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Artist Profile: Jayasinhji "Bapa" Jhala
A collaboration between Serendip and Painted Bride Art Center,
Jayasinhji "Bapa" Jhala
She opens the doors and lights a simple silver lamp. She looks upon the
pantheon of dieties then closes her eyes and sits. The deities look
upon her. There are many dieties and ancestors before her. In the
middle and closeup are two little statues of Banke Bihari and Radha
that she bought in the perfumed streets of Brindaban a few days ago.
Banke Bihari is black in gold robes and his Radha is golden in red. I
sit and watch my daughter at worship.
Time goes by. I see my Angma’s face glisten in the light and the lamp
flame plays across her face. Imperceptibly the statues of Krishna and
Radha begin to glow. This glow radiates, the glow envelopes Angma. She
begins to glow. She appears to grow . Her posture becomes straight, her
head tilts back, her eys open and focus beyond the walls of the room.
It is a heroic pose, confidence radiating outwards in light.
Irridescence of rainbows encircle her as the walls dissolve. There is
no house, nor is there the outside of wind, cold, earth, trees and sky.
Instead there is a new space, a cosmic space, in which everything
floats in secure certitude. The nautilus shell that Richard gave is the
effulgent sun in the east, the floating antler that Elizabeth picked up
near Pack mountain is now the cresent moon in the south. The carpets
expand and rush to the horizons. The Tibetan rug releases alpine
Himalayan blossoms of yellow and blue , that sway. The Persian carpet’s
flowers explode in organised riots of color and scent. Water gardens,
perfumed gardens, gardens where leafing, budding, flowering and wilting
all play with a delicious and delicate exuberance. The paintings
detached from the walls have become gigantic screens and floated away
to take up positions at all points of the compass. They hover above and
below and on the horizonless orb. The once frozen figures in the
paintings, are mobile, playing out the scenes in a slow motion
celestial pantomine. The mad elephant rushes at the three princes and
the goddess looks on. The Budha sits under the hornbill tree careless
of the shuttle cock that is flying from Renny to Johnny Da, while my
mother-in-law reads, Aroti weaves and Buri combs Rakhi’s hair. Long
strong stokes through the black lusterous hair that glints in the
tropical sun in which the red footed crab blazes.
The yellow love-bird nuzzles Liluye’s neck as she looks
on intently, piercingly alive in the magic. Ducks fly calmy in the sky
above, while galloping princesses below ready their hawks on their
delicate porcelean wrists, their jewels and their bright clothes flying.
These domestic views of extended experience, lifting and flying recede,
to be replaced by great washes of light, accompanied by the tremulous
music of bells of rain drops in waves of expanse, rippling, racing,
curling and racing still. In this immensity turbulance accentuates
calm. Majesty plays, majesty is dancing.
How long did this last? I do not know.
My daughter closes her eyes. The great worship is over. The cosmos is
again immense and remote and I am again the little speck, a human
father of the magician. The world of Gerry Street returns to its
everyday quiet. Angma folds her hands to the gods, she bows to the
divine players. She closes the doors of the puja and rises to make us a
cup of tea.
From the Wingspan of the Eastern Horizon
from the curving edges of the north and south, it came.
This luminous light of red and gold, brilliant and mesmerizing, it swept towards me and my heart was enthralled.
My heart was duped by the sheer wonder of it,
Its inescapability of light power engulfing, encompassing.
Penetrating with a warmth that had a hook,
a hook of doubt, within the splendorous bath of light.
It swept overhead majestically, from eastern horizon to western horizon
while the sun stopped to watch its gradual progress in the white sky above.
Its march measured the days it took for the partridge eggs to hatch,
and it was gone the day the partridge covey broke their shells
and entered into experience.
This wave of luminescence has not left me.
Its edge has not dulled by remembering.
Thinking back
It was stony shinny hard, an unforgiving stupefying invasive presence,
A light doubt filled with the saliva of a corrosive doom that reappears unexpectedly, without warning, anytime.
In the laughter of my wife, the laughter of my daughters, in the voices of my brothers and in the gestures of my friends.
Premonition of gloom that reminds, robs the embrace of its warmth, the smile of its pleasure and the certitude of being of its foundation.
It is not a fear but an unease that is pervasive
That is pervading
Radiating from the center of moments of contentment.
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