Fighting Superbugs

65 years ago when I was born, dying due to a simple infection such as diarrhoea or pneumonia was common. Our family history had numerous stories of persons dying young. At that time, average life expectancy in India was less than 38 years. While I was growing up, during 1960s and 70s, slowly we had become familiar with names of antibiotics like Tetracycline and Chloramphenicol. By the time I finished my medical college in late 1970s, average life expectancy had increased to 53 years, while the list of available antibiotics had become much longer with drugs like ampicillin, amoxicillin, erythromycin and gentamycin. Every year, new medicines were coming out. Occasionally we had infections which were resistant to some of these medicines, so we had started doing cultures to check which antibiotics could be more effective in a patient who was not responding to treatment.

In the last 50 years, the situation has changed drastically. Every now and then we hear of infections which do not respond to any medicine. Matt McCarthy's 2019 book "Superbugs: The Race to Stop an Epidemic" is about this subject.

Use of Antibiotics in Livestock

The first use of antibiotics in the livestock was approved by the Federal Drug Agency (FDA) of USA in 1951. They started to be used in small amounts in concentrated animal-feeds for growth promotion and prevention of diseases among the farm animals, especially in the poultry and cattle destined for meat production. They helped chickens, pigs and livestock to grow faster and put on weight. Since then, the use of antibiotics in the industrial production of meat has become routine.

Eating this meat introduces those antibiotics in our bodies and in the environment, promoting drug resistance in the bacteria. Already in 1969, a British committee of experts had concluded that the use of antibiotics in animals was contributing to antibiotic resistance in humans. Thus we are aware of this problem for a long time. However, its importance was under-estimated.

Apart from the use of antibiotics in the livestock, another problem has been indiscriminate use of antibiotics. Many doctors prescribe antibiotics for viral infections, even when they know that these are not useful. There is no control on the sale of antibiotics in many countries, so that people can buy them without prescription.

Antibiotic resistance and resistant bacteria both travel around the world, passing from one country to another. Thus, it is global problem affecting everyone and no one is safe from it.

Over the past decade, numerous cases of infections non responding to any medicine and leading to death of persons have brought this subject to the attention of general public. Extremely resistant cases of diseases like tuberculosis have appeared and are widely feared. The World Health Organisation has already issued some catastrophic warnings and asked for urgent search for solutions.

Matt McCarthy's Book

McCarthy's book on the subject of superbugs is written in an extremely engaging style. He works at the Presbyterian Hospital in New York, where they try to identify new antibiotics which can treat resistant infections. He explains the difficulties of treating superbugs through stories of individuals who turn up in the emergency department of his hospital. Reading the theories of antibiotic resistance is very different from reading about someone who has this infection.

For example, the story of a person, whose diagnosis of cancer has devastated his family. When it seems that chemotherapy might save him, a minor infection suddenly takes him close to death, unless the doctors can find some new treatment to treat it, but it is not responding to any medicine. McCarthy's book has a series of these real-life inspired stories, which start as a character sketch of the persons and their families and then reach a sudden turn of random events which turn their lives upside down, showing the fragility of our lives.

Once I started this book, I didn't stop reading it till 4 days later when I finished it. While I have known about superbugs and the problems of antibiotic resistance for a long time, the book explained the different challenges associated with it. Mixing of scientific information with human stories makes it very interesting. The book mainly moves around the human trials of a new antibiotic called "Dalbavancin" or Dalba. It also mentions some other new medicines and the persons involved in their research but most of its stories are of persons on whom Dalba is being tried.

Over the decades, doctors engaged in research for new medicines have not always behaved in an ethical manner. Recently, I was reading about an unethical research done by Armeur Hansen, who is known as the person who had discovered the leprosy bacillus in 1873. McCarthy shares the details of inhuman and unethical research done in the Nazi camps. Then he tells about another research carried out in Tuskegee, Alabama (USA), where hundreds of black men and women were recruited in a research, given false information and denied treatment which could have easily cured them, so that the doctors could study the natural evolution of the sexually transmitted infection syphilis. This had happened in 1950s-60s, years after the Nazi experiments.

The book also touches on the world of Big Pharma. For many years, I was part of a group fighting for people's right to health. In these groups, multinationals and especially the Big Pharma, is seen as villain, as they look only at their profit margins and are uncaring of the poor persons' need of medicines. McCarthy's book avoids painting the drug companies in black and white.

For example, McCarthy's explanation about insufficient research on new antibiotics and the role of the big Pharma is in the following terms:

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, is the man responsible for establishing federal funding priorities for research on antibiotic resistance, and he told me that developing new drugs is, in fact, one of his top priorities. But the situation is complicated. “You don’t want the federal government to be a pharmaceutical company,” he said, “because you’d have to build an entire industry, and that would divert away from what the government does well, which is scientific discovery and concept validation. We need a partner.”And that partner, for better or worse, is Big Pharma. “If the federal government tried to re-create Merck,” Fauci said, “it would cost billions of dollars. The expertise of production, filling, packaging, and lot consistency. People take that for granted, but that’s an art form that has been perfected by these companies, not the government.”The problem, ultimately, is that many antibiotics are not very profitable. When a new drug emerges from an idea, there’s a step-by-step process that costs upward of a billion dollars to bring it to market. If that leads to Viagra, the expense is justified because you’ve just made a multibillion-dollar drug. With an antibiotic, however, the profit margins are narrow because of three characteristics: they’re usually given in short courses, they’re prescribed only when someone is sick, and sooner or later even that terrific new antibiotic is going to develop drug resistance. The latter is not a matter of if but when. “The incentive to make major investments in antibiotics,” Fauci told me, “is not something that attracts the pharmaceutical industry, so how do you get around that?”

The book is also an ode to McCarthy's senior colleague and mentor, Tom Walsh , director of the Transplantation-Oncology Infectious Diseases Program, who seems to live only for his work and does it with great empathy. It is difficult not to share McCarthy's admiration of such a wonderful human being and professional, and wish that if one day we would find ourselves in a hospital, we shall have a doctor like him.

Apart from his skills as a clinician and researcher, McCarthy also has a way with the words. For example, he introduces Tom Walsh with the following words:Walsh is a wisp of a man, pale and thin like a potato chip, with deep-set eyes, a warm smile, and a surprisingly firm handshake. His modest features are a notable contrast with my own: I have a high forehead, broad shoulders, and a nose that’s slightly too large for my face. We make for an odd pair.

Conclusions

I love reading books about health and medicine. These give an overview of the issues in a way which is impossible in the medicine textbooks, which limit themselves to dry facts - symptoms, diagnosis and treatments. On the other hand, a good book on medicine aimed at general public, provides a glimpse into its history and how our understanding about the disease condition changed over a period of years or decades.

For example, I have been really impressed by a couple of books on psychiatry and autism, which I had read recently - they had opened the doors to a largely unknown world to me. "Superbugs" by Matt McCarthy didn't have the same impact, because I was already familiar with some the ideas and questions it discusses. However, I loved reading it and will recommend it to everyone for gaining a deeper understanding about an important subject, in an engaging way.

Note: In 2019, after writing this post I had contacts with Dr Abdul Gafoor who told me about the WHO initiative on antibiotics resistence and that spread of resistant strains through lack of sanitation was a much bigger contributing factor compared to the irrational use of antibiotics. He referred me to his article in The Hindu, from which the following excerpts are presented below:

"... back in 2010, people like me sincerely believed that AMR was caused primarily by the misuse of antibiotics by the medical community. We all wrote a few lines about infection control, but 90% of our articles, research papers was about irrational antibiotics usage. I did not write about environmental sanitation. I did not write about most of the things that I know today, because that the concept has changed over the last 10 years. At that time, we thought that antibiotic stewardship was the most important component in tackling AMR, along with infection control, and then made a mention of the importance of sanitation. Now if you ask me, what is the most important component of tackling AMR, I will say in a developing country such as India – it is sanitation. I will put sanitation right on top, then I will put in infection control, and then, antimicrobial stewardship, rational antibiotics usage - whether at the hospital or over the counter.

Why? Thanks to scientific evidence that has emerged, since, and changed our perspective. A commentary published in Antibiotics, an open access journal, recently showed that AMR rates were found ‘positively correlated with higher temperature climates, poorer administrative governance, and the ratio of private to public health expenditure.’ When a more complex analysis was done, then better infrastructure (e.g., improved sanitation and potable water) as well as better administrative governance (e.g., less corruption) were strongly and statistically significantly associated with lower AMR indices. And this is significant: the comment stated that ‘Surprising, and contrary to most current beliefs, antibiotic consumption was not strongly associated with AMR levels. This empirical evidence implies that contagion, rather than antibiotic usage volumes, is the major factor contributing to the variations in antibiotic resistant levels across countries.’"

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#bookreview #antibioticresistance #mattmccarthy

Ai Wei Wei - Later Works in Brazil

The first part of this post was about the earlier works of celebrated Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei presented in an exhibition called Raiz (Roots) held in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) in 2019. This second part of the post focuses on his works created between 2015 and 2018, and presented in this exhibition.

The works of the artist from this period show a transformation - from his criticisms of the regime in China in his earlier works, he moved on to other themes afflicting humanity, from wars and refugee crisis to climate change. His latest works from his period in Brazil are even more personal, looking at sexuality and cultures.

Expressing Dissidence

The first works of Wei Wei after his release from the house-arrest in Beijing were understandably about the period of that arrest, though they continued to be ironic and symbolic, like the installation called Forever Bicycles presented in the image above. This installation was made from one thousand stainless steel bicycles. These represented personal freedom and its title, "Forever", referred to a brand of bicycles common in China when Wei Wei was growing up with his father in the exile.

His next work from 2015 was Blossom, a carpet made from hundreds of porcelain flowers made by joining 16 panels. This installation also referred to the period of his house arrest, when as a way of protest, he had decided to put every morning some flowers in the basket of a bicycle parked in front of his home. Thus, Blossom represents the flowers of his protest.

War and Refugees

After his release from house arrest in China, in 2015 Wei Wei had relocated to Berlin in Germany. That brought him in contact with the refugees who were pouring into Europe from the war-torn middle-east and whom the European countries were refusing to accept. Wei Wei felt the cries for help of the refugees, probably because he was also a refugee, though a fortunate one, since he had been accepted in Europe because of his celebrity status and because of being a known Chinese dissident.

In 2015 itself, Wei Wei visited the island of Lesbos in Greece and saw the shoreline littered with life-jackets and buoys of Syrian refugees trying to enter Europe. His 2016 marble sculpture Tyre is a "monument to the lost" remembering those who risked everything to seek a better life for themselves and their loved ones.

During 2016-17, Wei Wei travelled to 23 countries and 40 refugee camps. Out of these visits came his film "The Human Flow". In the same period, he also produced different other art works on this theme.

His next work on the theme of refugees is titled Odyssey and is a wallpaper which traces the stories of human migrations from the time of the Old Testament, through the pictorial techniques of antique Greek and Egyptian carvings and panels. The image below presents a detail from it.

There was another work on the theme of refugees in this exhibition titled "Refugee motif pillar of vases". It has 6 Qinghua blue and white vases, crafted in Jiangxi province of China in the antique Ming style. Like the wallpaper, the vases touch on 6 themes - war, ruins, journey, crossing the sea, refugee camps and demonstrations.

Brazilian Works

In 2017, Wei Wei visited South America many times to plan some of his exhibitions. In Brazil, he became interested in forests and specifically in a tree species called Pequi. He decided to make a mould of a 1200 years old, 31 metres high Pequi tree in a forest reserve in Bahia state. From his stay in Brazil and the enormous work related to the Pequi tree, a series of other art works have been produced, starting with the works called Raiz (Roots) which had given the title of this Brazilian exhibition and were presented in part one of this post.

The next image shows the roots part of another art work on Pequi tree, with a human figure, which gives an idea of the height of this tree.

The next image shows traditional votive wood sculptures (2018) made by artisans of Juazeiro do Norte in Brazil inspired by Wei Wei's art work.

The next image has Taifeng, a mythical creature from the old Chinese tales of Shanhaijing (the Classic of Mountains and Seas). It is made from Bamboo and silk and is inspired by the traditional Chinese kite-making traditions.

The next installation has Two Figures (2018) in white plaster - the male figure is moulded on Wei Wei himself, while the female figure is moulded on a model. Close to the head of male figure, there is a heap of Armosia seeds, which reminded Wei Wei of seeds he had seen in Gobi desert as a child. Through this sculpture, Wei Wei touched on the ostensible sexuality in Brazilian culture and to his own intense dreams during his stay in Brazil.

Conclusions

The Raiz (Roots) exhibition in Rio de Janeiro was a great opportunity to see different art works of Ai Wei Wei and thus get a more holistic idea of his art-world and artistic journey. Reading about his provocative exploits (for example, about the breaking ancient urn or covering antique vases with paint), gives a certain idea about the person. His constant rebellion against the Chinese government, but at the same time, finding a gentle and ironic way of rebelling, shows a maturing of the person. His works on climate-change and refugees, shows a widening of views where his personal journey is placed in the context of similar journeys of millions of other human beings. Finally, over the past couple of years, his exploration of his sexuality adds a personal dimension to his artistic journey.

To conclude this post, I want to present another of his personal art - a poster called Mutuophagia or the reciprocal eating, which has strong elements of the sensory and sexual world through the blood red water melons, the strategically placed bananas and the female figure on the extreme left. He is also talking about the importance of inter-mixing of cultures and learning from different cultures, which is his criticism of the current politically correct mode of looking down at "cultural appropriations".

For me, coming across the Wei Wei exhibition in Rio de Janeiro was a case of serendipity. I had no idea that it was there and I saw it just by chance. I would count it among my most wonderful art-experiences.

If you haven't already seen the first part of this post, you can check it now.

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#artinstallations #aiweiwei #brazilianexhibition #artofaiweiwei

Dissident Art of Ai Wei Wei

Ai Wei Wei from China is one of the most famous contemporary artists. His name had become known because of a couple of controversial art installations. Through his art he has brought the spot-light on the absurdities of unequal power balances in the modern world, pointing fingers at both the totalitarian regimes as well as, the so-called civilized countries. I love the art of Ai Wei Wei.

The image above shows the entrance to the Wei Wei exhibition in the CCBB atrium in Rio de Janeiro, with a couple of "Roots" sculptures which gave the title Raiz (Roots) to this exhibition. During 2017-18, Wei Wei visited Brazil, where he came across these roots of the massive Pequi Vinegreiro trees, which were once common here and which now risk extinction - this art installation of Wei Wei referred to that experience.

In August, while in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), by chance I came across this exhibition. Visiting this exhibition of Ai Wei Wei's works was one of the highlights of my Brazil visit.

It was organized in 2 locations. However, due to my work commitments, I was only able to visit one of the locations, the Cultural Centre of the Banco do Brasil (CCBB), which had his works from the period 2009 to 2018. This is the first part of a post describing those works, covering the period 2009 to a part of 2015. The second part of this post covers his works from 2015 to 2018, including some art installations he has created in Brazil.

Ai Wei Wei's Background

Wei Wei was born in Beijing in 1957. His father Ai Qing (Jiang Haicheng) was a well known poet who was a communist party member and who had been in jail during 1930s for opposing Kuomintang. When Chairman Mao's cultural revolution started, there was a deep distrust of poets, intellectuals and thinkers and thus Ai Qing was forced to shift to a small rural comune, where his job was to clean the toilets. Wei Wei accompanied his father during 5 years of their stay in this comune.

There is a story about Ai Qing, afraid of being labelled "elite", one night burned his poetry and other books, with his son's help. This left a deep impression on Wei Wei's psyche, who was around 9 years old at that time.

Ai Qing was finally rehabilitated in the communist party in 1979. In 1981, Wei Wei went to live in New York, where he lived for 12 years and became an artist. Back in China in 1993, two years later he sparked wide outrage and became famous for his artwork called "Dropping a Hun Dynasty Urn". For making this art installation, Wei Wei dropped and broke into pieces a 2000 years old urn and the whole scene was documented in a series of 3 photographs. Through this installation, Wei Wei denounced the destruction of hundreds of old Chinese temples and buildings along with their ancient treasures during the years of Mao's communist revolution.

In 2006, another art installation of Wei Wei called "Coloured Vases" made news all over the world, when he took 39 Neolithic vases and covered them in industrial paint. With this installation, he wanted to denounce the destruction of world's habitat along with old cultures due to non-stop onslaught of humanity and commercial interests.

Even when not making international news, Wei Wei was continuously challenging the Chinese Government by criticising it through his art. In 2009 he was placed under house arrest and in 2010-11, his new art studio was bull-dozed. Some of his most subversive and dissident art came during these years. Finally in 2015, his first solo exhibition was held at Galleria Continua & Tang Art Centre in Beijing and in July 2015, his passport was given back to him. After his release, he relocated to Berlin (Germany).

Wei Wei's Works from 2009

The Raiz exhibition had two of his works from 2009, before he was placed under the house arrest.

The first one is called Porcelain Cube. It has a cube outline made from 1 metre long porcelain cylindrical tubes made according to the traditional Qinghua technique, known for their blue coloured designs. Thus, the cube itself is a negative space.

The second one is called "The Hanging Man", which has the profile of the American artist Duchamp made from a porcelain hanger. During his years in New York, Wei Wei had been greately influenced by Duchamp's works. It is a small work and you can see it below on the wall-paper art from 2015 called "The animal that looks like a Llama but is really an Alpaca" (Last image at the bottom).

Wei Wei's Art Works from 2010-2015

These are his works from the years when he was under house arrest and immediately after it.

The first one is called the "Sun Flower Seeds" & is from 2010. For this installation, Wei Wei had made millions of porcelain sunflower seeds. Each seed was crafted individually in northern Jiangxi province, an area known for its kilns where they made imperial porcelains. Initially authorities could not understand the meaning of this installation. It was recalling the hero-worship cult of Chairman Mao, who was called the Sun and people were supposed to follow their leader like sunflowers.

The sun-flower seeds also reminded about the days of political rallies called by the supreme leader (Mao), where people went with sunflower seeds in their pockets so that they could eat something when they became hungry. This kind of subtle irony and hidden criticism of the communist regime became Wie Wie's approach, which was difficult to control by the authorities.

The second one is called He Xie or the river crabs and is also from 2010. These represent the destruction of his art studio in Shanghai. When Wie Wie was told that bull-dozers will raze his studio to ground, he organized a He Xie party for his friends for an ironical celebration. The authorities were confused that he was celebrating the imminent destruction. Finally, they decided to place him under house arrest.

The installation is composed of 1000 river crabs in porcelain, each made individually. Ai explained, "In different dynasties, people used to make these crabs from jade, bamboo or onyx. In 1976, when the gang of 4 was arrested, to celebrate it many artists had made the sculptures of these river crabs." There was another subtle message in the crabs - its Chinese name, He Xie, sounds like the Chinese word for harmony. Thus, it alludes to the struggle between the authorities and the society in the name of maintaining "a harmonious society".

The third one is called "The hanger" (2011) and has cloth-hangers in different materials - steel, wood and crystal. During the house arrest he was allowed to keep only a few things, which included some hangers. These sculptures are a reference to his house arrest and thus represent an oppressive regime. These also recall similar works by some American artists like Marcel Duchamp on concept art.

The 4th is called the Mask and is from 2013. It has a mask in marble, placed on a tomb stone. Carved from a single piece of marble, this mask represented the smog covering Bejing, due to unregulated industrialization which did not respect the environment. It can also be seen as a symbol of un-breathable air across different cities of the world due to pollution, as is affecting Delhi during these

days.

The fifth art installation is called "Grapes" and is made of 32 antique Chinese wooden stools from the Qing dynasty and is from 2014. The stools have been joined together, using the traditional wood-working techniques. Like the more controversial destruction of the antique urn mentioned earlier, this was a criticism of the destruction of ancient art, culture, heritage and religion during the cultural revolution.

Conclusions

To the see the pictures of Wei Wei's controversial installations "Destroying a Hun dynasty urn" and "Coloured vases" is a deeply disturbing experience. Try searching for these 2 installations on internet. The destruction of antique vases which go back to thousands of years is like a wound in the soul, because that loss can never be repaired.

Through these installations, Wei Wei hits us with a killer punch forcing us to think not only of the years of destruction during the cultural revolution in China. It also forces us to think of millions of persons killed in the Holocaust by the Nazi regime or by ideologues running totalitarian regimes in China and Cambodia. It is a reminder of the destruction done by radical Islamists and by the so-called "forces of Liberty" - the Bamayan Buddha statue, and ancient ruins in cities like Mosul, Nimrud and Palmyra in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya.

I am concluding this post with an art work of Wei Wei from 2015 - it is a wallpaper called "The animal that looks like a Llama but is really an Alpaca". The title of this artwork refers to the optical illusion. On a first glance, the wallpaper looks composed of geometric designs. A closer look shows you that it is made of elements like surveillance cameras, handcuffs, twitter birds and alpacas, each a representation of his struggles with the Chinese authorities and symbols of the Chinese society. Hanging on the wall, you can also see this 2009 work called the Hanging Man.

The second part of this post will focus on his remaining works from 2015 and later, that were presented in the Raiz exhibition.

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#aiweiwei #artofaiweiwei #artinstallations 

Documentary Film - Allah Loves Equality

I think that I had first met Wajahat Abbas Kazmi, then a young film-maker from Pakistan, about a decade ago, at the River to River film festival in Florence. I had even done an interview with him about his film "The Dusk" in 2011. Thus, when he invited me to see his new documentary film "Allah Loves Equality", I was curious.

Theme of Allah Loves Equality

The film looks at what it means to be a person of alternate sexuality or a LGBTQ person in Pakistan today. It starts with some examples of more accepting views towards alternate sexualities, especially towards cross-dressing, gay men and transgender women, in early Islamic society and in the Indian subcontinent, even during the Mughal period.

The film moves between 3 main strands - 

(1) The traditional communities of transgender women (Khawaja Sira or Hijra communities) and their accepted roles in the mainstream society;

(2) The struggles of gay persons (and a few lesbian persons) to live their sexual identities and their difficulties of coming out of clandestinity;

(3) The efforts of a few NGOs fighting for the rights of LGBTQ persons.

Moving between these 3 strands, the film explores their challenges, alliances and solidarities, as well as, what it means to live the porous and dynamic boundaries of different queer identities in contemporary Pakistan.

The violent reactions of a conservative patriarchal society are shown through a few social media and news clips. There is the vivid story of Alisha, a transgender woman, shot 6 times, forced to wait in the hospital because they could not decide if she should be treated as a man or as a woman and in the end, treated in the corridor of the male ward, in front of the lavatory, till her death.

The fear of violence is omnipresent in the film, expressed in the furtive gestures and anxious glances of film's testimonies. Bubbly, the guru/matriarch of a traditional Khawaja sira community, explains the importance of her traditional role in a soft and gentle voice - there is no other safe space, no space where you can find friendship and support outside their confines. She is reassuring and yet frightening because she underlines the perils of being an individual on your own in a society which does not accept you and can easily kill you.

Bubbly Malik has created a NGO called Wajood (Identity) for safeguarding the rights of transgender persons in Pakistan. She says "To live in a Daire Dari, the traditional home of Khwaja, you have to accept its rules. You get the love and support of a family but you must obey its rules."

Anaya Sheikh a young transgender stand-up comedian or Hannan Siddique, a well-known gay make-up artist, talk about the difficulties of living their sexual identities. Anaya can only be safe as a part of the Khwaja Sira and Hannan must wait for his companion, who is under family pressure to get married.

The crowd of young men dancing with joy in a private gay party or the transgender woman dancing at a home accompanied by a traditional musician are both facets of the same reality.

The lesbian women are a hidden world, briefly mentioned in the documentary for the violence they must face. "They can't even accept that lesbians exist here. To accept that would mean that women have a sexuality. So many women in rural areas are circumcised, they can't be allowed to have a sexuality."

In the film one person says, "It is better to have the traditional identity of Hijra or Khwaja Sira, it has a role in the society and it keeps us safe. Calling ourselves gay or transgender exposes us to violence." However, as Khwaja Sira, the opportunities for living are limited - you can beg or dance during marriages and births or sell your body for sex. There are no other options.

The NGOs, even if they are talking about HIV screening and prevention, need to be careful in what they say and how they are perceived. The film explains the efforts of Qasim Iqbal, who is considered the father of the movement for the LGBTQ rights in Pakistan.

If you wish to contact Wajahat Kazmi and to organise screening of this film, you can contact him through his website.

Conclusions

The parts of the film about Khwaja sira community reminded me of my (limited) interactions with the Hijra and Kinnar communities in India. Though many of the prejudices faced by persons with alternate sexualities are similar in India and Pakistan, I think that in India the LGBTQ world is much more ahead in raising their concerns and sharing their ideas.

The film does not talk of transgender men and other queer groups, showing that probably these groups are without voices in Pakistan and were not available to share insights about their lives in the film.

Some years ago, I had written about Parvez Sharma's film "Jihad for love" in which he had talked about the difficulty of reconciling the alternate sexualities with being a good Muslim. Wajahat's film briefly touches on this theme but does not go deeper. I guess that it is a difficult area to present in a sensitive way.

A few years ago, Wajahat did his coming out as a gay person and has been very active on social media in promoting the rights of young persons, especially Muslims, to live their sexuality without fear or repression. There was a period when I was worried that some radical Islamist group will kill him.

I can imagine that making "Allah loves equality" and shooting in Pakistan for this film could not have been easy. It is a hard-hitting film and shows aspects of alternate sexualities in Pakistan that are usually hidden from public gaze. Allah may love equality but some of his people do not love it. Wajahat has a long fight ahead of him, his film is a courageous step in that direction.

Film credits: 

Made by Il Grande Colibri, 2019, duration 55 min., produced by Elena de Piccoli, Michele Benini and Pier Cesare Notaro, directed by Wajahat Abbas Kazmi

*****

#lgbt #documentaryfilm #alternatesexualities #pakistan #lgbtpakistan

Long-Necked Women in Sculpture and Art

After months of travelling from one continent to another, I am finally back home in Schio, just in time for different art and culture initiatives. Last night I went to an art exhibition of local artists at Toaldi Capra palace. There were some nice works by artists like Alida Bertoldi, Galileo Gonzo and Livio Comparin, but what caught my attention (and inspired this post) were some sculptures by the sculptor Antonio Capovilla.

Capovilla's sculptures are all about tall slim women with long necks. This post is about my fascination with long-necked women in art and sculpture.

B. Prabha's Women

As a child during the 1960s in India, I loved painting. It was in those days that I had discovered the art of B. Prabha, which frequently appeared in the Hindi magazine "Dharamyug". She painted mostly women, often fisher-women holding or sitting around baskets of fish or rural women with birds. Dark and big eyed, often draped in half-saris which were made fashionable by the actress Saira Banu in the 1967 film Shagird, they were all tall slim women with long arms and long necks. For many years, I drew and painted women inspired by her art. Those women influenced my adolescence fantasies. Perhaps, that is the reason, why even today, I love tall, slim, long-necked women in art and sculpture.

Amedeo Modigliani's Women

Some decades later, in Italy, I saw the paintings of Amedeo Modigliani. His women, with their elongated faces and long necks, immediately reminded me of B. Prabha's women. I think that B. Prabha was inspired by his works, though she made it her own by locating it in the Indian rural milieu, while Modigliani's women were mostly half-body portraits of European urban women.

Long-necked Slim Women in Sculptures

The early artists of renaissance, including Leonardo da Vinci and Michaelangelo brought realism and perspective to art. In 16-17th centuries, first Italian and later, European artists went beyond realism and naturalism and adopted elongated bodies and this was known as Manierism style of painting, which was adapted and perhaps exagerated by Modigliani.

Over the past decades, many sculptors have been consciously or unconsciously inspired by Manierism and Modigliani's style and make sculptures of long-necked slim women. Here are 3 examples of such sculptures - the first 2 of these are by Mirella Guasti and the third one is by some unknown artists.

To conclude this post, here is another sculpture of two women by Antonio Capovilla, which had provoked this nostalgia trip about my memories of B. Prabha.

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#longneckedwomen #sculptures #paintings #art #bprabha #antoniocapovilla #mirellaguasti #modigliani #amadeomodigliani

The Metaphorical Ganesh

Among all the Hindu deities, my favourite is Ganesh, with his pot-belly and the face of an elephant. In this post I want to talk about my fascination with Ganesh ji and how I understand his metaphorical meanings, as well as, about a book called “Ginger and Ganesh” which I read recently.

The above image of Ganesh is from Guwahati in the north-east of India, where I lived for a couple of years. I love the 3 baby monkeys playing on the statue of Ganesh ji. It expresses perfectly how I see Ganesh as a deity. However, let me start this post with the book.

The Book: Ginger and Ganesh

Nani Power’s quirky book “Ginger and Ganesh – An Adventure in Indian Cooking, Culture and Love” (2019, Counterpoint, Berkeley) is a personal memoir of her love story with an Indian student and an exploration of Indian homes in North Virginia (USA) in search of traditional Indian recipes.

The book is dedicated to the Ganesh, “O elephant-faced God, Ganesha, you are served by the attendants of Shiva and you eat forest apples and blackberries. You are Uma’s son, the destroyer of sorrows. I bow to the lotus feet of the remover of obstacles”.

In the book, she explains her fascination with the figure of Ganesh: “On this path I met Sri Ganesh. You may be familiar with him: he is the ever-popular elephant-headed deity, accompanied by a tiny mouse. He has a large jovial belly, and holds a conch shell. I’m not sure why he in particular ignited my passion for this culture and beyond, but perhaps it was the fact that his statue was present the first time I tasted the incendiary potions of India I came to love. Or maybe, the wisdom and calm that he emanates soothed my world-weary soul, and he seemed to be a constant reminder—at the doorway of most houses, or in their altars—that I was on a spiritual path as well as physical.”

In the book, stories of encounters with Indian families alternate with vegetarian recipes and brief reflections about Ganesh ji, after she had placed a simple advertisement in the Craiglist about wishing to learn traditional Indian recipes. The book chronicles her experiences over a period of one year, summarised in the following words:

Almost imperceptibly, the culture of this rich and varied country slithered into my life like a sinuous cobra, combining the modern ways of the United States with the Technicolor of India, while I ate some damn good food. I wanted to understand the Indian culture and people; and what seemed so enchanting was that I was constantly being surprised and challenged by how complex—and contradictory—it can be. While at one time thousands of years old, in another time it seems jauntily modern, yet where this occurs bewilders me. I have learned to keep an open mind. Now, after this year of cooking real Indian food, I realize that the only real way to learn to cook is through the senses and heart. It turns out that it is the only real way to live and to love, as well …This simple year long cooking lesson—innocently started as a little two-line ad on Craigslist because I was frustrated with my lame attempts at Palak Paneer—taught me a lot more than how to make a killer spinach and cheese curry. It smashed open my heart, in so many ways. The kindness of the women, the beauty of the culture, the explosion of flavors, and, curiously, the very physical act of cooking led me to examine what is beyond all this: the spiritual realm.

Ganesh, the People’s God

The word Ganesh is made of Gan (people) and Ish (God) and he is one of the most popular deities in Hinduism.

Hinduism has different and sometimes contradictory ways of defining and understanding God. There are Hindu hymns which talk of God as a formless, beginning-less, ending-less, eternal consciousness which pervades all atoms and molecules. God is also present in each of us, humans, animals and plants, as part of our consciousness, as part of our soul. Then there are Hindu hymns which identify God through human and animal avatars – the pantheon of 33 million major and minor Gods.

Each Hindu deity is known by different names in different parts of India and Ganesh ji is no exception. Some of his other names are – Ganapati (people’s leader), Adidev (ancient God), Gajanan (elephant face), Gaurinandan (son of Gauri), Lambodara (big belly), Prathameesh (first God) and Vidyadhar (one who holds knowledge).

Mythology About Ganesh

The Hindu Gods can be seen as statues of deities, some of them in strange shapes and forms linked with mythologies. They can also be seen as symbols of different aspects of the human reality with deeper meanings.

The mythological stories about Ganesh ji, present him as the creation of Parvati (the daughter of the Himalaya mountain), the consort of Shiva. While Shiva is away on a long journey, Parvati creates Ganesh out of her own body. When Shiva comes back, Ganesha is a child, who does not recognise him. Since his mother is taking a bath, he blocks Shiva’s path, refusing to let him enter their home. An angry Shiva cuts his head. When Parvati finds this out, she is grief-stricken so, Shiva sends his men to look for a substitute head, and those men bring the head of an elephant. Thus, Ganesh ends up with an elephant's head.

Metaphorical Understandings of Ganesh

I am sure that Freud would have a theory about meanings and significance of Ganesh linking him with sex or sexuality. However, I think that Ganesha is a metaphorical representation of human brain and the different functions of mind in Hinduism.

The story of the replacement of Ganesh’s head with that of an elephant can be seen as a metaphor for human evolution, the arrival of Homo sapiens, those with the memory and intelligence. Elephants are known for their memory and their intelligence, and thus Ganesh can be seen as a representation of the human brain and therefore, of the emotions and instincts, as well as of the rational mind.

Different names of Ganesh point towards the different functions of the brain. As Vighnakarta and Vinayak, he is the one who creates obstacles; and as Avighna, Siddhivinayak and Vighnaharan, he is also the one who overcomes obstacles. As Vidyadhar, he holds all the knowledge. As Yogadeep, he is the one who does yoga and meditation. As Uddanda, he is the wild one, the one difficult to control. As Sarvasiddhanta he controls different skills. As Harsha and Pramod, he signifies happiness. As Kaveesha, he inspires our poetry and creativity. As Ekadrishta, he controls our mind’s focus and attention.

Thus, for me Ganesh is the guide to the path of meditation and reflection for controlling the mind and the senses, for focusing our attention and building our strengths. He reminds us that we create our own obstacles and teaches us to empower ourselves for overcoming those obstacles.

Conclusions

I like the figure of Ganesh ji because I think that the combination of his human and animal forms, is an important reminder to humanity to respect the earth, the environment and the nature. His vehicle, the tiny mouse, is another reminder that every life on our planet, even that of the smallest creature, is important for our biodiversity and for the future of humanity.

Hinduism has different human-animal mixed figures including those of Hanuman and Narsimha. It also has some animal and bird forms as deities, such as those of Varaha and Garuda. All the different Gods and Goddesses of Hinduism are linked to an animal and to a plant. Thus, every life form and every component of nature is seen as sacred. As we move recklessly towards destruction of nature and of biodiversity, it reminds us to be responsible for the way we use technology and safeguard the nature for the future of humanity.

Finally I also like that our Gods can have deeper metaphorical meanings, like the significance of Ganesh as a representation of Brain and mind. This way of understanding religion is more complex and non-linear, it does not have the God as a saviour or as someone who punishes you for your sins or tells you what to do or not do, instead, it is guide to the reality and complexity of life.

*****

#ganeshji #hinduism #religion #philisophy #nanipower #bookreview #recipes #indiancooking

From Niemeyer to Ai Wei Wei - Brazil Diary

I had visited a lot of countries for work. When ever anyone asked me about my favourite country, I used to answer Brazil. I loved the country for its wonderful people and for the large number of friends I had there. Now I try to avoid travel as much as possible, the only travel I want to do it for meeting family (below, WWII memorial in Rio de Janeiro).

Over the past 35 years, I must have visited Brazil at least ten times, however it was a long time since I had been to Rio. This journey took me back to Rio de Janeiro after almost 20 years. It was also an opportunity to visit two other little known cities - Niteroi and Campo Grande. I could also see the works of two important personalities - the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer and the Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei. Here are some notes from my Brazil diary.

Campo Grande

Campo Grande is a relatively new capital town of the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, which was carved out of the southern part of Mato Grosso in 1977. The city has grown mostly over the last 20 years, though it is a relatively small capital with less than a million inhabitants. I was there for a few days to conduct a couple of seminars on community-based rehabilitation (CBR) and emancipatory disability research (EDR) in the schools of nursing and physiotherapy. It seemed a kind of unexiciting town, spread over a vast area with low anonymous kind of buildings.

I was staying with a friend near the medical college and one evening, went for a walk to the Lago do Amor (Lake of Love), which had a large number of white herons and a funny looking sculpture of two kissing fish (in the image below).

One morning I went to visit the city landmark, the Park of Indigenous Nations, named because of a museum about local indigenous cultures inside the park. The park has a nice lake, though when I visited, it had been dried and desilting was going on. It also has a futuristic looking acquarium, whose construction is going on for many years. The most beautiful part of this visit was to see free-moving animals including a Capybara and a whole group of Quati (in the image below).

The park also has a big Indios monument (in the image below).

Finally it has the Don Bosco Museum on Indegenous Cultures, which presents the different indio-cultures from this part of Brazil, especially from Pantanal area including Guatò, Kadiweu, Kaiowà-Guarani and different groups living along Uaupés river.

On my way back from Park, I got a woman Uber driver, Mari Gisele, who was overjoyed when she discovered that I was Indian. She said that she was an Ayovasca tribal shaman and that their indio-culture has many beliefs similar to Hinduism. While driving the car, she sang for me some Shiva prayers, concluding them with a loud "Jai Shambhu Shanker" and "Har Har Mahadev". It was completely unexpected and exciting.

Niteroi

This is an old historical town, situated across the Bay of Guanabara opposite Rio de Janeiro. Till 1970s, when Rio was the capital of Brazil, Nietroi was the capital of Rio de Janeiro state. Now, its claim to fame is the wonderful views of the Rio skyline across the bay. Another reason of its fame are a group of buildings designed by Oscar Niemeyer.

Alcohol Drinking Cultures in India and Brazil

I was staying close to the city centre and the boat terminal, from where a 20 minutes boat ride takes you to Rio. One evening I went for a walk along Avenida Milton Tavares. Along the sea, the road had small shacks, where people sat drinking beer and enjoying the view. It brought to my mind a similar walk along the sea in Fort Kochi in India and was wondering how the two cultures, Indian and Brazilian, have such distinct alcohol cultures. In Fort Kochi, you can't have a glass of cold beer except in some high class hotel or in dark and dingy bars, where people carry beer bottles wrapped in newspapers or drink fugitively to get drunk. Here, you just have a glass of cold beer just like you would have a soft drink. Most people just want a little buzz and they are not trying to get drunk.

Island of Boa Viagem

The walk brought me to the beautiful island of Boa Viagem (Good journey), which is connected to mainland by a bridge (in the image below). Unfortunately, the island can't be visited since it is occupied by military. It is surprising how much power military has in Brazil, they occupy prime lands and are very much in your face. Since Brazil has no wars with any of its neighbours, the military is controlling the Brazilian people only. Probably the history of this military power goes back to the time when it was a military dictatorship.

Further up from the island of Boa Viagem, is an iconic Niemeyer building - the saucer shaped Contemporary Art Museum, known as MAC. It looks like a space ship waiting to take off (in the image below). The permanent exhibition at MAC has the works of 4 Brazilian artists - Antonio Dias, Antonio Manuel, Ivan Serpa and Rubens Gerchman.

At the MAC, one evening I saw an amazing sunset with the red sky and beautiful skyline of Rio. 

Another nice walk was towards the boat station. Beyond the boat station, I walked towards the bus terminal. Through the covered market I reached the Niemeyer park which has 3 buildings designed by Oscar Niemeyer. This reminded me of huge squares and futuristic buildings designed by him in Brazilia.

Rio de Janeiro

I could visit Rio a few times. The first time, I had a seminar in the school of nursing which is located just next to the famous landmark, the Pao de Acucar (Sugarloaf hill). Twenty years ago, I had taken the cable car to visit its top. During lunch time, with some of the professors, we went to eat in the military canteen located in front of it (even here Military occupies some of the best prime land of the city). The image below has me with the teachers of the School of Nursing and some Brazilian friends.

One day in Rio, I went to see the Museum de Amanha (Tomorrow's museum). It has a beautiful building, like a giant white alligator (in the image below). However, inside I was expecting to see more use of innovative technology, while it only has a lot of computer screens where you are expected to read about the future and the climate change.

I also went to see city art museum, contemporary art museum and the second world war memorial.

However, the highlight of my visit to Rio was to accidentally find an exhibition of the Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei, which was absolutely amazing. WeiWei is like Niemeyer, some of his installations are massive. I hope to write one full post about this exhibition. Here let me tell you about one of his installations, which had hundreds of ceramic flowers woven into a white carpet. This installation referred to the period when he was under house arrest in China. To protest, he had put a bicycle in front of his house and everyday in the bicycle basket he used to put flowers. These ceramic flowers are a representation of his flower-protest (a close-up in the image below).

Another wonderful experience was at the Rio Museum of Contemporary Art. It was a Saturday and outside the museum, different groups of young people were practicing dances. It was there that from inside the museum glass walls, I saw an amazing dance performance. Most persons of this group were young trans-sexual young men and their dance was just amazing. I was so fascinated by them that I forgot that I could have made a video. By the time I had thought of the video, they had almost finished.

Conclusions

I missed not seeing so many of my old Brazilian friends during this visit. The highlights of this visit were the Oscar Niemeyer buildings and the Wei Wei exhibition. I felt that the two of them, each in his own distinct way, shared a love of big spaces and elaborate designs - both have their fantasy worlds which are placed in a world of giants where the human beings are like the liliputians.

I was afraid of carrying my DSLR camera on this trip since Rio has a bad reputation. So all the pictures were taken with my mobile phone and they are not bad. Since the DSLR camera weighs so much, I think that in future, I am going to take more pictures with my mobile.

Let me close this post with another beautiful moment in Rio. It was evening and the sun was going down. With some friends we went for a beer near the tiny Urca port behind the Sugarloaf hill. The view of Corcovado with the giant statue of Jesus at the top and the sun going down behind it was absolutely amazing, as you can see from the image above.

*****

#riodejaneiro #niteroi #campogrande #oscarniemeyer #aiweiwei #brazildiary