Below is part 1 of a longer piece I've been working on based on my time in India. I already have a few changes in mind for this section, but I thought I might as well post it and see if any feedback came in. In anycase, I'll be happy if people just take a look.I. Change“I’ve been in India for six months” I say. What a boring way of seeing things. What a linear approach: I was born, I was alive for this long, I’ve been in India for this long, and so on. No wonder I’m having trouble. It’s like I’m waiting in line. For what? For life to begin? By doing what? By getting closer to the end. This is not right, I should not think this way. In India they don’t wait in line. In India they cluster, they nudge, they jar, they even shove. They hold their money in their hands and wave it. Dirty money all over the place, like the crowd at a Phish concert, but dirty bills instead of dirty lighters and everyone’s yelling angrily for the next song to start. I keep my money in the bank and watch the value fluctuate online like a temperamental Gigapet or something. I stare at a screen and type passwords that remind me of things I would rather not be reminded of. I swipe plastic through plastic, occasionally glancing at the magnetic strip incredulously. How can I hold my money out in front of my face, how can I exhibit this recklessness, this disregard yet inherent respect for chance, for vagary, for change, if I can’t even permit things to become physical in the first place: if I can’t allow the change to jingle. If I can’t relinquish some of these unwelcome perspectives, these obstructive patterns, how can I really start or, more importantly, end?
But I’ve somehow ended up in India, and that could be considered a start, right? I might’ve just heard a little jingle deep down in my crisp pockets. Let’s see if we can’t translate that jingle into something a bit catchier, a bit more memorable.
John Berger is a famous art critic, still alive and breathing somewhere in Paris last time I checked, most famous for his book
Ways of Seeing where he attempts to explain Western Art and culture since the Renaissance in terms of semiotics, the study of signs, rather than in terms of the inherent qualities of the art itself. In large part an exercise in not mistaking subjective things for objective things and understanding where our perspectives originate. For example, how does art become something of great monetary value? Is it because the object is really so magnificent and unique that it is clearly priceless, or is it often largely due to the surrounding culture and the people and processes in control of what that culture “values”? Or why do the women in most pre-20th century oil paintings usually stare passively away from or beyond the onlooker rather than directly confront their gaze? Is this because that’s how women look or how men, almost always the painters, chose to depict women? Or, an example applicable to India: why are the women in advertisements and movie always much lighter-skinned than your average Indian woman? What purpose does this serve? What could be the original motivations behind these choices? Does art imitate life or life art, what is the relationship?
These are the types of questions Berger raises in
Ways of Seeing, in my opinion an educational, informative, maybe even ground breaking book, but at this point, dated and docile, not going far enough as 21st century post-theory, post-everything would like it to.
And the change continues to jingle, just a bit perhaps.
John Berger had some hand (perhaps in my pocket) in me ending up here in India. I read John Berger in college and this at least, and really at most, mildly influenced me in pursuing my current trend of life decisions in which I make them mostly because they are unusual, interesting, and/or unorthodox, or, honestly, often simply without any clear “good” reason. I can remember sitting in a large lecture hall reserved from 6:00-7:50 p.m. for Visual Arts 1A feeling the need to escape somewhere far away, both due to the content of the course and my desire to have nothing to do with it. I imagine Berger would appreciate these moderately anti-establishmentarian sentiments, considering his skepticism of things unconsidered, things left unchecked. Yes, even if I have been taking jobs and making “connections” under the guise of pursuing a career, inside I’m still just a student in a classroom—comfortable enough with my cushioned chair and discreet crossword, but anxious to get out, for the bell to ring, so I can see if I can’t shake this perpetual feeling that I’m missing something.
More important than that digression though, John Berger was a primary influence on the founders of the publisher I work for, and without his past academic and cultural breakthroughs, his critical writings, this ambitious, and ambitiously independent, project might never had come to fruition and I might never have been Intern #1 (I arrived first), design intern, and, as it were, lazy, bored and selfish intern.
And the change falls silent, cold stares all around. Could there be a hole in my pocket?
There’s no denying it, I am getting lazier and lazier as the seconds tick slowly by. Maybe I should just walk out onto the street and situate myself somewhere amongst the endless supply of men who’s livelihood seems to consist of sipping teas and fresh juices, and occasionally preparing those teas and fresh juices as well. I feel at about their level of productivity right now. I could take off my pants, tie up a lungi (a sheet basically), and mosey on over to the local chi stand for a day full of nothingness. Is that laziness? What I’m considering doing? What they’re doing? What I’m doing? Sitting here avoiding the menial tasks I’ve been assigned? Yes it must be. I’ve been conditioned, to see, to feel, to believe this to be laziness. I am actively fulfilling the definition of laziness: unwilling to work or use energy. I’m lazy, maybe not quite as lazy as the Indians lounging around day after day in front of the tea stall, but how productive can one consider oneself when reduced to comparing and contrasting levels of laziness with tea walas?
But let’s dig a bit deeper, see if we can’t generate some noise, if only for John Berger’s sake. Where do I get my impression of laziness? It turns out, with a few clicks of the mouse, I can relearn that laziness is known as ‘sloth’ in Christian moral tradition, basically the tradition under which all Americans are raised, and it is considered one of the seven capital sins. No wonder I see laziness as representing something so heretical. No wonder I consider lounging around drinking tea most of the day so preposterous; it says right there, "For Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do." ("Against Idleness and Mischief" by Isaac Watts). Somehow I doubt that Indian culture views idleness this way, in fact, having lived here six months I know it doesn’t, otherwise they’d all be possessed by Satan. Although the more Westernized India becomes the more change it desires in its pockets, the bigger its pants pockets get, and the less time it has to relax.
And so we can glimpse the importance of understanding the various ways of seeing that different cultures possess, seeing them as subjective rather than objective—through different lenses perhaps—as contingent upon ourselves rather than independent from us.
In fact, now that I think about it, it gives me hope, although fleeting, to see these Indians outside, hanging around, suspended somewhere between celebrating one God’s marriage and another’s birth, paused en route between the rice vendor and the next Bollywood flick. This could be more natural. This could be more in accord with the way the world spins, in a self-perpetuating circle, rather than in a line, en route to where? Maybe this is more giving, more holistic, less conducive to unhealthy neurosis, rampant pill popping and other ailments the West has self-proscribed. But then again, most people in India don’t have indoor plumbing, or electricity. And pill popping is nearly just as big of a problem. So you see, of course, it’s very confusing. There’s change passing hands, changing pockets, every which way in this crazy world, and India, although I sometimes find it hard to believe, is most certainly a part of that world.
