Now that I’m back in LA, I had a chance to visit the Tuesday Night Cafe in Downtown. Here are some sketches of the performers.
It was great to see the community come together and support music and poetry. It gave me a chance to get back into some quick and live watercolors.
Burhanpur is an interesting city of historical importance. Tourism there is being developed as sites are being renovated. It was here that Mumtaz Mahal, wife of the Mughal Emperor Shah Jehan died and was buried for six months. The Taj Mahal was to be built here instead of Agra, but due to a number of factors ended up there. Even today you can see Mumtaz Mahal’s hamam (bath) and living area. It is heavily decayed, but being repaired. Beside this I saw a Gurdwara where the final human Guru of Sikhism; Guru Gobind Singh hand signed a Guru Granth Sahib (holy book and living final Guru of the Sikhs). The Granth Sahib there is much like the ornamented Qurans of Islamic tradition and is very beautiful.
Perhaps the most beautiful site I saw there was the Dargah-e-Hakimi of the Bora community. I do not know a lot about it, but it houses the tombs of some very important community members. It is like a gorgeous compound with schools, gardens and beautiful architecture. In one sense, it is very much like that utopian sort of futuristic society with old culture traditional looks that they show in science fiction movies. Where the people look happy and well dressed in traditional clothes and live a cultured and meaningful existence. It had that look and though I don’t know much more than that about it, like any truly great holy place, it had a real sense of peace and beauty.
There was also a beautiful mosque with Sanskrit, Arabic and Urdu writing in it. It had lotus designs similar to a Jain mandir, like the mosque I saw in Ahmedabad. There were also beautiful Jain temples and a fort out in Asirgarh, outside the town, from the times of the Mahabharat. It had a mosque and mandir in it built, I believe by Shah Jahan and a Christian cemetary built by the British among other things.
We met some very friendly people walking around in the fort who taught us more about it. We went down to a beautiful mandir at the base of the mountain afterwards where the holy men were ironically glued to the cricket match on tv. I think it was Sri Lanka vs. India. There was something surreal about that little tv right there by the murtis (idols).
After taking in some sites in Burhanpur and eating many a delicious meal at Heena’s restaurant in the hotel across from the bus station, we head off by train to Delhi.
After a few days rest and figuring out the next leg of the trip we went back to Milana and did an art workshop for the women living with HIV and AIDs. Previously we had discussed some of the things they wish they could communicate to others. With this workshop I hoped to get them communicating their feelings first for their own emotional well being and second as a means to help others understand.
As usual, I had a basic plan and had spent time thinking about how best to try and connect, but beyond that I had no idea if I would be able to give them something of value. I never have any doubt that art has value to be shared in all things, but whether I know enough to connect people to that is always the uncertainty. I suppose that’s the exciting part of it all.
So I had copied some images of watercolors I painted in the past in response to different social issues that I felt I needed to express something about. Those pieces are all here on the blog in previous posts. Lilly translated my English to Kannada for the women. We sat down, had some tea, shared some smiles and then sat down. I went over what I wished to do and Lilly related this to the women. I opened up the laptop and went through a handful of images, one at a time and shared them with the ladies. For each one, I explained the context of what I was reacting to and how that painful or sad emotion was translated into an image to try and make people think. Thanks to Lilly, the words and sentiments were beautifully translated and at once the women connected. To come in and talk to a group of women who are dealing with issues I can’t even imagine, and try and share something that I think can be useful for them was a daunting task, so I tried to share how I deal with issues that I can’t outright fix in a theraputic and communicative way through art.
That the women responded is thanks to Lilly’s excellent translation. I spoke to them of the multiple meanings and symbolism of each image, and also heard them connect their own experiences to what they saw. I didn’t try and say that I know what they are going through or that I can make it go away. Rather I shared the power of art, through my own attempts to express and make people think. I could have taken from better artists than myself and shown their work, but it seemed to make more sense to share my own.
We had a really good discussion, after which each woman got a sheet of paper and some colors. I went to the marker board and spoke went through an example of happiness. I got them started and asked what types of things symbolize happiness. They responed with smiles, christmas tree, food, sunlight etc. I filled the board with simple sketches of these. Then switched to sorry and anger and changed each of them in turn to express that. Next the women started their own drawings, expressing what they wanted. While I want people to explore and create for themselves in these workshops, I also want to give them enough in this short time to get started and feel comfortable with a process that they can continue in the future on their own. So as the women drew, I went around and helped give them ideas on how to visually represent different things they wished to express.
I didn’t have a clear sense of what the women might create. The process was organic and down to these women’s willingness to participate. That they gave us that kind of love and were so open to try something that many adults might thing too childish was what made it work. They expressed joy at the upcoming Christmas holidays, visiting daughters and mothers. There was also sorrow at their infected children’s condition and anger and frustration at a lack of drugs for survival. There were even messages in a world context of an appreciation for home and sorrow for the conflicts of people.
Each time we get to share with people it is special. This day was truly amazing. In the summer of 2008 it was beautiful to connect to people through music with my friends Andy, Omar and Mike. Here it was beautiful to try and share something of what makes me and my life in a way that is meaningful to people I may never have met otherwise, whose experience is now a part of mine.
Afterwards, we head out and met a lion, before visiting the cartoon museum (a museum of Indian Cartoonists). The cartoon museum was exciting just for the chance to connect to artists with a rich history in India. While animation is big in India, it is cartoonists and painters with whom I feel I am more interested in, in terms of artistic content. It is here that I can see a rich history of communicating important and personal stories. Just to have a brief visit and to speak to Narendraji there was fun. He showed us some beautiful Indian Cartoons (political and newspaper cartoons). There are some books, but these are not easily available. I did get one publisher’s name so I’ll try and look further into it. I also want to go to the National Book Trust store which publishes amazing children’s books under the Children’s Book Trust name. These books are not available at most stores, but the art and ideas in them tends to be far superior to anything I’ve seen in locally published childrens’s books at other bookstores here.
That evening we hopped on a train to Burhanpur.
The next day we visited the principal of the social work college and his wife at their home on campus and learned why he loved the work he did. More than anything, what struck me about BIRDs was a sense that A. R. Patilji, who had served as a provincial minister and came from an agricultural background, had started his work in the 70′s and genuinely worked to create programs where there was a lot of independence. Staff were given support and guidance, but also the free will to make decisions, mistakes and programs. To give support and guidance where needed and to empower the people who work with you, is to be a true leader. While Patilji did not know how to do every single task, but he knew to create an atmosphere where people could grow and create programs while he provided invaluable support, without interfering. I can’t really say enough good about all that the Patils and the staff at BIRDs. I’m an artist, and don’t pretend to be an expert at that or anything else, certainly not all that we saw and learned of the programs at BIRDs, but the Patils really made an effort to share the vast work the people have done and continue to do.
The next place we visited was perhaps the most incredible of all. We walked over to the nursery school to pay the kids a visit. Children sat and played around the classroom. The teacher had several come up and recite nursery rhymes. There are few things cooler than hearing a little kid recite a nursery rhyme in English with the cutest heaviest accent, mixed with little cute kid talk, such that you almost can’t tell they are speaking English. Seriously cute. Kristeen tossed a ball back and forth with a little girl and heard a squeaking sound. She shook the ball, but there was no sound, finally she figured out that the girl had little squeaking slippers that squeaked every time she stepped like a little toy. I played blocks with some very serious looking tots, then Kristeen came up with the idea to teach them duck duck goose.
So we all head out to the courtyard of the girl’s dorm, which was right outside, with teachers and children and started playing. It’s really hard to describe how magical it is to become a kid and play, but if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you really need to do it! We sat in a circle and the teachers would translate our instructions into Kannada. My cheeks hurt from smiling and laughing so much. These little ones were so sweet and sometimes confused, and excited and happy, then sad and more happy. Kristeen was a popular goose in the game as child after child would pick her, certainly not because they had the best chance of outrunning her. The teachers didn’t join the game, but sat on one side and guided the kids. Kristeen and I played along with the kids. Some kids caught on quick, while others would sit there confused when someone touched their head and said “Goose!” Even some of the kids would start giggling, but they were actually quite nice to each other.
The little girl who squeaked was so cute when she ran, generally confused and and with a blank look, never sad, never happy, just calm and collected, even when she chased after me and fell flat and broke some tiny bangles. Two of the youngest children had a hard time. Kristeen tagged one of them goose. He got up to run, but before his little legs could take him far, Kristeen reached over and tagged him. He froze as Kristeen laughed, then started crying uncontrollably. We all laughed and a teacher consoled, but he was never the same after that. If anyone tagged him goose, he would start crying, so all the kids let him be, and just tagged him duck as they went around. Another little guy was in the same boat and it was cute how the kids would smile at how funny it was, but still be sweet and not tag them, without needing to be told. They would even help the confused kids and run as fast as they could. Sometimes I would run around a few times and purposely and also accidently miss my open spot to sit as I came around. It’s hard to run in a little circle. We played many cute little games with the kids, and got a great workout.
It was time to say our goodbyes. We thanked the staff and Patils for their amazing warmth and the knowledge they had shared. On the way to the train station we stopped by the beautiful Gokak falls, before heading out and ending our time at BIRDs.
It was finally time to give the kids an art workshop. We were under the impression that the workshop would be for the younger children in the BIRDs school. So Kristeen and I prepared a lesson on hygiene. She researched basics like how to wash hands, clip nails and etc. I incorporated this into a set of four drawings. A clean and dirty boy and girl. I draw them in a more basic sort of a way so that the kids could be taught to draw them. Drawing something, much like writing notes is a great way to remember things.
At the last minute it turned out we were with some older kids. So there we stood with a lesson plan prepared for small children. So I asked them to show me the correct way to wash hands, and one of the boys did. Then I asked them to talk about issues of hygiene and they all knew the lesson well. I stood there for a moment wondering what I would do to make the time worth their while as their bored faces stared back at me.
Then I decided that I could teach the class to make the drawings I had made, and then use that as a tool to teach younger children about cleanliness and hygiene. I hope that learning to draw would interest them and the idea that they too could teach others the lessons they have learned could be very helpful as most of the children are strictly in a teacher teaches, student memorizes and regurgitates mindset.
The boys sat on one side of the classroom and the girls on the other, so I started drawing the clean boy on the boy side of the blackboard and the clean girl on the girl side of the class. I started very slow, describing each shape as a basic shape, such as being like a square, or a triangle, or a circle etc. I would talk about each part, draw a little bit on the board, then walk around the class to see how they were doing. The girls were hilariously shy. Many would cover their notebooks as I came around, but there were smiles everywhere and I felt relieved that I could give them something they could hopefully learn from and enjoy.
Kristeen walked around the room and took photos and helped the kids out. The kids are really cute. Each one wanted to know if what they had done was right. The beauty of this lesson was that everyone was able to do it “right”. Some kids would add their own little innovations, or change things around, and that was great. I joked around a lot with the kids as I drew, like describing the monkey like ears, being just like theirs, which made them happy.
After finishing the clean boy and girl, I continued with the dirty boy and girl, who looked the same, but had messy hair, dirt all over, boogers coming out of their noses, messy clothes, long, black, broken toe and finger nails etc. I loved watching the kids get excited and laugh and have a great time while learning. After the finished that, we passed out larger sheets of paper, one per table and had the kids redraw the two children as they had in their notebooks on this paper, side by side as a learning tool they should use with small children. They started drawing and coloring and it was a lot of fun.
The bell rang for lunch and no one wanted to leave. It was very humbling. The Hindi teacher who had helped translate my Hindi into Kannada for the kids at the beginning thanked us and we thanked him and the kids after I told the children they could keep their drawings, finish coloring at home and then their homework was to teach 3 small children a hygiene lesson with these posters. We slowly said our goodbyes and left for lunch.
For lunch we met up with some of our friends at BIRDS and one of the teachers and his new wife. She had made lunch and the two of them served us some delicious thalis.
Later we went to the HIV/AIDS clinic run by BIRDs where we were given an indepth presentation on the work they are doing in awareness prevention, safer practices education for sex workers, minority gender communities, and much more. Aftwerwards we visited one of the community centers in a village and sat in on a session where kids were getting after school help with their homework. It was pretty amazing how genuinely enthusiastic these kids were, so late in the evening, after a day of chores and school, to sit and continue with math etc. The teacher was great too as he was warm and encouraging and after a child would excitedly solve a problem on the board he would explain to the class how that answer was arrived upon. We spoke to the kids after their class, and I drew one of the boys on the board and in turn another kid came up and drew me. It was fun to try and answer questions about the U.S. and share some experiences etc.
In the morning we went to the medicinal plants building where we were given a tour of their compilations of plant samples and recording of ayurvedic medicinal properties of indiginous plants into a countrywide database. Oustide there was an area of land where many of those plants are grown to be used for collecting samples and just to keep many species of plants from becoming extinct.
We checked out the fish farm and then head to lunch at the home of the local farmer who went with us to the music show the day before. In Karnataka we could not communicate with everyone as easily because many people did not understand Hindi or English. So I had not spoken much except smiling and nodding that we really enjoyed the music when “speaking” to him the day before, but he had communicated to Patilji that he really wanted us to come join him and his family for lunch. In a place where food can be difficult to afford for your own family, much less guests, I hoped they would enjoy the experience too.
It was a lot of fun. On of Patilji’s relatives who was nice enough to take us to the areas we went to that morning took us there with the driver of the jeep we had been riding in. We visited the beautiful farm, and the farmer and his family. His extended family was there and we tried to speak via our two friends who spoke Hindi and Kannada. They asked about farming in he U.S. and also about life. As usual we did our best to speak a little about farming and explained that we lived in cities, so could not answer those questions definitively. Still, it was good to just share. Sometimes sharing what you have or know the best you can is enough. We saw how they grind wheat and corn. There were mattes covered in fresh corn and red chilli peppers. We also say pan leaves being grown.
In the home we sat with the family and enjoyed a wonderful meal. We went into the kitchen and met the mother and wife. The didn’t have a chiminey or at least not an effective on, so the wood burning stove really created a horrible black smoke filled atmosphere. My eyes burned immediately, and it made me think about these wonderful women working there every day. I tried to ask why they did not cook outside and how it was really terrible for the women to work in there. This is where you are at the mercy of your translators. Sometimes people will just do their best to convey your sentiments, while others, well meaning though they are, paraphrase or answer your questions for you and thus you can’t really communicate as much as you’d like. Kristeen made friends with a small child with fancy footwear. While we drank tea outside the home, some more relatives came by and we talked again through our friends. An older man came by and invited us to his home after we had exchanged more smiles than words. We couldn’t refuse so we had more tea. It was really great to try our best to share experiences and get to know people while letting them get to know out world too.
That evening we went to visit another one of BIRDS’ many projects. This one was a dairy where women who had purchased buffalos via their micro finance program brought the milk in twice a day to be tested, recorded and deposited for sale through the collective. I can’t say enough good things about how kind and informative people were. Patilji Sr. and Jr. really welcomed us into their organization and everyone went to great lengths to share with us what they did, not with expectation, but with a desire to share. I truly hope that we can return that favor by telling others and connecting good resources and volunteers to them. Being in a rural area, though they have done a great deal, there is always a hunger for outside knowledge to continue. I feel people interested in agriculture and social work can gain a great deal by spending time here and giving back to the community in BIRDS.
We spoke to some of the women, particularly those in leadership roles at the center after they had finished with the evening milk aquisition. These are illiterate women, who run entire households and obviously always had the ability to do a lot, and now made good use of the opportunity and showed others. We spoke to them again through translation and learned a bit about how they were impacted by the programs. These were not public speakers or mouth pieces for the org. They live this, so unlike someone trying to sell you on the idea, they just talk about it matter of fact and don’t consider themselves all that incredible. It was fun to share some of what women deal with in the U.S. with them, good and bad, to kind of connect them, if only a little. I was also glad to tell them that we read about the work of women like themselves in other parts of the world like the U.S. and are inspired by what they are doing.
In the morning we learned about the composting methods used to reuse organic waste and create fertile soil.
It was a Sunday so the school was closed and things were quiet on campus. The younger Patilji took us, along with a local farmer and another man who knew many musicians to see a Shahnai (a high pitched wind instrument with a narrow mouth piece and large opening at the end) performance in a mandir in another village. We drove out to the Laxmi Devi Mandir. In the courtyard, children were playing around a holy tree with green bangles strung about it by grateful mothers giving thanks for their healthy babies.
The performance started with some drumming. We would write a word on a piece of paper for the drummer and he would drum it out for another young man to decipher. Simply by hearing the drumming he would speak the name or word with correct pronounciation. Then the rest of the group came together. Two talis (small cymbals), two shahnai and this incredibly double drum. They started with a slow drone on one shahnai then quickly picked up into a frenzy. It was amazing to see the energy and excitment they brought to the performance. I couldn’t help but sit there with a huge grin on my face, enjoying it all. Music is such a beautiful gift.
All of us enjoyed the performance then shared some bananas with the musicians, paid them as thanks in appreciation for their wonderful art before heading out. These are incredibly gifted and hard working, musicians who end up eeking out a living doing other work to survive.
That night we went to the inauguration of an NSS camp in a village mandir. The community was there to kickoff a series of community building workshops, street plays and clinics where volunteers and BIRDS staff work with the community to learn about them and educate them on social issues.
We arrived early in the morning with the Patils. We got off on the side of the highway and a jeep took us the rest of the way through crater filled roads. The sun was coming up and there was a beautiful orange tint to the green all around. The air was clean and it was very soothing. As we went through a small town and rural areas there were people going about their mornings. Many people were defecating by the roadside. They do so because there is a lack of information regarding sanitation, but more than that people don’t have and can’t afford toilets. They go by the roadside because they don’t have to be afraid of snakes by the side of the road, rather than in the brush. Besides this they don’t have enough area to dig and and cover their faeces. It’s very humbling to see how much of the world lives, without the everyday amenities we all take for granted.
We drove up down extremely bumpy, broken down roads and arrived at the BIRDS campus, where there is a social work college, school, nursery, fish farm, farming research lab, medicinal plants labs and so much more. That morning we visited each class and said hello to the children form grades 1 to 10. In each class Kristeen and I tried to engage the children in some conversation, with the teachers translating from English and Hindi to Kannada and back. The kids were really sweet and shy. They aren’t really used to having class discussions, so it was tough to get them to ask questions about the United States or to tell us about their home. The questions that were asked were mostly regarding crops in the U.S. and some of the older ones asked about the climate and price of land, so we city folk did our best to answer what we could. Mostly, I found myself connecting similarities rather than differences.
In one class I decided to make a contest out of it. Boys against Girls to see who would ask more questions. That helped a lot. We even had kids come up and draw on the board as did I. It was a lot of fun. There was one boy who could not hear or speak, and yet there he was in this class. I was told there were special needs teachers who worked with him. He seemed happy enough and when I asked what he likes to eat he told me and I drew those things on the board to show I understood and just to connect the whole class to it. It was all really simple, but fun. Shortly after we finished visiting classes, the bell rang and an army of children came running out to catch the BIRDS school bus to go back home.
Walking around the campus that afternoon, was very quiet. In the distance we heard some activity and walked to it. In a room in the college (which is next to the school), we saw some people through the window. The girls invited us in and we sat down inside where the social work students were rehearsing street plays on social issues like alcohol abuse, hygiene and women’s issues.
That night we went to a celebration of Hanuman, the monkey god in Hinduism.
We went to visit Patilji Sr. and Jr. of BIRDS, an organization working in rural areas near Belgam, in Karnataka. They were on their way back home and had stopped in Bangalaore where Kristeen and I introduced ourselves and they invited us on the spot to come see their work. Parmod Sharma of Yuvsatta in Chandigarh had highly recommended we meet with them, so we agreed to join them on the bus ride that very night. After the morning meeting, we visited a fair with crafts from all over India that Jayashree had told us about. There was live music, beautiful statues, paintings and all kinds of art and crafts.
That night we found ourselves on a bus to the countryside.
Flew in to Bangalore to visit my friend Jayashree; a documentary filmmaker I met in Los Angeles when she came for a screening of a film about HIV and Aids drugs and how companies are trying to create patents to prevent generic prescriptions. It had been over two years since we’d all seen each other, and I have to say it was great to see her, meet her other half and son.
Busy days finally took their toll and we rested up comfortably thanks to Jayashree’s wonderful hospitality. I visited a beautiful campus, a few places to eat, but mostly just the bed, food and bed. It was nice and warm and lush with greenery in Bangalore.
We visited an organization called Milana with Jayashree who is a board member. They are an amazing group of women both infected and affected with HIV and Aids. We sat down with them and spoke through Jyoti and Lilly who have made these women their family. Most of the women spoke in Kannada, and some spoke a bit of English and Hindi. Being in the south of India, there was more English than Hindi around. We spoke to the women who shared some of their difficult stories of not only being infected by their husbands who died, but then living with the stigma and day to day lack of understanding on top of financial hardship and health issues. Many have children of which quite a few are infected. This group is really like a support group. The women cook food, some create crafts and have a space to interact with people who understand them. It is a very small organization, but they work on awareness in the community as well as just working through the day to day difficulties. Many can’t work, and if they can get a job, it is difficult to get beyond the stigma as well as the fatigue and other health issues that prevent them from working more. Still, they were all strong, vibrant women, finding the will to smile in circumstances quite beyone my understanding.
More than all of that, it was fun to get to know them, and share of ourselves too. I tried to explain that though I could not solve their problems (nor had they asked me to), I would like to share art with them as a means of communication which is also a big part of our conversation. While there is a lot of attention on prevention programs and awareness for Aids and HIV (never enough), there is even less support for those who are living with it. With NGO’s focused on big picture issues and juggling large numbers of people, I guess it is very difficult to get in there and reach people on a personal level, by understanding their daily needs and struggles and working with that knowledge. There is a lot these women have to teach us and much they would like others to know. How does one tell a child that was born infected, but is now a teenager, that they can’t love and get married, or that they must simply deal with a stigma they have never even lived without. There’s a lot of pain there, and several of the women did break down into tears as they told stories of all manner of rejection, apathy and impossible circumstance. Yet these are all warm, loving people if those around took the time to know them.
So, I promised to return and do my best to share some ideas on how they can use art to communicate.
We visited a book fair afterwards with all kinds of books from around the world. We also visited the graduation show of Shrishti, a design college thanks to Jayashree’s friend and fellow documentary filmmaker Shabnam. She picked us up and graciously took us to the two locations. One featured installation pieces in a sort of jury rigged structure, while the other, on campus was full of inspiring and innovative ideas for positive social change through design and research oriented projects that focused on specific needs, like education, sanitation etc.
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