Excerpts from my paper on Surrealism: A plunge in Subconcious through Art and Literature

Surrealism is considered as one of the most influential cultural movements of 20th century having pervasive influence on both visual and literary arts. Surrealist works primarily focus on the element of surprise and unexpected juxtapositions to create an imaginary world of their own. The movement started as a reaction against the ‘Age of Reason’ which had gripped the western world .It flourished between World War I and II when gradually the artist and literary community was completely disillusioned and disgusted with the ‘Rationalism’ which they believed was the prime cause of mass scale distruction. This contention is substantiated by a declaration by Andre Breton, the major spokesman of the movement :


“Intellectually, it was vulgar rationalism and chop logic that more than anything else formed the causes of our horror and our destructive impulse” (Andre Breton)

For Breton, who published "The Surrealist Manifesto" in 1924, Surrealism was a means of reuniting conscious and unconscious realms of experience so completely, that the world of dream and fantasy would be joined to the everyday rational world in "an absolute reality, a surreality."He believed that there lurks a wealth of imagination in ones unconscious mind and if an artist was able to tap it somehow it would result into pure works of genius. With this declaration started this conscious journey into the realm of subconscious by a group of artists and writers alike.


One of the most iconic works of literature produced by this movement is Breton’s second novel titled ‘Nadja’,published in 1928 and which interestingly starts with a question “Who am I”.

The novel is based on the relationship between the protagonist, who is nothing but the alter ego of the author himself, and a woman, Nadja,whom he meets randomly on a street and gets obsessed with. More than the woman herself it is her vision of the world that entices him and forces him to meet her daily.Her understanding of existence defies the rational logic and has a peculiar irrational charm to it which makes him continue the relationship till he realizes that she is actually mad and is admitted in a certain sanitorium.As this reality dawns on him, he breaks up with her but finds himself completely taken by her thinking and her vision which seems to have direct access to her unconscious and artistic mind. Interestingly it is her absence which creates a mysterious and a stronger bond between both of them and he finds her constantly present in both his conscious and unconscious thoughts. Here Breton interestingly plays with the concept of absence and presence and hence raises important questions about the workings of our unconscious mind.


The importance of dream like imagery somewhere points at Breton’s fascination with Sigmund Freud’s focus on subconcious mind and its workings. Not only Breton but most of the Surrealist artists were keen readers of Freud and well versed with his major theories. According to Freud when a certain desire cannot be represented conciously it takes an absurd form which helps in disguising the desire. He suggests that two objects that could never be juxtaposed in reality become so in the dream and hence dream has a logic of its own which makes virtually no sense to the dreamer himself/herself after waking up.

This idea of ‘disguising a desire’ which might not have been socially or culturally acceptable by distorting the reality became a tool in the hands of Surrealist artists.

The horrors of war and the fearsome aspect is reflected deeply in Salvador Dali’s painting ‘Face of War’ and can be felt in these lines by Breton:


a mouth opens within another mouth

and within this mouth another mouth

and within this mouth another mouth

and so on without end

it is a sad perspective

which adds an I-don't-know-what

to another I-don't-know-what (The domestic Stones by Breton)

Excerpts from my paper on Surrealism: A plunge in Subconcious through Art and Literature presented at Amity Institute of English Studies and Research

Akanandun: Dead and Undead

Multitude of meanings can be derived from folklore depending on the method of the analysis used. Most of the times the literal meaning leaves  one baffled, confused and shocked as it fails to fit in our reasonable logical thinking and that is why scholars of culture have been using various semiotic and psychoanalytic methods to analyze the potent content of these tales of ancient wisdom. One such tale  from Kashmir  which has terribly fascinated  me with its central  intriguing motif of mystical Resurrection or Rebirth  is the story of Akanandun. The story has been told , retold , represented various times hence I am focusing on the core of the story rather than the details which might have been added later

Apart from the central motif the other recognizable one with which the story starts is  that of a desire for a male child. The anxiety to have a male heir to perpetuate the ancestral lineage is a concern discernable in most of the Patriarchal communities. There are stories about the absurd lengths that parents go to achieve this feat. In the said story too it is the desperate need to have a boy child which make the parents of Akanandun to promise the jogi that they will return the child bestowed on them through his miraculous powers, exactly after twelve years. This kind of desperation points to rash promises we human beings make without giving a second thought to what  it could actually suggest. Akanandun’s parents accepted the condition without thinking what would happen after 12 years and soon conveniently forgot the promise made. It also talks about short-lived memory of ours where we tend to consciously forget the things which give us immense pain and also about the fickleness of human mind. 

Rather then getting worried about the future the couple dedicated their energies in bringning up their son in the best possible way and happily wishing away the future. The fear might have lurked somewhere in their subconscious but they didn’t let that hamper their joy. Once engrossed in their happiness they completely lost sight of the approaching misery. But the jogi remembered the promise very well and returned after the stipulated time and demanded that the boy be returned to him. This reality shattered their world and they begged jogi to spare the child and take whatever he wanted.

The aspect of ‘moha’, is underlined here . The couple and their seven daughters had grown extremely fond of the boy and they wept , wailed and tried to get the sympathy of the jogi. But the latter had given up the world and along with it all the materialistic passions. He remained unmoved, untouched by the extreme emotions displayed by the family and would take nothing but the child.He harshly reminded them of their fateful promise. The moment of realization of the actual implication of the promise must have been so painful!

Greatly aggrieved and pained the parents obliged with a heavy heart and called Akanandun, a young ,energetic and handsome lad of 12 who had shown great promise in all the fields. Jogi asked the boy to be cleansed and draped in new clothes .When the child was ready Jogi took him to a side and beheaded him in full view of his parents. What a shock it must have been to the parents! But the miseries didn’t’ end  there. He started cutting the body in small pieces and patiently separated the flesh from the bone. The hapless parents could hardly believe their eyes. In front of them was their dear son ,killed and chopped to pieces. Imagine the condition of the mother who was then ordered by the jogi to wash the pieces of meat and cook them for him.The fact that she complied with such gruesome order somewhere points to an underlined faith because just  fear will not let a mother take such an extreme step. Somewhere the trust in the Jogi who had given her the greatest happiness of her life can be deciphered here. He even ordered her to taste the flesh to see if it was properly cooked and later to serve the dish in seven vessels and cover them with a white cloth. She complied again, almost mechanically.But she could control her feelings no more when the holy man asked her to call Akanandun to take his meals. She burst into tears and said it was impossible. She cried her heart out but Jogi once again was adamant. There must have been something in Jogi’s voice which made her call her son in most pitiful a voice..a wail of a lamenting mother..to whom the extent of her loss had just dawned upon completely.As  she was undergoing these extreme emotions Akanandun rushed in the room and took his place ready to take his meals. The family  could believe their eyes no more and turned their questioning glances towards the Jogi , only to find no one there.The holy man had disappeared along with the seven vessels. There was nothing which could remind them of the dreadful act they had witnessed sometime back.

The story capable of creating macabre and violent imagery, filled to core with Bhibatsa Rasa, able to arouse tremendous Jugupsa (disgust) somewhere I feel has a cleansing power. A Catharsis of sorts is achieved by reading and sure enough by watching the story being enacted.  The narrative takes us to a different planes of emotion, increases our heartbeats , purges us of all the emotions of pity and fear that delve in our physche. On one hand it gives a glimpse of extremely fickle nature of  human beings on the other it talks of miracles that can happen if only we have faith. Faith alone has the power to conquer duality. Probably this is why the narrative has had a great appeal for poets like Samad Mir, Ahad Zargar, Prakash Ram and otherswho have identified the story with Sufi thought.

Similar motif of resurrection can be seen in the well known biblical story of Abraham and Issac

Gen 22 NIV states that God ordered Abharam to take his only son, Isaac, to the region of Moriah and sacrifice him as a burnt offering to the god.

. It is to faithful and trusting devotees that He shows the most enchanting of the miracles. Miraculous truths are not meant for people who are skeptical of faith and tend to employ their limited reason to question the declarations of faith. The aspect of underlined faith and trust comes across through the following lines:

“Heb 11:17-19 NIV) By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, "It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned." “

Abraham is stopped by an angel and is asked to replace his son by a ram . So the entire ordeal was to see if Abraham had enough unquestioning faith in his God or the human weaknesses would take the better of him. Perhaps one the best visual representation of this incident is this painting by Caravaggio, a 17^th Century Italian Baroque  Painiter.

Somewhere in our story too the faith and trust of the family especially the mother in the Jogi seems to have been tested. .One sees a willful submission to the wishes of someone who had blessed her with a  son.

Interestingly a story narrating the myth of Resurrection is also found in Egyptian Myth of Osiris , the god of afterlife. who was cut into pieces by his arch enemy Set and was brought back to life by his wife Isis. Isis collected all the body parts and arranged them in order and started singing a song while going around the pieces until her husband came back to life and later on came to be known as the ‘god of afterlife’.Though the same motif may be found repeated in various myths and folktales ,everyone of them unique in their  own way , the feeling of faith and turst seems to be the intersecting point for all of them.

Idea of Paroksha or paradox as observed by Subhash Kak in Epic myths can be extended to folk literature too. As Kak observes in such narratives the moral ambiguity works like the hubris of Greek myth and drama, creating a space that is not quite in the realm of gods, although it is superhuman. The story of Akanandun has definitely an other worldly aura about it. Today we might not be able to relate to what to our rational senses would appear too irrational or illogical but the violent imageries replete with deep phychological meanings have been a part of Indian culture since hoary past.Disowning such stories or art works shows our tremendous disconnect with our own past. Maet or Malangs as they were known in Kashmir were a reality just two decades back and probably exist to this day. Our parents and grand parents are witness to their mystical powers and seemingly mad actions.  Existing on a different plane of reality nobody dared question them. I have heard how people used to fear Nand Mot and what he had to say to them.Mysticism is part of our culture and unfortunately we are losing touch with it.Unfortunately we have..turned ourselves into a fearful bunch ..thinking about the dangerous consequence before embarking on anything new…Years of submissive behavior has made us puppets in the hands of our own apprehensions which it is a high time to fight.

An enquiry into the Sectarian affiliation of the ruins at Harwan

Introduction:

This paper seeks to address questions of representation and interpretation of the monuments unearthed at Harwan, Kashmir. These days, strenuous efforts are being made to project Harwan as an unproblematic Buddhist site and promote it as a destination for cultural tourism by linking it with the great Central Asian tradition. In this effort, scholars have deliberately underplayed facts and attributed all monuments found in the area to Buddhists, ignoring any other cultic possibility.


Stein identifies ‘Harwan’ with Shadarhadvana (grove of six saints), a locality mentioned in Rajatarangini [Stein M.A., ‘Kalhana’s Rajatarangini,’ Vol. II, p. 455 & Vol. I, Book I, p. 31, Delhi 1989]. According to Kalhana, the great Buddhist thinker Nagarjuna belonged to this place; hence the Buddhist connection is inevitable

The Complete Paper published in:
Heritage of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh
Edited by G.L. Badam and K.K. Chakravarty, Research India Press, 2010
 
Contents:
 
Preface.
I. Historiography:

1. Kashmir's contribution to Persian historiography/Peerzada Mohammad Ashraf.
2. Some important Sharada inscriptions of Kashmir--a socio-political study/B.K. Kaul Deambi.
 3. Ahad Raza--Kashmiri Theory of politics/Manzoor Fazili.
4. The Bakhshali: an extant Sharada Manuscript/Sushma Z. Jatoo.
5. Our heritage our roots: an insight into the literary history of ancient Kashmir/Girdharilal Kaw.
6. The School of Historians in Kashmir/Mukesh Kumar.
7. A glimpse of Kashmir in Chinese travelogue/Devendra Nath Thakur.
8. Kashmir's Role in the development of India's Cultural traditions--an overview/S.S. Toshkhani.
9. Influence of Kashmir on the ritual literature of Orissa/G.C. Tripathi.

II. Art and architecture:

10. Master Artist--Pandit Sansar Chand Sharma/Navin Atal and C.K. Atal.
11. Indigenous architectural heritage of Kashmir/Virendra Bangroo.
12. An enquiry into the Sectarian affiliation of the ruins at Harwan/Geetika Kaw Kher.
13. An endangered monument in Ladakh--Sumda Gogpo/Nawang Tsering Shakspo.
14. Terracotta sculptures of Greater Kashmir/Mohammad Shafi Zahid.

 III. Philosophy:

15. Buddhism and its development in Kashmir/Advaitavadini Kaul.
16. The philosophical orientation of Trika spirituality/Moti Lal Pandit.
17. The ancient shrine of Summah Devta/O.P. Shahkir.

IV. Language and literature:

18. A survey of Sanskrit poets of Kashmir/Sudhir Kumar Lall.
19. Sanskrit and Kashmir/K.C. Sharma.
20. Stutikusumanjali/Vidya Sharma.

V. Performative traditions:

21. Drama in Kashmir and the North-West/R.K. Braroo.
22. Introduction to the history of the theatre in Kashmir/V.N. Drabu.
23. Bhand Pather (Folk Theatre of Kashmir)/Moti Lal Kemmu. VI. Bio-diversity:
24. The Karewas of Kashmir (Revisited)/G.L. Badam.
25. Folk herbal treatment in Kashmir/Badrinath Bhat.
26. High altitude lakes of Jammu and Kashmir--myths and mythology/Sati Sahni. Additional references.