B.N. Goswamy - Conversations: Indias Leading Art Historian Engages with 101 themes, and More

This is a book of little essays among which there is no order; no logical sequence; no given theme connects the pieces; they also appear dated perhaps. Why, then, one might legitimately ask, would anyone be interested in reading them? And why are these called Conversations, anyway? Conversations between whom?

I do not have answers: at least not such as could be called satisfactory. All I know is how I came to write these pieces, these slight sketches of large subjects. They were published as independent, stand-alone columnsover a quarter of a centuryin the premier English newspaper of the northern part of India: The Tribune, published from Chandigarh. I clearly remember the day when it all began. The year was 1995 and it was somewhere in the middle of that year. The then chief editor of the newspaper, Mr. Hari Jaisingh, invited me, friendly-fashion, to his office for some odd consultation about a theme that he was working on, and in the midst of it, suddenly, as if without forethought, he asked me if I would write a regular column for them: once a week, on any theme connected with art, but meant for the general reader, not any specialist. I was a little taken aback: not that writing on art, outside of my profession as an engaged art historian, was something alien to meI had been reviewing art exhibitions in the paper for years, and apparently he knew that well; but this was something different: a regular column requiring the discipline of producing something week after week, on no given theme in hand. And this was to come on top of my other responsibilities as an academic, considering that I took my teaching and research rather seriously. I decided to probe the idea a bit, however. Mr Hari Jaisingh paused, said something, and paused again, as if trying to give formal shape to the idea that he had come up with. From those shared musings, the one thing I remember is that it was his desire to expand the constituency of readership in art matters. Readers want to know, even learn a bit perhaps, but there was nowhere for them to go, certainly not in the newspapers, as he put it. So, anything, anything at all, written free of jargon, untouched more or less by heavy scholarship, clear of complex formulations, would be of value, he said. I liked the idea but went quiet for a moment, and then said, more to myself than to him, that I will come back if I am able, without much stress, to think in this strain of a hundred subjects to say something on.

The next day, I surprised myself for, as I sat down to draw up a quick list, it did not take me more than fifteen minutes. Ananda Coomaraswamy came calling, as it were, as did William Archer and Gautam Sarabhai and Mulk Raj Anand; I thought of the Guruji of the Kudiyattam troupe at Zurich, and of the visit of the Prince of Wales to India; the projecting eye of Jain painting flashed in front of my eyes, so did the thoughtful, care-worn mien of the emperor Akbar; I could see myself having tea with Kakuzo Okakura at one moment, and, in the next, gazing with wonder at that axis of the universe, the mount Meru, which Assamese painters of the past had conjured up in their imagination. I knew then that all this was not beyond me, and I let the chief editor know, agreeing to his kind suggestion, but with the rider that I will write every fortnight, not every weeksince I had other things to do too; will choose my own title for the series; and add some visual content to each piece. That is how it all began, and it has not ended yet, for I have, till date, contributed more than six hundred columns to the newspaper by now. What appears in this book is a selection. The standing title that I chose for the column was Art and Soul, taking two letters out of Heart, but adding Soul, since I did not wish to find myself too hemmed in. This addition gave me the opportunity to look at things happening around me and add an occasional comment, although untouched by malice for the most part.

As for the title of this bookConversationsmost of these I keep holding with myself about each theme that I pick, constantly weighing my approach to it so as to make things accessible while striking a balance between information and comment: lafz-o maani mein tawaazan ki nihufta aarzoo, as the poet Josh Malihabadi said once about the very essence of poesie. These short essays mightjust mightopen for the reader like an accordion book. Privately, I have been told several times that they do, if one is not looking for things that range from fishy unicorns and pre-Raphaelite wombats to Japanese folktales and Russian Walt Whitmans, as someone said.

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For being able to publish so many columns over a sustained period of time, or for having a book such as this take form, I turned to kindnesses, at various levels, and these I have received in rich measure over the years. My first debt naturally is to The Tribune, Chandigarhto its trustees and its editors and staffwhich carried all my columns. Since 1995, when the first pieces appeared, the successive editors-in-chief of the paper, beginning with Mr Hari Jaisingh, and those that followed himMr H.K. Dua, Mr Raj Chengappa, Mr Harish Khare, and now Mr Rajesh Ramachandrancould not possibly have been more friendly or more supportive, nor could Mr Roopinder Singh, deputy editor. It was a pleasure to work with, and through, them, and I remain grateful. I am grateful at the same time to colleagues at Penguin Random HousePremanka Goswami, Gunjan Ahlawat, and Binita Roywhose untiring efforts have given this book the shape that it bears now.

I have to thank a vast number of institutions, and individuals, without whose help nothing could have proceeded perhaps. The institutions upon whose holdings I have depended, and whose courtesies I have leaned upon, include the Sarabhai Foundation and the Calico Museum of Textiles, Ahmedabad; the Queens Gallery, London; the Government Museum and Art Gallery, Chandigarh; the San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego; the National Museum, New Delhi; the Muse Guimet, Paris, the Museum Rietberg, Zurich; the Allard Family Collection, France; the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto; the Cyril and St. Methodius International Foundation, Sofia; the Goenka Academy of Music and Art, Kolkata; the British Museum, London. The Kamarupa Anusandhan Samiti, Guwahati; the Louvre, Abu Dhabi; the Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata; the Rajasthan Oriental Research Institute, Jodhpur; the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Virginia; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Jagdish and Kamla Mittal Museum of Indian Art, Hyderabad; the Kansas City Museum of Art, Kansas; the Arts Council of Pakistan, Karachi; the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, Mumbai; the Samvegi Jain Upashraya, Ahmedabad; the Mehrangargh Museum Trust, Jodhpur; the Museo Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon; the Kupferstichkabinett Staatliche Museen zu Berlin; the Khuda Bux Library, Patna; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; the India Office Library, London; the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland; the Tapi Collection, Surat; the HSBC Bank Collection, Mumbai; and the Indian Cultural Studies Project, Mumbai.