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    • arjuna-vallabha: “FLAMING FEET - Opaque watercolour on paper, 261/2" x 22 ½", 2014 A story told by a old lady mentioned in one of D R Nagaraj’s article mentions a world where everything happens wrongly but still the people who go there of fantasy...
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    arjuna-vallabha:

    FLAMING FEET - Opaque watercolour on paper, 261/2" x 22 ½", 2014

    A story told by a old lady mentioned in one of D R Nagaraj’s article mentions a world where everything happens wrongly but still the people who go there of fantasy accept it to be right. That was the inspiration for the painting.

    The kings of the earth enters the world of illusion where the ghosts rule. There they are enslaved and are made to function badly but they accept it as a matter of pride and virtue and believe it is the right thing. The kings in the picture carry the burden imposed on them with their heads up. The palanquin carrier is symbolised for the enslaving. The gholstly polulation of the land is not right and behaves odd as shown against gravity upside down. The entire world is not right. The tree with foliage and fruits symbolize life and the vinca rosa plants signify death (flowers of cemetry). In that world all between life and death happens upsidedown, yet the enslaved walk on fire bearing the burden having high esteem believing they are walking on a bed of flowers.

    We hear various stories where Dalits are denied justice of which the story of Nandanar being burnt is a very prominent one. The arch of Nataraja with the flames decorating it is shown to mark the event. As Ambedkar seeks to Buddhism as a solution the transformation is metaphorised by the arch represented as an arch of flame based on Buddhist iconography, flaming around the slippes of Mahathma Gandhi (the one which was in news recently auctioned).

    The makara/crocodile motif shown in the base of the Nataraja arch means a cool state where the fire is timid while on the other side it is ablaze sans makara metaphorising the intensity of the flaming transformations.

    A mythical pair of birds (andaranda pakshi / Bidh-bidhatha ) is often told in our folklores as the birds which are our ancestors or the ones which can foretell our fortunes. Here the fortune of the future is an anticipated bloom which is foreseen by the ‘andaranda pakshi’ pair.

    Art ant text by Balaji Srinivasan

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