23rd October was a magical morning. Two days ago my friend had responded to a random musing of mine - that I wanted someone to take photos of me in my favorite temple. The Kali Temple in Serangoon. Marcel, a very creative and intuitive soul from Holland jumped at the opportunity. Little India is a magical oasis in the early morning - before the crowds flood in and the shops open. It is deeply quiet and if you are able to get there for the morning puja - quite magical. We managed to get there early. Something about the light that morning (not too harsh sunlight) and the energy of the temple blew both of us away. The moment we stepped over into the temple from the street - we felt enfolded in the arms of the divine. I could see Marcel felt what I felt. He knew how to photograph without asking questions. He knew there were things that lie beyond words. Feelings and energetic vibrations that need to be felt and maybe captured in a creative work of art. One of the photos captured the essence of our experience. Among the priests and a small handful of devotees it felt natural to be dancing for the divine. As opposed to posing for a photographer.
Yin Yang. Masculine-Feminine. Thandava-Lasya. Active-Passive. Many ways to describe the concept of duality. To me the most profound and intense manifestation of this is in the figure of the Ardanariswara. I first fell in love with this image in the great Chola temple of Gangaikondacholapuram. The inherent beauty in the half-male and half female form struck me. It was truly harmonious. Unlike the split personality or half-man/half woman mime artists that you see. I acquired a beautiful chola bronze sculpture of the Ardanariswara a few weeks ago. However, I still did not know the mythology behind the figure. And how it came about. Rama, one of elders in my family and a deeply spiritual being had come to visit me. He took one look at my sculpture and said that it is a very profound piece. It encapsulates a deep and important philosophy in Hinduism. But he was unable to break it down for me beyond affirming my choice.
A few days after that I was in the Ceylon Road temple in Singapore. It was a few days before Deepavali. While buying my archana I saw a little write up about the Kethara-Gowery Nonbu. A fast that Goddess Parvathi had observed for 21 days for her Lord Shiva. According to the poorana, the Goddess did not want to be separated from her husband. Ever. He approached a great saint who advised her to fast for 21 days. At the end of the 21st day, Lord Siva shown his grand appearance and accepted her prayers. He gave her half portion of his appearance and that was the birth of the Artha Nareeiswarer. The temple had organized for its female devotees to fast for 21 days before Deepavali and to break the fast on Deepavali at the temple with a Linga Puja. Beautiful !!! Although I did not partake in the fast I went to the temple on Deepavali to partake in the linga puja and to see Lord Shiva and Parvathi take a procession around the temple decked out in the finest.
The story also explains the power of fasting. Fasting is a central feature of Hinduism. My mom is vegetarian (a form of fasting from meat) on two days of the week - Fridays and Sat. This has been consistently doing this for over 50 years. Nothing drastic like turning vegetarian over night. But something steady - like giving up meat and rich foods twice a week in honor of the divine. Many of my other relatives fast regularly for various Hindu festivals and events - like Navarathri, Kanda Shasti and Karthigai - special occasions on the Tamil calender. I never understood why.
It seems that the glory of fasting is splendid. Prayer combined with fasting brings long life to husband and wife. Family bonding will be enhanced. It brings good wealth and health too. I suspect that fasting helps one focus on the reasons why one is fasting. The wish that one had placed before God. The constant reminder throughout the day reinforces the positive intent and affirms the goals you are seeking to accomplish. Today these are called positive thinking and the "Secret."
I have taken a few sabbaticals in my life. One was a one year sabbatical where I went to India to train and to reach the next level in my dance under the revered KJ Sarasa. The next one I spent it in the mountains in Santa Fe. For me these sabbaticals have been invaluable source of insight, inspiration and experimentation. I felt and sensed tremendous growth during these sabbaticals. But never could quite articulate the value of taking time off. Hence, I was delighted when I heard this talk - it affirmed my choices and articulated alot of the benefits one receives from a sabbatical. Issues like how do you structure a sabbatical? Where do you go for a sabbatical? How do you not get trapped in some retreat where someone else's agenda (as opposed to yours) prevails? These are some critical questions to ask before you start your sabbatical. Otherwise a sabbatical becomes more of an escape. An escape from the "real" world. A chance to recover from a corporate burnout. Not that these are not legitimate reasons for a time off. But I am not sure if that translates into a sabbatical. A sabbatical for me has been about getting to the next level. About reclaiming one's deeper connection and love for one's passion. Sometimes when you do that it does not translate so well into real world profits. But it gives you a sense of clarity and renewed energy. And that in turn may help you make some gradual changes in your "real" life so that you make better choices.
What I really liked about this talk was that Stefan took time off to play and be creative. This creativity was apart from his commercial work but ultimately he knew how to channel his sabbatical findings into his work post-sabbatical. This is the true beauty of a sabbatical - to create a bridge between your passion and your vocation.
An amazing discussion on the power of the Western media and the challenges of claiming one's authentic voice outside the Western media. The author chronicles her artistic journey and shifts in mental attitude. How she overcame and fought African bias that was perpetuated by the Western media. For example her first interaction with an American student was laden with patronizing assumptions. How the American students were sorry for her even before they met her. An outgrowth of the limited range of stories being told about Africans in the Western media. No possibility of a connection as human equals. No possibility of any complex emotion beyond pity.
She traces the popular images to stories told by white literature. There is a tradition of telling African stories in the West which is equated with darkness, barbarism, poverty and senseless wars. How African "authenticity" was equated to these negatives. This is the danger of a single story. Not that these negatives are untrue No, but these negatives per se do not define a country and its people.
Because of America's economic power there were many stories of America and American landscape. As such there is lesser risk of one stereotype becoming associated with America. That is not the case with Africa. One way to disempower a culture is to tell a single story as the definitive story. The problem with steoreotypes is not that it is untrue but that it is too narrow. It robs people of dignity. It makes people (both within and outside Africa) focus on the negatives without the benefit of the positives. The beauty of the African landscape, its art and poetry.
The same dangerous trend seems to be happening with popular Indian culture. Increasingly Bollywood is becoming synonymous with India, Indians and Indian culture. Mumbai is but one state in India. Hindi is but one of the 20 Indian languages recognized in India. Bollywood like Hollywood is a machine with a certain aesthetic and commercial pressures. There are many people outside this machinery who tell wonderful stories and showcase artistic brilliance and diversity.
Stories can break people but can also repair a broken people. When you reject the temptations of a single story you regain a sense of power. Freedom to tell new stories which can heal and empower people. And preserve their dignity and heritage.
On 22 Sept I did an abhishegam for Goddess Durga. My favorite goddess who resides in the Kali temple at Serangoon Road. It so happened that the day I chose also coincided with Navarathri. And for Navarathri the temple was doing a "special puja" for the Goddess of Courage. Navarathri always has a special place in my heart. My first dance performance as a little girl of 4 was at an Amman temple during Navarathri. Also as dancers we always honored our gurus on the 10th day of Navarathri.
The "special puja" turned out to be a massive yagna (a fire sacrifice) as well as a Maha Mehru puja. It seems the Srichakra in three dimension form is inspired by the mythical Mount Mehru - a sacred mountain. And Durga resides at the apex of this great mountain. Hence, there were many senior priests all chanting with intense devotion at the time I arrived at the puja. The vibration at the puja was intense as the yagna had been lit and stoked with ghee and had already received many sacrifices. Many devotees were also sitting with their scriptures and chanting the verses for the puja. The head priest has observed serious austerities in preparation of this puja. He was on a silent fast and ate only one meal a day without salt or any sauces. The goal is to cleanse yourself and deepen one's focus on the divine.
I bought a tray of sari and offerings for the Goddess which was then thrown into the yagna. The abhisegham was also conducted in my family name at the end of the Maha Mehru puja. It was a moving event to observe and participate it. I had always felt a strong affinity to Mountains. And this event married the Mountain with the Goddess who resides at the apex. Mountains have such strong spiritual energies and have always moved me. The first time I felt the amazing power of mountains was on the ancient tribal Navaho lands in the American Southwest. At that time I did not know about the Hindu connection to the mountain and how it is regarded as a focal point of cosmic powers. Another time when the power of mountains inspired me was in 2007 when I spent a few months in Santa Fe. This time I not only found the mountains inspiring but also deeply healing and restorative to my tired soul. Sitting at the Maha Mehru puja that day helped me recall and meditate on the power of these mountains.
Today I visited an exhibition on African water spirits at the National African Museum, part of the Smithosonian family of museums. I loved both the architecture of the museum, the ornamental outdoor gardens as well as the quality of the exhibition and the docents leading those exhibitions. It was a truly and deeply immersive four hours in the museums. Save of the museums in Paris like the Louve and the Rodin museum, for some reason museums never really moved me. I prefer performing arts to static visual arts. But at the Smithsonian today architecture, design, scale, color and harmony all came together in a beautiful way that stimulated as well as calmed the senses simultaneously. It reminded me alot of the Parisian museums where art is a holistic offering - where there are beautiful chairs in nooks and corners for one to sit and contemplate the art. There is a deep tranquility in the gardens and the many wooden benches and sculptures under the big shaded trees. I also visited the Arthur Sackler Museum and the Freerr Museum. What I really appreciated were the high ceilings, the beautiful lighting of the exhibitions and the supremely enthusiastic staff of the Smithosonian. They loved their museum and their enthusiasm was infectious.
The speaker is the author of a NY TImes best seller Eat, Pray, Love. I have not read her book. It sounds too simplistic - how a woman post-divorce goes on a sabbatical and finds herself, God and the love of her life. Yes, I do believe in transformation and transcendence but it seemed too much of a New Age Western woman falling in love with Eastern mystics in India and Bali. But her compelling and authentic talk at Ted about the creative process made me rethink - maybe I should grab a copy of the book.
Anyways here she talks about how she has post success been bombarded by fear-based questions by people. Whether she is afraid that she will never have another best seller. Whether she is afraid that her best work is behind her. Whether she fears that spending all the remaining time writing and pursuing her craft would not yield another major success. She admits that she is afraid. But she says that it would be VERY dangerous way to think. It is very dangerous for her to entertain all these fears and become crippled. She says that she is very young - at 40 she has another 4 decades of work left in her. How does she continue doing the work that she loves without succumbing to such fears and anxiety that the popular media propagates?
How do you protect yourself from such fears and anxiety? How does one keep doing the work that they love? How does one delink one's worth from the results of your work? How do you create a safe distance between your work and your audience? A safety zone helps one stay focussed on our work, free from crippling anxiety. Or fear of failure. How do you manage the inherent emotional risks? She looks to the Romans and Greeks for guidance.
Romans believed that genius is a magical divine persona that comes out and helps a person or an artist. Greeks believed that creativity is a divine attendant spirit that came from far away. So creativity was mystery - it did not come entirely from the individual or self. The ancient artists were protected from extreme judgment of their creative work - if the work was bad the divine spirits were not assisting. If the work was good - alot of credit was shared with a divine source. So it distanced the artist from the work. It keeps the ego in check and protects the fragile psyche from the whims of success. So artists were not held up as the divine source of all great work/mystery. This pressure is what stifles many artists and true creative folks.
Why not think of great art as something that is not available on demand. That does not work according to rational timelines? How about reintroducing the ancient Roman idea of a genuis of creative fairy who comes to aid the artist at their own time and pace? How about recognizing that this fairy is not something within but something without? And to learn to have the patience and perspective to wait and watch for this fairy to show up? While as an artist you keep a schedule and work and work hard daily. And at all the time staying open to this creative fairy and being open to her showing up. And when she does to grab it and ride on that creative wave.
As she gets older she becomes calmer. She accepts that inspiration is elusive and tantalizing. She recognizes that one can take away the heavy anxiety from the creative process. What happens when you are deep into a project and then you get into this dark pit of despair? When thoughts like this is going to bomb. This is going to be a terrible failure. This is going to ruin me etc etc. How do you control these dangerous thought patterns? Commit to show up. Your part is to show up with commitment and total enthusiasm. The rest you cannot and more importantly should NOT control. Running disaster scenarios in your head although very common is something to be firmly resisted. I could not agree more.
She also talks about coming to terms with the post artistic highs. How all artists at certain moments become a vehicle for the divine. How God appears unbidden through artists and when the audience sees this they glimpse the divine in a mortal. But the next day the artist has to wake up and do laundry and face the mundane realities of life. How does one reconcile this she asks? By plodding along with faith and determination and doing the work everyday WITHOUT expecting genius work. If you brush up against genius - great. Be open to it. But understand that maybe the moment of artistic high is a rare treat. Not an entitlement. And one should continue doing what one loves for the sheer love of it. Even if no one is watching or applauding.
As a little boy my nephew always wanted me to tell him stories before his bedtime. He was very specific. Ghost stories please. And it must be long he said. At first I was lost. I did not know any children's ghost stories. So I asked my mom (his grandma) as to what kind of stories she told him to put him to bed. She said make it up. Make up the stories with a beginning, a middle and an ending and he will be happy with that. Wow. Why didn't I think of that?
Anyways I started tentatively on this storytelling road. I decided early on that since my nephew had never been to India and since he never got to hear his grandfather regale him with stories of his village in India, I would tell those stories. My stories were often set in the little villages of South India. And I would recall all the details from my travel and weave it into the story. Soon my stories were set in Los Angeles, Hong Kong, London and many of the other places that I had visited. The stories ranged from Native American tales and stories of lawyers and corporate titans fighting in haunted offices in Wall Street. I was enjoying this very much.
I realized that my stories not only become a great opportunity for me to transport him into an entirely different world that is linked directly to his ancestors, it also helped me celebrate some of my best travel stories. Children and people are so imaginative. If you tell a story well with good details and mood, their imagination supplies the rest.
Telling good stories with a sound moral theme was actually a wonderful way to keep culture and history alive. It also made me actively recall rich details and the insights I had while traveling in different parts of the world. Telling these stories not only delighted my nephew, it also served and strengthened me. Maybe that is why so much of the ancient cultures were oral traditions. Things were not written down as the ritual of storytelling made communities come together to listen, share and applaud. Oral traditions also meant that memory recall and alertness were key. Elders who were the repository of these stories and old practices kept their minds alert by recalling details for their grandchildren. This kept their brains active and their hearts engaged. As wisdom keepers they knew they had an important role to transmit the knowledge with accuracy and respect.
Today my nephew tells me back some of the stories that I had told him. And he ranks them according to his favorites. Maybe one day he will be doing the same with his children. I realized that what started as somewhat of a chore to get him to sleep has been transformed into a beautiful and creative ritual for both of us.
Although the media is obsessed with her toned arms and fashion sense, Michelle Obama's story is deeply inspirational at many other levels. In this talk - her first official state visit as First Lady to a London school, she gives a moving tribute to all the men and women in her life who had given her confidence and love and who had made it possible for her to get a solid education. She talks about being born poor without resources and no social standing. And how nothing in her background made it remotely possible that today she is the First Lady. And mind you the first ever African-American First Lady. Armed with a Harvard law degree she fondly recalls how her fist date with her husband was a community organizing event. Unromantic maybe but deeply inspirational as she saw a man dedicated to help the poor and bring as much resources to those who could not navigate an increasingly complex system. She speaks from the heart and like her husband weaves in her personal stories with a large theme about education and empowerment of woman. How it is important to work hard and how it is cool to be a smart woman.
Sometime back a friend of mine, Fu Kuen, called me asking me to translate a few phrases in Tamil for him. He was the curator for Singapore's installation in the Venice Biennale. In particular he wanted me to translate the phrase a Life of Imitation. He explained that Singapore's best asset could be doing things better - copying things really well. And maybe that is what we need to celebrate in our art. Not try to present something "original" but celebrate the fact that we as nation have thrived on picking ideas, buildings and concepts from other countries and implementing and operating them with the extreme Singapore efficiency. I thought that was a brilliant approach. As opposed to straining to come up with something uniquely Singaporean we instead celebrate our melting pot of borrowed cultures in a intelligent, self-mocking way.
I was really happy that his work was going to be in all four official languages including Tamil. That is what makes tiny Singapore so unique - that we have such a long history with different languages and cultures. I did a series of translations for him and it was not easy as alot of the phrases did not quite lend themselves to Tamil translations. Like "Are you happy here honey?" But I managed to get him some decent translations after consulting some Tamil experts. I also felt that like me Fu Kuan is a product of a bilingual era and a child of the 70s where we truly sit at the intersection of contemporary and tradition. So alot of what he was saying deeply resonated with me. And how we could position ourselves in the international art world.
Just this week I was delighted to see that Singapore's entry to the Venice Biennale has won a special award for Expanding Worlds. This is truly a major honor for Singapore and it is thrilling to be associated with this win in a small way.
The first time I encountered the desert was in 1997 - just after graduating from Harvard. I did a road trip with a galfriend to Arizona, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico. This trip was a defining moment in my life. For a gal brought up in a tiny city-state-country like Singapore, the vast plains and desert landscapes were deeply inspiring and invigorating. We drove for hours on end on empty stretches of long straight desert roads singing along to American radio. It felt like we owned the world. The desert mountains and wide big big sky was inspiring, empowering and ancient. Monument Valley, Mezza Verde, Havasupai, Sedonna and Antelope Canyon blew my mind away. There was something raw, true and powerful in the history, size and silent landscapes of these intense desert terrain. I felt closer to God and the soul of the World. I did not know at that time that many ancient religious traditions and scriptures had stories about fasting in the desert and its impact on the soul. How Christ has fasted for 40 days in the desert.
As Cameite monk Father William McNamara comments without the silence, utter simplicity and emptiness of the desert, one cannot differentiate the essentials from the non-essentials. The distinction between trivial and profound is rediscovered. Mediocrity becomes impossible in the desert where everything is reduced to life and death. Man than rises up and out of his sluggish culture and regains his authenticity and sensitivity. Without the desert experience according to Father McNamara a a man cannot achieve his destiny or fulfill his vocation. I was called again to the desert in January 2007 when I spent a significant amount of time in Santa Fe - reconnecting with the Native Americans and my art. Again it was a profoundly moving experience. This time I also went to visit spiritual communities and places of worship in the desert. The Christ Desert Monastery was a moving tribute to the power of faith in the desert. I was very moved by the Gregorian chants and the stark simple church that could only be reached via a 30min very bumpy ride along a dirt road. The whole place was charged - it was living proof of the intense power of God in nature and deepening one's faith within the deep silence of the desert.
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