Shilpa Chavan: Using her head

(The Hindu, July 18, 2010)

Life is all about serendipity for some people. For Shilpa Chavan, discovery is almost a way of life. She walks the line – occasionally a wall – between art and fashion with a knowledge that what she does, creatively speaking, cannot be classified as either. Her choice of career was not a logically considered decision, but she knew that she would do something creative, for pleasure rather than merely for money. Now in her mid-30s, Chavan was “brought up in a normal middle class Maharashtrian family” where her mother “would make something even from old, dried-up flowers”. Every school assignment “became an art and craft project, so helped us remember what we did better,” Chavan says. Her father was the disciplinarian, natural for him as a member of the police force.

Growing up, she designed her own clothes “when there was not that much exposure to what we could do apart from the basic course of fashion. I wanted to do architecture, but my father said it wasn’t something a girl should do, and commercial art wasn’t popular then.” So she indulged in a little scam, one that lasted about two months. Chavan started studying fashion at one college and a more conventional programme at another; “then my parents found out, so I had to finish my graduation and then apply again for a fashion course after three very long years”, she recalls. But she knew that she “wanted to create more than just clothes.’

Chavan managed to make a mark doing just that – for her graduate presentation, she produced headpieces that earned her the enthusiastic approval of her professor, and the award for Most Innovative Collection. From there, carried along by the whimsies of destiny, she went on to assisting Hemant Trevedi, designer, mentor and perhaps one of the best known all-rounders in the Indian fashion world. In fact, he gave her the name she is known by: Litle Shilpa – “Soon everybody was using it so I chose it for my label.”

She created headpieces for the leather show in Chennai and, with that, “I realized what I wanted to do: headpieces.” Trevedi suggested she study millinery – “That was when I understood that such a concept existed!” - in London. But money was a problem, until “suddenly Channel V stuff happened and a new position called ‘a stylist’ came about”, as Chavan puts it. With television, glamour magazine shoots and other freelance assignments, she was able to take on a 15-day summer school course in London. It was not enough. “I am very anal about what I learn,” Chavan explains. “I believe that to break the rules, you need to have very strong rules.” After another stint freelancing in Mumbai, this time for a year, she earned herself the Charles Wallace scholarship and went back to London for a six-month programme.

At around that time, the fashion wave swept India. Fashion Week grew from a Delhi-based event to Mumbai, and Chavan spread her wings a little wider. But “I still felt I needed more.” Serendipity took over. Just two days before the end of a London holiday she called star milliner Philip Treacy’s office to apply for an internship. She met the designer and his team on a Friday, a day before she was to leave for India, and was asked to start work on Monday. “I worked with Treacy, doing stuff hands-on, learning about the international market, doing more sales and retail pieces.” That experience gave her the push she needed to graduate from stylist to headpiece and accessory designer. “I found I had enough for a whole collection. I used these as samples, went back to London, got lots of feedback, and signed up with Blow PR, who suggested more press work.” It had all started happening for the middle-class girl from Mumbai.

From fashion to art was a baby step. “I started doing installation work some time ago. My husband is a graphic designer; his company was part of an India festival. The curator of the show saw my work there and gave me a space to do whatever I wanted - an installation.” Then, another happy ‘accident’: Sheikh Majed Al-Sabah, owner of Villa Moda in Kuwait, had bought some of Chavan’s work for his store; but “when he saw what I sent him, he wanted it for his art gallery!”

Her Work Is Never Done, the show curated by Krishnamachari Bose earlier this year at his Mumbai gallery, BMB, happened like that too. The name itself struck a resonant chord in Chavan’s creative synapses and she put together a mannequin that embodied for her, she says, and for those who saw it, exactly that – the endless routine that a woman lives, every day, without relief. The figure is composed of all those bits and pieces that make up the life of the average urban woman today – from dustpans to rubber-slipper straps, mosquito netting, plastic baby dolls, tea strainers and more. The head of the mannequin has gear wheels turning. Chavan said then, “She multitasks, making babies, working in the house; her brain is always functioning. And with all this, she holds a mirror - she is always thinking of being beautiful” – art with a story told in a quirky, funny yet meaningful way.

According to Chavan, “When I do fashion shows, it is art. When I do art, it is more like fashion. I am in an in-between phase. I like combining old and new and creating something completely new. And I love colour!” Even as she works in the modern urban environment of Mumbai, London and parts beyond, “I am very drawn to my local roots and inspired by local art and craft, culture and colour.” Though her own designs may not always be lucrative or even saleable, “My styling money supports what I want to do. And now my family agrees that it is a good thing; they are really proud of me. My husband is my critic, he completely understands my work,” she knows. “People still feel that I need to tone it down to get orders. But I am not going to change; I do not believe in it.”

As destiny takes her along the journey she is on, the turns have worked for Chavan. As she marvels, “I haven’t planned I wanted to do anything, it just happened!”

People watching

(More from Delhi, a long time ago...)

There is a lot in life that is a dead bore - some parties, some places, some books, some movies, et al, et al, et al. What never fails to interest me is people, even if they themselves are the kinds of bores that crash into the consciousness and make their extremely boring presences felt, grammar and good manners notwithstanding. And, over the past months that I have been away from my home, Mumbai, in the capital milieu that is Delhi, I have come across a number of extremely watchable characters. Not all have been aesthetic experiences, not even of the jolie laide variety, but all have been essentially memorable. The irony, for me, is that I find that I am being watched as much as I watch, probably being dissected as ruthlessly as I dissect and perhaps even being written about as nastily as I am writing now.

But, first, a clue about how it works. I walk into a party, which is inevitably crowded with anyone who is anyone, wants to be, is thought of as being or looks like they should be. There are lots of people standing around, talking animatedly, smiling, nodding, holding glasses containing liquids of assorted origins, reaching out for the ubiquitous munchie offered by morosely wandering waiters, seeming to be absorbed in each other and the event itself. And then you look carefully, walk close by a group, watch the most chatty of people with more than cursory attention, and you find a strange phenomenon happening: No one is really involved with any of the people they are with! There is a self-conscious preening, a furtive looking over the shoulder, an eagle eye or three out for a increasedly satisfying audience, a search for an ear more attentive, more influential, more amenable, more 'in', more useful, perhaps? At an event of sorts - a concert, an exhibition, a book launch, whatever - the behaviour is the same, though constrained in volume and movement by the need to be seated…or at least to be photographed somewhat flatteringly for the gossip press!

As much fun as seeing this happen is to watch people as individuals. At a recent do, I stood by, gazing fascinatedly at a scarlet-clad woman talking loudly, forty to the proverbial dozen, laughing raucously, gulping vampire-like from a glass of red wine. She had a face like a lizard, laterally flattened, with a wide mouth stretching across the expanse from one ear to the other, protuberant, slanted eyes flashing around seeking prey. My eyes widened as I saw her eat - her tongue came out, curled around the passing morsel, pulling it rapidly through parted, darkly red lips into her mouth. I must have looked somewhat odd, because I suddenly caught the attention of a festively turbaned gentleman standing just beyond - he smiled at me benignly, like a tolerant psychiatrist taking notes on a certifiable patient.

A few weeks ago, I was at a performance of classical Indian dance, by a close friend of mine. Which meant that I was not just a member of the audience, but a useful part of the home team, checking for sound balance and viewer reactions, apart from helping with vaguely meandering guests and the recalcitrant unseated. I watched one man - obviously a tourist, judging by the clothing, pedestrian sandals, camera and huge backpack he toted - hop seats through the auditorium, looking for the best vantage view. He tripped over distinguished feet, stepped on the toes of the Honourable Chief Guest, outpaced the pursuing ushers and eventually found a roost in the chair next to mine. "Great stuff!" he said loudly, enthusiastically, cheerfully, every time the dancer made an entrance, a pause or an exit. He clapped with verve, usually at all the most inappropriate moments, until I finally glowered at him and said "Stop!", firmly and decisively. After that, he leaned over every now and then and whispered, at full volume, "Now?" and took his cues from my nods or glares. I watched him as I would a child, with a certain maternal acceptance, a softness induced by his obvious ignorance. And he watched me for help, with a trust I found most touching of all.

This weekend, I do another round of the social interaction thing, all my masks firmly in place and my powers of observation at par. It should give me some more insight into the complex animal that is human. And maybe I will learn, along the way, to know myself.

A shoe in

(The Sunday Times of India, July 4, 2010)
There is a deep, almost visceral connection between women and shoes. Every day, every outfit, almost every step brings a different need in footwear. And the age-old MCP jokes about the number of pairs of shoes, sandals, heels et al that any woman has in her closet are justified; they hold some credence for most of the sex. Style, after all, is the bon mot, and must make a statement. But when it comes to those three months of the year when the taps above (and no, not in the upstairs neighbours’ bathrooms) run ceaselessly on and no one can tell when the sun will take over from rain, style has had perforce to take a backseat and allow comfort and practicality free rein. It used to be a sad story, this one, where practicality meant plastic/PVC and comfort came courtesy many Band Aids, but today everything seems to have caught up with itself and life is a great deal more chic for feet during the monsoon.

The old warhorse of footwear, Bata, has finally managed to veer off the antediluvian Sandak path, with a happy set of Sunshine and Lite slippers, or what used to be called ‘rubber chappals’, in bright colours like red, lime green and fluorescent pink, priced from Rs59 to Rs299. Better still is the Bata and I collection, with pretty designs on very light and flexible synthetic material. From totally foldable ballerinas to T-straps to semi-gladiators to wedges, the range is priced between Rs199 and Rs999 and does the walking-on/through-water trick quite satisfactorily.

There is competition, of course, in the multifarious offerings in shoe stores across the city. Kareena Kapoor’s Gucci chappals may not be easily sourced in Mumbai, but Candies, Jellies, even the occasional Sigerson Morrison fashionista flats and kitten heels can be found if you look hard enough. But fast getting ubiquitous in its original and knock-off versions are the Crocs, those clog-like soft-rubber clogs that look like something conjured up by a clod-hopping Dutch farmer on a bad acid trip and with names like ‘Cloud’ (Rs750), ‘Endeavor’(Rs1,695), ‘Cayman’ (Rs1,495) and, enticingly, ‘Relief’ (Rs1,795). Crocs do have less awkward-looking models, like Mary Janes (Rs 1,495) and slippers (Rs 1,495), and a charming sky-blue ballerina slipper called ‘Prima’ (Rs1,295). The street interpretations of these same designs are available at about one-third the price, depending on the buyers’ bargaining skills.

Of course, there are the standards like floaters and ‘rainy shoes’ in clear plastic, but what is cheering is that the average footwear fanatic can now find decent, locally made, branded stuff to slosh through puddles in, to run for trains in and to squelch across maidans in. A good bet is to stay home and watch other people getting their feet wet – or not, depending on what shoes they wear – but not many can manage that!

A fishy story

(The Hindu Literary Review, July 4, 2010)

FOLLOWING FISH, by Samanth Subramanian

According to its writer, this book is travel writing “in its absolute essence: plain, old-fashioned journalism, disabuser of notions, destroyer of preconceptions, discoverer of the relative, shifting nature of truth”. For a reader, it is a journey through a world where gills and fins are more in focus than cities and streets, with a generous and welcome helping of people and personalities, with some politics – local, social and more global – added to spice up the finished dish.

For a foodie, it all starts off most promisingly, with that bony delicacy so prized by the true-blue Bengali; in fact the ability to eat hilsa, manna on a Kolkata plate, without death or at least injury by one of those hidden sharp ends, could perhaps be the shibboleth–test for the Bengali gene. The writer looks for the fish during the winter, when the Kolkata weather is near-perfect, but soon learns that it is not just a fish, but a “lesson in moral science: Good things come to those who wait”. In search of this piscine paragon, he wanders into the Howrah fish market, unfortunately in open-toed sandals and waits…and waits. Finally, by the end of the chapter, he not only manages to find the fish, watch it being prepped for cooking and eats it, but also manages, albeit slowly, carefully, occasionally painfully, to separate bone from meat in his mouth without choking on either.

Having passed the perilous test presented by consumption of ilish maach, our hero then wanders along to Hyderabad and beyond. First he investigates the famous fish cure for asthma in the city of the Charminar – he meets the people involved, discusses the science of the ‘medicine’, looks into the politics of the situation and the economics of keeping the much-mooted practice flourishing for so many years and then is left wondering whether it is all really true, or just a matter of faith. A little history lesson follows, this time in Tamil Nadu, at the Church of the Holy Cross in Manapadu. Religion met the sea and managed to make friends with it, many centuries ago, and the two established a unique community with its esoteric class system. In the process of discovering how it works, the author discovers a fish podi found in infinite variations all over the state – added to rice and a little ghee or oil, it is fabulously delicious, the perfect meal…almost…until the next new food in the next leg of the journey.

A treatise on toddy, sometimes from a perspective not entirely sober, takes the writer through Kerala, looking for the drink in its stages of alcoholic potency, accompanied by the seafood that partners it. Looking for a legendary fish curry in Mangalore and eating with the Kolis of erstwhile Bombay spice up the transit. A serious and socially conscious note is struck in Goa, where the author listens to tall tales of sparring with sailfish and takes a look at the destruction of the beaches caused by the same tourist trade that made the small state so prized as a travel destination. The journey comes to an end in a shipyard in Gujarat, where a fishing boat is being crafted in a manner that is age-old and timeless, even though its makers have learned to use the technology available today to do so.

This is a book that wanders across this vast and wonderful country, exploring its tastebuds and traditions, taking frequent diversions and tangents into socio-politics and psychology, in language that is free-flowing yet a web tangled with journalese, experience, skill and a soupcon of what could be called pedantic verbosity. In that, with that, it is fun to read, in parts, and tells you a lot about the land that is eternally fascinating and a delicious place to explore.

Under the skin

(Hindu Sunday Magazine, July 4, 2010)

It is indeed a woman’s world now. A sculpture by Delhi-based artist Bharti Kher, The Skin Speaks a Language Not Its Own, fetched a record $1.5 million (Rs 6.9 crore) at the Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Auction last week. It is an almost-life-sized figure of a prone female elephant, its contours covered with bindis. Created in 2006, critics have called it ‘iconic’, ‘awe-inspiring’ and ‘deeply moving’.

Born and educated in the UK, Kher favours the use of the bindi, more often seen decorating the female forehead than on inanimate works of art. “I use them as markers that are both conceptual and banal. Bindis have a transformative quality both aesthetically and conceptually, and can lend themselves to many forms.” These small stick-ons, glued on to the fibreglass behemoth, “have become a part of my language; a lot of my work refers to my own way of working through symbols. By engaging with a material continually, it starts to take on its own life and the life that the artist assigns it.” Women use bindis as decoration and to cover, protect and enhance that invisible, omnipotent ‘third eye’, Kher says, and “the conceptual underpinning of the work is as much about the act as it is about the narrative. Women put on this third eye, which suggests that today I can see more than I saw yesterday, or that I can see you, or myself, better. Sometimes they function like scars or markings.” And there is a more complex implication: “You can also see them as a skin, a covering for a body that marks time; skin as a sign of who you are, where you’re from.” The shapes themselves, round or snaky, are far less complex – “Keep it simple and the art speaks.”

James Sevier, Director and Specialist, Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Department, is all praise: “Every fold and recess of the sunken form is meticulously contoured by the intricate patterns of bindis that organically swarm across the beast in a second skin. It is India’s identity in all its glorious complexities that is the hero of this masterpiece.” He feels that Kher’s “unique sculptural practice employs familiar motifs and presents them in unexpected combinations and contexts that engage the viewer physically and viscerally on various social, political and cultural issues. Her work is renowned for its distinctly allegorical approach as well as its capacity to draw upon and enhance the inherent symbolism of everyday objects she employs. And whilst the vocabulary of her chosen motifs is typically Indian, her work also has far broader relevance to a global audience.”

The work itself was chosen as Kher’s most important work to date, Sevier says. “It is an unequivocal icon of contemporary Indian sculpture, awe-inspiring in its scale, detail and beauty. It brilliantly combines two traditional symbols of Indian culture – the bindi and the elephant – but leaves us asking whether this is a vision of India on the rise or India exhausted by its own rapid modernisation.” The sculpture itself is as ambiguous, leaving the viewer wondering whether the elephant is sleeping, dying, trying to get up or peacefully comfortable. “It is an intensely emotive sculpture and a vision that engenders extreme pathos from the viewer,” Sevier feels and critics agree.

Kher clarifies that the beast is “not lying down, she is dying. An elephant would never lie down like this. She is at a cusp between life and death - a private space where no one else can go except you and you'll do it only once.” And the cliché about elephants holds true. “The work talks about the memory through the skin of an elephant who never forgets, so it carries the stories of life-like texts that run over the body,” the artist explains. “It's one of the most resolved pieces that I have made.”

The enormous work, almost five metres long, is “truly monumental; its physical presence is like that of a fully grown elephant,” Sevier says. A viewer needs to be able to walk around it, almost feel the animal and its emotion. “One would hope it went to a museum collection or a foundation where it can continue to excite and engage as broad an audience as possible.”

Kher makes it clear that “Auctions don't have much to do with the artist’s direct practice, because the works have left us long ago. But I’m happy if the work goes somewhere where people can access it and its significance is clear.” After all, she adds, “It wasn't made to be a gold bar in a vault!”

And how is a value put on that kind of experience? “One needs to take into account the object’s iconic status, its rarity and its broader art historical significance, as well as prices being fetched for other iconic and important works of monumental contemporary sculpture by artists such as Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, Anish Kapoor, etc,” Sevier explains. The big league, indeed!