2/28/2005 » Art

Diaspora narcissist that I am, I just had to be at the first South Asian American art exhibit at a major museum that I’ve ever heard of.

And oh, the things I’ve seen. I saw a photo of a naked desi man smeared in Vaseline sprawled cockily across a green vinyl chair. I saw a self-portrait in cow dung with an LED in Hindi that spelled out ‘Bihari.’ I walked into an inflatable, 20-foot-tall man-organ through a red slit in front. I saw a hijra in a skin-tight salwar shaking his boobs to old songs and cheers. I saw a queer Rani of Jhansi, she of the Mutiny, played by Chitra Ganesh and lying dead in snow. I saw a six-yard sari made of Coca-Cola bottlecaps, silver with an orange border. I saw a wall of crimson medicine bottles called ‘Blame’: blame a minority, you’ll feel better in the morning.

I saw a book of memory by a Malayalee daughter, Annu Matthew, who must’ve loved her daddy like Anna loved hers. Her father had died young of smoking. She collaged her childhood snaps into new photos, painting her own Pygmalion paternis. Then she surrounded her false memories with tobacco strewn on cigarette paper like ashes.

I saw quite a witty painting executed by Siona Benjamin, a Jew originally from Bombay. It was done in Islamic miniature style, yet it was large; she toyed with scale like Alice on mushrooms. It had a Hindu-like deity, though it was of Islamic style; a blue figure who was a woman, not Krishna; Hebrew inscriptions instead of Urdu. The woman was painted head-on, not in profile; in a peaceful pose while cradling ammunition; in a pose of power, but with a blooming chest wound. And it was a day for commingling: Shahzia Sikander showed a relaxed animation of demons and deities from Christian, Hindu, Muslim and Asian Buddhist traditions flying together around a Mughal palace.

I ran into Kal Penn and asked him how he’ll play a super-henchman. ‘Dude, I haven’t even seen the script yet,’ he said. But he remembered the Harold hungama. Boy, did he ever. He was in celeb-out-for-groceries attire, a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes; he’s taller and thinner than he looks on screen.

I teased Suketu Mehta by telling him I read the maximum book, flew to the maximum city and still couldn’t find his vada pav idol, Borkar sahib. ‘Juhu Beach is rubbish,’ he said. ‘Borkar is in the downtown area.’ Although he lent the show its purplish name, he’s as modest in person as his usual prose.

Against great odds... we the peoples of the Subcontinent love each other. It is an adulterous love, an illicit love. When we want to live together safely, it has to be outside, in some other country, in someone else’s house... We are ready to kill for love.

And I ran into a couple of friends enjoying the wine and paneer. Anuvab Pal held forth on the kitschy villainy of Bollywood; he goes weak-kneed for monocles, molten lava and undersea lairs. Mitra Kalita showed off her adorable new baby and boosted her husband’s oil works. Anjali Malhotra’s film subject quoted a friend who said the unexpected: Imagine how bad the motherland would’ve been if a Shi’a had bombed a Sunni mosque — so what’s happening to Muslims in the U.S. is ok. ‘It’s like saying my neighbor slaps his son three times, so let me slap you one time.’

Outside the museum, Shea Stadium and the World’s Fair site were wintry carcasses. The Unisphere, its fountains drained, hung without an Atlas. I stood below the Indian plate, staring up at the stainless-steel underbelly of America.

Previous post here.