Red, blue and yellow are the basic colors. Or so did we learn in school. Give them various permutations and combinations, and you have the myriad shades of the planet–some emotional and active, some soft and passive, some warm and enthusiastic–taking birth.
Our education was flawed.
Thankfully, Niraj Jain from Baroda has been around to educate me and the world. No sir, there is only one basic colour in the universe: saffron. The most fundamental, potent, luminescent, strong, adamant, obstinate color ever. EVER. In fact, Prof Jain’s Psychosquabble Theory of Colour Perception and Jainetic Disorder postulates that there is no other color in the world at all apart from Saffron.
No, he is not talking about the color of Swami Vivekanand’s attire or the color of his Vedantic teachings. This also is not one of the colours in our national flag; that color of courage and sacrifice. It absolutely has nothing to do with the color of the Buddhist monks’ robes or the colour of their non-theistic philosophies. That must be a different color.
Jain’s Saffron is a brand new color concocted and developed by this team of some extremely enterprising academicians from Gujarat, including the Research Associates par excellence Dr. Babu Bajrangi, Prof. Amit Thaker and Dr Manoj Soni (er, the last person happens to be a real Professor!), under the guidance of the Department Head, Dr Narendra Modi, in the labs of Godhra, Vadodara and Ahmedabad.
Typically, when you mix two colors, the process leads to the evolution of a new color. The marvel of Prof Jain is different. This colour, when added to any existing palette, leads to destruction, annihilation and extinction. Of principles, ideologies, beliefs, opinions, values, theories, isms, people, personalities, properties, and what have you. Brilliant! The Nobel Committee is waiting for you, Sir, visibly impressed by your explorations with Saffron across everything surrounding you.
If you don’t subscribe to his experimentations, he may just get you to jail. That is what happened to Chandramohan, that poor student from the Faculty of Fine Arts, The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara. Or he may just render you jobless. Ask Dr. Shivaji Panikkar, the Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts.
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And why, pray, should anybody protest against what Jain is doing, in any case? He is not a cheap, third grade road-side goonda, out to get some free publicity through his shallow, rotten and unscrupulous acts. He is an educationist, a scientist and an artiste.
For all you know, his non-clinical trials, though done with clinical precision, may lead to something good, plus or minus a few art galleries, art works and artistes. Hitler died a happy man, didn’t he, despite his philosophies? So our dear Professor has every right to continue with his Jainocide. Dr Modi would agree.
Obviously, Jain has reasons to object to Chandramohan’s works of art and give them his trademark saffron hue. Why must Prof. Panikkar, a lowly pedagogue with a history of 20 years of education – books, papers and generations of extremely devoted and dedicated students – be a hindrance to his theories? What does he know about Art, huh!? And what do those artistes across the country think they are up to, remonstrating against Jain and his fraternity? They are all friends with Hussain, that Mussalmaan painter who draws nude figures of Hindu gods and goddesses!
So what if there are representations like Lajja Gauri (www.shunya.net/ Pictures/ South%20India/ Badami/ LajjaGauri.jpg) or Lakulisha (www.exoticindiaart.com/ artimages/ lakulisha_sm.jpg) in Indian Art? Prof Jain is going to set that right as well. He will physically knock down all these works of Art, burn Khajuraho and demolish the Sun Temple at Konark á la the Bamian Buddhas. Post that, he will strategically paint each and every figurine from the Hindu pantheon collected over the last 5000 years. Only then would he rejoice.
Time now to displace the tongue so firmly placed in the cheek. Are things really this bleak, the alert reader would ask? I am afraid that my answer may just be in affirmative.
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Despite the sliver of modernity and rationalism seemingly counter-balancing the effects of Jain & Co., the situation is depressing, indeed. Check this out with any student or teacher of the Faculty of Fine Arts or the staff of Star News or Hussain saab or Aamir Khan or Deepa Mehta or Shabana Azmi or Shilpa Shetty or Raima Sen or Khushboo or Sania Mirza or Rahul Dholakia. You will get your answer.
Yeah, for every VHP, there is a VH1, for every RSS, there are RSS feeds hitting your computer screens, for every BJP, there is a BSP. But for every Niraj Jain, there are his ten thousand clones across the country. Subverting, suppressing and sabotaging any voice questioning them. And the powers that be are keeping quiet, more worried about their vote banks than our very basic rights.
This is real, and is happening in our own space. Jain’s ilk continues to grow. And prosper.
What next? There are 500 more students at the Faculty of Fine Arts still out of jail. The man has his job cut out!
(The author, Vaibhav Vishal, is Director, Program Development with MTV Networks India Pvt. Ltd. The views and the angst expressed in this article, stemming from his 4 years of graduation spent amidst the idyllic surroundings of the Faculty of Fine Arts, are his own.)
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