MARKET FOR CONTEMPORARY ART

BIKASH CHOUDHURY

It is said ‘Odisha is the land of Art & Architecture’ only in speeches. Recently visited an art camp and exhibition at Jayadev Bhawan organized by ‘Together’ a forum of creative artist and supported by house of TATA; it was evening time and there were hardly any visitors apart from a few students of fine art from Bhubaneswar. Needless to mention there were repertoires of art on display from eminent artists and from students on various shades and techniques on many facets of life apart from the main theme-women issues. Such public apathy of art and artist is unpardonable, largely due to lack of encouragement from the state govt., few sponsors from local Industrial Houses & Business, little appreciation for art by rich & famous residents of Bhubaneswar city & across Odisha and few real connoisseurs of art and craft in political & bureaucratic leadership. All this have conspired against shaping a nascent art market in the city and therefore has not rekindled substantive public interest in art exhibitions which remain poorly attended events. Media has restricted itself to just reporting of art exhibitions and other related events; while its mandate were for shaping the public opinion on art and promote creative artist of the state. During the rules of monarchy the art, architecture and culture was actively promoted by the then rulers and their family as often they had deep personal interest on the subject. However, in our time the Member of Parliament and legislative assembly; who have replaced the ruling class of our history either ignore or don’t encourage art & artist due to lack of personal & family interest and moreover, that does not constitute any potential vote bank to be pursued with cash or kind. How do we create a vibrant market for contemporary art in the city of Bhubaneswar? First of all we need to create awareness among school & college students for appreciation of art and simultaneously develop a taste for art; which would later transform into genuine public interest in art & architecture. Art lovers across the world agree that art has the potential to change the attitude of mankind, inspire new ideas & ideologies in other creative pursuits and also drive innovation in science and technology. All developed societies have espoused the cause of art and artist at all times. Therefore, people in our city, social groups, business organizations, non-govt. organizations and our state govt. should pioneer the cause of promotion of art and artist in the city in the larger interest of socio-economic progress of the state. For a change individuals and organizations in the city should try to invest a certain portion of their surplus resources in buying art works every year; that could encourage artist to travel to the depth of their consciousness and experience to put art on the canvas to make us and our society much richer. No army has ever marched on an empty stomach neither any artist could display his excellence without optimum resources funded by market. And, market is mostly driven by ‘Glamour Quotient’; it is possible to create an aura around the Art & Artist taking a cue from IPL in sports. But, you will need a passionate sponsor and promoter of art like Lalit Modi in cricket. Our city has plenty numbers of business men turned politicians, media barons & bureaucrat turned political party boss, Eduprenures of Global reputation  and mafia turned businessmen with very deep pockets who can have an image makeover by giving a leg up to the art world of Odisha. Our state Govt. could become biggest investor of art in the beginning; apart from facilitating to showcase the very rich Odia School of art & architecture in mature markets like New York, London, Paris and Dubai. Any takers?  

#Flat No: 105, Kalpatru Nivas Apartment, Swarnapuri Road, Patia, Bhubaneswar-751024 India Mob: 9853426657 E-Mail: streben.marke@gmail.com Twitter: @ ideasofhope       

AGENDA FOR THE NEW PREMIER

Bikash Choudhury

Forty Five days from now a new premier would take office at South block in New Delhi after the election result were public on 16th May 2016 with a complete mandate to lift this country from gross despair and desperation. Country has already found itself an astute and market savvy central bank governor in Raghuram Rajan who has started to put bricks to strengthen our financial system and monetary policy for the larger goal of macro economic stability. But, it would be the call of new premier and his Govt. to set the direction of the economy with their proactive decisions and management of bloated bureaucracy in central govt. to meet the expectation of people. Therefore, it is interesting to speculate about the agenda of the new Prime Minister. For a change the new prime minister could choose to have a principal secretary from industry than from bureaucracy; some body like Indira Nooui, as much for symbol as for the substance. A person of Nooui’s ability could help the new prime minister to execute his agenda oblivious of bureaucratic log-jam if any; further, she has no mean global reputation for performance with purpose which could be her single most contribution to the new govt.

Further, if the new premier wish to recoup the looses of past sixty plus years in sixty plus months; then, he should know that well enough----it is impossible to deliver in such a scale alone; he would need a team of four deputy premier to help him execute his vision while giving the premier the time and space to select the Strategic Direction from time to time. That should also help to evolve a loyal and committed core team while balancing the administrative necessity of large country as ours and political expediency of personal political ambitions of his senior colleagues in the cabinet. It would be also imperative to leave behind the bitterness of hard fought general election campaign and move to build a National Consensus on the Strategic Direction for the country. It is possible to bring about a consensus on “India the Global Economic & Political Power of 21^st Century”. The new govt. and the opposition could break bread while discussing over the finer points of such a proposition. The new Govt. is going to inherit a litany of issues from a virtually defunct, dysfunctional and at times an impotent predecessor govt.; however, the new Govt. could wisely choose five to ten items for a fast drive in 1^st year that would have multiplier effect in other sectors. In my opinion ‘water’ remains central to our life and civilization and therefore it should be on top of our hit list; that should look after the conservation, augmentation and management of water that alone would have a great impact on our Agriculture & Agriculture productivity apart from Dairy, Fishery and Water transportation sectors. The other important issues could be ‘women’, ‘infrastructure’, and ‘ease of doing businesses’ and ‘connectivity in land, air and in the seas’ and ‘policing’ and many others. It is very important for the new Govt. to be straight with its people and communicate regularly what it propose to do and how? This should transform the hopes of millions of young people in India with concrete result on the ground. Hope is in the air for a better time for all of us.

#Flat No: 105, Kalpatru Nivas Apartment, Swarnapuri Road, Patia, Bhubaneswar-751024 India Mob: 9853426657 E-Mail: streben.marke@gmail.com Twitter: @ ideasofhope      

     

TEENAGE SUICIDE

Bikash Choudhury

There was a late night mobile call which I could not attend due to deep slumber or due to painful sleep disorder on the heat of scorching summer which has hit many of us very badly. Next day morning there was a call to inform that 13 year old son of a close friend committed suicide for doing poorly in his 7^th class examination. This was as shocking to me as it would be for the readers of this esteemed news paper. I visited my friend with family to console and to find out what went wrong and if it were possible to save another precious and innocent teenage life? What we gathered from our visit was that the boy Pintu (name changed) was slightly introvert for his age and he had no real friends except his parents and he was very good at studies apart from being a very good looking and an impressionable boy, having a room to himself where he probably fiddle with gadgets apart from studies. He was also very keen on digital photography. He just had shifted to a new school with better reputation in the city and some how he could not do that well in the exam and his score came down by 30% from his old school; which created heart burn for the child and may be a little for the parents concerned. Within four days of the school result Pintu took his life in his thirteenth year. This may not have been an easy decision for the boy; but, his academic reputation in the joint family and among the peer groups was so much so that he did not find life worth living for. Is this a teenage decision? The information age of today and social networking overdose has made millions of teenagers in schools half baked adult and rub their child hood the wrong way. Further, dime a dozen Reality Soaps in the small screens have infact made scores of teenagers the real bread winners of the family. Some times the Parental greed and in some cases the impact of demonstration effect has created its own mirage of instant success story of beach side bungalows, fast cars and the liberty of globe trotting in first class comfort; and, that have created immense pressures on the tiny heads in our contemporary society. Some times it hits us with very unusual incidents of teenage suicide which is rare but growing incidents could be routine next; if it were not addressed properly. The solution remains with Parents at homes and Teachers in schools; children are very good imitators like a monkey and they are easily influenced by what they see in their parents and hear from teachers in schools. I guess Parents would be little more cautious with their kids keeping in view their Information Age rather than real age. And, avoid thrusting upon their unfulfilled aspiration on children; as that would eventually be counter productive for a holistic growth of a person and personality. Teachers should henceforth held themselves responsible for a healthy harvest of good and responsible citizens by impressing upon the students about life beyond success and temporary failures as those are events in a long span of productive life to learn and move on with life for greater and gross public good. Can we prevent another teenage suicide happening in our neighborhood?

#Flat No: 105, Kalpatru Nivas Apartment, Swarnapuri Road, Patia, Bhubaneswar-751024

Mob: 9853426657 E-Mail: streben.marke@gmail.com Twitter: @ ideasofhope            

HOW TO DEPLOY SUMMER VACATION FOR QUALITY LEARNING OUTCOME?

Dear Mrs. Usha Padhee,

With reference to recent news report about inauguration of smart class rooms in 5000 Govt. schools recently. This is some thing unprecedented and achieved in very short time. Kudos to you and your team who conceived and executed the program.

I wish to suggest the following to Improve Quality Learning & Encourage Leadership in Students Community.

1. Very Very Bright Students could be deployed as Teachers in rural areas for two-four weeks to teach(MATH, ENGLISH, SCIENCE,GEOGRAPHY, HISTORY) those interested and bright students of rural areas. Apparently, we could improve the learning outcome from class I-Class X where we can't provide Quality Motivated Faculty and at the same time we could give opportunity to  'Students Teachers' in Leadership by exposing them to Work and Rural Landscape/Urban Areas who could not otherwise afford the cost.

THIS COULD BE A LOW COST SOLUTION FOR OUR STATE VIS-A-VIS THE CHALLENGES.

2. Summer Camps can be organised in Schools for a week for those students who are interested and those teachers wish to volunteer with interest. In Sports, Fine Arts, Music,Creative Writing, Story Telling. Corporate Resources can be sought to augment the human & material resources for such a program.

THIS SHOULD IGNITE CREATIVITY AMONG STUDENTS WHICH NORMAL CLASS ROOM INSTRUCTION AT PRESENT UNABLE TO CAPTURE.

 Hope you will explore the possibility of doing a Pilot Project to assess the cost vis-a -vis the return before implementing the project in the large scale in this summer vacation.

Thanking you.

Kind Regards,

Bikash Choudhury
9853426657

AAP—A GREAT BETRYAL

BIKASH CHOUDHURY

AAP party generated unprecedented interest among people and therefore spread through out the country in a very short time and many outstanding persons from various walks of life have joined them and created hope for corruption free good governance with committed delivery. But, unfortunately, AAP and its leaders have managed to become drama queens or item number girl the next door. They complained too much against every thing and every body and offered no solutions. Kejriwal says his party would corner 100 seat in Lok Sabha and no party would have the numbers to form a Govt. and his party would not form the Govt. neither support any other party and he himself does not wish to be the Prime Minister if his party voted to the power. Our constitution has provision of Presidents rule in the State but not in the Central Govt.; therefore, his utterance seems to be utterly childish or plain irresponsible. His 49 days Govt. in Delhi gave ample demonstration of their potential for great anarchy. AAP apart from being a bunch of liars; they are also hypocrites of highest order. As they have been past master in saying some thing, doing another and still think of some thing totally opposite of their thought and action. But, they have managed to garner a significant amount of support on the streets and have very committed workers in many parts of the country; however, the future looks very bleak for the party as they would likely to meet the same fate as countless Anti Corruption Crusaders before them like V.P.Singh. Corruption targeting is important but it is also very important to gather the thoughts to govern the country efficiently. Those who have been lionized by the media have suffered the mortification of its ire if they do not play by the rules set by themselves; shifting goal posts continuously can’t be an option and holier than though approach would prove counter productive. End of the road for AAP if it does not change its irritable, illogical and at times uncouth approach to Politics. Millions and millions of Indian people had very high hopes from AAP; but, it has grossly betrayed them all.      

SMART FUND RAISING

BIKASH CHOUDHURY


Reaching out to 800 million electorates in 2014 general election and
for three state assemblies prove to be a Herculean task for the top
National & Regional Political parties in the country whose numbers
could be between 50-100. If the task was not difficult enough the fund
raising to meet the cost of reaching out to voters in the election
season makes the task really daunting and certainly not for the
chicken hearted. Earlier Political parties raised funds from their
members, legislatures, parliamentarians and business houses; but, now
the demand for political funds is far out stripping the supply with
mushrooming of political parties. AAP, the first political party in
the country which is following the foot steps of USA by organizing the
fund raising with 'dinner' with its top leader. There can be other
innovative and socially appropriate methods of Political Fund Rasing
in a transparent manner; however, copy & paste and reverse engineering
have now been the forte of Indians and Chinese. Here I wish to toast a
novel method of Political Fund Rasing which could also be equally
appealing to the donors.

                                                  Political Parties
could now raise substantial amount of funds from high net worth
individuals (HNI) and even corporate sector by organizing "Art
Auctions" in collaboration with Art Galleries in the city with little
amount of connoisseur foods, drinks-preferably non-alcoholic and some
soul melting music thrown in combo. And, donors would gleefully open
up their purse strings to collect 'donor passes' paying a decent sum
of money and also signing cheques generously for owning the master
pieces of art by bidding boisterously over a good drink while keeping
their inflated egos in their wallet inside pocket. I am sure Political
Parties (with followings in the classes & masses) would go all the way
to the bank laughingly. In fact Political Parties could kill three
birds with one stone. Connect with people in a creative way while
sharing the message of the party among the connoisseurs of art and at
the same time they would help finance the Artist community in our
country who are yet to break even due to paucity of a vibrant art
market and last but not the least; the funds collected for the party
could be a real bonus to further spread the message of the party. Any
takers?

DECIMATION OF CONGRESS IN ODISHA

BIKASH CHOUDHURY

Congress Party in Odisha would be wiped out in the 2014 election next month and could even disintegrate after the election is over. The Jena duo running the affairs of the state have already driven out the leader of the opposition and many senior leaders from the party recently and party workers are now being forced to desert the party in droves to keep their bread and butter while adjusting their sail to the powerful wind blowing against the Congress Party  due to the anger and frustration of people on price rise and monumental corruption in last five years and on top of it the Central gross neglect to Odisha at the time of distress has terribly angered and hurt the sentiment of people. Further, the machination of Jena that prevented Biju Patnaik from becoming Prime Minister of India has not been completely forgotten. The powerful Patnaik faction of former Chief Minister after being completely sidelined in the party affairs in the state are keenly watching and patiently waiting for their pound of the flesh after the election. If they were not reinstated in the driving seat of the party after the election they are likely to split the party in the middle and could float a Regional Congress Party in Odisha. Be that as it may, the decimation of Congress Party in Odisha is matter of months if not in days.