A Brief Hour of Beauty

The narrow stairway led me upstairs to a sparsely lit tiny foyer. I was at the threshold of Clint’s room. He left this world three decades back. However, Clint’s parents have always reserved a room for him in their house. The small bedroom had everything an artist would need: paintbrushes, colors, a wooden pin board smeared with colors, a chair, a table, his books…

Two wardrobes, filled with the 25,000 exquisite paintings and drawings he had left behind, took up most of the space. From one corner of the room, his favorite gods and a garlanded photograph of Clint glanced benevolently at me.

Joseph Uncle took out a pile of yellowed sheets of paper. Lovingly, reverently, he gave them to me to admire. Clint’s art that his parents value more than their life.

Silence fell, as we speechlessly glanced through Clint’s pictures that throb with a striking soulfulness which communes with any sincere onlooker.

Brilliantly colorful, balanced, and proportionally perfect, they at once exuded the skill and dexterity of a master along with the inherent simplicity and innocence of a child.

Chinnamma chechi peered over her husband’s shoulder and said, “Show Ammu the picture mon drew of her and her sister…”

Woken up from a reverie, Joseph Uncle scanned through another set of pictures with renewed enthusiasm. With a hearty laugh, he pulled out a painting of two little girls near a swing, under the green canopy of a big tree. “That’s you,” Chinnamma chechi pointed at the shorter one in a yellow and black polka dotted dress.”

“That’s me?” I stared disbelievingly at the painting. As warm misty memories of a brief yet beautiful friendship filled my heart, I realized I was going to write his story.

A Brief Hour of Beauty, my book, is Clint's biography, the story of the master artist, Edmund Thomas Clint, who died at the age of 6 leaving behind a whooping 25,000 drawings and paintings in crayons, pencils, pens, pastels, watercolors.

Art, beauty, genius, innocence, struggle, hope, pain, love, and loss make up the seams of Clint's story.

Clint dreamt to become a warrior like Abhimanyu of the epic of Mahabharata who mastered the art of entering an almost impenetrable army formation when he was in his mother’s womb. In a lot of ways, Clint was an Abhimanyu, the valiant prince who fought his war heroically and died young.

The book's available at http://www.uread.com/book/brief-hour-beauty-ammu-nair/9788172344429

The eternal vision of classical art

Muhammad, the last of the prophets of Islam once said to Ali, “You are of me and I am of you.” In his book, The Way of the Sufi, Osho describes the effect of those words on Ali: “When he heard this, Ali became ecstatic and involuntarily started dancing. What else can you do when a man like Muhammad says to you, ‘You are of me and I am of you’? How do you receive this? Ali did well. […] It is not that the Sufi dances; godliness keeps dancing in him.”

When the human mind comes face to face with divine bliss, eternal gratitude, profound devotion or the truth sublime, language falter and words fail. Then, from time immemorial, the exalted mind has always resorted to the symbolic and spontaneous revelation of the super-sensuous anubhava—experience—through art.

And inspired art, in turn, helps attentive minds that come in contact with it to ascend to a higher plane of awareness where lower passions and emotions fade away to make room for a sense of wellbeing, joy and a state of grace. Disconcerting thoughts give way to a cessation of thoughts, rawness to refinement, restlessness to peace, helpless clinging to the freedom and power to let go, and limiting outlook to an all-embracing love and compassion.

When the gopis of Vrindavan heard the enchanting music that flowed from Krishna’s flute calling them to join in the celebration of love, they dropped whatever they were doing and rushed to his presence. Like the hollow reed that surrendered itself to the dark lord, the virtuous wives of the cowherds too allowed the divine energy to flow through and take possession of them. Abandoning their narrow identities and severing worldly ties, they attained bliss.

Puranic lore talks about many gods and devotees who excel in dance and music. Perhaps, Krishna’s flute, Shiva’s Tandava, Parvati’s Lasya, and Narada’s veena are weaved into the narrative to exemplify the divinity of art, the power of spontaneous celebration in the form of dance and music, and the ability of great art to empty the mind and raise it to rarified heights.

Classical dance and music has the innate potential to transport us to an altered state of consciousness. Not only the virtuoso performer, but the audience as well, is swept away to an island of elation even when the crushing waves of this samsara thrashes at the bay. To put it in Paulo Coelho’s words (Witch of Portobello), art “makes [you] see everything differently, as if the atmosphere had been touched by the hand of an angel.” So it is little wonder that music and dance are an elemental part of worship and rituals.

So let’s celebrate the vibrancy of the classical art and its promise to elevate and entertain the mind. Let the soul drop its wearisome baggage and soar on mystical and magical wings to loftiness.

Pilgrim's progress

It all started when my sister prayed for a miracle. Spiritual masters might tell you that miracles are not deeply edifying, but she desperately wanted one. Although she’s my spiritual fellow-traveler, I didn’t join forces with her in this respect. I have come to believe that spiritual experiences are going to elude me until I learn to control my anger, fear, boredom, physical slothfulness, and mental cha cha cha. 

Anyways, my sis continued to pray to Babaji (the deathless Himalayan master from Autobiography of a Yogi). She reasoned she wanted a tangible evidence that showed her indisputably that what she sees around is indeed maya, and beyond this ephemeral world there truly exists the Truth. Before she set out to unveil that absolute truth, she wanted a glimpse of the beyond, something that defies the physical laws of her universe. May be it was her vociferous demand answered when Babaji’s picture disappeared from her puja shelf where she kept the pictures and idols of gods, goddesses, and gurus. She searched for it everywhere but couldn’t find it.

“There is your miracle, sis. Babaji has pulled a disappearing act on you!” I said with some lighthearted sarcasm.

She concluded that disappearing acts don’t count. Only appearing acts are considered miracles. Although it was highly unlikely, we rationalized that maybe the wind, her kids, or the cleaning lady was responsible for the disappearance of the picture. And I mailed her a new picture of Babaji from the ashram shop in Bangalore. And Babaji reassumed his position among the other deities in her puja shelf.

Days rolled by, and sis persisted in her prayer for miracles. Around that time, our mom called and excitedly shared with us the miracle she witnessed: a jasmine garland that her neighbor put around Satya Sai Baba’s photo started growing in length. It grew persistently for three days and reached almost three times its original length. Now that’s a miracle, thought I. My sis' prayers for a miracle are finally answered. But once again, my sister said, it's not her miracle because she has not witnessed it. 

A week after the garland incident in her neighborhood, my mom came to stay with me. One of those days, my little one had too much fun by the interactive play fountain at UB City, Bangalore, and fell ill. The garland incident preying on my mind, I prayed that if Ami got better, I would put a garland for the gods in my puja shelf. Ami did get better, and my ungrateful self promptly forgot about the garland. In a day or two, Ami's cough revisited, and this time it developed into wheezing. I, immediately, fetched a jasmine garland. And my mom's holy hands were given the privilege to put it around the pictures and statuettes of gods and goddesses. Lo and behold! It started growing. Boom boom boom, in three days it was twice its original length.

“Here is our miracle, sis.” I said choking with religious fervor and devotion. I felt dignified and distinguished as this has happened in my house, right in front of my skeptical eyes.

Then my modern education tried to kick in, and my rational mind tried to discount everything that couldn't be explained by science. But this time I didn't give in. This is a miraculous moment, a god-sent, rarest, most singular event. God wants me to be transformed. The thought that a superior consciousness is even remotely interested in me filled me with hope and peace. I felt loved and cared for. I was filled with gratitude. There was a song in my heart, and I felt a strange pull to introspect. Boredom vanished from my brain. I succeeded in controlling my languor quite a bit. This miracle won't be wasted on me, I decided.

But my sis had her reservations in believing in my personal miracle. “Is the thread getting pulled by gravity? Are the jasmine buds falling down and the knots getting loose?” But by that time, I had lulled the rational side of my brain to a stupor. 'How could she question the divinity of my miracle?! thought I. 'That's preposterous!' I threatened myself that if I discredited this miracle, it would be heresy, and I should be burned at stake for that.

Navarathri arrived and sis decided to put a jasmine garland around Goddess Saraswati. Now, we are not normally the garland wielding, incense burning, puja performing kinda people. We aspire to believe in advaita (non duality) and (sometimes, mind you, only sometimes, we tend to be borderline agnostics). We haven't quite made up our mind on which path to follow. All we have is a general, hazy, and imprecise idea of the destination.

Anyways. An hour or so after she put the garland, sis calls and tells me her garland is also growing! “God, you have chosen our humble homes to perform miracles. Bangalore and Cochin are the modern day Cana,” I said, short-winded by pride and devotion. We marveled at God’s grace with infinite joy.

Next, my sis confided the miracle in two of her friends who belong to the fairly religious garland putting camp. And guess what they said, “Jasmine garlands grow in length. That’s the nature of the thing. It’s the thread getting pulled and knot getting loose when the flowers wilt. Nothing miraculous about it!”

Our hearts sank. Our gratitude and pride as the chosen ones withered under the scorching heat of the truth. The “miracle” has left a very bad taste in our mouth. "Miracle" even sounds like a dirty word. Damn miracles. Hope my sis has stopped praying for one. 

Post script: So my sis calls a few more folks and tells them how we were duped by the gods themselves and her friends say, "never heard of growing garlands. This is a miracle!"

The debate rages on in our skeptical minds. The rational front is winning hands down, though. Hopefully, it's temporary, but our once-devout hearts are filled with irreverence and despair. I can almost hear the gods shaking their heads in mild horror, saying, "ugh, those brats!"

Elephant ride

As soon as we stepped out of the regal Mysore palace, the majestic elephant standing leisurely on the grass patch strewn with coconut leaves caught my eye. It was an adult male elephant, admirably placid. Absorbing the long beams of the silver sun sifting through the rain clouds and reflecting nothing. Like a black hole, one shade grey.

I thought aloud, “I’ve never had an elephant ride.” Anil couldn’t believe it. Growing up in Kerala, the land of festivals and caparisoned elephants, I had never availed the opportunity to have an elephant ride. It turned out that Anil has. I imagined him sitting fancily atop an elephant decorated with the golden caparison in the temple backyard.

That just did it. “I wanna have an elephant ride too” I whined. Four year old Ameya echoed my sentiments with a frenzied unstoppable, “me too, me too, me too.” As the whining gathered force, Anil caved in and walked to the counter that said. ‘Elephant ride: foreigners: Rs.150; others: 100.’

By the time we got the tickets, the elephant had already set out along the trail around the palace bearing two white guys and their Indian friend. We were asked to wait on the wooden make-shift stairs from where we would climb on to the elephant’s back when it would arrive at the foot of the stairs. Anil, who was not at all looking forward to an elephant ride, was quite annoyed with the cosmic forces (that includes me) which conspired against him to cast him on an elephant.

The Mysore Palace folks have two elephants. That is great for the elephants because they are downright social creatures. In forests, they live in herds. Once in a while, a few neurons in a he-elephant’s brain misfires and he turns rogue. He becomes violent, wild, aggressive, and destructive (somewhat like a bored 4 year old in an enclosed space with lots of porcelain and crystal figurines.) This behavior is more prevalent in tamed elephants which are kept in captivity away from its kind. A herd animal, it pines for company of other elephants and the cool canopied grass lands of the forest it was born. Instead of the delightful elephant troupe, it is sometimes left with a drunken sadistic mahout (Now, I am not saying all mahouts are like that. But unfortunately, quite a few are.) So one night, the languishing tusker with the misfired neuron ruminates on its plight and flares up: ‘How dare this puny imbecile treat me like dung!’ And it decides ‘enough is enough’ and tramples the unwitting groggy mahout, who comes to unfetter and bathe his pet the next morning. Whoever said vegetarian food with no spices gives the eater a satwic mind doesn’t watch a lot of Animal Planet and Discovery Channel. Hippos, bison, even the stray cows that you encounter on the back roads of Bangalore can be quite vicious.

Nevertheless, elephants had always had a momentous place in the history of the country. They have battled alongside legions of armies. I personally choose to believe that Alexander’s soldiers mutinied near Magadha because Macedonian military tactics proved insanely ridiculous and futile while fighting elephants on horseback. Well, you might choose to disagree. But didn’t the fierce and feisty horse of Alexander the Great, Bucephalus, die in one of his Indian campaigns?

I was awakened from my reverie by the jingling of elephant bells. The venerable beast walked as if it had no care in the world, no promises to keep, no miles to go before it sleeps. And it knew it always had the right of way and everyone’s undivided attention. Its unhurried pace reminded me of the Sanskrit limerick that strikes a comparison between the elephant walk and the sensuous promenade of a dazzling belle. ‘Gagaraja virajitha mantha gathi’ What a delightful, brilliant, witty simile!

But, all of a sudden, as the humongous animal approached the staircase, I felt the cold grip of fear, its black tentacles slithering around my heart, lungs, and innards. I experienced quickened heartbeat, difficulty in breathing, and churning of stomach. Now that the elephant’s huge back was right in front of us and Ameya was already trying to climb on, I knew it was too late to back off. “It’s elephant abuse,” Anil muttered, as he struggled to get on its back with Ameya. I felt the pangs of guilt. As if the fear was not potent enough to kill me.

We were asked to sit astride on a mattress fastened to the back of the elephant and hold on to the rope that went around the animal’s barrel shaped belly. The mahout sat right above the elephant’s gigantic neck wielding a metal baton with a hook at the end. Armed with the strange weapon, he looked like the formidable death god himself and I, a soul demented with fear on its way to the netherlands.

Before I was all set, (I was trying to figure out how to hold Ameya, the rope, and my backpack with just two hands) the elephant started moving. I clutched Ameya's hand and the rope. The backpack could go to hell. The mattress swayed precariously. And we swayed with the mattress. I felt the elephant’s vertebrae poking my rear uncomfortably. I was certain that we were going to slip off the mattress and fall down. I just wanted to get off and looked longingly at that receding wooden platform with trepidation and pictured our joyful reunion with that solid stationery retreat of safety and well being.

Sitting awkwardly up there, I tried to enjoy the ride. A few seconds into it, I realized enjoyment aint gonna happen. No Zen moments for me atop the elephant. “This was a bad idea.” I mumbled, although Ameya seemed to enjoy all the commotions of the locomotion.

To my utter shock, I saw the mahout hitting the elephant on its forehead and viciously tugging its loose skin behind the ears with the hook. He seemed completely unmindful of his brazenly savage act. Horror stories about miffed elephants trampling their mahouts flashed across my terror-stricken mind. One substantial angry jolt of the elephant and down will come us, cradle and all. The elephant would tear me limb from limb. He might even gore me couple times with his tusk, spilling my innards and the continental breakfast I ate snobbishly that morning. It would be such a gory and ugly sight that even my own astral body won’t look back before it sets out hopscotching from one parallel universe to another looking for a suitable embryo to inhabit and continue its search for the elusive nirvana.

To avoid all the premature wondering of my astral self, I decided to take things into my hands. I called out to the mahout and demanded, “Don’t hurt the elephant.” I sounded like an asthmatic old man. Fear has gripped my vocal chords, as well. The mahout didn’t hear or chose to ignore me. I cried out again, this time in Hindi, “Hathi ko math maro.” If there was anything more pathetic than my current mental state, it is my Hindi. I have never taken any interest in learning the language, although it was shoved down my throat for about five years at school. Now, I regretted my apathy towards my national language. It could have saved my life now. Who knew Hindi was a life saver!

I repeated my plea as the first one fell on deaf ears. Anil, probably ashamed of his terrified wife’s asthmatic old man’s voice, totally disregarded the save-elephant-campaign that I was running single handedly. The mahout strained his neck in a half hearted attempt to find the source of the unsolicited elephant-care instructions. He expected a rickety old asthmatic man and found a damsel in distress, instead. (A damsel? Who am I kidding? Myself, of course.)

As the mahout continued to poke the elephant and the elephant continued to walk his swaggering swinging walk, we continued to perch on the mattress loosely draped over the elephant’s back, like three little birds on a lone willow tree caught in the eye of a storm, going to get uprooted any minute now.

God! I remembered him like any borderline atheist would, on the verge of a painful death. I remembered that my dad’s village deity is Narasimha Moorthy, the avatar of Vishnu that is half man, half lion. It is believed that elephants never turn rogue at this temple because they feel the chastising presence of the lion god (Lion is the only animal that can potentially harm an elephant. So elephants are afraid of the Half lion god. Right?)

I racked my brain to recollect the verse praising Narasimha Moorthy and chanted a few lines that I could dig up from the crevices and ridges of my brain sodden with fear. Then the elephant halted and swerved unexpectedly to turn back and head for the staircase. Our wooden asylum. I heaved a sigh of relief and rejoiced like a prodigal soul returning to the primordial source. When my shaking legs felt the solidity of mother earth below the wooden platform, I thanked the half lion god and the full elephant.

All’s well that end’s well.