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The Hindu
an hour ago
- The Hindu
‘Volume IV' at Experimenter Colaba
The body is first taught obedience through fabric. The swaddle before speech, the school uniform before dissent, shame before skin. Clothing is behavioural before — and because — it is cultural. In Volume IV: Truths, Half-Truths, Half-Lies, Lies, Kolkata-based artist and fashion designer Kallol Datta invites us to look at clothing as a long and loaded manual of social instruction. Drawing from Lessons for Women, a 2,000-year-old guidebook written by Chinese historian Ban Zhao for her daughters, Datta unpacks how garments have told people, especially women, how to sit, stand, move, behave, belong, and be excluded. Rules written in thread Zhao's book may have been written as a way for mothers to prepare daughters for survival in a rigid society, but its advice — on how to be modest, obedient, restrained — has stuck around for millennia. It keeps surfacing in new forms: in 16th-century Confucian revivalism, in the 'values' taught to girls across cultures today, in viral videos preaching 'feminine behaviour' and the new aspirational 'trad wife'. All markers of neo-fascism and an imminent recession. Datta was stunned by how familiar the text felt. 'While feminist movements and ideologies have evolved,' they say, 'the dominant forces… continue to subscribe to antiquated notions of social and behavioural propriety.' Even today, lessons dressed up as care — especially from mother to daughter — can quietly reinforce control. Clothing is political Datta, with his kohl-rimmed eyes and love of all things black, was a significant figure on the Indian fashion scene — until the Central Saint Martins-trained 'clothes maker' made the switch a few years ago from mainstream fashion to art. Since then he's tapped into textile, craft and his connections, but this time to explore clothing as sites of tension. Like his 2022 showcase of textile sculptures, titled Volume 3, ISSUE 2, which looked at the role of imperial edicts in Japan's late Shōwa period. Volume IV is structured like a story in four parts: Truths, Half-Truths, Half-Lies, and Lies Our Clothes Have Told Us. It travels across Asian garments — from the Japanese kimono to the Manipuri phanek — to show how fashion has long been used to signal status, enforce gender roles, and mark caste. The sari, often seen as a timeless symbol of Indian femininity, is one of the most revealing examples. The blouse and petticoat, though they now seem inseparable from the unstitched garment, were introduced during colonial rule, shaped by British-Victorian ideas of modesty. These facts, often tucked away from public memory, are central to Datta's work. Their pieces — textile posters, sculptural forms, and layered fabric compositions — are built from donated clothes and stitched with history. In these collages of cloth, Datta asks: who gets to be comfortable? Who gets to move freely? Who gets to be seen? Unbuilding the home One of the most striking parts of the show features two textile floor plans. The first maps out a Korean hanok (a traditional house), where the design reflects rigid gender roles: male quarters in front, female quarters at the back, separate doors for servants and labourers. The second plan reimagines the house with only women living in it. Now, there are wide corridors, shared rooms, spaces for leisure and ease. In Datta's vision, just as clothing teaches us how to shrink ourselves, architecture teaches us to shrink our movement; where we're allowed to go and where we're not. By redrawing these spaces, they ask: what if homes were built around freedom instead of discipline? Inherited stains Each garment used in Volume IV comes with a memory. 'Every donation was accompanied by information from the donor… memories, episodic events connected to the items of clothing,' Datta shares. When old clothes are passed on in elite spaces, they are called vintage fashion; but what's seen as nostalgic for one group is seen as shameful for another. In many Indian homes, for instance, clothes worn by lower caste domestic workers are kept separate, never touched, let alone or reused. In Datta's view, 'class hierarchies and abject caste structures… continue to exist in the regions of my interest'. So, the artist's act of collecting and transforming these textiles becomes a way of rejecting this imbalance and showing how quietly and deeply caste and class shape even something as intimate as a hand-me-down. Slow resistance Where the state uses surveillance and laws to discipline, Datta uses slowness. Stitching, assembling, disassembling, their process becomes a kind of quiet refusal. 'There are recurring motifs in the works that are markers of small acts of resistance, of dissent, lack of access to economic activity… Clothes, and by extension, cloth, will always remain our first line of defence,' says Datta, who collaborated with Kolkata-based Ek Tara Creates, which employs women from vulnerable backgrounds, for the series. In Volume IV, the garment is not precious or sacred, it is strange. Datta, however, doesn't aim to shock. They ask us to look again. At the folds of our garments. At the rules we've absorbed. The exhibition is rife with silences that are full of questions. If every stitch is a sentence, then maybe the clothes we wear are trying to tell us something. If only we'd listen. Volume IV is on till August 20 at Experimenter in Mumbai. The writer is founding editor of Proseterity, a literary and arts magazine.
Indian Express
an hour ago
- Indian Express
What Bhagat Singh's ‘Why I Am an Atheist' taught me about my own belief
'It is cowardly to seek shelter in the idea of God.' The words struck me, not just for their audacity, but because they were written by Bhagat Singh, the revolutionary I had long revered as a fearless martyr. They appear in Why I Am an Atheist, his now-iconic essay, penned from prison in the final months of his life. To me, Bhagat Singh had always been a nationalist hero, not someone who would so boldly challenge faith. At first glance, the essay felt almost abrasive, a vain, unabashed dismissal of everything religion holds sacred. I scowled at what I perceived as Bhagat Singh's complete ignorance towards faith. What I as a believer considered to be a safe haven, the 'Shaheed-e-Azam' dubbed a mental crutch. But as I read more deeply, something unexpected happened: my mind, shaped by years of belief, began to stretch in ways I had not thought possible. After reading Why I am an Atheist and his other works, there was one thing I knew for sure: Bhagat Singh was not the man we came to know through the rosy lunettes of told history. Before he knew that he was a freedom fighter, the 23-year-old revolutionary knew that he was an atheist, writing words that could make any firm believer of God look inward. The textbook version of Bhagat Singh bears little resemblance to the man he believed himself to be. History books portray him as a fiery revolutionary figure, determined to free India from British rule. They recount his acts of defiance and his ultimate sacrifice, but rarely do they pause to examine the ideas that shaped him. His convictions, his intellect, and his inner conflicts are often lost beneath the weight of nationalist iconography. The essay introduced me to the mind of a 19-year-old man who was not just driven by the sentiment of boyish rebellion amid the freedom struggle, but one who questioned power and sought logic. Bhagat Singh was not a man of fiery speeches but of precise words, he did not shout at you from the page, but spoke gently of his firm convictions until he faced death head on – without fear, without prayer, without illusion. One of the most human moments in Bhagat Singh's collected writings is a letter he wrote to his father, Kishan Singh from jail. With his fate already sealed and death only months away, Bhagat Singh responded to his father's well-intentioned plea for clemency to the British authorities not with gratitude, but with sharp disapproval. It was the kind of defiance one might expect from any principled 23-year-old, but in Bhagat Singh's case, the stakes were unimaginably high. He saw his father's final attempt to save him not as love, but as weakness. 'Treachery,' he called it, refusing to compromise his convictions, even in the face of death. 'Father, I feel as though I have been stabbed in the back. Had any other person done it, I would have considered it to be nothing short of treachery. But in your case, let me say that it has been a weakness – a weakness of the worst kind.' An outburst of this extent was something I never thought I would witness from the legendary Bhagat Singh. What books and movies portrayed was a sepia-tinted image of a great man who made the ultimate sacrifice. However, after reading this letter, I saw him as a 23-year-old man mocking his father's choice as a parent, convinced that he knows better. In his letter to his father, Bhagat Singh angrily asserted that the last-ditch attempt to save his life diminished its purpose. He said he always wanted to be completely indifferent to the trial, saying that a politician should only defend himself from a political standpoint and never think about the legalities. Reading this letter was the first time I saw Bhagat Singh as a son and as a man with emotional depth. The essay, penned within the walls of Lahore Central Jail beneath the shadow of his looming execution, was his response to his fellow comrades in arms, including Batukeshwar Dutt, who questioned his lack of faith and thought he became an atheist because of his vanity. In his essay, Bhagat Singh explains that his atheism did not stem from vanity or superiority, but from realism, critical thinking, and lack of fear. Reading his essay, I came to the realisation that Bhagat Singh never viewed God as an evil idea, he was only against unconditional devotion. Bhagat Singh neither feared the consequences of his actions, nor did he fear death. He wrote that in his final days, after pondering for days, he chose not to pray. Most of faith is driven by the fear of what comes next, he explained, saying that once the noose is around his neck, he knows that his existence and his soul will cease to be. He said that as opposed to popular belief, he did not become an atheist after he gained recognition as a revolutionary. Despite being raised by an Arya Samaji grandfather and a Sikh father, Bhagat Singh questioned faith since he was a young boy when he was unaware of the depth of the atrocities happening under British rule. He looks back at difficult times in his life where he had the option to fall back on faith to spend his days in peace, but chose not to. This was not because of his ego but because he did not want to be trapped in a false narrative of fear and the promise of Divine rescue. For him, belief in God was not always about devotion, it was often about fear. Fear of the meaningless, fear of suffering and fear of death. He saw that people chose faith as a comfort, and the outward display of religion was only to make one feel centred in a chaotic world, filled with the unknown. One thing that resonated the most with me was that he did not challenge belief itself, but the involuntary reflex to believe without thinking. His atheism was not driven by anger, but by a refusal to be comforted by illusions. As a believer, Bhagat Singh's words were deeply uncomfortable to read. My mind understood the logic but was constantly in a frenzy to counter his words, to no avail. His essay made me ask myself – how much of my own faith is authentic, unaffected by fear or habit? Though somewhat offended at first, Bhagat Singh's atheism did not shake my belief, only illuminated it. His words made me realise that maybe I have always been somewhat of a sceptic. While I have never been a person who spent long hours at a temple or in a prayer, I did not spend those hours questioning the logic of faith either. For me, religion was always more about my memories than the metaphysics. My faith lives in the Diwali pujas I prepared for with my mother, the diyas I carefully placed across the house as my sister painted Lakshmi Charan near our front door, the crackle of Holika Dahan fire as we circled around it as a family. My faith was never built through theology, but through ritual, repetition and love. But now, Bhagat Singh's words made me question how much of a believer I actually was. Atheists have always been perceived as pessimists, mostly driven by rebellion, but such was not the case with Bhagat Singh. His version of atheism cuts through with precision of a scalpel. He chose to live, fight and die without Divine assurance, a clarity which is rare in most believers. Bhagat Singh's atheism did not make me feel threatened, but challenged me in the best way. He made me aware of the quiet spaces where the line between faith and fear blur. My faith found a room for thought and growth in this atheism. He made me understand that the essence of belief is not blind comfort: it is to have conviction without compromise.
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First Post
2 hours ago
- First Post
London-bound Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner aborts take-off due to technical issues
Air India flight AI2017 to London aborted takeoff due to technical issues. The aircraft involved was a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, and the incident took place just weeks after the fatal Ahmedabad plane crash read more Advertisement Air India revisits its safety standards. PTI Air India flight bound to London was forced to abort takeoff after the aircraft faced technical issues. AI Flight AI2017 was scheduled to depart from Delhi to London on Thursday (31 July). However, it was brought to a halt after the cockpit crew decided to 'discontinue the take-off run'. The aircraft involved in the incident was a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner . After the take-off was aborted, the passengers were asked to disembark as precautionary checks were carried out. Air India eventually provided the crew and the passengers with an alternative aircraft to complete the journey to London. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD 'Flight AI2017, operating from Delhi to London on 31 July, returned to the bay due to a suspected technical issue," an Air India spokesperson said after the incident. 'The cockpit crew decided to discontinue the takeoff run following standard operating procedures and brought the aircraft back for precautionary checks. An alternative aircraft was deployed to fly the passengers to London," the airline company furthered. The incident rings alarm bells of the past What makes the matter concerning is the fact that the incident came just weeks after an Air India flight bound for London Gatwick struck a medical college hostel in Ahmedabad minutes after take-off , killing 241 people. Indian officials at that time confirmed that the pilot issued multiple distress calls before the Gatwick-bound flight crashed in Ahmedabad on June 12. 'Thrust not achieved… falling… Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! ' the preliminary report of the Indian AAIB said before the aircraft lost height and erupted in flames. There were 230 passengers and 12 crew members on board, including 169 Indian nationals, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese citizens and one Canadian, according to Air India. Apart from the formal investigation, the Indian government has set up a high-level committee to examine the causes leading to the crash. The body will be focusing on formulating procedures to prevent and handle aircraft emergencies in the future, the Ministry of Civil Aviation said in a statment. Meanwhile, Air India and the government are probing several aspects of the crash, including issues linked to its engine thrust, flaps, and why the landing gear remained open as the plane took off and then came down. The authorities are yet to share the final report on the crash.
