Installation Art- Contd.

The greatest and most spectacular installation art created by any artist was 'Valley Curtain' by the Bulgarian Christo. He hung a huge orange curtain across a canyon in California. It was civil, structural and what not engineering meeting art! Somewhat like what Indian born British artist Anees Kapoor is doing. Unfortunately the valley curtain was torn apart by strong winds within hours of it being hung. Christo had also wrapped a million square feet of the Australian coast-line in plastic! He must have had immense persuassive skills to arrange for the mind-boggling logistics involved with such projects. Anees Kapoor's installations also cost millions of dollars and yet they are dismantled after a certain period of time. But then we live in clever times and I am sure someone most be making money somewhere. If Christo ( he passed away I believe) had kept the torn pieces of the Valley Curtain he, or someone, could have made a killing today, it is such an iconic piece in the history of post-modern art. No one makes art for the sake of art these days, just as no one sings for the sake of singing, or plays cricket for the love of the game. Someone had described the British as a nation of shop-keepers. Today everyone is a shop-keeper. All nations, organisations, individuals. Shop-keepers one and all!
Bye for now,
Uday

Good Entertainment!

Why are we so bent on being entertained? You switch on the TV and some jerk is trying to entertain you with his silly antics, cracking wishy washy jokes, talking in an unbearable staccato and in general making a complete fool of himself. As, Asish Nandy, celebrated economist, has said somewhere " soon we are going to entertain us to death" or something to that effect. Entertainment is the buzz word. Everything is 'good entertainment'. Be it a cricket match, a trust motion in parliament, a debate on the death penalty....anything.

This is what Clint Eastwood has to say about films in an interview published in the July issue of M magazine -"When you make a film, don't think of the people who might go and see it. Make your film and stay true to your story." Our film makers, right from Raj Kapoor to Karan Johar keep repeating that they make films for the masses. No wonder they churn out such trash. Anything, as any sensible person will tell you, that is devised exclusively for mass consumtion cannot be a product of quality. Hindi cinema is the Nirma soap of world cinema.

I am a big fan of Clint Eastwood and have borrowed his celebrated line for my blog's name.
Bye for now, Uday

Here I Go!

Hello All!

I am Uday Shankar Hajra. Artist. Photographer. Dilettante par excellance. Lover of good cinema, music and books. Tetotaller, non-smoker, non-religious, spiritual, tea and coffee addict and a lotus-eater if there was one!



I love a good conversation but generally cannot get along with people. Especially the uptight sort and these days they come a dime a dozen. I don't believe in secret ballots. if you ask me, and I like your face, chances are that I'll tell you the party or candidate I've voted for. I like it that way. I like the people of Sikkim, who fly the flag of the party they support from their roof-tops! that is how it should be in a perfect society.

In a couple of years time I'll be 50. Too late to start anthing? These days people start at 20 and wind up by 30....ok 40. But that's about it. No kidding, but people do stare at you if you tell them you were born in 1960! That far back?

These days everything comes with 'use by..' dates. Corporates hire people in their early 20s and turn them into vice-presidents or deputy general mangers before they complete 30. My father-in-law worked in a MNC, a true MNC that really does business all over the world ( not like the home-grown MNCs we have that work in India, Bangladesh, Srilanka, Maldives and maybe, just maybe, Vietnam!) for 40 years and was made DGM when he had 2 years to retire!

When we were in our 20s, life meant college, politics, endless dirty tea in dirty cups, Antonioni, Godard, Bergman, Bob Dylan, Neil Diamond, cigerrates ( no booze) and sleep. Sleep, yes! We slept like logs. Some of my pals never woke up before 12 noon!These days people sleep so little( the citi never sleeps!). It's as if if you sleep you miss out on a whole lot of things.
bye for now, uday