<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);box-sizing:border-box;color:rgb(39, 39, 39);font-family:Manjari;font-size:18px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;line-height:1.7;margin:0px 0px 15px;orphans:2;padding:0px;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">Who will not love to go shopping for books and be able to fill up a box with all the books one wants, not the least bothering about the price of each of them? This is the sales pitch of Book Chor, a unique book-selling start-up. Here is a report from the book sale and exhibition that Book Chor held recently in Kochi.<hr><hr><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);box-sizing:border-box;color:rgb(39, 39, 39);font-family:Manjari;font-size:18px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;line-height:1.7;margin:0px 0px 15px;orphans:2;padding:0px;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">Subscribe to our channels on <a style="background-color:transparent;box-sizing:border-box;color:rgb(255, 53, 36);display:inline-block;margin:0px;padding:0px;transition:all 0.4s ease 0s;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.youtube.com/c/THEAIDEM">YouTube</a> &amp; <a style="background-color:transparent;box-sizing:border-box;color:rgb(255, 53, 36);display:inline-block;margin:0px;padding:0px;transition:all 0.4s ease 0s;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://chat.whatsapp.com/ELqD1D1bImgAP6MrG8jskq">WhatsApp</a>

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Who will not love to go shopping for books and be able to fill up a box with all the books one wants, not the least bothering about the price of each of them? This is the sales pitch of Book Chor, a unique book-selling start-up.

Steal your books with Book Chor

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‘Abid Hasan Safrani: Netaji ‘s Comrade-in-arms’ (ORIENT BLACK SWAN; Rs.895; 2023 ) is a slim volume put together by Ismat Mehdi and Shehbaz Safrani, presenting a crisp and engaging narration of the illustrious personality who is immortalised by the slogan “Jai Hind”. 

The Importance of Being Abid Hasan Safrani

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A Native Mahatma of Communication

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A Tiny Book that Captures Powerful Idea(s) of India

<img src="https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/27th_March_24_a_770x470_c440d4fc32.jpg" alt="27th-March-24-a-770x470.jpg" srcset="https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/thumbnail_27th_March_24_a_770x470_c440d4fc32.jpg 245w,https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/small_27th_March_24_a_770x470_c440d4fc32.jpg 500w,https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/medium_27th_March_24_a_770x470_c440d4fc32.jpg 750w," sizes="100vw" width="undefined" height="undefined"><div class="post-body clearfix single-blog-header single-blog-inner blog-single-block blog-details-content" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);box-sizing:border-box;color:rgb(85, 85, 85);font-family:Manjari;font-size:17px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px;orphans:2;padding:0px;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;"><div class="entry-content clearfix" style="box-sizing:border-box;counter-reset:footnotes 0;margin:0px;padding:0px;">Two internationally renowned public intellectuals, historian Romila Thapar and literary theorist Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak met in 2017 and conversed about The idea of India and how it has evolved historically. The conversation was published as a book, seven years later in 2024. Writer and academic Zahira Rahman reviews the book highlighting its insights and historical relevance.<hr>The idea of India, a tiny book, that transcribes a dialogue between two formidable intellects packs so much meaning into its 71 pages that each reading reveals finer aspects of our patriotic ideals. It reads like an exchange between a historian and a philosopher but grows increasingly political as we read on. The India that we find now as a text has been invented recently. This idea of India touted as Bharat is the counter text that this book problematizes.The shifting of the ideas of India territorially and historically examined in the text shakes the complacency about our idea of the nation, the false notion of Indian culture as a monolithic entity. The idea of India as determined by economics, language, culture at various junctures in the history of what we now call India is discussed, in this brief <a style="background-color:transparent;box-sizing:border-box;color:rgb(255, 53, 36);display:inline-block;margin:0px;padding:0px;transition:all 0.4s ease 0s;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.seagullbooks.org/the-idea-of-india/">conversation</a>, counterintuitively as Gayatri Spivak prefers all discussions to be.<figure class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="border-width:0px;box-sizing:border-box;clear:both;display:block;height:auto;margin:15px auto;max-width:100%;padding:0px;vertical-align:middle;width:766px;" id="attachment_27353" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-27353"><img src="https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/Whats_App_Image_2024_03_27_at_14_33_03_dcc95cad99.jpeg" alt="WhatsApp-Image-2024-03-27-at-14.33.03.jpeg" srcset="https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/thumbnail_Whats_App_Image_2024_03_27_at_14_33_03_dcc95cad99.jpeg 210w,https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/small_Whats_App_Image_2024_03_27_at_14_33_03_dcc95cad99.jpeg 500w,https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/medium_Whats_App_Image_2024_03_27_at_14_33_03_dcc95cad99.jpeg 750w," sizes="100vw" width="undefined" height="undefined"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" style="box-sizing:border-box;display:block;font-size:15px;line-height:20px;margin:0px;padding:12px 0px 0px;text-align:center;" id="caption-attachment-27353">When ‘The Idea of India’ was discussed under the auspices of Kafe Conversations at Kozhikode</figcaption></figure>The idea of India has evolved at different junctures in history and is mostly territorial and shifting. Even the name Aryavarta is not one well defined space, it keeps shifting. It is as diverse as diverse can be. It is not until the 1920s when according to Romila Thapar the idea of India that had been amorphous, saw the beginnings of an ‘ idea’ emerging as what we now call India.Both of them are skeptical of ‘ideas’. Spivak teaches literature and speaks in metaphors. She feels the idea is like a lid which too often solidifies the entire diversity of thought systems into an unidentifiable mass and one cannot separate the each unique India after it has become the Idea of India. Edward Said had called it an Orientalist discovery of India which the progressive elites identified with.Thapar thinks most people identify with the culture at the top when they say “I am an Indian”: “I see this as a heritage of the colonial view of India and Indian culture: the two nation theory underlined the perspectives on culture and theory as devolving from the Hindu and Muslim communities in a strictly religious sense. Looking beyond the elite was thought to be unnecessary. “: the Muslim India and the Hindu India. Thapar stresses that during the time of the national movement we did not endorse the Hindu Rashtra idea or claim that Hindu has primacy as a citizen.The India after independence was conceived as a society that would be reasonably equal: every citizen enjoying the same privileges. Our economic plan that focused on state industrialization, employment, rural development to create an equal society, pay no attention to caste and religion, the plurality of which were determinants of Indian culture, observes Thapar. Spivak gives a nuanced description of how she as a young expatriate in the US found India. India to the diasporics was an unreal version of what it really was. “At that point in time (1987) it had already become important for us not to acknowledge the diasporic image of India as India as a minority in the US, sometimes even a white- identified, good affirmative action minority.” She goes on to point out how in the democratic India the largest sector of the electorate, the landless illiterates have no idea of India at all. The idea of India as non- idea.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img style="aspect-ratio:undefined/undefined;" src="https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/Whats_App_Image_2024_03_27_at_13_09_07_531e75bd_768x1279_08f582ba5d.jpg" alt="WhatsApp-Image-2024-03-27-at-13.09.07_531e75bd-768x1279.jpg" srcset="https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/thumbnail_Whats_App_Image_2024_03_27_at_13_09_07_531e75bd_768x1279_08f582ba5d.jpg 94w,https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/small_Whats_App_Image_2024_03_27_at_13_09_07_531e75bd_768x1279_08f582ba5d.jpg 300w,https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/medium_Whats_App_Image_2024_03_27_at_13_09_07_531e75bd_768x1279_08f582ba5d.jpg 450w,https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/large_Whats_App_Image_2024_03_27_at_13_09_07_531e75bd_768x1279_08f582ba5d.jpg 600w," sizes="100vw" width="undefined" height="undefined"></figure>Thapar, when she pins the idea of India as a coherent India in the 1920s, is not imagining a single idea but “the opening out of possible ways of looking at these ideas, why they happen, what the consequences were “. The idea of India conceived by the anti-colonial national movement, the idea of India ( un)conceived by the diasporics, and the idea of India that is determined by cultural differences, religion and language. Attending to the interlinkages between economics, culture and religion is what they both seem concerned about. Spivak quotes Marx,” the content of the 19th century revolutions will come from the poetry of the future”.&nbsp;They discuss the matter of Indian culture as conceived and practiced by the Indian middle class abroad and Thapar says” much of what one might call cultural or religious attitudes of the diaspora tend to have a very direct influence on the middle class here”. Spivak thinks there is a certain kind of unexamined unity coming in among the radical diaspora and she believes this solidarity is extremely frightening. Spivak thinks that India is a multi everything place which is ignored by Indians abroad. Spivak’s take on religion is both poetic and philosophic: one must make it a practice not to think of one’s own identity as the national identity.&nbsp;Spivak’s take on religion is both poetic and philosophic: one must make it a practice not to think of one’s own identity as the national identity. “I don’t even know whether one should think ‘India’ but if one does, one should think about Indians who do not resemble one at all” and mix it up as a Hindu girl seeking blessings of a Muslim saint as an unconscious gesture or accepting ‘Assalamualaikum’ as an Indian way of greeting just as Namaste is, so that somehow we begin to think not only of our own identity as the Indian identity.&nbsp;The two nation theory actually evolved from an elite perspective so Spivak points to the cultural differentiation that is more significant than class and caste. That the obsession with economic development did not pay much attention to language and religion, which is the cultural articulation of the nation, has apparently done much damage.&nbsp;<figure class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="border-width:0px;box-sizing:border-box;clear:both;display:block;height:auto;margin:15px auto;max-width:100%;padding:0px;vertical-align:middle;width:960px;" id="attachment_27349" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-27349"><img src="https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/image_32_1536x864_7a734ac578.png" alt="image-32-1536x864.png" srcset="https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/thumbnail_image_32_1536x864_7a734ac578.png 245w,https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/small_image_32_1536x864_7a734ac578.png 500w,https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/medium_image_32_1536x864_7a734ac578.png 750w,https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/large_image_32_1536x864_7a734ac578.png 1000w," sizes="100vw" width="undefined" height="undefined"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" style="box-sizing:border-box;display:block;font-size:15px;line-height:20px;margin:0px;padding:12px 0px 0px;text-align:center;" id="caption-attachment-27349">Nehru (left), Lord Louis Mountbatten (center), Mountbatten’s chief of staff Lord Ismay (center left) and Jinnah (right) negotiate the division of India in the capital of New Delhi in June 1947.</figcaption></figure>Question of economic growth is not merely Garibi Hatao but also social inclusion. The discussion elaborates on social inclusion, linking it to education, how it helps in questioning rather than it just being learning and knowledge. The focus now is not just on what the idea of India is but who has an idea of India. The discussion dwells on regional language and English: whether reading books in English might help in critical thinking. As in a conversation one often re-forms one’s thinking- Thapar reflects “it’s not true of every local language perhaps, there are people that are more analytical who are writing but I think that input from a different kind of intellectual tradition is always a very worthwhile input.”&nbsp;Complex questions regarding language and its status are asked in the text. The content of Education depends on who is controlling the content and who is financing education especially in a so-called secular state, two things, the content of education and civil laws are very important factors in the creation of India, the identity of the Indian and the kind of society one looks forward to. Regarding the uniform civil code which Thapar suggests in the question “Isn’t it time that we removed all individual laws of caste and religion?” Spivak asks who are the’ we’ which emphasizes the relevance of political interests in the defining of uniform civil code.&nbsp;Suggesting detranscendentalizing so that one conceives of religiosity as working even at the grassroots level, she points out, this can happen when religion is not mobilized politically. She relates an incident where she was eating Kurban meat with Bangladeshi Muslim women; they were poor and did not often get to eat meat. They were kind enough to worry about her as an upper caste Hindu eating meat. She says, “They are protecting my religion.” She explains that sometimes the self righteous missionary zeal in not teaching Christian scriptures to the natives, because they won’t understand the value of being taught the right way, is not actually access to secular education. She says that a certain kind of class mobility actually puts the lid on religious cultures. The emphasis is on who the decision makers, the ‘we’, are. As long as you had a reasonably secular state it was possible to have the content of Education not controlled by the strength and importance of local religious organizations.&nbsp;<img src="https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/Whats_App_Image_2024_03_27_at_13_11_07_f071333ddf.jpeg" alt="WhatsApp-Image-2024-03-27-at-13.11.07.jpeg" srcset="https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/thumbnail_Whats_App_Image_2024_03_27_at_13_11_07_f071333ddf.jpeg 245w,https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/small_Whats_App_Image_2024_03_27_at_13_11_07_f071333ddf.jpeg 500w," sizes="100vw" width="undefined" height="undefined">A very pertinent observation regarding development that Spivak makes is “Development is insertion into the circuit of capital, without any kind of training as to how to manage it. Forget the training to use capital for social ends: opening of Swayam Nirbhar bank accounts without the knowledge of how to open and manage them.” This is where ideas of development and language within development become significant.Thapar’s anxiety about cultures turning too inward looking and turning into one language communities without access to other cultures is answered by Spivak’s observation that the aboriginals that she has been associated with since 1986 were multilinguals, oblivious of the fact that they were. The Mundas and Oraons were also using each other’s language. She says this dialectical continuity; this multi-linguality on the surface is like the ecology of forests. Linguists are now acknowledging that those unwritten languages which we want to preserve are completely dialectically continuous, very multi lingual. Thapar worries about the absence of a comprehensive perception, thinking in totalities of economic growth, religion, education, language, law. She feels these interlinkages, fundamental to a society are nonexistent in the present. Whereas Spivak feels that success will come in other ways without the progressive bourgeois ideas of building societies.Though this book was published in a bold move by the Seagull publishers in 2024, this conversation happened in 2017, emphasizing the visionary muscle of the text.&nbsp;<h4 style="box-sizing:border-box;color:rgb(39, 39, 39);font-family:Manjari;font-size:18px;line-height:1.2;margin:0px 0px 15px;padding:0px;text-align:left;"><a style="background-color:transparent;box-sizing:border-box;color:rgb(247, 168, 16);display:block;margin:0px;padding:0px;text-decoration:none;transition:all 0.4s ease 0s;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://theaidem.com/author/zahira-rahman/">Zahira Rahman</a></h4>Professor Zahira Rahman taught literature for 25 years, occasionally writes poetry, does translations and paints in watercolours and oil. She holds a PhD in Theatre Education.</div></div>

A Tiny Book that Captures Powerful Idea(s) of India

Malayalam (ml)

Tamil (ta)

English (en)

Hindi (hi)

Telugu (te)

Kannada (kn)

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Dancing To Her Tune

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An Unwritten National Autobiography

<img src="https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/images_1_6258d15665.jpeg" alt="images-1.jpeg" srcset="https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/thumbnail_images_1_6258d15665.jpeg 245w,https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/small_images_1_6258d15665.jpeg 500w," sizes="100vw" width="undefined" height="undefined"><div class="post-body clearfix single-blog-header single-blog-inner blog-single-block blog-details-content" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);box-sizing:border-box;color:rgb(85, 85, 85);font-family:Manjari;font-size:17px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px;orphans:2;padding:0px;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;"><div class="entry-content clearfix" style="box-sizing:border-box;counter-reset:footnotes 0;margin:0px;padding:0px;">People who read literature in India knew him, MT Vasudevan Nair. Language was no hurdle for his works to reach out beyond the state borders of Kerala. While Malayali diaspora took a handful of nostalgia along to the places they went, a little bit of MT was also in that.Today, the big business of literature finds translators to translate anything that moves. All tetrapods of literature are given awards that stink of corporate imperialistic nexus. But MT belonged to a different era when blood recognised blood, genius recognised genius. He got translated not once but several times.Basheer, Takazhi and MT were the triumvirate that could transcend the borders and stand tall among the Indian modernist literature. Yes, MT’s literature also had a fair amount of auto-fiction but he hoodwinked it with the magic of text. He was a persuasive minimalist both in writing and in person.An unsmiling MT could generate generations of readers who could smile through tears. MT wrote about a collapsing social structure that divested the old feudal class with their ill-gotten properties. But their social capital remained intact and could exert a lot of influence among the readers by becoming the surrogate emotional ethos of a transition time of Kerala’s socio-political history.<figure class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="border-width:0px;box-sizing:border-box;clear:both;display:block;height:auto;margin:15px auto;max-width:100%;padding:0px;vertical-align:middle;width:1196px;" id="attachment_31084" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-31084"><img src="https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/mt_1024x575_251dd09907.jpg" alt="mt-1024x575.jpg" srcset="https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/thumbnail_mt_1024x575_251dd09907.jpg 245w,https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/small_mt_1024x575_251dd09907.jpg 500w,https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/medium_mt_1024x575_251dd09907.jpg 750w,https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/large_mt_1024x575_251dd09907.jpg 1000w," sizes="100vw" width="undefined" height="undefined"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" style="box-sizing:border-box;display:block;font-size:15px;line-height:20px;margin:0px;padding:12px 0px 0px;text-align:center;" id="caption-attachment-31084">MT during his Interview with Sabha TV (Watch <a style="background-color:transparent;box-sizing:border-box;color:rgb(255, 53, 36);display:inline-block;margin:0px;padding:0px;transition:0.4s;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NttnjeaVqn0">Here</a>)</figcaption></figure>When society evolved into a different being altogether, MT turned to the treasure trove of myths and itihasas to eke out allegories that explained the pain of loss, of class, roots and love. His literature spat on the face of bigotry, whether it was religious or familial. He was so stoically poised in his literature that none could have challenged him and expelled him from the world of literature.MT’s literature spoke of love and separation as vehemently as he wrote about the changing social complexions. But he was not sentimental. There was something in his writing that touched some chord in every reader. Before initiating themselves into Ambedkarite politics, the Dalit ideologues also, in their torturous nights of youth, pined for MT’s characters.Those who call the modernists, Dad Vibes, have really lost the sight of the forest while focusing on shrubs and thicket. MT was a forest that moved, as in the great tragedies. He remained a serious writer while the post modernists fell in the trap of publishers and wrote lightning stories and became laughing stokes.MT remains, so is the MT critique. That’s the beauty of a great writer’s life and of course, death.</div></div>

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MT: A Forest that Moved

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An ‘Overture’ Stringing The Pope, Yesudas and the ‘Songster Chaplain’

<img src="https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/1_cc9df0fe47.png" alt="വലതുപക്ഷവുമായുള്ള-സംവാദത്തിൻ്റെ-വ്യർത്ഥത-1.png" srcset="https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/thumbnail_1_cc9df0fe47.png 245w,https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/small_1_cc9df0fe47.png 500w," sizes="100vw" width="undefined" height="undefined"><div class="post-body clearfix single-blog-header single-blog-inner blog-single-block blog-details-content" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);box-sizing:border-box;color:rgb(85, 85, 85);font-family:Manjari;font-size:17px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px;orphans:2;padding:0px;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;"><div class="entry-content clearfix" style="box-sizing:border-box;counter-reset:footnotes 0;margin:0px;padding:0px;">When old age shall this generation waste,Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woeThan ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is allYe know on earth, and all ye need to know.” (John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn)<img src="https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/6_904b2e9f2a.jpg" alt="6.jpg" srcset="https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/thumbnail_6_904b2e9f2a.jpg 147w,https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/small_6_904b2e9f2a.jpg 470w," sizes="100vw" width="undefined" height="undefined">Siddharth Tagore, Founder Director of Delhi’s <a style="background-color:transparent;box-sizing:border-box;color:rgb(255, 53, 36);display:inline-block;margin:0px;padding:0px;transition:0.4s;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.facebook.com/artkonsultindia/photos">Art Konsult</a> Gallery is no more. He cannot be contained in such a cold statement, so matter of fact like death itself. Besides the gallery, he founded magazines such as Art and Deal, Travel and Deal and many other publications. Even when he knew that he wouldn’t make any profit out of the publications, he invested money in them because he knew art wouldn’t survive without the literature surrounding it.&nbsp;Yet another venture of Tagore’s was an auction house, namely Art Bull. The name was perfect for a bullish art market of the 2000s. But the glitch was this: Siddharth Tagore was not bullish. Nor was he bearish. He was cherubic, complete with a benign smile on his face and a burning cigarette between his fingers. Whenever I came out after having a meeting with him, I would ask myself, was he cut for this business?&nbsp;Tagore could have been a poet and dreamer like his internationally renowned namesake of yesteryears.. After the pandemic period I met Tagore after a gap of four years at the Visual Art Gallery, India Habitat Centre where Art Konsult had organized a group exhibition. After the inaugural function, I shook hands with him and I realized that his hands had lost the firm grip though the warmth remained. “I have not been keeping well,” he told me.&nbsp;<div class="gallery galleryid-31051 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-full" style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:30px -8.96875px 0px;padding:0px;" id="gallery-1"><figure class="gallery-item" style="border-width:0px;box-sizing:border-box;display:inline-block;height:auto;margin:0px 0px 1rem;max-width:33.33%;padding:0px 8.96875px 17.9531px;text-align:center;vertical-align:top;width:262.609px;"><img src="https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/c_768x993_a7cec9742c.jpg" alt="c-768x993.jpg" srcset="https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/thumbnail_c_768x993_a7cec9742c.jpg 121w,https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/small_c_768x993_a7cec9742c.jpg 387w,https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/medium_c_768x993_a7cec9742c.jpg 580w," sizes="100vw" width="undefined" height="undefined"></figure><figure class="gallery-item" style="border-width:0px;box-sizing:border-box;display:inline-block;height:auto;margin:0px 0px 1rem;max-width:33.33%;padding:0px 8.96875px 17.9531px;text-align:center;vertical-align:top;width:262.609px;"><img src="https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/b_768x985_3f8fb449e6.jpg" alt="b-768x985.jpg" srcset="https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/thumbnail_b_768x985_3f8fb449e6.jpg 122w,https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/small_b_768x985_3f8fb449e6.jpg 390w,https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/medium_b_768x985_3f8fb449e6.jpg 585w," sizes="100vw" width="undefined" height="undefined"></figure><figure class="gallery-item" style="border-width:0px;box-sizing:border-box;display:inline-block;height:auto;margin:0px 0px 1rem;max-width:33.33%;padding:0px 8.96875px 17.9531px;text-align:center;vertical-align:top;width:262.609px;"><img src="https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/a_7888f94e4b.jpg" alt="a.jpg" srcset="https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/thumbnail_a_7888f94e4b.jpg 121w,https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/small_a_7888f94e4b.jpg 385w,https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/medium_a_7888f94e4b.jpg 577w," sizes="100vw" width="undefined" height="undefined"></figure></div>Then on another occasion, at the same gallery, I met him again, this time without the crowd. He preferred to wear a pair of fading blue jeans and white shirt, a reminder of those romantic 1970s when every youth in West Bengal dreamt of poetry, love and revolution. Jeans and Shirt were the uniform of love and revolution. I think, when Tagore came to Delhi as a young man, he carried those qualities along, plus his sense of dressing. Lovers in those days smoked rather constantly and drank Old Monk Rum.&nbsp;On that day when I met him, Tagore told me that he had quit smoking, which was news to me. I couldn’t have imagined the man without a cigarette between his fingers or at least a packet of cigarettes to fuss with. I understood the gravity of the situation.&nbsp;Then again, we met when Praveen Upadhyay of the Progressive Gallery at Laddo Sarai organized a talk session with art professionals that included Tagore, Prayag Shukla, Vinod Bharadwaj and myself. Tagore was supposed to talk about the art market. When the mike was handed over to him, he fussed with it for a while and said that he always wanted to make it big by promoting young artists, but somehow, he never made huge business.<figure class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="border-width:0px;box-sizing:border-box;clear:both;display:block;height:auto;margin:15px auto;max-width:100%;padding:0px;vertical-align:middle;width:689px;" id="attachment_31054" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-31054"><img src="https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/7_768x511_149563fe01.jpg" alt="7-768x511.jpg" srcset="https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/thumbnail_7_768x511_149563fe01.jpg 235w,https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/small_7_768x511_149563fe01.jpg 500w,https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/medium_7_768x511_149563fe01.jpg 750w," sizes="100vw" width="undefined" height="undefined"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" style="box-sizing:border-box;display:block;font-size:15px;line-height:20px;margin:0px;padding:12px 0px 0px;text-align:center;" id="caption-attachment-31054">Siddharth speaking to the media at Art Konsult</figcaption></figure>Then I remembered Tagore telling the same during the market boom years that lasted in India for around ten years starting from 2005 to 2015. In 2008, the world market had collapsed, but the Indian art market using its cunning and reserve withstood the pressures and dragged the impending failure for a few more years only to revive itself by the beginning of the third decade of the new millennium.&nbsp;Had Tagore acquired a penchant for failure despite his resilience in running a gallery, publications and an auction house for over three and a half decades ? Did he enjoy calling himself a failure in the art market? Was he romantically involved with the idea of failure even when he kept others who were with him in the business, floating? I don’t know for sure. But Tagore remained grounded and rooted; he tried his best to keep himself away from the nefarious market practices.&nbsp;There were a few people who stood with Tagore in his highs and lows (lows that lasted for not some months but for years together), never deserting him, following his orders. Prashant Seal and Rajula Bisht are two people I remember. These two people have been so close to his heart and even after his twin daughters joining him in the business, both Seal and Bisht never lost their position as the confidantes of Tagore. He loved them like family.&nbsp;I met Siddharth Tagore in 1995. He had started Art Konsult in Hauz Khas Village. Meena Tagore (now Meena Varma) was with him then. Late Vijayan Kannanpally was the editor of Art and Deal. With the growth of art scene, Tagore’s gallery also grew in stature. Art Konsult was one of the few A listed galleries in the city. Tagore took it to South Delhi’s art district, Laddo Sarai during the boom years and later relocated it to Hauz Khas again.&nbsp;<figure class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="border-width:0px;box-sizing:border-box;clear:both;display:block;height:auto;margin:15px auto;max-width:100%;padding:0px;vertical-align:middle;width:562px;" id="attachment_31055" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-31055"><img src="https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/0_768x512_88eabd3bbc.jpg" alt="0-768x512.jpg" srcset="https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/thumbnail_0_768x512_88eabd3bbc.jpg 234w,https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/small_0_768x512_88eabd3bbc.jpg 500w,https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/medium_0_768x512_88eabd3bbc.jpg 750w," sizes="100vw" width="undefined" height="undefined"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" style="box-sizing:border-box;display:block;font-size:15px;line-height:20px;margin:0px;padding:12px 0px 0px;text-align:center;" id="caption-attachment-31055">Siddharth Tagore with art critic and curator Jyoti A Kathpalia at the Art Konsult, New Delhi</figcaption></figure>It was in his Laddo Sarai phase that I joined him as the Editor of Art and Deal. It was the same when he decided to start Art Bull and Travel and Deal. I brought out around ten issues of Art and Deal between 2010 and 2013, with a gap in 2012 when I joined the United Art Logistics to establish the United Art Fair. Tagore literally lent me to the other organization with a promise that I could walk into the editor’s office at any time that I wanted. And I did go back.&nbsp;As a part of Tagore’s team, he gave me full freedom to edit the magazine and curate exhibitions. I curated a few shows and introduced a few new artists of which some are very reckonable names in today’s art scene. The exhibition ‘Merging/Submerging’ was a showcasing of contemporary photography art and ‘R.A.P.E’ (Rare Acts of Political Engagement), an all-woman show responding to the brutal murder of Nirbhaya in Delhi. This exhibition was a super hit and was discussed in all the print and television media. Art Bull did do a couple of exhibitions and auctions. I did not take much interest in it though Tagore hoped that his auction house could change the scenario and also break certain monopolies. Tagore also initiated an Art History Lecture series which I conducted on his behalf.&nbsp;Siddharth Tagore remained true to his calling. With a kind of detachment, he sponsored exhibitions that he knew well, would not bring any business. He was an avid collector of folk and tribal art and together with Meena Varma, he initiated an organization called ‘Art of the Earth’ for promoting the folk and tribal art of India, much before the ‘folkploitation’ of today’s art market became rampant. Tagore helped whoever came to him with a request for an exhibition or an immediate financial relief. &nbsp;<figure class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="border-width:0px;box-sizing:border-box;clear:both;display:block;height:auto;margin:15px auto;max-width:100%;padding:0px;vertical-align:middle;width:640px;" id="attachment_31053" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-31053"><img src="https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/3_e1734762508660_669x1024_7c977a7959.jpg" alt="3-e1734762508660-669x1024.jpg" srcset="https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/thumbnail_3_e1734762508660_669x1024_7c977a7959.jpg 102w,https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/small_3_e1734762508660_669x1024_7c977a7959.jpg 327w,https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/medium_3_e1734762508660_669x1024_7c977a7959.jpg 490w,https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/large_3_e1734762508660_669x1024_7c977a7959.jpg 653w," sizes="100vw" width="undefined" height="undefined"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" style="box-sizing:border-box;display:block;font-size:15px;line-height:20px;margin:0px;padding:12px 0px 0px;text-align:center;" id="caption-attachment-31053">Siddharth Tagore signing the <a style="background-color:transparent;box-sizing:border-box;color:rgb(255, 53, 36);display:inline-block;margin:0px;padding:0px;transition:0.4s;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://amzn.in/d/4TijcgO">book</a> “Ganika- In the visual culture of the 19th-20th Century India” at the Art Konsult</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<img src="https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/4_560x1024_090314e000.jpg" alt="4-560x1024.jpg" srcset="https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/thumbnail_4_560x1024_090314e000.jpg 85w,https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/small_4_560x1024_090314e000.jpg 273w,https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/medium_4_560x1024_090314e000.jpg 410w,https://strapi.bangalore2.com/uploads/large_4_560x1024_090314e000.jpg 547w," sizes="100vw" width="undefined" height="undefined">When artists in Calcutta packed their wares and set out for Delhi, they knew Siddharth Tagore was there if nothing else worked (perhaps he was their primary destination), along with cigarettes and Old Monk Rum. He never discouraged the people who came to him with a clear intention to exploit. He was not cautious about relationships that brought him a fair amount of heartburn. As I said elsewhere, Tagore was a poet in his heart, with a heart ready to bleed for love and art.</div></div>

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