workshop weekend / pune / on beauty

i am too exhausted to describe each of them so i will just list the june workshops for this year. surabhi’s double displacements of migration stories, nancy’s art theory/criticism and mansi’s performance/installation/conceptual art. all interesting and the students did seem to enjoy them.

then there was pune where the 6 groups working in developing 6 different approaches for the improvements to slum areas were at loggerheads within as philosophies and work ethics clashed. confidence was interpreted as arrogance (and it often was) while politeness was interpreted as stupidity (which also it often was) meanwhile in that fairy tale bubble of a school where everything is ‘pinky-ponky and girly girly’ (according to a faculty member) blue curtains with yellow flowers sway in the studio space while inspirational messages on mirrors prod the young girls to a future married to nice upwardly mobile young men preferably in the us of a. stars on a map list the places that these international alumni have reached. the girls unfortunate enough to still be in india don’t get such a pride of place on the courtyard wall. as faculty members and students play pool in the courtyard all day romantic and uplifting bollywood tunes blare from a set of speakers.






ben and me went on an eating spree between getting traumatized by the frictions in between the kids at the usual haunts- good luck café, german bakery, zamu’s and one new Bengali place.

zadie smith’s ‘on beauty’ kept me company in the little time spent in the room provided at yashada. i spent all of today as it rained madly outside with her characters - full blooded and alive on the page. new resolution as a result of the weekend or blanket statement number 35 – less irony, more faith! (considering what I have written earlier I don’t think I have been very successful so far)