( News Paper Documentation is the SUPW Project work for my class,12 arts D.And we were askd to write a report on the same for the school magazine.) On Friday evenings we smelt paper. Not the white sort-with pen scribbles,and the unending residue of afternoon lectures.these sheets of paper had a graying tint to it;the whiteness melted into the machine impressions of late night news editions that travelled as far as from Kolkota,New Delhi and Siliguri. We just smelt paper but the paper smelt a world that we had never been to-St.Petersburg,Seoul,Kinshasa and the country side on the out skirts of Colorado.It smelt of people we had never seen-the shark riders of politics,the limelight queens of the film reel,the shady chill of serial killers,the euphoria of the foot ball stadium,and simple unknown people who became famous just because fame was thrust upon them. On Friday evenings the world of celebrations and loss,of the victors and the vanquished,lay before us,as sheets of paper.In our ha...
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Phallic Paintings.A unique form of art in Bhutan.
Phalluses painted on walls,suspended above doors or hanging from roofs corners in rural Bhutan are a remarkble sight for all.Some phalluses are endowed with a pair of benign and comic eyes.They are often positioned on either side of the main door. This art form which is both beautiful and banal,is unusual in the rest of the world.In educational terms,the images are also about acceptance with out shame or guilt.Phallic images are used in rituals for protection from slander and vilification. The common view is that ,when people or those who bear Us ill will,see a phallus,they are over come by shame and embarrassment and are unable to cause Us harm,This view led people to pin wooden phalluses in highly visible places.
Through out Bhutan,in high mountain passes,roof tops and low lands prayer flages flutter in the wind to send steady stream of mantras to the deities.As the air passes over the printed surfaces of the flag,it is sweetened and purified to benifit all sentient being in the area. A typical prayer flag laming jewals on its back.The horse is known as 'wind horse' and the jewals symbolise,the Budha,the Bhudist teaching and the Budhist community.