Vandalisms

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 Webster defines vandalism as:

 "willful or malicious destruction or defacement of public or private property"

Good! But someone said that one man's Vandal is another man's Sculptor.

So, what you deem artistic may look like vandalism to RKN who wrote a piece titled: The Vandal (of modern times). So it is a very personal thing. Tinsel restoration of old temples in partial ruins with cement and brick and aluminum paint is vandalism to RKN. It may be a proud achievement to the Municipal Contractor and Engineer and their Minister. Putting unfading crepe flowers in vases in homes is another unseemly sight to him. He says:

"Each individual is free to draw up his own list"

So, here are a few things which make me cringe and so I deem vandalisms. Obviously you won't agree with me but there it is.

Old time vandals broke statues. I would cheer them and invite them to Hyderabad.

There are very few things that I detest as much as public statues. I find there is something ridiculous about them. They are so lifeless. And so frozen. And so difficult to maintain. In our hot and humid and dusty climate they look ghastly covered with bird-shit. Even the Happy Prince wasn't all that happy with his statue. Paintings and pictures are different...they are easily cared for. They have a glow that no statue I saw ever had. 

I first visited Hyderabad in 1974. And walked to the famous tank bund of the lake Hussainsagar. It was such a thrilling sight. I never saw so vast an inland lake before (Chilka is different...it is sea). The sight of such a huge placid water body among rocks and hills was so soothing.

By my next visit to Hyderabad the damage had been done...an unseemly Buddha statue (next in height only to the late lamented Bamiyan Buddha) came up right in the midst of serene water (see the pic above). Buddha resisted the installation of his cheap imitation and fell down plumb in the water and was lying there prone for many years...but the politicos who conceived it moved heaven and earth to stand him up.

Another eyesore was the B. C. Roy statue (tiny bust) in the midst of the huge Lovers Circle at IIT Kharagpur...to thwart impending lovers like a scarecrow.

The next act in my list of vandalisams is driving nails into walls to hang framed pictures and calenders. The process as well as the result offend my senses. Nino however was looking forward to moving to the house he built with the sole purpose of driving as many nails in his own wall as it could stand. I differ from Nino here. When my son told me that the apartment complex in our upcoming gated community where we booked a flat uses the latest German technology, I was lukewarm...German tech meant to me the Nazi dumpers and bulldozers.

But when I saw and touched the walls in my room I was the happiest...they are made of solid concrete...no bricks (solid or hollow). It is impossible to drive nails in my walls with a poker and hammer. To make a hole in the wall we have to use a power-drill...not the ordinary hand-drill but a Hammer Drill that goes wracking in and out as well as round and round. And we have to call the technician and it costs Rs 50 per hole...good!

The next act of vandalism in my list is covering the paperbacks one buys with newspapers, brown papers or calender pages. All the penguin paperbacks I bought in the 1960s and 70s had beautiful cover pictures. And I read and re-read them but never covered them...for, seeing the cover was so much an integral part of the fun of reading them...like an unveiled bride.

But someone had borrowed my Penguin Dorothy Parker and returned it after covering it with brown paper and sealing the cover with glue. So I didn't bother to tear it off for all of 40 years. A couple of years ago, I took it out of my bookshelf after a long while and was wondering what its cover looked like...I did remember it was a nice picture. So, I had to tear the cover very very carefully and lo and behold...this is the lovely cover that slipped my memory...her pen's nib rising up from her smoky fag like the head of a serpent with its forked tongue ready to spew venom.

Please see next blog for the picture

Auld lang syne!

I end my sleepy list here and go to bed...good night!

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