There are two personalities of Ramkinker Baij available to us, today,
in the first decade of the twentieth century. The first one is rather
simplistic. In the sculpture departments of art schools of
India—perhaps in all of them—he is present there as an eccentric,
emotional and hence intense artist whose works appear to be the only
reason for his eccentricities and his lifestyle . It is the second or
third generation of his followers, now professing in teaching
sculpture, who would ascribe him as an example of an artist ‘intensely
involved in creative expression’ as if there is no life for an artist
beyond creating art and if it does, it is as if not of much
importance. The ‘ process’ of his work is what is stressed in such
cases. There ends his importance as an artist or rather, ‘the means
becomes the end’. However, who is it that categorises that “Ramkinker
(according to practicing artists) is a means misinterpreted as the
end”? A theoretician? Perhaps not.
The ‘final analysis’ of his works, is, by and large, is left to the
consideration of theoreticians (by the practitioners) as though art
and its history are two different aspects. The former considers the
latter only as an ‘attachment’, a catalyst and hence outside
itself–in the case of Ramkinker. The latter considers the former’s
notion as fictious and empirical, incomplete. Both the fictious
empiricity and ‘conclusive’ theorization are, actually, two kind of
(only) ‘constructs’ about the artist. Metaphorically there are the two
Ramkinkers who have been available to us, till date, by and large.
This would continue to be so, if there is no further intervention
beyond these two constructs. These two Baijs are available to us
chiefly from ‘within’ the institutions of power structures.
The second personality of Ramkinker comes to us through the
theoreticians*1*, mainly located ‘within’ the power structure of
Tagorean Bengal province, a district within which the artist himself
hailed from. From a birds’ eye view, what the academic practitioners
of theory of sculpture in art schools teach is endorsed, legitimized,
rectified and put into an order that can be easily termed as mature
analysis of his works. For these theoreticians Ramkinker outside his
works occupy a ‘silent zone’. There are more than one, perhaps
multiple meanings that can be assigned to this silence regarding his
personal lifestyle. The theoreticians don’t want to evoke his
‘presence’ beyond his creative abilities, whose products are
literally crumbling within the megalithic structure of Bengal school.
The man between his childhood and genius is submerged in this silent
zone.**
The two Ramkinkers available are both artists. My concern is to find
out whether there is a third Ramkinker outside the available
constructs and possibly beyond any kind of constructs at all. If
he—the third Ramkinker da exists—how is he available to us, that too
beyond the bounds of he-as- representation through (a) pedagogical
spoken narratives and (b) verbal, formal analysis?
There is a problem with the existing Ramkinker. The possibility and
limitation of the capacity of the pedagogicians (both speakers and
writers) is also the outer limits of such represented dual-Ramkinker.
If and when such a representation continues—which seems to continue,
for various reasons–he will continue to be visible to us as a whole,
even before he is constituted through these two media. That is why we
know Ramkinker who fits into that romantic biographical models a la
Vincent Van Gogh*
Thus the Ramkinker that we know today is the RK who is a dual
‘construct’. Kant’s notion of neumina, for instance, should help us in
the belief of the existence of the artist even beyond his
already-always-representations.
*
I would like to depict the third Ramkinker through a story. It is the
story of a novel, “Odalaala” (literally meaning the ‘depth of the
tummy’ and actually means ‘from the innermost self’) perhaps the
shortest novel in an Indian language*. The novel by Devanuru Mahadeva
in Kannada is the story of a hungry, poverty ridden family. A family
member brings in a sack of groundnut in the dark of the night, out of
nowhere. The ‘bring’ in the previous sentence might or might not be
a theft. Yet the police follow, lock the door of their house from
outside and awaits reinforcement. When the police check the whole
house, dig and search in darkness, what they find is the ‘absence’ of
any evidence of theft. The only evidence of the theft is seen on the
poor people’s face—happy, contempt and sure about the lack of evidence
of a theft. It is a
Amongst these two, the first one is more legitimized, endorsed and is
accountable. The second point is basically used as a point of
inspiration, more than anything. The difference between the two
Ramkinker lies exactly here: a defined artist as against an ever
altering artist whose inspiration is due to the presence of his spirit
within the speaker, at that point of time and space. The two
Ramkinkers are also a product of an age old preoccupation of the
philosophers till date: the spoken and the written biography.
Is there a third Ramkinker, who has not been spoken about or written
about? This is a tricky question within which lies another question
that doubts the assured nature of art writing and teaching, today, in
the pan Indian context.
I would like to place three Indian artists belonging to three
successive generations, who could be termed as eccentrics, bohemians.
But if one starts questioning the base of such categorizations, we
will realize that we are definitely being pro-intellectuals which also
means that we are definitely ‘sympathetic’ to whom we are terming as
eccentrics and bohemians. Ramkinker Baij, J.Swaminathan and
R.M.Hadapad are the three artists that I am mentioning, in an order
which many might accept as the one that moves from popularity to
anonymity.
Has there ever been an attempt to tell the story of the ‘other’
through their own terms? The subaltern, the natives etc., are already
attempts
FOOT NOTES:
*1* K.G.Subramanyan, Janak Jankar Narzery and R. Siva Kumar are the
major theoreticians who legitimize the eccentric personality of
Ramkinker, from within the premise of rational and logical. However,
these three writers hail from mutually different backgrounds that
keeps alive a tension between their writings in English, their earlier
life experiences and mother tongue that creates various, often even
deviant frameworks for them to view Ramkinker. (a) An autobiographical
reference, (b) a first person enquiry of these writers are the two
things that are pushed into the ‘silent zone’ by them
not fully addressing them. The annual ‘Nandan’ issues are the prime
sites of references for students of art regarding this artist. So it
is a definite patriarchal, hegemonic order that creates a silent zone
within which several, often mutually contradictory anecdotes that
could help one to ‘visualise’ Ramkinker better is what has been
negated by the writers.
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