evening, I focused on what I thought and felt while rummaging through colourful skeins, threading the needle and piercing the cloth with it. For me, none of these ideas had a conscious connection, nor made any sense. I love the coloured threads and ritual of embroidery. I find pleasure in the whole process and could not relate to this as being indicative of subjugation or the subversive rebellion Victorian’s associated with the woman embroiderer. It did not seem to fit. Women do face sexual discrimination in India, so it did occur to me that this could have become second skin to an extent that, despite the socio-cultural implications of being a woman in India, I was unaware of it.  

 

Growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, one of three sisters with no brother, I personally did not face discrimination in any overt way. I know my parents wanted a son for my father had picked out a name, which was eventually given to my elder sister’s youngest son. Since we did not have a brother I cannot evaluate if we were treated different to men. My father was determined that I learn to drive a car and also typing for he believed that the future was all about computers, but we were not really educated with a career in mind. My elder sister was married when she was twenty and so was I. It was an unsuccessful ‘arranged’ marriage and divorce at 22 years of age that brought a career into focus.

 

My mother was the only girl child of a not-so-conservative Punjabi family living in Delhi, with three, protective, doting elder brothers who rarely allowed her out of their sight. She did a B-Ed[xiii] and taught briefly but chose not to work professionally after marriage. My mother was born in 1932 and I, almost thirty years later. Times had changed, but many things get passed on subconsciously. However, to my knowledge, my predilection for embroidery could have little to do with this. Of us three sisters, I was the only one who took to it from an early age. Maybe my Irish convent[xiv] education inadvertently influenced this, but I do not recollect the nuns teaching us needlework. Whatever discriminations one may face being a woman in this country or in the world, it is neither this idea nor a rebellion to assert the converse which inspires me to embroider. Aside from pleasure in working the materials, it is the ritual of making - seeking to emulate ideals of hand-crafting, prevalent in art practices of ancient India, which motivate me to ‘paint’ with the needle.

Most professional embroidery done in this country, even historically, is and has been done by men. I conducted workshops in Kashmir in 2003 and 2004 for chain-stitch embroidery and the craftsmen were primarily men. Women had recently been inducted but, lacking skill in the craft, their work was gauche by comparison. The fine Sozni[xv] workers are also men. Chain stitch or ‘Ari’ work, which is the mainstay repertoire of most fashion designers in the country, is done almost exclusively by men. But with Kantha[xvi], Chikankari[xvii] and other embroideries women do now work professionally too.

The subcontinent has a rich history in embroidery. Earliest needles excavated at Mohenjo Daro[xviii] dated about 2000 BC indicate a tradition of sewing and the possibility of embroidery. There are early references to the reign of Chandragupta Maurya[xix], where Megasthenes[xx] the Greek Ambassador from Seleucus[xxi] describes richly embroidered interiors and shimmering dresses embellished with gold. The earliest chain-stitch embroideries are said to have evolved from embroideries done by the Mochi[xxii] community in Gujarat and accounts by Marco Polo[xxiii] mention exquisitely embroidered leather carpets. Later, the Portuguese traveller Duarte Barbosa[xxiv] makes note of fine chain-stitch silk embroideries in reference to the beautiful quilts of Cambay[xxv]. According to noted textile historian Rosemary Crill, there are few societies in which embroidery played as important a role as in India, be it our rural tradition for dowry, wedding paraphernalia or the courts of Mughals and other ruling elite. Embroidered textiles have adorned carved stone halls as well dressed nobility. And a thriving trade made Indian textile products famous for two millennia where embroidery was at the forefront of our rich textile tradition.                                                  

Men, more than women, in ancient India embroidered textiles and this prevails even today. The notions of femininity that categorised the embroiderer in the Western world arose because it suited Victorians to read history as such. They chose to highlight a specific role of women in the practice of this craft, when men were as much a part of European embroidery guilds and there was no significant division of labour either.

 

Through the long British rule in India ideas regarding embroidery as essentially women’s work, along with its implications of subjugation and subversion, must have percolated somewhere into urban Indian thinking. I have been city bred through and through and cannot claim influence of a rural Indian culture where women embroidered, making things for their home and personal use. There is a possibility that the Victorian ideas, and their impact on generations before me, could be buried somewhere deep in my subconscious mind. However, working with embroidery for me, has been about a conscious return to an ancient Indian tradition.

 

I draw inspiration from this tradition of crafting which nourished the ‘whole being’ “Corpus anima et Spiritus.”[xxvi] My embroidery is creative self-expression. Working with my hands is meditative. The process engenders a balance of inner and outer worlds and is an important source of solace. I have worked with craftsmen in rural India, where the simplicity of their lives impacted me deeply. I also found that though their skill continues, they are dependent upon urban designers for the creative input. This relegates them to becoming merely skilled labour, moving away from the traditional, dual role of the craftsperson as designer-producer. Their remuneration is pittance compared to what those who employ their skills earn and also the income of other professionals today. My endeavour is an attempt to restore a lost dignity to the notion of crafting by becoming a craftsperson-artist myself. Presenting this work in the art gallery is a means to bridge the prevalent art-craft divide which not only diminishes the ‘art’ of textile making that framed an important dimension of our cultural heritage, but one that could curtail  the continuance of this inherited glory.

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[i] Normandy, France

[ii] 1834-1936

[iii] Design movement pioneered by  William Morris that flourished 1860-1910, its influence continuing up until 1936

[iv] Research done in 1981

[v] Period of Queen Victoria’s reign from 1837 – 1901 was a long period, of peace, prosperity and national confidence [for the British]. Culturally there was an inclination towards romanticism and mysticism with regard to religion, social values and the acts. The Victorian era is also associated with values of social and sexual restraint.

[vi] 5^th to 15^th centuries [Middle Ages – end of Classical antiquity or collapse of Western Roman Empire to beginning of Renaissance]

[vii] Begun late 1830’s

[viii]  Is an embroidered cloth not an actual tapestry, which depicts events leading up to the Norman conquest of England, culminating in the Battle of Hastings. It contains about 50 scenes embroidered on linen with coloured woollen yarns.

[ix] Was the first Norman King of England, reigning from 1066 till his death in 1087                                                        

[x] Parker, The Subversive Stitch pg 24, [quoting from C. H Hartshorne, op.cit. p3]

[xi] workshops

[xii]Parker, the subversive Stitch pg  9-10 [quoting from Colette, ‘Earthly Paradise’ 1966 p.205]

[xiii] Bachelors in Education

[xiv] Loreto Convent, Tara Hall, Shimla

[xv] Fine needle embroidery done mostly on shawls, Kashmir

[xvi] Traditionally it is basically a running stitch embroidery [with some variations] on layered fabrics [usually old and worn sarees] creating a quilted effect , done in Bihar [Sujni] and Bengal [Kantha]

[xvii] Chikan [derived from Persian word ‘Chikeen‘], literally means embroidery.   It is a traditional embroidery style from Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh and a variety of stitches [36] are used to create a kind of Jaali [lace or shadow work] effect. It is usually done on transparent or semi-transparent fabrics like muslin, mostly white on white.

[xviii] Now in Pakistan

[xix] 320BC -298 BC

[xx] Greek explorer and ethnographer of the Hellenistic period

[xxi] Approximately sometime before  his death in 298 BC

[xxii] cobblers

[xxiii] Travels, late 13^th Century

[xxiv] 1518

[xxv] Now called Khambat [Gujarat]

[xxvi] Mind, body and spirit - Ananda K. Coomaraswamy