Art in the time of terror attack, it is business as usual

On Wednesday, at 7 pm, I was at the home of a senior artist in mid-town Mumbai. We were brainstorming with two young arts enthusiasts and a lecturer from the Sir JJ School of Art on the possibilities and the problematic vis-à-vis definitions of public art in India.  The duo has been involved with the Clark House art initiative in Mumbai and their latest project aims to explore opportunities linked with public art.

Specifically, they are keen to flag off what they refer to as 'The Mural Project'. The idea is simple enough: the plan is to rope in two artist-lecturers to guide a group of young art students to create a large mural that could be installed in a quasi public corporate space, such as a bank. If the pilot project finds a taker with a vision, they hope to coax other corporations to follow suit. Their aspiration is to inject sparks of colour and visual respite into the dense concrete and glass landscapes of urban industrial zones.

We were speaking about existing policies on the subject, when news of the serial blasts came in. Inured as most of us have become to such tragedies, we, after sending out texts to our near ones, attempted to resume the discussion. The sense of dread, despite being cocooned in the safety of the artist's home, was palpable. I excused myself and left, promising to share learning from a similar project that I had executed years ago. The next day a young journalist rang to seek my comments on the day after the 'blasts'. Her questions made me want to say that, clearly, even for her, it was business as usual.

This evening, post 'first day first show' of Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, I, like many Indians, am suddenly, urgently aware of the need for Carpe Diem. Seize the day, live in the moment, is a motto that many of us try (so very hard) to abide by. Viewed from a positive perspective, the moment also contains a surfeit of delights. Henri Cartier Bresson - his photographs of clothes being washed on the banks of the Sabarmati are poetic to say the least - made famous the idea of 'the decisive moment.' In other words, it is the nanosecond occurrence that contains the tragedy as also the epiphany which reveals itself to the seeing-eye. It's the magical, often accidental, coalescing of elements, like time and space that transforms the ordinary into the sublime. Musicians, writers and artists understand this well - it's a phenomenon that no words can describe. It's that poetic knowing that needs no articulation.  

Increasingly, given the random nature of the unpredictable emergencies racking our lives, the moment is virtually all that is left with us. And so, while the red letter dates and black clouds pile up, all we can (and must) do is fall on our knees in gratitude and celebrate the fact that we are alive and can see and feel - the beauty of life and the healing that lies embedded in the rejuvenating power of art.