Human, All Too Human

We are changing constantly, with the sins of yesterday being the stigmata of today

- Jerry Pinto

I should like it known here, right here, at the beginning of this piece, that I am telling you about what happens inside me when I discover a well-loved artist has done something terrible. I am not saying that this is what you should be thinking or doing. I am all for personal freedom in all matters and with the arts, the only thing that matters is freedom. We cannot be made to love what we do not love; we resist strongly. In Dil Chahta Hai (Farhan Akhtar, 2001), Akash (Aamir Khan) and Shalini (Preity Zinta) go to the opera and he yawns. Opera, the film wanted to say, is not for everybody. Two rows down, perhaps a viewer was swept up by the music and was having a transcendental experience.

Two rows ahead, another viewer was listening with his mind, picking holes in the exposition of an aria. But that yawn was funny, it was smart, because it said: Akash Malhotra is free to dislike this art form because it does not speak to him and he is not burdened by the notion that appreciating opera is a sign of cultural sophistication.

This is what we struggle with, all of us, who have any relationship with the arts. Perhaps it begins with some kind of pretension: we want to be known as people who appreciate art, we want to be known as connoisseurs, aficionados. We walk in the footsteps of others, reading Coomaraswamy and Gombrich for art, or Leavis and Barthes for literature, and we go into museums or bookshops ready to adore T’ang pottery or Proust. Sometimes we are shocked into stillness, into a dazed appreciation of something much larger than our experience. Sometimes we are surprised: This? This is what the fuss is about?