A Perfect Invocation That Evoked The Essence Of Essence

OutlookIndia

Listen to excerpts from Outlook's India, Trapped issue by Pragya Vats  #Israel #Gaza #Palestine #Uttarakhand #Uttarkashi #Tunnel #WestBank #Jerusalem

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00:00 I am Pragya and I bring to you excerpts from the current issue of Outlook titled "Trapped"

00:06 that looks at two cover stories, one where poor migrant workers trapped in a tunnel make

00:12 it alive after 17 traumatic days, the other for the Palestinians trapped in Gaza, the

00:18 ceasefire may be short-lived before the next round of attacks by Israel.

00:23 The other cover has illustration of the olive tree, a symbol of Palestinian culture and

00:30 resilience.

00:31 The Palestinian poet in exile Mahmoud Darwish has always used olive tree in his poetry.

00:37 Lines from his poem, "The Second Olive Tree" reads, "The portrait for the olive tree is

00:42 neither green nor silver.

00:45 The olive tree is the color of peace if peace needed a color."

00:50 Over a million olive trees have been uprooted by the settlers in occupied Palestine since

00:55 1967 to build new settlements according to Harid's newspaper and other agencies.

01:02 A perfect invocation that evoked the essence of essence by Amrit Gangar, a Mumbai-based

01:09 film critic, theorist, curator, historian and author.

01:14 He pays tribute to B. N. Goswami.

01:17 For decades, B. N. Goswami gently held our finger and walked in search of an essence

01:24 of essence, a pure bliss.

01:27 Silent in the field, a butterfly was flying.

01:30 Then it fell asleep.

01:31 Brijendanath Goswami walked gently, talked gently, silently when he bid adieu to our world

01:39 on the morning of November 17, 2023.

01:43 The sanata, the silence, befell the universe of art, its history and the ways of its interpretation.

01:50 At 90, his presence was precious and present.

01:55 He left us as if, while listening to Kumar Gandharva's self-composed bandish in raag

02:01 Shuddha Shyam, silent in the field.

02:04 "Moi bulaye ke puchona re, ajab reet tero hai ga re.

02:09 Samajh na pare uljhayo re, ka kasur mero hai ga re.

02:14 Call me and at least enquire about me.

02:18 Strange are your ways.

02:19 Instead of making things easier, you complicate them.

02:23 What is my fault?"

02:25 In Amit Dutta's extraordinary short film, The Museum of Imagination, A Portrait in Abstentia,

02:31 on Goswami, we see him sitting in solitude, listening to the great vocalist he was long

02:37 fond of.

02:38 Though I was fortunate to have met the legendary art historian in person, listening to his

02:43 erudite and yet accessible Vrijender's speeches a couple of times and through reading of his

02:49 books, my direct and intimate contact with him has been through Dutta's two films besides

02:56 Nain Sukh.

02:57 Among the other two films, one is already referred to above and another is Field Trip,

03:03 their references intended.

03:05 Goswami incessantly and rigorously prodded the process and pursued it.

03:11 His quest was to capture the essence of essence.

03:15 In the film, The Museum of Imagination, we see pages from a book with paintings on one

03:20 side and their interpretations on the other.

03:24 Among several examples, one provoked the title of my homage to the great scholar Goswami

03:30 who described the painting.

03:32 The very picture of devotion, bare-torsoed, head bowed, legs crossed and hands folded,

03:39 Jayadev stands at left with the implements of worship placed before the lotus seat of

03:46 Vishnu, who sits there, blessing the poet who wrote this perfect invocation that joyously

03:53 evokes the essence of essence.

03:56 For this and more, read the current issue of Outlook.

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