I should like it known here, right here, at the beginning of this piece, that I am telling you about what happens inside me when I discover a well-loved artist has done something terrible. I am not saying that this is what you should be thinking or doing. I am all for personal freedom in all matters and with the arts, the only thing that matters is freedom. We cannot be made to love what we do not love; we resist strongly. In Dil Chahta Hai (Farhan Akhtar, 2001), Akash (Aamir Khan) and Shalini (Preity Zinta) go to the opera and he yawns. Opera, the film wanted to say, is not for everybody. Two rows down, perhaps a viewer was swept up by the music and was having a transcendental experience.
Two rows ahead, another viewer was listening with his mind, picking holes in the exposition of an aria. But that yawn was funny, it was smart, because it said: Akash Malhotra is free to dislike this art form because it does not speak to him and he is not burdened by the notion that appreciating opera is a sign of cultural sophistication.
This is what we struggle with, all of us, who have any relationship with the arts. Perhaps it begins with some kind of pretension: we want to be known as people who appreciate art, we want to be known as connoisseurs, aficionados. We walk in the footsteps of others, reading Coomaraswamy and Gombrich for art, or Leavis and Barthes for literature, and we go into museums or bookshops ready to adore T’ang pottery or Proust. Sometimes we are shocked into stillness, into a dazed appreciation of something much larger than our experience. Sometimes we are surprised: This? This is what the fuss is about?
Denne historien er fra August 11, 2024-utgaven av Outlook.
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Denne historien er fra August 11, 2024-utgaven av Outlook.
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Criminal Amnesia
The focus may have now shifted to the Kolkata gang rape case, but questions about the sexual violence in Manipur since May 2023 remain unanswered
To Rape A Wife
Survivors of marital rape face twin hurdles: a lack of legal framework to deal with these cases and the social stigma that comes with reporting them
A City Violated
Public outburst of anger over the rape and murder of a junior doctor in Kolkata has left the Mamata Banerjee government puzzled, worried
The Forest of Loss
From a legal perspective, justice appears to have been served in the 2017 Gudiya rape and murder case at Kotkhai, Himachal Pradesh. But several questions persist
Here, Nobody Speaks of the Wounds
Muhammad Iqbal Shah's 14-year-old cousin was gang-raped and murdered at Handwara town, Kupwara, in 2007. The family is still trudging along the long road to justice
She Must Have Been Afraid
The 2012 Delhi gang rape is reflective of a systematic failure to cleanse the societal malaise
The Burning Woman
UP has the highest rate of crimes against women, and the district of Unnao has seen some of the State's most gruesome cases
Naked (vs.) Justice
On March 14, 2006, Latabai and her son, six, were paraded naked in a village in Solapur. Less than six months later, four members of a Dalit family were paraded naked; mother & daughter were allegedly gang-raped
Songlines of Chambal
How do the residents of Sheikhpur Gudha, Phoolan Devi's village in Uttar Pradesh, remember her: as a survivor, a rebel, a leader?
Don't You Remember My Story?
A child gang rape survivor's 12-year long ordeal in Sikar, Rajasthan shows how calls for punishment of perpetrators don't always mean empathy for the victim