by Mark Tully
‘Why do you talk so much of vibrations? Could you explain what you mean by that?’
‘It is all part of the scientific and spiritual tradition we have been brought up in. It is complex and difficult to explain in English, but I will try. We believe there is a spirit in all things, and through sculpture we express in form the beauty of that spirit. The smallest unit is the atom. Ultimately they are united in form – in physical objects – but they also exist in space. Within us there is an inner space in which atoms vibrate, and these vibrations are our feelings. When we see fine art, we vibrate to it – we are moved. When we create art through the discipline of our tradition, we create forms which mirror the vibrations within us. The poet becomes the poem; the sculptor becomes the sculpture. We are making images of the best within ourselves. Ours is not a realistic art, but in our sculptures we can give expression to the eternal spirit and, through symbols, to even the most subtle aspects of Hindu philosophy. Of course it takes years to master the grammar, the discipline, of our tradition.’
‘How’, I asked, ‘would Stephen Cox be able to understand your tradition in a few months?’
‘Stephen Cox never made the attempt to learn,’ Stapati replied. ‘He never questioned or asked my people. There are people who have learnt Carnatic music – they study for years. In that way sculptors could learn too. The British Council should send me one boy of fifteen or sixteen and leave him with me for six years. I will make him a master sculptor. Stephen Cox could not even work in our granite. He needed two or three years’ continuous work to master it. He couldn't do that, so we gave him people to work for him. He could only put some finishing touches to the work. Come into my yard and I will show you what I mean.’
In the yard there were statues of different sizes, in different stages of completion. A seven-foot-high statue representing Tamil, the language of Stapati's culture, still needed some detailed work. The statue weighed three tons. Stapati took a piece of charcoal and drew some lines on her legs. He then coloured the lines with red ochre to make them indelible. ‘These lines’, he told me, ‘will show the sculptor the shape and the depth he has to carve. I always carve the finishing touches myself. I have to put the eyes and the lips in.’
‘Doesn't that make you like Stephen Cox?’ I asked.
Stapati laughed, ‘Oh no. Students often play tricks on their teachers, because they think that we know the theory but we can't actually carve. We always catch them out. You can't be a master unless you are first a craftsman. I started carving as a boy, like all traditional shilpis.’
Stapati went over to a five-headed statue of the elephant-god Ganesh, took up a pointed steel chisel and a hammer and started work. Sparks flew off the granite as he tapped at it. ‘It's not cutting,’ he said - ‘it's pecking. One of these chisels will be blunt after five minutes. We have to have our own forge and blacksmith to sharpen the chisels.’ He brushed away the dust with a piece of coconut fibre.
Britain itself is not very appreciative of the work of a traditional Indian mastercraftsman and artist like Stapati. Much of his work is commissioned by Indian communities abroad. He showed me a six-foot statue of the god Vishnu, destined for Kentucky. It was almost finished. The black granite had been oiled and was as smooth as skin. Stapati said, ‘I could do much more work in Britain, but you make problems. It's very difficult to get permission to build temples. I have designed two, but we had to hide them in existing buildings. The one I have built in Manor Park in east London is inside an old church for which you no longer have any use. Your churches are all empty, but you won't let us put up our temples in their place. You have lost the spiritual basis of your culture and so perhaps you are now afraid of ours, because you realize that it does have a very strong basis.’
Stapati speaks English very clearly but sometimes has difficulty understanding the non-Indian version of that language, and Sasikala acts as his unofficial interpreter. Sasikala is passionately dedicated to the preservation of the Vaastu tradition. She and her husband, who is an engineer, have set up a society in Mahabalipuram to widen interest in the tradition and to make it relevant to the present times. In a statement the couple have issued about the society's aims, they have written:
To many Indians, the turn that the country [India] has taken after the fifties has been of great concern. This era is described as the era of the second colonization. A colonialism that colonizes the mind in addition to bodies. The West is now everywhere, outside in structures, and in minds. The colonized Indian mind believes that all answers are from the West and acts accordingly. The priorities of the Indian society have been altered beyond recognition.
Sasikala and Stephen Cox did not see eye to eye. She felt that the English artist condescended to her hero, Stapati. She told me angrily, ‘He used to make sneering remarks to me while Stapati was talking – remarks like “He doesn't understand”, and “They have been doing the same thing for hundreds of years. It has lost its meaning for today.” He seemed to think that I would agree with him, although I don't know why. He talked down to Stapati, but I don't think he could help it. With his learning and his success, he thinks he has to be superior. I think that this is inbred in the British, that they think they are superior.’
I showed Sasikala the British Council catalogue. After reading a few pages she threw it back at me, saying, ‘It's bullshit. These people are very clever with words, but what does it actually mean? Read it time and time again and you will only get more confused.’ She was equally dismissive of Stephen Cox's work. There were pictures in the catalogue of five sculptures representing the Indian concept of tanmantras, or the five senses. They were oval plaques of granite: one had nothing but a nose carved on it, another just had two eyes, a third a mouth, two ears protruded from a fourth, and a fifth plaque had just three lines – the marking of a devotee of the god Shiva. The ovals symbolize one of the Hindu creation legends.
Sasikala said to me, ‘The tanmantras are the subtle elements which underlie the senses. You can't depict them by the physical organs which perceive the senses – that is just crude. We believe in subtle forms of symbolism.’
I realized that there must be more to Stephen Cox's art than using Indian ideas without fully understanding them. I also realized that I was not qualified to appreciate what that was, so I went to see V. Arunachalam, the young Indian sculptor who had worked with Stephen Cox and was indeed still working for him. I thought he would provide a counterbalance to the views of the traditionalists. He had a small yard opposite the drive of the hotel in which I was staying, about a mile out of Mahabalipuram. Arunachalam also came from a family of sculptors and had been taught by Stapati at the college in Mahabalipuram, but, unlike his guru, he wore Western clothes – a shirt and tight trousers. He said Cox had picked him because he was one of the few students of the college who spoke English reasonably well, and the two had struck up a good relationship.
Unlike his teacher Stapati, Arunachalam had grown to like abstract art, but he could not sell it in Mahabalipuram. He showed me with considerable pride photos of the statues he had carved for Stephen Cox. There were also several larger sculptures lying outside the palm-thatched hut which was the studio. He pointed to one and said, ‘You see that one like a large peanut – that is the son of Shiva. It will go in a set of the holy family – Shiva, his wife and family. You may not understand it, but I have come to like it.’
Another flat piece of granite had one breast carved on it. Arunachalam went on, ‘This will be Ardhanareshvara – that is, the traditional Hindu figure which is half Shiva and half Parvati, his wife.’
‘But do you understand the way Stephen Cox handles these Indian themes?’
‘As I see it, he is doing mixed Indian and European art. He uses the titles from Indian themes. I once asked him what a sculpture he was working on meant. He said, “I don't know. I just do it.” In traditional art you have to know what you are doing. That doesn't mean that modern art is bad, but it is easy to sculpt.’
Arunacha
lam had shipped three containers full of sculptures to Stephen Cox in the previous year. ‘Stephen sends me the drawings and I carve them. He puts the finishing touches to them,’ he explained.
Unfortunately Stephen Cox was not in Mahabalipuram at that time, but I sent him a draft of this story. I was not surprised to get a very angry reply. Eventually we did meet.
Cox was hurt that Stapati, a man whom he liked and admired, had apparently so misunderstood him. Nevertheless he admitted that he regarded Stapati's work not as art but as craft. He also did not feel the spiritual element in the traditional carving at Mahabalipuram which Stapati was so proud of. Cox said to me, ‘The obsessiveness in the craft of Stapati's work sterilizes it. I find the deification of simple objects – sometimes just a pile of bricks in a wayside shrine – more spiritual. They have been worshipped for years and are the by-products of devotion.’
I was puzzled. Stephen Cox was clearly a very sensitive and gentle person, so I couldn't understand why he wanted to work in Mahabalipuram if he didn't regard the town's carving as art. He explained to me, ‘I was drawn to the place. I had never been anywhere like it before. The sound of hammers tapping everywhere from morning to night. The chance to put two feet into an environment that could trace its sculpture links with devotion in an unbroken skein reaching back to antiquity. You mustn't get me wrong – I admire Stapati as a great craftsman and a great temple architect, but I never went to Mahabalipuram to sit at his feet or to learn temple carving.’
I asked him about Stapati's allegation that Cox couldn't carve granite: that he would need two or three years’ continuous work to master it. He replied, ‘I can get anything I want out of a block of stone. I don't think it's necessary to do rough work, although I am capable of doing anything that is necessary. Stapati insists that a carver must learn his craft. This is a fundamental difference between an artist and a craftsman. Anyone can learn a craft.’
I admitted to Cox that I found it easier to understand Stapati's work than his. He smiled and said, ‘You have only talked to Stapati and his disciples. There are Indian artists who admire my work.’
Stephen Cox was on his way back from Mahabalipuram after spending some time working with Arunachalam. I said to him, ‘You object to my describing your studio in Mahabalipuram as an example of modern colonialism, but it seems to me you are doing exactly what the colonialists did: you are using cheap labour and raw material, finishing it yourself and selling it at a large profit.’
‘I wouldn't say it was colonialism,’ Cox replied; ‘I'd say it's sound economics. I came here with a brief to carve for three months, but having been able to set up a system of working it seemed a terrible waste to let it go.’ Then he laughed and said, ‘Actually it's not that sound economics. It costs me a lot to come here and a lot to ship the work, and I also pay my workers more and look after them better than others do in Mahabalipuram. The rewards are not that great either, because Europeans don't seem to have taken off on the work I do here.’
Stephen Cox is undoubtedly a humane neocolonialist when it comes to business. That, presumably, is why his studio isn't doing all that well. Nevertheless, anyone who exalts his ‘art’ above someone else's ‘craft’ is implying superiority, and that's what cultural imperialism is all about.
Mahabalipuram has some of the finest examples of stonecarving in India. The 100-feet-high rock escarpment which runs along the back of the town, about half a mile from the sea, is a museum of mythology more than 1,000 years old. Lord Shiva watches an emaciated ascetic standing on one leg in a huge frieze carved on the face of the rock. The animals of the forest have gathered to see the miracle which is about to occur – so have mankind, the demigods and the snake people of the underworld. I love the cat at the bottom of the frieze, standing on his hind legs in imitation of the ascetic. So great is the cat's asceticism that he ignores the fat, tasty rats playing at his feet. The only difficulty is that we are not sure what the miracle is. The frieze, which one of the guidebooks claims to be the biggest bas-relief in the world, is known as the Penance of Arjun, one of the heroes of the great Hindu epic the Mahabharat. He performed a penance to persuade Shiva to give him a miraculous weapon to destroy his enemies. There are, however, some scholars who believe that the ascetic is not Arjun but Bhagiratha, who persuaded the gods to send the river Ganges to the earth.
Further along the escarpment, Krishna holds a mountain over the village of Gokula to protect the villagers and their cattle from the wrath of the rain god Indra. That frieze has been protected by a stone canopy. Then there is a cave with carvings showing Vishnu in his incarnation as a boar rescuing the goddess earth from the bottom of the ocean. Among the many other monuments there are five raths or chariots of the gods, also carved out of the rock. They are named after four of the five brothers who are the heroes of the Mahabharat and after the woman who was wife to all the brothers.
The beach at Mahabalipuram is dominated by the two pointed towers of the Shore Temple. It is believed there were once three. Spray, sand and wind have eroded but not entirely erased the carvings on the outer walls. Inside the three shrines of the temple, the deities have survived unharmed, except for one lingam whose top is damaged.
In spite of its magnificent art and the careful preservation of its traditions, most of the young carvers of Mahabalipuram are reduced to doing debased work. Walking up from the Shore Temple, I passed a shop selling small, stone images of the Hindu gods. The owner of the shop had advertised that he was an unemployed graduate from the College of Architecture and Sculpture. He claimed he couldn't find work because most temples in India were now being built out of concrete, not stone. When I picked up a small, black granite Ganesh, he said with engaging honesty, ‘I am afraid it's not very good. There is no detail on it, but then he is popular with tourists – particularly foreigners.’
Tourism is another post-independence colonizer. At the top end of the market it has produced the five-star culture. That means the élite of India keeping up with the Kapoors by dining, staying, holding conferences and even marrying off their daughters in expensive hotels notable for insipid food which won't inflame fragile foreign intestines and for an excess of marble. Mahabalipuram caters mainly to the bottom end of the tourist market – the young people doing India on ten pounds a day. As most of them sell their hard currency to the young men who pester every foreigner on the beach, Mahabalipuram can't be doing much to replenish India's foreign exchange reserves – one of the justifications for tourism. Groups from the Soviet Union and eastern Europe trade in champagne and vodka, because their currency is not exactly hard.
There are several small restaurants offering fresh seafood European-style. In one I heard a young French girl complaining to her boyfriend, ‘It's so simple to make salad oil – I don't know why they can't do it.’ At another table, a young Englishman complained, ‘I thought you should be able to get a good cup of tea in India of all places. When I asked for tea out of a pot, it came out all funny – mixed with milk.’
I did, I must admit, also see many young foreigners eating lunch in the Mamalla Bhavan, where for eight rupees – that's less than the price of a cup of tea back home – they were served a thali. A thali is a round tray with small bowls of vegetable curries, dais, pickle and curd. These are to be mixed with rice dolloped on to the centre of the thali. Second helpings come automatically, and third helpings are there for the asking. Rasam or pepper-water is provided to wash the meal down.
The proprietor of this excellent restaurant, Narayanswamy Janahardham, started thirty years ago selling ten meals a day. Now on a busy day he sells more than 1,000 lunches alone. Tourism in Mahabalipuram is so successful that it's threatening to take over the whole town. The restaurant proprietor told me that the government wanted to ban all further construction in the town, so that it could be developed for tourism. He was not amused: ‘They want the people of Mahabalipuram to move out so that the tourists can move in. I am in favour of some development, but I don't see why it should be control
led by planners who don't live here but have houses in nice suburbs of big cities like Madras. Why should they tell us to get out of our own town?’
Walking along the beach at Mahabalipuram I had seen foreign girls tanning their bare breasts. I asked whether the citizens of Mahabalipuram objected to that too. ‘I wouldn't say “object”,’ Narayanswamy Janahardham replied, ‘but it is definitely bad. It doesn't fit in with Indian customs. Naked on the beach is not advisable. Our people will turn their heads away in shame. It is bad for the reputation of the West. What's worse is drugs,’ he went on. ‘It has not got bad here yet, but we will have to be careful not to go like Goa. There I am told that there is a big business in selling drugs to foreign tourists. In Mahabalipuram I know some boys who are selling ganja. I have told the police, but they have done nothing. But I must not complain too much – after all, tourism is good for business.’
Business is what modern imperialism is all about, and, in the developing world, promoting it is the main task of the British Council and the other arms of Her Majesty's diplomatic services: the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Overseas Development. In Tamil Nadu and its capital, Madras, I saw the slogan ‘Be Indian, buy Indian’ painted on the side of many lorries, but unfortunately the Indian élite still prefers to buy ‘foreign’. Things have improved since the days when I first came to India, when departing diplomats found a good market for partly used lipsticks. But improvements in the quality, quantity and variety of Indian consumer goods have not conquered the market, because the old colonial mentality still survives – the servile mentality that believes that anything Indian must be inferior. Nothing has done more to keep that feeling alive than the English language.
It has often been said that if you want to destroy a people, first destroy its language. The British were too subtle to try that: they degraded Indian languages by installing a new language of the élite – English. Just as the British were quite happy to keep the caste system intact provided they were acknowledged as a superior caste, so they were quite happy to promote the study of Indian languages provided English was acknowledged as the link language of the élite. As English reinforced their superior status, the élite, not surprisingly, made no serious attempt to provide an Indian link language when the British left.