Bazaar Artist and Bollywood

'Gallery Artists' is a term familiar with the art community in India. Maybe it is used in other parts of the world too. It refers to the kind of artist who crafts art to suit the taste of a Gallery. Knowing the buying patterns and tailor making art - not a bad idea, if selling is the only motive. In the process the artist is led by the buyer, he brings his originality down to make himself understood and accepted by his lesser mortal customer.

There's a certain crudeness and spontainity in the early works of many movie makers that l appreciate. 'Mean Streets' by Scorcese is an example, so is 'Repulsion' by Polanski and 'Blood Simple' by the Coen brothers. Though big names today, their highly polished later works have taken away the 'leanness' that I look for, that doesn't mean the height of abstraction of Godard is what I long for. 'Breathless' is lean but not 'La Chinoise'.

The Gallery Artist, inspite of being reminded by his conscience that he shouldn't wallow too much into troubled waters, is still an original artist, after all. But look at the next category that society has given us!

They are called the 'Bazaar Artists'. Very accessible! Bollywood, Tollywood, are you listening?

All things lean and beautiful

Strange it may sound, a phrase like that coming from a man who belongs to the southern tip of India. The only place in the world where one finds actresses with fat thighs of the proportion of columns, which can make Samson piss in his pants. But inspite of the Southerners penchant for such grotesqueness, deep within, many admire the leanness (minimalism) of Robert Bresson, Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Albert Camus. This is an attempt to share my love for the lean movies, lean books and lean Jazz, though many disagree Jazz as lean! Physically lean, at a 47 kg (inclusive of the weight of my shoes) I too ogle at those flab queens, ocassionally. Maybe that's why they say-society shapes a man!