LIKE MANY people who found themselves in south Mumbai nearly a year ago, Jasmine Shah Varma took refuge wherever she could as Islamist militants began a murderous rampage through the city.
But a germ of an idea sprouted in the art writer and curator’s mind once the firing stopped and media commentators began to reflect on the implications of the unprecedented attack for Mumbai and the wider world.
The result is a new exhibition – ‘Nothing Will Ever Be The Same Again’ – with works from 13 Indian and foreign artists, inspired by a phrase heard often after the attacks.
Varma said she and some friends were at a hotel near the popular Leopold Cafe, one of the targets of the attackers, and were leaving when they heard gunfire on November 26 last year.
“We ran back inside and the security guard said there was a shoot-out. There were more gunshots. We just stayed at the hotel. It was very shocking,” she said.
“The attacks happened in Mumbai and I was in the vicinity when it started at the Taj (Mahal Palace and Tower hotel). But attacks happen in other countries all the time,” she said.
“Everyone’s ordinary life also contains huge events. ‘Nothing will ever be the same again’ is an attitude that comes up all the time. I realised it has a much broader scope.”
Varma said she was keen not to dictate to the artists that they should depict what happened.
Some artists directly reflected on the attacks, which killed 166 and injured more than 300, while others used the show’s title as a springboard to tackle themes such as the environment or social issues.
Ravikumar Kashi depicted the media’s role in covering the attacks – how information was disseminated, and the gap between reporting, reality and how news is received.
For his video installation ‘Six Degrees Of Separation,’ he downloaded from the Internet a closed-circuit television image of the only gunman captured alive, Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, as he fired at Mumbai’s main railway station.
He then screened the image on a television and repeatedly photographed it.
“In each stage the definition of the image gradually distorted, so much so that the final image appeared to be completely delinked from the ‘original image’,” Bangalore-based Kashi said.
“Through this exercise I have attempted to raise a few issues and questions – how we get our news from media and how media projects its version of the story.”
Prasanta Sahu’s ‘Mock Practice’ is a set of four prints in Japanese ink, showing human figures on all-fours and intended to depict “the animal/brutal qualities in the human being.”
“The kneeling humans can be read as a herd of animals,” he said.
Goa-based artist Subodh Kerkar’s beach installations – ‘The Attack’ and ‘The Demonic Canoe’ – address Mumbai’s romantic connection with the sea and how it is now linked with terror.
“The terrorists visited the shores of Mumbai in an inflatable dinghy. My canoe filled with red liquid represents the boat of death,” he said.
“The heads emerging from the ocean speak of the terror attack or are they just ghosts of dark memories of 26/11?”
Varma added that the works on show at the Jehangir Art Gallery often examined how individuals and society shift responsibility.
“It’s about how we look at life,” she said. “Through the works of these artists, they are sharing their perspective.”
