Sabir’s World; A Conflicting Existence Between…

- Vishal Tondon

Translated by Google

Sabir Ali's is a crowded world in which peoples from across different places and epochs are brought together as time gets crunched. Here time does not move in a linear fashion; it moves in cycles. Or to and fro. Unlikely elements come together to form a tableau, and the effect brought on is similar to that of simulation. Events and characters are associated metaphorically or allegorically. But the choice of the metaphors is not traditional; we live in a postmodern world where the whole of history is crunched, and any representation of the present conditions will have to call for a new inventory of images that will have to be culled either from our physical surroundings, or from mediatic or virtual worlds, and finally even from our subconscious.

A Conflicting Existence Between...

Thus the world Sabir represents will have to negotiate between the known and the unknown, the simulated and the ‘real.’ How real is real, will be a subject of interrogation for Sabir. In his canvases, ‘real’ people act out in ‘real’ spaces, ‘real’ circumstances and ‘real’ relationships. The phenomenological concern with reality, which has interested and even obsessed the humanists as well as the anti-humanists throughout the twentieth century, finds its visual equivalent in Sabir’s canvases. It is clearly intentional that most of the protagonists on his canvases live under the illusion of self-determination. While they live under the glad misunderstanding that they are players in the game of life. Is it not possible, Sabir suggests, that they are nothing but pawns in this game? Their notions of self determination are quashed by the situations Sabir places them in.

In the painting 'A Conflicting Existence Between...', we see an instance of consciousness as being causally constructed. The concept of the nation state as propagated by the nationalist machinery might not have takers in all of the country. Nationalism and separatism might be the synonyms for the same word ‘freedom’ for the different parties.  

Consider the figure of Van Gogh who recurs in Sabir’s paintings. In ‘Translated by Google’, the life story and the writings on Van Gogh’s achievements are transmuted into a jumble through a literal and mechanical translation. Human affairs cannot be subjected to such reductionist readings; an opinion that later anthropologists have reiterated time and again. All such a method would lead to is a pastiche of visuals and information.

But the figure of Van Gogh interests Sabir also in relation to readings on life and death. Van Gogh has a lust for life and he hopes to capture its reality on his canvases. But he is confronted by a sense of the unreality of the world, and the only emotion he seems to trust is the one which involves a risk of death. Van Gogh failed miserably to find happiness in his personal life. He is confronted with what he believes to be the mortality of all emotions, and the belief that what is real is that which involves the risk of death. Could this be the reason Van Gogh has famously said, "You have to risk your life to make a good painting." Contemplation on death becomes a passionate involvement; not a melancholic one. To deny death is to deny life.

The very neurosis that compels Van Gogh to cut off his ear also ultimately compels him to shoot himself to death. The compulsion is authentic, a testimony to his tortured nature. Every moment of his life is lived on the edge of the precipice from where he could plummet into an abyss deeper than the one he lives in. But he is not afraid. He takes on life with threats of effacement. The quintessential artist to Sabir is entrusted with the task of living the negotiation between life and death, and between what is timeless and what is mortal. Death as the consistent truth and the fate of every living being attains a quality of timelessness in Sabir's work. It traverses the epochs of The Annunciation, down to the medieval times – in Spain where we confront the massacre of the innocents as depicted by Goya, and in India where we confront a dying Inayat Khan – and finally down to our contemporary times where The Annunciation is linked to ominous symbols of death as in ‘The Good News’.

The Good News

‘The Good News’ again throws light on the capriciousness of human consciousness. What is purported to be good news for a people might actually be to the benefit of another. The promise of freedom comes as the promise of a new birth into a community. The angel – read an American soldier – delivering the ‘good news’ or promised freedom to an Iraqi woman is in a patronizing and superior position. The distinctions between good and bad, and real and unreal are blurred as the world hurtles towards disaster as suggested by the bomber plane flying above the figures.

The Luncheon on the Grass

In 'The Luncheon on the Grass,' everyone is a philosopher. They all, including the ass, have expositions to make, and their vulnerability is hidden delicately under the cloak of their knowledge as flimsy as a slip of cloth. The modesty they hold with regards to their knowledge is covered in negligees that are their black socks. They indulgently enunciate their empty verses, oblivious to the threat of mortality lurking in the background – burning bright adorned in black stripes – languidly approaching a beautiful woman whose life is under the threat of being snuffed out.

Detail. The Luncheon on the Grass

Does not the preoccupation with death foreclose any attempts at emancipation through human intervention? Does Sabir subscribe to the anti-Humanist view that man is ultimately doomed and can only be a pawn in the game of life? How does Sabir counter his apparent fatalism? It seems to me, he does so by suggesting a closer inspection of how we construct our myths and beliefs around the concept of death, and what these myths and beliefs say about us. Ultimately, what he suggests is self-introspection. 

Marich Vadh

The harshiya, the ornate border or mount that enclosed many of the miniatures from the Mughal Period, recurs in their modern avatar in Sabir's acrylics. Miniatures with harshiyas have often confounded those trying to study the miniatures from Mughal times. They could be either purely decorative, or an extension of the theme in the painting. What is of Sabir's interest is that many of the harshiyas are later additions to the original artwork; a tampering and modification of a story that was signed and sealed to its conclusion in the past. Do the techniques of such later additions tally with those of the original artwork? From a long shot, we would say yes. But closer inspection would reveal otherwise. History is a long process of the assimilation and trenchant equalization of disparate elements into classes, genus and species. So what we really see now in Sabir's painting is a relic of a harshiya. It is represented in a new medium; acrylic on canvas. It is only in his more iconic images like 'Marich Vadh', that the harshiya expands unhindered, and encloses the entire central image, thus fulfilling its traditional function. Otherwise, it is relegated to the task of creating ambiguities in space, and along with other elements like crevices and moors, building a tapestry of planes on which scenes are enacted. As for it’s more important and symbolic functions, it serves to bring disparate time zones in close proximity, as it diligently brings disparate cultures into the confluence of a narrative. Thus the dying Inayat Khan is covered in a sheet that carries a shoddy imitation of the masterpiece 'The Death of Saint Francis' by Giotto. In a world where the importance of events and historical objects has been equalized without regard to their individuality, mechanical reproduction brings the past and the present, the high and the low, and the East and the West together. It serves Sabir's purposes well that the Orient and the West can be brought into such proximity. The crux that holds these unlikely elements and peoples together in Sabir's work is their shared struggle to survive and their posture in the face of death.

The Dying Inayat Khan 1

In Sabir’s painting here, Inayat Khan is being compared with Saint Francis. What might appear to be an irregularity to most is to Sabir a valid comparison. Saint Francis' life is, as the legends go, a lesson that life can be more than a mere rehearsal for death. Legends also testify that Francis, at the end of a period of prayer and meditation, received the stigmata; symbolic wounds representing his identification with Christ. Earlier medieval representations of Saint Francis emphasized on his mystical aspect. Giotto reverses the emphasis and shows the saint to be more human and corporeal. Giotto's touch of humanism is a tribute to the saint who had a great humanizing influence himself. Sabir draws the image of the dead saint into the loop and juxtaposes it with that of the dying Inayat Khan the latter years of whose life were nothing more than a mere rehearsal for death. But there is dignity in Inayat Khan's acquiescent wait for death. A favorite courtier of Jehangir, he has brought on an untimely death unto himself by his addiction to opium. And now he reclines pensive – his body tattered while his face is resolute – looking death in the face and patiently waiting for it to take him into its fold.

The figure of Inayat Khan is an allegory for the reign of Jehangir, famous for its artistic outburst as well as for its decadence. Jehangir was a true connoisseur of art. He encouraged the artists from the imperial atelier to record the pomp and colour of the court, their hunts, battle, elephants, women, generals and slaves. As an irony of fate, Jehangir himself, in his later years, would become addicted to wine laced with opium. His slip into debauchery would mark his lapse into a failed administrator. The latter years of his life would become an allegory for the state of the Mughal Empire which would ultimately fall apart. Thus Inayat Khan becomes a metaphor for the condition of the Mughal Empire in his time.

The Dying Inayat Khan 2

Significantly, the figure of Inayat Khan is also an allegory for the conception the East has of death. Death is often equated with glory in the Middle East, and with liberation in the Far East. These traditions also equate life with misery. In India, this belief owes largely to the concept of life negation, initially brought up by Buddhism, and later assimilated into Brahmanism. By medieval times, centuries of inculturation with the Indian way of life and the impact of Sufi thought had infused into the Indian Muslim psyche a romantic acceptance of death as the liberator. Inayat Khan’s stoned eyes stare death in the face, but he looks placid and resigned to his fate. Sabir has painted another version of ‘The Death of Inayat Khan.’ At the corner of this painting, a soldier from Goya’s ‘May 3rd, 1808’, depicted as an angel of death, shoots out of the frame of the canvas at either a mortified Spanish insurgent, or at an indifferent Inayat Khan.    

You Have to Learn How to Eat a Dead Zebra to Survive

Death as the ultimate reality is a recurrent theme for Sabir. So is his interest in studying the nature of reality itself. The title for Sabir's painting 'You Have to Learn How to Eat a Dead Zebra to Survive' sounds like the tagline to a reality show. How real the reality shows are is anybody's guess, but yes, life is a struggle where fight or flight are the only two options available. “To eat a dead zebra” has connotations beyond the implied physical act itself. Sabir draws the word 'dead' again into the loop. The obligation to devour – whether literally or metaphorically – is accepted as natural. The very social structures built to sustain life, can in the process of growth and advancement, turn into a sarcophagus for the unfit. An allegory of Mother Nature?

You Cannot Control Life with a Mouse

Also, our consciousness is jolted when we are snatched from our familiar situation and thrown into the ‘wilderness.’ The painting ‘You Cannot Control Life with a Mouse’ gives countenance to our real feelings and intentions, which we do not excavate and examine as we go about our everyday ‘real’ lives. The protagonists in these reality shows begin to behave selfishly in a bid for survival when confronted with adversity. A woman is unable to rescue her drowning boyfriend – for whom she had professed undying love – for fear that her lifeboat might upturn in the shark-infested waters. In the supposedly unreal situation of a reality show, an uncomfortable truth about human nature is brought to the fore. In our ‘real’ everyday lives we do not examine these truths.  This canvas shows a mirror to our insecurities and selfishness that we are in our everyday lives able to contain under the surface; ‘real’ emotions like love get transmuted into apathy under the pressure to survive.

Detail. You Cannot Control Life with a Mouse

Reality as we understand is thus not within our control. The reality of today need not be the reality of tomorrow. Words get transmuted, as through the process of cloning, as they mumble out of the apologetic girl’s mouth. The notions of love get transmuted for the drowning man as he is abandoned to his death. The word ‘love’ has often been used in the same breath as the words ‘life’ and ‘death.’ In real situations, “love until death do us apart” finds its true meaning. Cynicism? Maybe. But then Sabir is only reflecting on what his consciousness has led him to believe might be ‘the reality.’

  My Friend Gautam Who Never Finished His PhD When He Fell in Love with a Japanese Girl

“My Friend Gautam Who Never Finished His PhD When He Fell in Love with a Japanese Girl” explores one of the key ideas of cultural theory, of hybridization. This is the emergence of new cultural forms as a result of multiculturalism. But the process of hybridization is uneven. And any fair evaluation of a culture at a given point of time would have to be based on a diachronic view of the system, that is, through time, as events or processes. The mere structure called ‘colonialism’ is not sufficient to understand the world of meaning in human behavior, of which interpersonal relationships and cultural expression are being discussed here. Gautam is reading Gibran. The sitter for Gautam’s girlfriend in the painting is not Japanese, but Korean. Japanese print technique is saddled up side by side with western realistic portraiture. But there is a message here. Love dynamizes the colonial structure by taking into account the speaking subjects – in this case the protagonist and his ‘muse’ – and their unconscious experiences.

Thus we see that an underlying spirit of humanism runs through much of Sabir’s work. The beings caught within the real and the unreal can let out nothing more than a scream of existential angst and come to terms with their ever-changing situations. Or they can, in a more pacifist way, muse poignantly in the face of death and long for a romantic reunion with God.