Between Bombay and Mumbai

Abhijeet Tamhane

Apologies for sounding parochial, but the sketchbook this month was inevitably filled with images of Bharat as against India, and Mumbai as against Bombay.

To begin with, a flight from Jaipur after attending the conference ‘Translating Bharat’ compelled me to think of the angst that is caused by being relegated to vernacularity. While this conference on the situation of literary translations in India was judicious in its allocation of sessions for each aspect and panelists who belonged to language groups other than the ‘mainstream’ languages, there were stray instances in the audience that showed its disregard to some languages (read: languages from the north-east and Rajasthani). There was also a feel that in such a multilingual literary gathering, the bearers of some languages held their language in ‘low esteem’ for no reason. To top it, the panelists who, as a matter of convenience, spoke in English superficially discussed the central problem of intra-Indian language translations. In the last question-answer session, a Rajasthani literature lover retaliated to the ‘English rules’ situation that he must have sensed, by making some remarks that referred to ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’. Although this piece is not a report of the conference organized by the Jaipur-based ‘Siyahi’; the impressions of hard-to-erase language differences and the anxieties of exclusion from the ‘English language circle’ are the case in point.

The return to Mumbai only enhanced these impressions, after a round of Jehangir Art Gallery. The three ‘AC halls’ at Jehangir in the third week of January 2008 were filled with the annual show by ‘Art Society of India’. I inadvertently shared the boredom and disillusionment with other viewers who equivocally made a shortest, rudest comment: ‘bad art’. Here, is ‘bad’ an expression that should be called ‘English’ as against the provincial? If a province that owes its definition of art to the crafty academic finesse that it acquires with a colonized mindset, why blame the post-1990s youngsters who mimic the top-of-the chart artists as if the Gaitondes-to-Thukral and Tagras are the Constables and Andrew Wythes of the day. There is nothing worse than a colonization of an artist’s mind, but how about celebrating 150 years of its perpetuation? Would the celebration churn out some alternative to analyse colonization?

If you think I am getting absurd, Sir J. J. School of art is doing just that. It is mounting a show this March, of its ‘priceless collection’ (ironical, the prices for all such art might be available with the Auction houses and some Delhi art galleries)! Thereby, the School of Art will hopefully see its history in the contemporary light, and enable the concerned individuals to learn subsequent lessons. There are no plans for a collective learning, like a conference, in the scheme of sesquicentennial celebrations.

Still ahead, the ‘Bombay Art Society’ will mount its annual exhibition late this month. The quality of ‘entries’ (under the stipulated heads: Painiting, Drawing, Watercolour, printmaking, sculpture etc.) that reach this Society is, in the recent years, said to be ‘slightly better’ than the works showed in the Art Society of India annual. The ‘Bad Art’ comments, the measure boredom and disillusionment, might also vary according to what ‘slight’ would mean each year.

There was a demand in the meanwhile, to rename the Bombay Art Society as ‘Mumbai Art Society’. An organization that has lived with initials ‘B.A.S.’ for over 110 years would now be ‘M.A.S.’. If one knows the undercurrents that reside in the desires to change names of cities, one fears of their residue here in art. Someday, ‘Art Society of India’ can be changed to ‘Art Society of Bharat’, or ‘Sir J J school of Art’ can be renamed after some great son of the soil.

There are more occasions when I find myself ‘between Bombay and Mumbai’. The language that surrounds these three institutions: Marathi, has its own logic of art-criticism that has more leverage for formal appreciation than conceptual discussions. If you try to ‘hijack’ this critic-lingo to some analytical level, either you are not read, or are read and remembered for wrong reasons.

As a critic in Marathi, I nurture a plan for translating some key texts from English to Marathi, but am not sure. After the conference about translations, the apprehension ‘translation does not change mindsets; it only informs’ has been growing within me.   

Can anybody help?