HINDOL 7th Issue January 2011

8/2/2019 HINDOL 7th Issue January 2011

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silently shalt thou dwell in my heart

like the deep and silent nightof the full moon;filling my life,my youthand my entire worldwith glory - like the deep night.

only thy eyes,ever wakeful,ever compassionate -will keep vigil over me,thy protective veil will remaindrawn about me lovingly;and all my pains and sorrows,all my life's strivings -thou shalt fill through and throughwith fragrance - like the deep night

Translated by Maitrayee Sen

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62 Rasiklal Gupta Jottings - Translations from 'Lipika'

68 Saswata Bhattacharya Rabindraleela - Leela Majumdar

71 Jaishri Jethwaney Democracy and Media - Debate

76 Mandira Mitra An Artist's Journey - Creative Spaces

82 Sumita Sengupta On the Edges of Time - Book Review85 Ajanta Dutt Jaipur Literary Festival 2011 -A Report

40 - f fl 40 Profile - Jyotirindranath Tagore

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SRespected Sir,

I received the October issue of your magazine 'Hindol' last week

and thank you for your kind gesture. I feel two sections in the magazine

in Bengali and English is a very good idea.

I would like to draw your attention to some seriously wrong

information about Saradindu Senroy as published on the back cover.His place of birth is Bankura and not East Bengal. More absurd is the

information regarding the master he trained under. His guru was Late

Bireswar Sen, who was a direct disciple of Abanindranath Tagore, the

founder of the Bengal School of Art. Saradindu's other teachers were

Asit Haldar and Lalit Mohon Sen - a master in oil. Saradindu passed

out from Lucknow Art School.

I am enclosing an article by Arun Chakravarty who is connected

with a Bengali magazine 'Prangshu' - Editor & Founder Late Shashank

Mukherjee. You will get further information regarding his vast fieldand masterly approach in the world of art. If interested, I will send

you his bio-data for further look into his work which has always

remained behind a curtain.

Sincerely,

Atashi Roy

12.10.2010 New Delhi

Our apologies to our readers.

From the article enclosed with his sister Atashi Roy's letter, we

learnt that apart from the Parliament and the Shipping Corporation's

office, Saradindu Senroy's murals also hold pride of place at the

Aurobindo Ashram, South Block (Ministry of External Affairs) and the

Krishi Bhavan. The one at the Shipping Corporation's office is 17 feet

by 36 feet! In the same breath he would also sketch the Souvenir covers

for Delhi Durgapujas. Such were the people of his time!

Atashi Roy has also contributed an article to this issue.

- Editor

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M

I learnt of Suchitra Mitra's passing away from the Ohetuk Adda

email.

In our student days we were rather involved in the left wing politics

in the college. I suppose I was more involved in the cultural side. It

was my job to go and get the invited artists. Both Suchitra Mitra and

Debabrata Biswas were our regular guests. Once when I went to get

Suchitra Mitra, her mother came to the door and whispered to me 'Shecan't go today, she is running a temperature of 104.' I said how sorry

I was and I hope that she will get better soon. But as I opened the

door to go away I heard Suchitra Mitra shouting from her bedroom

"Who is there, is he from the Scottish Church College?" Her mother

said 'yes'."I am coming down, give me a few minutes." And she did,

and she came and she sang those wonderful rabindrasangeets that only

she could sing. Much later, I met her in Oxford, she was singing at the

St Catherine's College arranged by the Indian Majlis. We spoke briefly.She couldn't recognise me but she remembered the incident. She was

still the very best, in her attitude, behaviour and in her singing. Anyone

who has seen her acting so naturally in the recent films would know

that she could never be false. She was rare.

All the best.

Trilokesh Mukherjee

18.1.2011 France

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L XL I freely concede that the whole of Bankim's Vande Mataram poem,

read together with its context is liable to be interpreted in ways that

might wound Moslem susceptibitites, but a national song though derived

from it, which has spontaneously come to consist only of the first two

stanzas of the original poem does not remind us every time of the

whole of it, much less of the story with which it was accidentally

associated. It has acquired a seperate individuality and an inspiring

significance of its own in which I see nothing to offend any sect or

community.'

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binding National Anthem.' fl fl 26 fl 1939 g fl fl fl fl, 'In the present state ofthings, in local Board and Assembly meetings which their members

(are) obliged to attend the singing of Vande Mataram should be

discontinued."

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Jyotirindranath Tagore

(1849 - 1925)

Debendranath's fifth son Jyotirindranath's 'jyoti' has been largely

eclipsed by the brilliant radiance of his more illustrious sibling 'Rabi',

though much of Rabindranath's accomplishments are rooted in the

training and encouragement by his elder brother.

Abandoning college to pursue a career in theatre, his first publicperformance was in the role ofAhalya Debi in Michael Madhusudan

Dutta's play Krishnakumari. A prolific writer, playwright, translator,

musician and an artist, his better known plays are Emon Kormo Ar

Korbona (first performed as Kinchit Jalajog), Purubikram (the story

of Alexander and Porus), Sarojini (based on Sati) andAsrumati (a love

story of a Hindu girl and a Muslim youth). He adapted from several

French plays, including Hotath Nabab, based on Moliere'sLe Bourgeois

Gentilhomme. The play that is still performed often is Alikbabu.

He translated into Bengali works from other languages including

Marathi, some of which areIndia without the English (French - Pierre

Loti), Abhigyanshakuntalam (Sanskrit - Kalidas) and Mrichhakatik

(Sanskrit - Shudrak).

In 1877, he launched the Bharati magazine. In art, he specialized

in sketches and portraits. He could play many musical instruments,

such as the sitar, violin and the piano and wrote and set many songs to

tune, including songs written by Rabindranath Tagore.

In 1868 he married Kadambari, who bloomed in the Tagorehousehold. In 1884 (around the time his wife committed suicide), after

coming out of indigo and jute farming, he entered the steamer business.

He was not an astute businessman and soon ran into debts. After an

accident sinking one of his steamers, he sold the business to a competitor.

A man with a vibrant social life before his wife's death, childless,

Jyotirindranath is believed to have spent a relatively reclusive life during

his last 18 years in a house built by him in Ranchi, earlier having lived

for 20 years in the household of his elder brother Satyendranath, during

which time he continued to be diversely creative.


42/88

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going through a second edition with notes... A thousand copies of the work have

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anecdote. Some days ago I had the occasion to go to Chinabazar. I saw a manseated in a shop and deeply pouring over Meghanad. I stepped in and asked him

what he was reading. He said in very good English : "I am reading a new poem;

Sir!" "A poem!" I said "I thought there was no poetry in your language." He

replied - "Why, Sir, here is poetry that would make my nation proud." I said,

"Well, read and let me know." My literary shopkeeper looked hard at me and said,

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chance." He read out of Book II that part wherein Kam returns to Rati, standing

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How beautifully the young fellow read. I thought of the men who pretend

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lived? I gave him an evasive reply, for I hate to be bothered by visitors. I shook

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(Translations from 'Lipika' by Rabindranath Tagore)

The Lane

Our cobbled lane had once gone exploring for something, twisting

and turning this way and that. There were houses on one side, houses

on the other, houses ahead. It was thwarted whichever way it went.

It could see a strip of the sky from what little was visible overhead,

crooked and narrow, very much like itself.

It enquired of that pruned sky, 'Tell me sister, to which blue town

do you belong?'

At noon, when it sighted the sun for a while; it said to itself, 'This

is quite beyond comprehension.'

The shadows of the monsoon clouds darkened amidst the two rows

of houses, as if someone had scored out its radiance from the lane's

notebook with a pencil. The monsoon drummed out the beats of a snake

dance, the rainwater slithering among the cobbles. The way wasslippery; the umbrellas of the passers-by got snared. The rainwater

startled them, suddenly bursting on to the umbrellas from the spouts

on the roofs.

Overwhelmed, the lane said, 'It was so bone dry, so calm, then

why this needless torrential nuisance?'

The southerly squall of Phalgun was like a rogue; scraps of waste

paper blew about chaotically in the dusty wind. Flabbergasted, the

lane said, 'Which crazy God's drunken spree is this?'

The lane believed that all the litter that accumulated around it

Rasiklal Gupta

Karol Bagh, New Delhi

Jottings

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everyday - fish scales, oven ashes, vegetable scraps, a dead rat - was

the reality. It never occurred to it to ask, 'Why all this?'Yet, when the rays of the Sarat sun fell on the upper balcony, when

the puja ensemble struck up a Bhairavi tune, for a few moments it

would reflect, 'Perhaps there is something momentous beyond these

cobblestones after all.'

The day would advance, the sunbeams sliding off the dwellings

on to the lane like a saree sliding off the shoulders of a busy housewife,

the clock would strike nine, the maidservant would bring in the

groceries from the market, the office-goers would become impatient.

The lane would then feel, 'All certainty verily lies in these

cobblestones. And what I had thought to be momentous is really a great

big dream'.

*

The False Paradise

The chap was rather a slacker.

He had no useful occupation; he only had umpteen kinds of

hobbies.

Patting some clay into small square wooden frames, he would

arrange wee little sea-shells on them. Standing back, the arrangement

appeared to be some disorderly picture of a flock of birds, or possibly

a scraggy meadow with cattle grazing on it, or undulating hills, with

perhaps a brook on them, or possibly it was a pathway.

His kith and kin chastised him no end. At times he swore to give

up this foolishness. But folly would not let go of him.

- 2 -

There are some who play truant the year round, yet curiouslymanage to edge past the exams. Something similar befell this man too.

Having done worthless things all his life, he came to know after

his demise that he had been commended for being sent to heaven.

But providence doesn't leave alone even those destined for heaven.

An angel got the labels all mixed up and erroneously deposited him

in the heaven meant for workaholics.

This heaven had everything else, but no leisure time.

At this heaven, men would say, 'There's not a moment to breathe.'

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The women would say, 'Got to go, heaps of chores left undone.'

Everybody said, 'Time is valuable.' No one said, 'Time is invaluable.'Everyone lamented, 'This is unbearable', and was rather thrilled for it.

'Working like dogs' - here this grievance was music to the ears.

The poor fellow was a total misfit; he just couldn't adjust. Strolling

along absent mindedly, he would get in the way of busy people in the

streets. Wherever he may spread out his wrapper to settle down

comfortably, he'd be told that it was cropland, that it had just been

sown. He'd always have to get up, to move along.

- 3 -A very industrious lass used to come each day to collect water

from the heaven's fountain.

She would flit over the pathway like a lively composition on the

sitar1.

Her hair had been hastily arranged into a loose bun. A few playful

strands were nonetheless reaching across her forehead to try to peek

into her dark eyes.

The idler of the afterworld was standing on one side, quite

immovable, like the Tamal2 tree near the restless brook.Just as a princess would pity a beggar upon noticing him from her

window, the girl too was moved on seeing the man.

'Oh, you seem to be out of work'.

Sighing, the man said, 'I am too busy to do any work.'

The girl was puzzled. 'Would you like to share some of my tasks?'

she said.

He said, 'I have been waiting here to do precisely that.'

'What work can I provide you?'

'Will you give me one of the pitchers in which you bear away the

water?'

'What will you do with it, do you want to store water?'

'No, I will paint a picture on it.'

Annoyed, the girl said, 'I'm leaving, I don't have time.'

But how can industrious people best loafers. Each day they would

meet at the fountain, every day it was the same story, 'Give me your

1. A stringed musical instrument

2. A tree symbolical of Lord Krishna

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pitcher, I want to paint a picture on it.'

At last, defeated, she handed over the pitcher.The workless man painted on colours of many a hue around the

pitcher, he drew in lines of many a style.

When he was done, the girl looked it over, twisting and turning it

around. With quizzical brows, she asked, 'What does it mean?'

The idler said, 'It doesn't mean anything.'

The girl took the pitcher home.

Privately, away from everybody's gaze, she twirled the pitcher

around and inspected it from different angles under different light

sources. At night, she would get off her bed often to light a lamp and

stare at the picture. For the first time in her life, she had come across

something that was quite pointless.

When she came back to the spring the following day, her feet were

a little less lively, as if they were ruminating on something

absentmindedly - on something that had no meaning.

That day too, the idler was standing to one side.

The girl said, 'What do you want.'

He said, 'I want to get more work from you.''What work can I give you.'

'If you permit me, I will weave coloured threads into a cord for

doing your ponytail.'

'What would be the point of it.'

'Nothing at all.'

A colourful cord of many designs was fabricated. Now the girl

would spend a lot of time before the mirror to do her hair. Chores

were left undone; hours slipped by...

-4-

Increasingly, work began being left undone in the workaholic's

paradise. Instead, there was much grief and music.

The heavenly elders were very concerned. An assembly was

convened. The elders said, 'Never has anything like this occurred in

our history.'

The angel appeared and admitted the slip-up, 'I have brought an

unfit person to an inappropriate paradise.'

This unsuitable man was produced before the assembly. The

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blunder was immediately evident to all who saw his colourful headgear

and waistband.The eldest of the assembly told him, 'You'll have to return to Earth.'

Much relieved, he gathered up his painting gear and said, 'Very

well, I'll be on my way.'

The girl came and said, 'I'll go too.'

The venerable eldest was lost in thought. This was the first time

he had seen something that had no reason.

*

The Court Jester

The king of Kanchi went forth to conquer Karnat. He was

victorious. Elephants were laden with sandalwood, ivory, gold and

precious stones.

On his way back home, the king worshipped the Goddess

Baleshwari, the temple awash with the sacrificial blood.

While returning after the worship, clad in a red dress, sporting a

jaba3

garland and red sandalwood paste on his forehead, with only theminister and the court jester with him, he saw a few boys playing at

a mango orchard.

The king said to his companions, 'Let us go and see what game

they are playing.'

- 2 -

The boys were playing make believe battles with two rows of dolls.

The king asked, 'Who is fighting whom.'

They said, 'Karnat is fighting Kanchi.'The king asked, 'Who won, and who lost.'

The boys said proudly, 'Karnat won, Kanchi lost.'

The minister's face darkened, the king's eyes went crimson with

fury, and the jester laughed out aloud.

- 3 -

When the king came back with his soldiers, the boys were playing

still.

3. The hibiscus lower, usually red

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The king commanded, 'Tie them up to a tree and flog them.'

Their parents came rushing from the village. They said, 'The boysare ignorant, it was only a game, forgive them.'

The king summoned the chief of the army and said, 'Teach this

village a lesson. It should never forget the king of Kanchi.'

Having said so, the king left for the encampment.

- 4 -

In the evening, the chief of the army presented himself to the king.

Saluting, he said, 'Sire, now you'll not hear any utterance in this village

other than those of jackals and dogs.'The minister said, 'His Highness's honour is restored.'

The high priest said, 'His Highness has the blessings of the

Goddess.'

The court jester said, 'My lord may kindly permit me to leave.'

The king said, 'Why so.'

The jester said, 'I don't know how to wound or kill, by God's grace

I can only laugh. Among my lord's great company, I shall forget how

to laugh.' (Rasiklal Gupta is a practicing lawyer)

f

Artist:V.S.

Rahi

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Leela Majumdar was a prolific writer of children's books. Her

writings for the grown ups also command considerable attention as she

merges her matchless gift of a master story-teller with conversational

witty humour. In her long career as a writer, spanning over seventy

years, she had been an executive editor (since 1963) of the most famous

childrens' Bengali magazine of 1960s and 70s - Sandesh. She was joined

on the editorial staff first by her nephew Satyajit Ray and later, by

cousin Nalini Das.

Leela Majumdar was born in 1908 in Shillong and spent her

childhood there till a transfer in her father's job brought the family to

Calcutta in 1919. She had an exceptionally brilliant academic record,

and stood first both for her B.A (Hons) and M.A in English Literature

from Calcutta University. At Rabindranath Tagore's invitation, she

joined Santiniketan in 1931 for a year as an assistant teacher. It is here,

away from city life, that she had a rare opportunity to spend a cycle ofseasons in close proximity to Tagore. Her fascinating experience at

Santiniketan found fabulous expression in many of her stories.

Upon seeing her, Majumdar recalls, the poet would often ask about

the day's work. Once he asked her what she had taught in the English

class that day. She said, she had asked the students to write an essay on

the cow. He wanted to know what they had written and she said one

student claimed the cow was a domesticated vegetarian. Witty as ever,

Tagore immediately said that this was exactly his description and that

he too was a domesticated vegetarian! Tagore was known for his cheerful

Saswata BhattacharyaKalkaji, New Delhi

Rabindraleela

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repartee, and during that time he actually turned vegetarian. He would

eat lots of fruit, wake up early in the morning and immediately sitdown with his painting.

To the south of Udayan, there was a room with colourful blinds.

Walking on that path in the mornings, she would hear him cough. She

would then gather courage and enter. When all was silent all around,

she knew that he was deeply immersed in the creative process and it

was wise not to disturb him. She would walk past silently. If she found

someone was already there before her, she would not go in.

She writes in her memoirs (Kheror Khata) that one morning,

she stopped in front of his comfortable chair. On the low marble stool

nearby, she found seated an extraordinarily good-looking man in a white

dhoti. Seeing her, the poet called to introduce her to this handsome

man. He is Sudhindranath Dutta, said the poet. For a while, Majumdar

pondered upon the fact that she had never seen quite such a handsome

man in her entire life. The poet smiled a little and cautioned her that

the man was married!

In the evenings, many people would gather at Uttarayan for light-

hearted conversation. The days when Tagore also contributed, it had adifferent flavour altogether. Those who would come there regularly

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remember this story.

Tagore was a good friend of the famous scientist Jagadish ChandraBose (1858-1937). When both of them had grown rather old, they had

also grown a little absent-minded. Once when Tagore came to Calcutta

for a few days, he told his daughter-in-law, Pratima Devi, not to cook

for him the following day as he had an invitation for lunch at Jagadish's

place.

The next day, having attired himself rather well, Tagore went to

Bose's place at the appointed hour with a companion. It goes without

saying that having seen him come in, everybody in the household was

overwhelmed. In the drawing room, the inmates met for an adda. But

even after the lunch hour was well past, nobody cared to raise the issue

of food. The poet assumed that Jagadish might have actually forgotten

about the lunch invitation. He could guess without much effort that

Bose had not asked anyone in the house to prepare for guests that day.

Finally, Tagore had to take his leave. Bose also came downstairs to

see him off. As Tagore came down a few steps, Bose seemed to

remember something. In a hurry, he leaned over the railings of the

staircase and said Tagore must remember to eat with them the followingday. He had almost forgotten to remind him.

With a smile on his face, Tagore replied, he was forgetful too! He

had arrived that morning to tell his friend he could not come the

following day as he was otherwise engaged. While he proceeded down

the stairs, he was rather pleased that he had managed to avoid an

awkward situation. He felt the poor fellow had completely forgot about

that day's invitation

It is still a matter of debate which one of them forgot what!

Leela Majumdar was a storehouse of such wonderful stories thatremain alive even after so many years of her telling them. She died a

centurion in 2007.

(Saswata Bhattacharya teaches English

in Deshbandhu College, New Delhi)

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It is believed that democracy sustains free and fair media. Similarly

media supports democracy by working as a watch dog in public interest.

Vox Pop Vox Dei, the voice of the people is the voice of God,

goes the Greek maxim. How does the voice of people get articulated?

Is it through the electoral process or through the media? Both politics

and media are power institutions. If politics has an agenda, so has the

media. Both institutions draw their supposed power from public,

politics from the power of the people that elect representatives to

political institutions and media from the eyeballs they are able to

generate for their coverage of events, personalities and ideas. Power

in politics is inherent, but for media it is assumed and acquired.

Politics as an institution has a history of thousands of years. Many

things have influenced politics. In other words, political institutions

have taken centuries to be what they are today. Media, on the other

hand as an institution has a much shorter history but has progressedby leaps and bounds.

There has always been a love and hate relationship between politics

and media, although some scholars firmly believe that both cross-

fertilize each other. Abraham Lincoln thought that politics was the last

best hope on earth. Harry S Truman said on media that he really looked

with commiseration over the great body of his fellow citizens, who

after reading newspapers, lived and died in the belief that they had

known something of what has been passing in the world in their time.

Walter Lippman, a renowned journalist and political analyst questioned

Democracy and Media

Jaishri Jethwaney

East of Kailash, New Delhi

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the purity and adequacy of mass media as sources of information.

Journalists, he felt, merely pointed a "flash light" rather than mirrorat the world.

The role of media in the electoral process is always in focus and

most of the time in controversy. Media bias is an issue that takes

center-stage. Analysts believe that media stimuli before and around

election time do make a difference in the voter behavior, following

five factors affecting the level of interest among voters, variation in

these factors resulting in "high-stimulus" and "low-stimulus" elections.:

1. Difference in media coverage

2. Significance attached by voters to an office

3. Importance of issues raised in the campaign

4. Attractiveness of the candidate

5. Competitiveness of the contest

Information as power

Media provide legitimacy to things even if they don't deserve so.

The mere appearance of news about issues, persons, and events

unwittingly gives them a legitimate stance, especially when it iscovered as reportage. Some scholars through empirical research believe

that the decline of the political parties and the growing power and clout

of media undermine an average election in a liberal democracy.

Journalistic values, though supposedly neutral, introduce an element

of random partisanship into a campaign, which works to the advantage

of one side or another. The other paradigm is that politicians need

media for their sustenance and survival but when media is critical they

bash them.

Media, in today's time, believe many social scientists, politicalanalysts and communication researchers, exert great power not only

on economic or political attitudes and approaches but also on how to

think about the world. Media today not only provide information but

a conceptual framework within which information and opinions are

ordered, not just facts but the world view. Contemporary researchers

emphasize on the 'agenda setting' function of the media.

Do media impact people's mind; do they affect the voting behavior

of the electorate is a question that is being discussed from the days of

the penny press. A number of empirical research studies reflect that

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when people are asked if media influences them, the result more often

would be 'not the least'; but when spoken in the context of third partiesthey believe the impact of media is all pervasive. In fact the opinion

on media impact oscillates between two extremes - from 'media have

no impact' to 'they have great impact'. Some scholars believe that

shortcomings in research design explain why many studies of media

impact on public opinion do not detect substantial media effects. Most

of the research surveys focus on immediate changes in opinion about

a single event or some events rather than changes produced over longer

periods of time by a multiplicity of media stimuli. Investigators seldom

make use of baseline research to allow them to assess the opinions

before news exposures. So when potency of media is measured, the

researchers are unable to measure the appeal of media messages and

sources that transmit them.

Many scholars have been talking about the 'Americanization' of

elections all over the globe. Media in America plays a great role in

showcasing politicians and history is replete with examples when

American media 'selected' the President much before he won the

popular vote. A lot of buzz and hype was created around Bill Clintonduring the 1992 elections and an impression that George Bush was

interested in his own candidacy made people lean towards a person

who had less than 10 per cent rating when he first declared his

candidacy.

Some scholars believe that various media differ in their impact

and efficacy within itself at varying times and vis--vis other media.

Accurate assessment of media individually or in combination remains

elusive because there are no adequate measuring criteria. An average

person perceives media as harder, tougher and at times cynical.Justice Sawant, the erstwhile chairman of the Press Council of

India in an in-depth interview said that media needs to take on an

activist role in order to promote the basic tenets of our constitution.

On the other hand, other, especially Rita Beamish of AP felt that media

should never take on an activist role: 'if they wear the badge of a

crusader, they can't remain objective'.

Women's Issues

Women remain marginalized both at the political and media levels.

Women are not even considered vote banks, hence not really addressed,

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especially in the rural hinterland. It is expected of them to toe the male

choice within the family and the community. One hardly finds women journalists in discussion programs across various channels during

hustings.

Despite the hue and cry about 1/3 representation for women in

the Parliament, all political parties are guilty of not really believing in

what they preach. When it comes giving tickets, women remain

marginalized within political parties also. The issue of 1/3

representation for women in Parliament did not get much support either

from the political parties or the media.

Electoral reforms- media's role

The great thing about Indian democracy is that in the last over

sixty years and in all the 15 parliamentary and hundreds of assembly

elections, the changeover and transfer of power from one to another

has been smooth. There has been no bloodletting.

The Election Commission until the end of the 1980s was like any

other government department which organized nine parliamentary

elections smoothly, until the irrepressible T N Seshan came on the

scene. A great copy for the journalists, media and Seshan seemed tolove each other. So much was covered in the media, that some

politicians even entertained the idea of initiating impeachment against

him. One of the mainstream newspapers commented, "going by the

spirit rather than law, Mr. T N Seshan has been a cause of a significant

reduction of election expenditure". Even after his retirement, the

Election Commission has continued to assert and help improve the

election process.

The media by and large has brought to focus the need for electoral

reforms around election time. However, the coverage has beenpersonality and event based. No serious papers by political scientists,

discussion etc has been witnessed in the mainstream or local media.

Are media objective?

The issue of media objectivity has been debated and deliberated

at various fora. Many among the media persons consider absolute

objectivity an absolute farce also.

The use and manipulation of media by politicians and political

systems is too well known to warrant any further discussion. Hitler

and his crony Goebbels understood the power of mass media and

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reckoned information as an instrument of social control. They believed

that people tended to accept messages that were repeated again andagain. Socialist countries, especially in the last century, were so

paranoid with the power of media that the societies got increasingly

regimented, despite the fact that some socialist countries came about

because of the power of the masses.

Media accountability

Are media accountable? If yes, to whom? Who really controls

media - is it the state in a subtle or not so subtle way, is it self

censorship, is it the market or the media consumers? There are many

cases in point to support that media have reflected their bias in favor

or against some corporate houses. The worst has been witnessed as

far as the media objectivity is concerned when people can buy editorial

and reportage space. Some governments both at the central and state

levels at various points of time have tried to gag media appreciating

their power especially when the going was not perceived to be good

for the powers that be. However, there is no gainsaying that Indian

media have resisted every single move when the government has

intervened either by censorship or by other controls like pulling outad support or newsprint control. However, another view is gaining

ground that it is the market that really controls the content.

Do media have a mind, or should they have one?

The general expectation from the media is that 'news is sacrosanct

and comment is free'. However it's very difficult not to see the reflection

of media mind in coverage of events and personalities. The hype and

buzz created around personalities and events - the making of idols,

icons, the making of contexts in which to perceive things are all parts

of media writings.It can be said that democracy and media are like twin sisters, each

complementing the other, yet no debate can be conclusive about their

true relationship and dependence. Media and democracy are

inseparable. If information for media is oxygen, there is no denying

it comes from a democratic society.

(Jaishri Jethwaney is a

Professor and Program Director, IIMC, New Delhi)

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As a young boy growing up in a village in Kerala, K.S.

Radhakrishnan, the noted sculptor, read a piece on Shantiniketan in a

school textbook in Malayalam. This opened in his mind a vision of

another village in far away Bengal where art and education were being

pursued in a non- commercial manner, a place that was described as

an ashram. A seed of curiosity about the place was planted in the young

boy's mind but he continued to pursue his studies in Kerala right up

to college. During his college days he learnt more about Tagore and

Shantiniketan and when he decided to study art he chose to go to there.

The choice was an unusual one because at that time the when most

people in Kerala thought about an art college, it was of the Madras

Art College where the well known painter Shri K.C.S. Panicker had

been the principal. But for young Radhakrishnan, going to

Shantiniketan was like a journey from one village to another and he

was quite oblivious of the geographical distance that he had to coverto reach his destination. Somehow, in his mind there was already an

existing intimacy between the place he started from and where he was

going.

On reaching Shantiniketan in 1974, Radhakrishnan gave an

interview for admission in Kala Bhavan, the art school there, and was

confident that he would be admitted. During the admission test, he

worked on still life objects and a creative composition. When the results

were announced, he did not find his name on the sheet. Disappointed,

he walked out of 'Nandan' (the office building). Suddenly a person

An Artist's Journey

Through Shantiniketan

Mandira Mitra

Kailash Colony, New Delhi

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came out of the building waving two sheets of paper, one in each hand

and asked him "Is this your work?" and when the answer was in theaffirmative the person waved the other sheet and asked "and this also?"

Yes, both the art works were the ones that Radhakrishnan had drawn

for the admission test. The stranger then invited Radhakrishnan to come

into the office and told him that he had been admitted for the Bachelor

of Fine Arts course. This person was none other than Professor

Somnath Hore and in Radhakrishnan's mind the image of him walking

out with his arms extended has stuck as that of Jesus responding to

his art and taking him into his arms.

Radhakrishnan had reached his destination but his journey

continued. At that time, Shantiniketan had no boundary or periphery;

it was an open space with no defined beginning or end to the University.

It was a continuum interspersed with the various bhavans or

institutions, the villages and the haat. The atmosphere was relaxed and

very informal between students and teachers. The pervasive custom

was that anybody who was senior in age, be it a teacher or a student,

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was a 'dada' or 'didi.' Everyone sat on the ground whether in a classroom

or in the chataal. The presence of a large number of girls on campus

was also a new feeling as fifty percent of the seats were reserved for

female students. Eating meals in the general kitchen was another

special experience where all the students from different disciplines

interacted with each other. For Radhakrishnan, the experience ofShantiniketan as a whole was far more overwhelming than being just

a student of Kala Bhavan.

The department of art where he was enrolled was already a very

well known institution and offered an integrated five-year programme

for the bachelor's degree. In the first two years the students were

exposed to painting, sculpture, graphics and craft. When the time came

to choose a specialization, Radhakrishnan chose sculpture. Though he

enjoyed painting, he opted for sculpture because he was more drawn

towards three dimensional objects that could be moved around and

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touched. As he took up sculpting, Radhakrishnan was fascinated by

the tactile experience of the art form as opposed to the subtlety ofpainting. It seemed as though he preferred to work with the hammer

than with the brush!

At that time, the department of sculpture continued to draw

inspiration from the presence of the legendary sculptor Shri Ramkinkar

Baij who was living in Santiniketan after his retirement. Radhakrishnan

recalls that it was Kinkarda who had started sculpture as a discipline

in Kala Bhavan and had taught many renowned artistes like K.G.

Subramanyan, Shankha Choudhary and A. Ramachandran.

Radhakrishnan too was fortunate enough to learn from Baij who strode

into their classes unannounced and his presence was enough to inspire

and motivate the students.

According to Radhakrishnan, the work of creation by an artist is

a very private affair and he recounts a story when as a young student

he accompanied Shri Ramkinkar Baij to Kolkata where the latter was

to inaugurate an art exhibition by painting a canvas that had been placed

on the dais. He observed the immense discomfort of his teacher when

asked to paint in front of a gathering.As a student, due to the lack of resources in Shantiniketan,

Radhakrishnan worked mainly on clay and concrete and in keeping

with the tradition of the school where modelling was the norm. He

was taught to create a permanent structure from nothing. On completing

his bachelor's course, Radhakrishnan enrolled for his master's to pursue

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and experiment with his chosen

art form. He moved to Delhi in1981 where he lives with his wife

Mimi who was one of the ten girls

in his class in Kala Bhavan.

One very important theme of

Radhakrishnan's later works has

been the figures of Musui and his

female counterpart Maiya. Prof

Siva Kumar, the renowned art

historian has described the

relationship between Musui and

Radhakrishnan where the artist

imagined and gave different

shapes to the body of a young Santhal boy. Siva Kumar writes "He

(Radhakrishnan) chanced upon Musui when he turned up one day to

pose for the class. The generous smile of this skin-headed young

Santhal, sublimely innocent and ridiculously silly at the same time,

captivated Radhakrishnan and he followed up the initial studies witha life size study of Musui in the nude. When he finished his studies

and moved to Delhi, the sculpture being too large and heavy and more

in the nature of an academic study, he sawed off the head and carried

it with him. There the smiling head of Musui remained on his studio

shelf gathering dust like a forgotten trophy from an earlier campaign,

but for all this apparent neglect it also kept breathing and subliminally

growing somewhere within him like an old dream the meaning of which

still remained to be known. The head freed from the body seemed to

reveal the spirit of Musui better."Musui later appeared in several forms like Ramakrishna, Nataraja,

Christ, Buddha, a rickshaw puller, man holding a palm leaf or inanimate

objects like a box or a vessel.

For Radhakrishnan, leaving Shantiniketan has been as important

as reaching it. The pace of the journey that he has adopted since leaving

Kala Bhavan has been a challenge and he continues to go back to

Shantiniketan to renew, recharge and retrospect. Currently, he is

engaged in putting together a definitive collection of works of Ram

Kinkar Baij for a book to be published by the Government of India

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and also for an exhibition to be held in the National Gallery of Modern

Art in connection with the birth centenary of the artist.

(Based upon an interview with K.S. Radhakrishnan and books

written on his works by Prof. Siva Kumar. To know more about the

artist and his works please see www.ksradhakrishnan.com)

(Mandira Mitra is a practicing lawyer) Image courtesy : K.S. Radhakrishnan

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Tagore and the Bengali mindset have always remained closely

connected and for a good reason. He has been a towering literary figure

of Bengal and of our country of all times. Today, as his 150th birth

centenary approaches, a thin volume, On the Edges of Time (firstpublished in June 1958 by Visva-Bharati) on the life of Tagore as

portrayed by his son Rathindranath Tagore (1888-1961) draws special

attention to itself because of its unassuming style of narration, essaying

many little known facts of Tagore's life. The author says in the preface,

"it is possible that from the somewhat disconnected anecdotes

penned during leisure hours at different times and put together in these

pages, the reader may obtain glimpses of some aspects of my father's

personality not dealt with by his biographers." This self-assessment

of today's priceless book arouses interest and sets the tone for even

the most casual reader.

Rathindranath was the son of a great father, but while writing his

reminiscences he doesn't attempt to put him on a larger than life canvas.

In fact what is most appealing is that the book projects father

Rabindranath in the eyes of his son through many events in the life of

the father and son, rather than becoming a memoir of this great

personality. The author, a great narrator, delves down his memory and

presents vignettes that reveal interesting aspects of Tagore's genius.For example, the idyllic charm of the poet's life in a houseboat at

Shelaidaha where Tagore had written and composed a bulk of his work

comes alive on the pages of the book as seen through the eyes of young

Rathindranath. There is an anecdote of an evening at the end of a

tumultuous storm that caused much wreckage when a young, beautiful

woman was rescued from drowning, much against her will. Was the

idea ofNoukadubi first germinated in Tagore's mind at this point?

Houseboats and cruises along the rivers, be it Ganga, Padma or

smaller tributaries in East Bengal, were a part of the Tagore lineage

Review : On the Edges of TimeAuthor : Rathindranath Tagore

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family and was an uninhibited devotee of anything lofty and beautiful.

"Austerity as such had little or no appeal for father," writesRathindranath. "In a land of poverty where life was nothing but a story

of systematic deprivation, austerity was not the ideal to be held up

before the people. On the contrary, our people needed to be encouraged

to taste the good things of life. Unfortunately, however, by a curious

confusion of ideas, shabbiness in dress and slovenliness in habits were

coming to be regarded as social virtues. This naturally shocked father's

artistic sensibilities." Decades later, management experts in modern

India have come to value this same sentiment as they stoke the

aspiration level in people in order to improve the economy.

Tagore's indulgence in encouraging a love for things beautiful in

people around him should not be mistaken as supporting indiscipline.

He was not a harsh father, but he was a strict disciplinarian and

inculcated a sense of obedience in his son. There are instances in the

book where an affectionate father reprimanded his son in his own

unique way. What was more, he took upon himself the responsibility

of educating Rathindranath. The book deals at length with the struggle

he had undergone in establishing the asram at Santiniketan. Life wastough, as depicted by Rathindranath, but steeped in the wondrous

beauty of Nature. This early exposure of Rathindranath to a life outside

the comfort of Jorasanko's Thakurbari led to a spiritual awakening

in him much like his being conscious of Nature's bounty during the

days spent in the lap of Nature in the houseboat in Shelaidaha. Tagore's

genius had many facets, but the endearing personality of Tagore the

father comes across vividly through the pages of the book, and herein

lies its appeal.

"It is not easy to understand a man of genius," observesRathindranath. "The bare facts of life are a poor commentary on the

almost imperceptible working of a most sensitive mind." However, this

compilation of anecdotes, dotted with the intelligent observations of

a son who has lived an equally intellectually stimulating life living in

close proximity of his genius father tells a story of a legendary figure

of a legendary family whose contribution to the Bengali life is still

beyond measure. (The reviewer Sumita Sengupta is a freelance journalist.

She lives in Kailash Colony, New Delhi)

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The Jaipur Literary Festival opened at the Diggi Palace on the 21st

of January and continued till the 25th of January, 2011. The four

parallel sessions scheduled for every hour were filled with authors and

intellectuals of international repute, and topics ranged from prize-

winning and new books to politics, history, music, paintings and

photography. Texts in languages other than English from both India

and abroad were included.

Needless to state, some of the events that drew the largest crowds

were the sessions featuring Nobel laureates, Orhan Pamuk and J.M.

Coetzee, a session on Hindi film songs with Gulzar and Javed Akhtar,

and music by Madan Gopal Singh. Eminent personalities like Arthur

Miller, K. Satchidanandan, Ashok Vajpeyi, Mrinal Pande, William

Dalrymple, Chitra Divakaruni, Kiran Desai and Ruskin Bond were part

of the star-studded cast that wrought their magic upon the days. In the

audience there were teachers and students from universities, collegesand schools, representatives from newspapers and publishing houses,

the NGOs, and of course, all those who were simply interested in the

events unfolding in the Pink City. Most visitors had driven in from

Delhi, and both flights and hotels were over-boo

Documents

HINDOL 7th Issue January 2011