Its strange how you can feel both both extremely proud and extremely angry at the same time. The more that I show off before the firangs, the more proud I feel of this place that I was born in. And angry too, of an equal degree, if not more. For being another chip off the block, or stone off the whatever. For not being able to preserve what is, or rather was.
For not being able to gauge its value in any terms. For not understanding the significance, the beauty, and the transcience.
I saw breathtaking frescoes dating back to 2 B.C. defiled by cheap meaningless graphiti—that was not in any other language, but my own. I saw solid stupas with an empty silence where their original statue used to be. Vanished. Transacted like vegetables. Obviously adorning the living room of some eccentric, filthy-rich American. And what makes it even further tragic that you can blame the American only till a certain point. What about him, the insider who carried off this heinous crime in the dead of the night? What about them, the immigration officials who walked off with a blind eye and a fat pocket? What about the people who know about all of this, and yet, let it happen? Cave no. 17 in Ajanta had nothing within it. Except for this laminated painting with the caption- This 2nd century B.C. Buddhist painting has been defiled by graphiti and is beyond restoration.
Makes u sick? Your blood boil? But that’s about it isn’t it? You’ll ‘tsk-tsk’ shake your head awhile and then move on to lunch.
When I went to UK I saw stuff that was not even half , not even quarter as old as what I saw over the last few days…and I saw how beautifully stuff was kept there. And we have stuff in every nook, every corner of every darn city here lying and going to waste like this one. And its obviously not an issue important enough to be taken seriously by anyone anywhere.
The only thing we noticed was a lot of security in both the places. Because of suspected terrorist activity. Apparently there is a huge conspiracy of terrorist threats to blow up Ellora. And so as a protective measure, the authorities put up a couple of puny ‘security’ guards with no weapons who didn’t even know the way to each of the caves.
And I fail to get why any terrorist would want to blow up the caves. Its not a major place of worship, nor does it attract that huge a number of tourists. Destroying it wouldn’t mean hurting national sentiment because there are very few people in the country who really appreciate its worth as national treasure. No, more than any patriotic feeling, what they would be destroying is actually a lot simpler, and a lot more tragic. What they would be destroying is Art, an art whose form we can only imitate now, an art that is so ancient that reconstruction of any form would only be a ridiculous joke, an art that is so beautifully simple that it is beyond any of us today to understand its value.

I remember this particular bit from Aguntuk, where Utpal Dutta’s character talks about this prehistoric painting of a bison that he had chanced upon that was starkly beautiful. And he had vowed that whatever he would do with his life, he would never be an artist as no art school in the world could teach him to paint like that.
Why dont people understand that this kind of thing is never going to come back? Ever?
I just feel too disgusted to go on. I know I should have blogged about the better bits…but…