The Philosopher’s Stone

Interesting, so far? Unusual, definitely! But unease shadows even a willing reader from the beginning. Because, the foundation, you see, is built on sand. The triptych is not a great painting, despite Gandhi saying so, despite Mehta’s seniority. Panel One shows a slack and depressed huddle of bloated, distorted figures. Panel Two, in the centre, shows a decapitated head and its (severed?) hand in a mudra, with a pole (tree?) rising above it. At the base of this pole, a slack woman is being nuzzled by a goat and three sad figures loom behind them. To their left is another grotesque black figure topped by a double head (man-woman). Panel Three shows a terrified green double-headed figure presumably being hanged by an angry group of people, while three others are seated nearby in attitudes of shock.

It is derivative to an embarrassing degree, from European masters like Picasso and Matisse. It is, moreover, typical of Mehta’s generation: neither a fresh way of seeing nor being. It’s nice to have the richness of Hindu myth popping frequently in and out of the narrative, But to have Gandhi ramble on about the painting’s Upanishadic or advaitic meaning and its resonances of svaraj (self-realisation for both the country and the individual) is a surreal and macabre experience. Sample this: “God or Self as father sees no not-Self and is willing to substitute for the goat marked out for slaughter, and demonstrate to another child of his (a deeply camouflaged, obscured, self-image), the executioner, that annihilationist anxiety and pervasive peace both literally lie in our own hands…” (and that’s not the end of the sentence yet, by a long haul).

Or else: “So, Anjali, the reunion of Shiva-Shakti and Shunyata is resurrection as self-realisation, svaraj. Spiritual traditions are also Self- self-images; and may their interconnectedness have the blessings of Sri Ramana Maharishi and your good wishes and prayers.”

And so it goes on remorselessly, through thirty-four chapters, postscript, notes, references and glossary. There are many visuals, of Tyeb Mehta’s own work, of his “inspirations” (Picasso, Magritte and others), photographs of Ramana Maharishi, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Arunachalam. One wants to weep in sheer frustration. Here was yet another splendid chance for our elders to talk to us, to share their insights meaningfully. And what do we get? The last march of the dinosaurs, the utter mediocrity of woollyspeak. Why can’t they make sense to us? Why do they burst to smithereens, showing off to a ghost-gallery of goras? Why can’t they leave great ideas from Yajnavalkya and Adi Shankara alone, instead of trying to make them a philosopher’s stone to turn dross into gold?

Just this January, I asked Dr Kapila Vatsyayan, “Why did your generation mess it up for us, Ma’am?” “Because we were still not free inside,” she shot back with commendably brutal honesty. I rest my case.