MADIBA to MARLEY via NAMDEV DHASAL

 The week of 23^rd to 30^th January this year and every year comes with special promise. It is a promise of courage, democracy and dedication of truth. It is a promise of bravery, constitution and truth. It is a promise of global vision, virtues of unity and power of dedication to self-criticism. Yes, in India this is a special week.

23^rd January is a birthday of freedom fighter Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, founder of Indian National Army. He united patriotic soldiers from Indian subcontinent through coalition with Germany and Japan to overthrow British imperialism. Though, he failed to do so—because British were successful in stopping advancing Japanese forces (ally of Bose) at the north-east borders of India and also subsequently his tragic death in air-crash later in August 1945. The day of 26^th January is historically very special to India. On this day in 1929 at Lahore Congress Convention, India as a nation resolved to make this day as symbol of Free India. On this day in 1950 India became republic via adoption of Constitution on 26^th November 1949. The day of 30^th January 1948 holds unique position in Indian history as it is dedicated to tribute for sacrifice Mahatma Gandhi made. He was assassinated on this day in New Delhi`s Birla House.  

In many senses, the spirit of these three days is epitomized in one persona i.e. Nelson Mandela. Mandela, popularly known as Madiba; who lived life as revolutionary, true humble democratic leader, a pioneer of non-violent transfer of power without bloody armed struggle and a great humanist who stood for human rights of not only ‘blacks’ in South Africa and African sub-continent but also across the world.

In the 1960s, Mandela joined left wing revolutionary movement well after he completed is legal education and practiced for a while. Because of his consistent involvement in revolutionary struggles he was soon imprisoned and due to consistent denial for compromise in combat against apartheid, he was forced to suffer in prison for 27 long years. Imagine, that can be anybody`s half life time. Like radioactivity, where half life period of any element can be hundred and thousand years; Madiba represented millions and millions lives across the world in his prison life; reflecting in a sense a true torch-bearer of struggle against exploitation, segregation and butchering done by imperialists in African, American, European, Asian subcontinents. His education in English, anthropology, politics, native administration, and Roman Dutch law is testimony to how he viewed humanity and world at large. His interest in dancing and drama reflect how deeply he was in a position to understand the liberal passions of life.

One can be surprised with multiple-diverse and intrinsically opposite traits of same personality leading in different ideological processes. But Mandela was no ordinary leader.

At the same time, when world was mourning passing away of Madiba, India was also witnessing passing of an era represented by Literary Twister named Namev Dhasal. His last poem - on Nelson Madela - was published on January 11. A underground poet, a rebellious political leader, a social revolutionist against power, caste and religion, doyen of subversive language in contemporary India and philosopher of understated marginalized classes in regions beyond centers of wealth. Born to outcaste family, in his younger days he drove taxi for livelihood. His movement started from foundation of ‘Dalit Panther’ inspired from American Black Panther Movement.

He was largely responsible for creating consciousness in regional language literature in India about nee to break all norms, project life upside down, reverse aesthetics of appreciation of writings and thus day to day happenings and imagine possibility of making evaluation of expression more democratic, respecting plurality and authentic. He was the only person to be awarded by Lifetime Achievement Award by India`s highest Literary Body ‘Sahitya Acadamy’. In 2001 he made presentation to International Literature Festival in Berlin.

If Mandela mobilized people on the basis of urge of self-respect, fight for justice and struggle for rights; Dhasal marshaled weapons of words to destroy the citadels of prejudice, stigma of outcastes and vaccume of socio-political alliances. Manela-Dhasal may be separated by continents but they spoke same language through different ways in parallel times—times of transition, times of retrospectively realizing that coloniasm is yet to finish, times when 90% of the world was yet to taste the fruits of modernity in true sense, times of experiencing endless agony for asking for own dignity. If language was the custodian of indigenous culture of communities, Dhasal proudly navigated through powerful corridors of established literature carrying this native culture which has it own beauty—like dark side of the moon. 

Mandela—empowered courage of people who had no way of knowing how to express their silent protests through gentle conversations on the streets, schools and social gatherings.

Mandela`s realization of inhuman conditions in Robben Island prison (where he was for 27 years), made him more sensitive person before by each passing day. Dhasal`s experiences of humiliation, atrocities and exclusion made his poetry more angry, firebrand and penetrating. Together they showed power of expression and conversation, determination and pursuit of righteousness, leadership across spectrums of social life and engineered new alliances, ability to connect to every subaltern group around, contextualizing the fight as per the times they lived in and living to their own ideals of life without getting unnecessarily influenced by idols of those times, in a sense retaining their originality. When another great Indian writer Dilip Chitre says, that mere word Criticism fails when we reflect on Dhasal`s writing. This irony was also felt about Mandela when US Government honored him with President`s Medal for Freedom while at the same time, his name was there in terrorists list. Dhasal`s style decorated by surrealistic expressionism which was ignorant to average outcaste reader and even distant for upper-middle class educated people. Manela`s tactics were totally new for imperial forces as they were not ready to deal with phenomena which does not get wither away by 27 years of displacement from daily lives in the harshest conditions of prison. It was as if Mandela lived on another plant just like outcasts in India did for centuries to which Dhasal gave first socio-cultural shock after founder of India`s constitution Dr. B. R. Ambedkar. This is not just an effort to eulogize Dhasal, but putting his personality in correct historical context. At the time when established legal-political system and institutional forces were continuously failing to acknowledge, let alone address, the plight of outcastes, Dhasal—through his sheer creativity with realistic arrangements of words—bulldozed agenda of cultural-political bias against community to which he born to.

These were also the times when by blending of words and music, Bob Marley travelled around the world by singing for freedom, justice, and equality. His tracks in 1979 titled ‘Zimbabwe’, ‘Africa Unite’, ‘Wake Up and Live’, ‘Survival’ were highly popular in a sense—they changed the moods of the youths across the continents creating a moral pressure buffer in the media, democratic movements and literary-music circles. I wish to close the tribute to seamless relationship in legacy of ‘Madiba-Dhasal’. Let us listen to these lines of Marley to at least start understanding for what Mandela-Dhasal stood for, lived for and died for !!!

“…Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds
Have no fear for atomic energy
'Cause none of them can stop the time…

Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom?
'Cause all I ever had
Redemption songs

All I ever had
Redemption songs
These songs of freedom
Songs of freedom…” 

 

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"Starve, but hold on to your ideals!"---Rahul Bose

"Be yourself, express yourself and sing a song of your soul. You may be extrovert introvert or you may be team player who is individualistic. Don’t get into oxymoron nature of these terms. Just be on your own." This is Rahul Bose—defined by Rugby, redefined by creative industry and evolved into cinema personality.

Starting his conversation with students at MICA by challenging to think beyond quest for money but still retaining the pragmatics of life, Mr. Bose thrilled the imagination of the audience with personal anecdotes with changing trends in Industry. “How you want your friends to remember yourself after you die? That was the question posed by him. Imagine, in whatever way you wish people or your friends to remember yourself, start speaking that language and behaving like that.”

It was 1992 when Bombay communal riots happened and as Bose claims he does not forgive him today because he failed to live up to the moment when he needed to raise the voice, protest and stand up to the cause of communal harmony. Now as he said, after 2002 he thought to express a strong rejection of the idea of “exclusion”. In effect of this journey, Mr. Bose now has decided to invite and engage students from across India. He will be funding those students for their education in different location other than their home town and thus will move forward in direction of creating ‘Inclusive Nation’ through nurturing their lives by connecting them to ‘other’ parts of India.

Before entering films, I worked as a creative director. Before that I played Rugby for years. Before that I worked in dramas. But I knew all along that I wanted to be an actor. We as an individual always know, how and what things we can do in magnificent ways. On many occasions we know why we are behaving like that, dressing like that or communicating like that. So, try to achieve excellence in the area where you are comfortable in and you fee can achieve enormous degree of quality just like Don LaFontaine, American voice actor, (who died recently) who recorded nearly 5000 film trailers and thousands of television advertisements, network promotions and video game trailers. Just one small area but you can explore whole world of yourself; what if others call you a green colored parrot creating sounds from one corner of mouth seating on branch of tree whole time.

Who do you want to be? What do you like to do? For what do you aspire? Among the subjects humanities, social sciences, mathematics, sciences, languages; if you came to know that you wish to be historian, then next one month you will be doing history. Out of history, if you know that you like to visit to the historical archeological places then our next step becomes to visit those places to know about them more and more. While we visit the place again and again, if we come to know that interacting with people, and within it children, is the most fascinating thing I like to do, DO IT. Then if you discover that you like to draw with kids while studying history of the people at particular place, and then keep doing it. There is no end to craziness, exploration and searching for your own purpose which satisfies your appetite.

“Why we do not receive love from all directions and return love with multi-fold hands to society in return.” This answer was also in line with his defense of the rights of LGBTQs and advocated the abolition of criminalization of homosexuality. He was not in spirit supporting the idea of ‘marketing love on one specific day—Valentine Day’.

Can passion defeat economics? Does this question need any mention or utterance? Conflict is not between ideals to live up to and survival question. Because, as Rahul asserted, surviving or ensuring we don’t remain hungry is not difficult. We should moreover exalting. That is the purpose of our lives and we all should strive for it.   

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CLARITY of LOGIC Vs PROOF of ARGUMENT....

UNDERSTANDING RUSSEL AND WITTGENSTEIN together....

(click above to watch video)

Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) is widely regarded as the greatest philosopher of the twentieth century. Of Austrian-British background, he worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. In 1999, Baruch Poll rated his posthumously published Philosophical Investigations (1953) as the most important book of modern philosophy, standing out as “… the one crossover masterpiece … appealing across diverse specializations and philosophical orientations”.Philosopher Bertrand Russell described him as “the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived; passionate, profound, intense, and dominating.” Opening up the work of one of our age’s undisputed giants, Ray Monk – the charismatic biographer of both Betrand Russell and Wittgenstein – will give an exhilaratingly clear guide to one of the great minds of the 20th century, at the same time telling a compelling human tale of love and loss, of ecstatic triumph and deep disillusion.. Introduced by John Ralston Saul.

(Courtesy Credit: Jaipur Literature Festival)

Playback Theatre- Live Performance -->From EXPERIENCE TO EXPRESSION !

 We live, we suffer, we try to understand life around us. Many times it is difficult to understand what state of mind we are going through. We don’t know how to relate to the world around. Language allows us to capture this incomprehensible reality. Paintings, music, sculptures, dance help us to group different essence of emotions of life. Movies and dramas expose us to parallel world of understanding where montage and mis-en-scene are woven in the spectrum of creative arts. Every one of these gives us a sense of reality which is diverse and multifaceted. We can never claim that every art performance can give perfect picture of pragmatic c world and stories of suffering around. Every form has its own uniqueness and special place in life. 

What if people who are living their own lives start expressing themselves? What if they exercise the right to reflect upon their own, with authentic-real stories they experienced, they lived. What if they adopt skills and practices of traditional performance to turn popular culture upside down? What if they define their reality themselves and redefine the ways in which it should be conveyed to entire world around? Welcome to the world of ‘Playback Theatre’. Theatre: By the people, for the people and to the people; of community and beyond.

Playback theatre is not about acting and following a script. It is in real sense, living a fraction of reality we appreciate in the form of different types of small performances. We do not know many times the lives people are living, stories people have to tell experiences they have to share, pain-agony they have to hide. In many ways, we have lost ability to converse with people who are living in different cultures, other geographies, separated boundaries, distant margins. We are so obsessed with ourselves that we even don’t recognize, acknowledge existence of OTHERs beyond our limited sphere. This theatre has grown to overcome complexities of our arrogance, privileged comfort and dead end in our curiosity which does not inspire us to engage with people we don’t care.

‘Playback Theatre’ subverts the aesthetics of traditional theatre and the way dialogue is started through cultural platforms about those people who have no say or no experience in exercising arts. Here audience becomes performers, storytellers become scriptwriters, people of community become supportive actors, traditional artifacts/utensil/weapons become instruments to produce beats for background music, place we gather becomes rehearsal place and ground on which we practice becomes a theatre stage. Margins get transformed into centre and centre is thrown away as if it has no relevance.

Stories construct history. They are blood lines of world today. Stories are agenda-manifestos of future we wish to arrive at. There cannot be single story about one crucial event let alone about communities, their contested histories, and their journey uptill now. Thus first understanding what kind of stories are travelling around us, becomes major task.

When we approach people for any development related work, it is necessary that we empower people to enable to express themselves. Ultimately they are custodian of their destiny, responsible for their progress-welfare and sensitive towards serious issues harassing their community. Development agencies, academic-research institutions, government funded departments, journalists engage in one way dialogue to understand problems of the suppressed. Mere transfer of monetary funds, and capacity building through skills and training is not enough. Communities feel strong need to connect themselves in a human way to the aspirations they are chasing. They constantly lack the ways to creatively express their anguish/anger about the condition they are forced to live in. Now, playback theatre has given them a powerful forum to reverse the agenda of development, discourses of public sphere and language through which people who are suffering get a chance to reshape it.  

Playback is spontaneous, natural, organic, transparent, honest heart to heart rendition of realities—troubled realities. It is not artificially scripted, it is not logistically mediated through boundaries of stage, it is not prisoner of languages, characters and movements during the performance. It is not inspired to translate fiction into a performance but it is driven with zeal to relive the experiences of people. It is real performance but reality depicted in it is not appropriate, compromised, understated, exaggerate or blown out of its essence. It is a capsule of metaphors by inhaling which we get a dense shock of life around to move us beyond the scale we would have been, even after we experience the same reality in world.

It works like this: People from community who want to fight for betterment of their lives gather. They share their stories, experiences within themselves. They develop courage among themselves to speak the truth, to memorize their personal-communal histories to learn to listen to each other, to enable each other to start talking.

Then at the place of performance, where community is a part of audience, real thrill is observed. There is one storyteller, one conductor and actors team coming from community. Conductor appeals the audiences (which can be mix of all kinds of people including community) to volunteer to share their stories by coming in front of the stage. These storytellers can tell any kind of stories on the range of happiness to sadness, relations to atrocity, compassion to aggression and gain-loss etc.

As storytellers start narrating, the actors listen in rapt attention. After successful narration of stories, conductor then splits entire story in five-six scenes and utters title of each scene one by one. As conductor utters title of scenes spontaneously, actors recount in their minds what exactly the quantum of time should be given to perform the scene. Then, without discussing anything amongst them with relaxed composure and totally immersed mental mode, they arrive on stage and start performing the scene the title of which was mentioned by conductor initially. All this happens within a span of one-two-three minutes maximum. That is where it is immensely challenging. It has no space for scripting, crafting, choreography, costumes, music composition and adding any production infrastructure. It has no time for reflecting back on the stories lived by storyteller. There is no scope for editing, adding, deleting what storyteller has told the audience. It has to be live, unaltered and authentic ‘PLAYBACK’ of the lives through which those stories are being navigated and reflected upon us. It allows for creativity but adapting story to dramatization is not allowed at all. It is tremendously theatrical, it is enormously real; it is not confluence of both.

Playback is performing a reality and not acting for it. It has potential to converge minds of conductor, storyteller, actors, audiences, communities in away none has imagined. It can be used to question the way in which people`s lives are shaped, developed or crushed. It gives powerful language of discourse through lively creative art and through which textual-real politic questions can be caricatured into body language, group sculptures, facial expressions, sequence of rhythmic movements, natural-artificial sounds/noise, body shadows, collective shapes through discrete body postures, illusion of real events through non-material stage, dislocating-displacing traditional roles through transferable genders, shifting characters and moving images across the array of performers of drama. 

Across the world, this form of drama is being used to raise the morale of communities to come out of oppression, arised out of sustained conditioning of their minds which leads to compromise their voices, arguments, memories, stories, experiences. Through an opportunity to perform a drama, they and we, together are getting an opportunity to understand the experiences of OTHERs. Stories connect to us powerfully to the emotions in those experiences. When unedited scripts enter on the stage through scene, we get live telecast of their histories. We get to understand their present in frames of our slowly undressing prejudices while they are sketching colors of events they faced, on our canvas of mind. Those colours and undressing constantly plays hide and seek, but what is significant to remember is that it is so real and natural; that we forget to distinguish—what is art and what is life; what is script and what is an event; what is act and what is performance; what is history and what is present…!!!

 (Permission needed to copy and circulate this--please write to creativityindian@gmail.com if required) 

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