meethapani

From Image to Icon Photographer Alberto   Korda   captured an image of Che Guevera at a funeral of workers in Havana in 1960. Rejected by the editors of the " Revolución",   it hung in his apartment unnoticed for seven years. A few months before Che’s execution, the Italian businessman turned socialist, Feltrinelli requested a picture of Che. Korda gave him his favourite picture.   Within days of Che’s death, Feltrinelli sold millions of Che posters. The following year in 1968, the Irishman, Jim Fitzpatrick, designed the now iconic black-on-red   Che poster. A very average looking man had been turned into a smouldering revolutionary legend, inspiring social activists across generations and nations from Bolivia to Baluchistan. Allen Ginsberg said ““Whoever controls the media, the images, controls the culture.” Marketing and advertising people are well aware of this and use it as the cornerstone of communication and campaign strategies.   However t...

The Lotus and The Rose Two invasions had a profound impact on India –the Aryans who gave India Sanskrit and the Vedic religion and the Muslims who established Indo-Islamic Culture.   While the political impact may have faded away, both cultures have seeped seamlessly into the daily lives of Indians, both altering and being altered in the process.   Muslim expansion only took with it the Quran and Arabic, adapting and developing the existing cultures they found. India was no exception. As Reginald Massey puts it, the Lotus had met with the Rose.   Koine, a Greek word that means common or shared , is often used to describe the cross fertilization of cultures in the Muslim world   - soldiers and traders from different lands, combining of languages and lifestyles. Urdu emerged from a mix of Turkish, Persian, Arabic and now English, with a   Sanskrit grammar base.   Muslim invaders brought Islam to India, but, along with Islam, they brought Chag...

Humour The digital networks teem with jokes, satirical videos and memes, from politics to the absurd new world leaderships. Humour is a coping mechanism that can balance out overwhelming circumstances, neutralize aggression and heal relationships. It is also a means of expressing criticism of society that escapes social or legal restrictions.     The court jester could get away with saying things that an ordinary critic would be beheaded for. With the end of traditional kingships, the court jester transformed into the stand-up comic, holding the mirror to society’s weaknesses Dark “gallows humor”, coined by the Germans during the 1848 revolutions for the persecution of liberals is, as Antonin Obrdlik says “an index of strength or morale on the part of oppressed peoples” . Humor can be used as a weapon for mass resistance.   The Italian’s used the slogan   “ Una risata vi seppellirà ”, during protests against the Ancien Regime, which translates as “It w...

Re-thinking Education The 1200 plus acres of the arid campus of University of Karachi magically turn lush green after the rains, hidden seeds become beautiful flowering plants, dragonflies mysteriously appear   and puddles teem with tadpoles. Teaching art feels pretty much like that: a little watering and amazing talents emerge.   Training in the creative arts by their nature must focus on self-realization and expression of the inner voice.   According to psychologist, A.I. Krupnov, self-realization, one of the aims of all education, is best achieved by persistence. While creative education assumes the student’s self-regulated persistence, many academic programmes are standardized, prescribed and inculcate passivity. If, as George Bernard Shaw says “intelligence forces us to learn”, this lack of engagement can only stem from the methodology of teaching or perceiving the content as irrelevant to the student’s future life. Many seek higher education degrees, ...

Turning Thoughts into Action Social media allows a platform for ordinary people to express their opinions. Many go further and share the actions they have taken usually in the social sector such as the Robin Hood Army or Roti Bank, Fixit, and Transparent Hands However, it is also true that shelves of university libraries, and research centres are filled with amazing studies and reports and inventions that rarely cross over into the world of policy makers or manufacturers. A lot of intellectual activity becomes an end in itself. In his paper, From Thought to Action, Jonathan Dancy asks can theoretical reasoning lead to action? Or does it only create a set of beliefs and intentions? Even if action    is not the intended result of thoughtful reasoning, at the very least it needs to be shared outside the inner circle with the aim to inspire action. Philosophy and art are expected to play a quieter role as influencers, rarely expected to turn their observations i...

“The Beautiful Sorrow of Things” I like movies with happy endings. Sadness sends me into a panic, as if I will never get out from under the weight of it all. Yet I have to admit there is an arresting beauty in sadness. Tragedy, sadness, melancholia, anxiety, and even ugliness has generated some exquisite art, music, films and theatre over the centuries. Sometimes tragic events are shown with objectivity such as the Death of Marat by David, sometimes the internal angst of the artist comes through with stunning effect such as Van Gogh’s Starry Night – the view from the window of him room in the mental asylum. In his essay ‘Atrabilious Reflections upon Melancholy’ (1823), Hartley Coleridge (son of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge) praised melancholy as a more refined state of mind than happiness: “Melancholy is the only Muse. She is Thalia and Melpomene. She inspired Milton and Michael Angelo, and Swift and Hogarth. All men of genius are melancholy – and none more so than...

ART AND EMPATHY Empathy has become the hot new subject for social scientists. A relatively new term coined in 1909, it is defined as the ability to put oneself in another’s shoes. More than sympathy – feelings of compassion, or pity for the hardship of others-   empathy is the ability to feel as the other feels and may be followed by some form of action – to support, assist or simply be available. It is identified as a fundamental skill in a world where businesses cross continents, migration brings cultures in proximity to one another, and religious polarization generates wars with devastating consequences. Not restricted to humans, empathy also informs environmental policies to achieve human “progress” without destroying nature and animal habitats that are shrinking with alarming speed. The creative arts - Literature, Cinema, Music, Art, Dance - have, since the establishment of human societies, gifted society the opportunity for empathy.   Empathy gives people th...