What we Worship, We shall Become

"My feeling is that mythic forms reveal themselves 

gradually in the course of your life ,

if you know what they are 

and how to pay attention to their emergence'

-

'What we worship we shall become'  became a particularly important affirmation for me these last few months while travelling through the Kumbh. I once had a conversation in an old temple somewhere in the north with a Sadhu where I asked him "Why do men worship the goddesses on our walls, but rape the women in their homes?" and in his smokey haze he said to me  "When you(and women) see your own divinity and strength, all else will follow". At that point in my life, I felt like that was a very convenient thing to say. But perhaps there's truth in this, instead of waiting for patriarchy to liberate me, I'm making an active effort to liberate myself and reclaim my right to my body, to public space and to spirituality. 'Fearless' is one step towards that.

"By the time I reached my mid-twenties, I was thoroughly conditioned by masculine spirituality to believe that the feminine body is more than anything an inconvenient obstacle, and I didn’t want to use my energy on these earthly matters. I was seeking a transcended state of enlightenment. One day..it became apparent that there is no 'out of here', that what I had been seeking outside myself was (and is over and over) realized by opening to love, the love that is the very fabric of which I am made. This realization challenged me to embrace life in its totality, my body also being a manifestation of this same love, and it brought my awareness to the cycles happening around me and within. When I listened to these rhythms, new dimensions of awakening revealed themselves to me.
~Chameli Ardagh

Paintings walls in public spaces is an extremely symbolic way of reclaiming the streets, and being in Benaras- India's Hindu and Spiritual center, I felt like I wanted to leave my mark and message on the walls there. No permissions and buckets of paint, for 3 days I stood by the banks with some of the local kids jumping in to help.

 

While this wall was done without permission (save an OK from the Chaiwallah perched outside it), I was pleased to find that the tenants of that particular wall work with girls rights in particular.
Synchronistic. While painting this wall I also had a lot of interesting discussions/debates with locals there about women and violence in India.

Special Love and shoutouts to Suki Zoe, new friend and co-cosmic traveller through the Kumbh on diets of veggie juice and barfis, who has taken all these pictures (and many more)- more from her here - http://qito.co.uk/2013/02/06/shilo-shiv-suleman/

annnnd Avijit, who always carries my metaphorical and real ladders. Also special love to all the children in Benaras who painted with me, the parrot who sat beside me and more. Next time you're there- Go check out my wall near Vaatika Pizzeria at Assi ghat, on the same wall that says gangamahal ghat. :)

This one was painted for Kitsch Mandi's Neighbourhood festival and says  'The F-word- Feminist is not a bad or angry word, fearlessly reclaim the streets' It was inspired by conversations and articles by two friends Aarthi and Anisha.  While the Benaras wall is placed within the context of hindu-heartland, this wall is all urban. You can see it outside JNC college in Koramangala and it inspired this movement of women :  http://www.talkingcranes.com/In%20the%20news/the-importance-of-loitering

You can spend your life hoping that
when only you get rid of the fear,

when you are a little bit more enlightened,

when you have built up your self esteem, 
then...

then you will show up and give it all.

Or... you can get out of your own way,

make yourself available,

and bow down to the One who plays you.

Now.

~Chameli Ardagh

Remember, Pi

When I started the Fearless Campaign, I was spending three weeks living out of Goa, in a happy goa fearless bubble with a glass of port in my hand as I rode around with no thought about whether my body was covered or not, I watched women from all over the world walk fearlessly on sand, wind in hair. 

My journey from there continued onwards on Bike with my partner to the North of India on a rusty old enfield towards the Kumbh Mela over three days, and it's this ride that really turned out to be my super symbolic "fearless" test.
While we rode through rural U.P. I have never been as aware as I was on that bike of what I was wearing, how desolate the highway was, how many trucks and big cars full of men there were, how few women were on the streets and in the villages. To add to this test, our bike broke down on all three days that we were riding in U.P for hours at end.

Suddenly we found ourselves in rural U.P, in the middle of hillbilly nowhere, with hungry eyes and claws staring at me in every mechanic shop, every dhaba and every chai stop. My first reaction was to add more layers onto my salwar-kameezed-winter clothed self. I wore a dupatta around my head, and every time we would stop I would avoid eye contact with all the staring men. My paranoia even went as far as a thought crossing my mind that I should make myself look "uglier" so that I attracted less attention.
I've lived in small town North India, and travelled extensively across villages in Kutch and Rajasthan while working, but this was the first time I had felt this kind of fear. In my head played articles about Rape in Haryana and U.P, thoughts about how "these people" are all repressed, and all sorts of judgments. I messaged a friend about my fear who replied saying "Remember Pi, the world reflects your fear, replace it with strength and that will be reflected too".

And so I raised my head and faced the journey with greater strength as I would in my hometown Bangalore or in lala Goa. I became the tiger and the mirror. And to my surprise, a lot of the people who I wouldn't even have looked at in the eye but judged as creepers, were kind and full of love to us while we got our bike fixed, as more often than not has been the case when I've travelled through India. And yes, some of those stares were more lecherous, but my hiding wouldn't help the hundreds of women that would and should make their way across India on a bike.

Fear, making ourselves "blend in" or a Wallflower is all counterproductive to the larger change we need to see. We need to face not only the 'tigers' in our societal boats, but also the tigers inside us. My calling rural men in UP "repressed" is the same as them calling me (a city girl) a slut.
This is not a time for judgement or divisions, but relearning and re-forming our ideas about men, women, sexuality and ourselves.

"Remember Pi, the world reflects your fear, replace it with strength and that will be reflected too".

the Fearless Revolution

Fearless started on a december afternoon as a spark of 2 posters I made for myself, and a conversation with Laila Vaziralli of Kitsch Mandi who fueled the flame.

I was at the protests for Nirbhaya in Delhi following the gang rape, I was exhausted. I'd shared every media article on every horrifying rape story, had endless conversations with people about masculinities and gender roles. I felt helpless, but what I was most tired of was people telling me I needed to be afraid. 
I found myself afraid of taking buses, taking autos, taking any public transport. I was afraid of the streets, and I was afraid and deeply mistrustful of any man unfamiliar to me. And people would fuel that fear, they would tell me not to drive my own car home, not to wear anything too attractive, to not talk to strangers, to not be out at night.  I was tired of hearing politicians have foot in mouth moments, I was tired of being afraid. And the media followed suit, with more fear mongering and sensationalism


While I felt like these articles needed to be shared, these stories needed to be heard, I also felt like Fear is counterproductive to the larger change that India needs to see, the more women reclaim the streets and the more men that support that: the stronger we are. 
As long as we cower away hiding at home, nothing will ever change. 

We need to keep going out at night, taking public transport, wearing what we want, dancing, singing, being beautiful and reclaiming the streets. 

I put up a poster on facebook to reaffirm this just to myself. I wanted to remind myself that I never asked for it, no matter how skimpy my clothes, or how late at night. This was the first poster I made. 

Followed by this one, inspired by a night when me and some friends went out dancing in Sarees and were asked if we were prostitutes in one of Bangalore's biggest clubs, and it felt like regardless of whether  I wore traditional indian clothing or a "miniskirt", my dancing would always be looked at as enticement. I wanted to reaffirm for myself that I would keep on dancing because I danced for myself.

Laila said she'd put them up at a Kitsch Mandi event, and in one conversation I decided on whim to put up a 'Call for Posters' on facebook. 

Little did I know what was going to follow. Close to 300 posters and around 200 artists across India with exhibitions all around the country (and world) 

 It became a way for Artists across India and the world to reaffirm Fearlessness and Feminine Courage in a world that was looking rather bleak with floods of stories about how one could potentially get sexually harrassed and raped anytime and anywhere. And it's been beautiful.  


Here are some of the posters :

by Aarti Chawda 

by Nayantara Sarah Surendranath

 

by Taaneya Balaji and Maheshwari Janarthan

by Abhishek Choudhry

and what's amazing to me is that apart from the posters being beautiful, so many of them came with long emails and stories, women who after seeing the posters felt like they needed to take action against people who had abused them, people who realized how contagious fear can be, discussions on what Indian-Culture is. It's become a growing movement of artists who are using their voices and social media to send out positive affirmations. Moreover, the campaign doesn't attempt to change the world as much as it attempts to change the self, and in that lies the truth. 

You can read some of my favourite stories on the facebook page and see all the posters: www.bit.ly/thefearless

In the last few months, I've also travelled around the country taking the campaign to the streets: 

In Delhi we were all over One Billion Rising: 

thanks to Preethi Herman and Change.org

In Bombay we were at the Norah Jones' Summers Day festival thanks to OML

In Bangalore we were all over the streets at Kitsch Mandi's Neighbourhood festival 

(our biggest partner to date) 

and in Singapore we were exhibited by MadderMoon Gallery who also hosted Poetry Jams,

Live art and more inspired by Fearless! 

And more and more and more. And running the campaign has been a challenge, all my fears came pouring out, test after test the universe sent at me, but more on that later. 

There's a lot been said about the Art of Asking, but I want to spend a moment 

saying something about the beauty of receiving. All I did was put out a small small request on facebook for posters, but what I received was SO much more glorious than anything I could have ever imagined or dreamt of. It's been humbling to see how many illustrators, non artists and men and women alike have come forward and contributed. I am grateful. I am grateful and yes, I am fearless. 

Love

Shilo

One year since TED

One year since my INKtalk went up on TED.com and my life was suddenly flooded with just under a million new people. I remember that night, thinking - wow! how exciting, it'll probably get a few thousand views and It got 11,000 views in the first ten minutes.

Thank you INK, TED, Lakshmi, Raghava, Avijit, the Khoya team, Tank and Bear and everyone who has been part of this journey exploding across the universe. Love. 

the NH7 Kabootar

I bought myself a tempo this December for the NH7 Weekender Festival as an installation!

It's bright and red and beautiful! How the installation worked is- if you liked a musician you could take out a postcard from the tempo, write it to them, and post it into one of our astonished postboxes. We'd then give the musician the postcard! 

The craziest part was - it had to be done in three days!! 
Special love to Gayatri Ganju Mana Dhanraj Aruna Chandrasekhar Aarthi Parthasarathy Karuna Jenkins Rora Ling Nikita Jain without whom all my whites would be empty and my outlines incomplete. I get by with a little help from my friends!

Watch a video about it here :

Catching up

It's been so long, too long since I wrote here, while my facebook page is very much alive.

it's my birthday today (I  turn 24) and I thought I should do some catching up in this little haven of mine

It's been an amazing heart opening- few months. I spent twenty days mostly alone in Brazil where I found so much love, so much music and a family, I also lost all my money in my bank account to theft, but learnt a beautiful and valuable Lesson in Kindness. 

I'm drawing again after many months of digital magic. Good old paper pen and gold dust. 

"When I’m drawing I feel a little closer to the way birds navigate when flying, or to hares finding shelter when pursued, or to fish knowing where to spawn, or trees finding a way to the light, or bees constructing their cells. 

I’m aware of a distant, silent company. Almost as distant as the stars. Company nevertheless. Not because we are in the same universe, but because we are involved – each according to his own mode – in a comparable manner of searching.

Drawing is a form of probing. And the first generic impulse to draw derives from the human need to search, to plot points, to place things and to place oneself. “

- John Berger

I travelled to Kerala with  Evan Hastings and the Shadow Liberation

 where I found total peace in Ritual, where we learnt how to make traditional shadow puppets from a Pullavar (priest) who became our Guru over the last few days.His family has done this for a thousand years or more.  So much beauty in Ritual. Fire, sound, conchshell, lights and prayer.  Snake tongue, Animal sacrifices, Gods of the forest. 

Here's the puppet I made, handcarved out of goatskin. We carve the eyes out last with a prayer and fire and sacred smoke because it's with the eyes that life is infused into these puppets. 

I made some stages, danced on some too. 

We are made of stories not atoms. 

You can spend your life hoping that

when only you get rid of the fear,

when you are a little bit more enlightened,

when you have built up your self esteem,

then...

then you will show up and give it all.

Or... you can get out of your own way,

make yourself available,

and bow down to the One who plays you.

Now

~Chameli Ardagh

I last left this blog saying "Before you become crystalline, find that source that made you glow"

And I am glowing I am glowing I am glowing. 

Love

Crystalline

My logo crystal

A friend Smriti was talking to us the other day about one's life as being a spiral, you start at a source and move outwards from that source, make a full cycle around and find yourself back at a parallel point on the same line. It's the same place, the same lesson to be learnt but something has changed. And onwards and onwards, we find ourselves back at the same place in a cycle but having learnt more and expanded outwards.

All of last year was an internal cycle, looking inwards, drawing all the time, working on Khoya and INK, growing and thinking and changing and meditating. A work Sanyaas of sorts. I didn't freelance, money and everything else became irrelevant. I was creating Inner worlds and I was happy. and chapters were coming to an end I graduated from Srishti after 5 years at the top of my class as Valedictorian, and released Khoya into the world.

Then came the next loop, the outwards spiral- Sharing, Pouring out, rising out of the sea and into the sky like a star. And it's been rewarding too. There's so much love here, first the TED talk went out like a wave across the universe, and from there on it's been an endless flow of articles and outward living. An acquaintance once told me that one must be like Akshayapatra in the Mahabharat- the Vessel that is only full when shared, the second one stops sharing one becomes empty. For the last few months I've been sharing consistently, living that outward life, being loved and loving. But lately I'm starting to feel like this cycle is slowly coming to an end as well. My vessel is full and I am sharing, but perhaps one shouldn't be so averse to being "empty" for a while either.  I feel like going back to this blog that's been my silent haven since I was 16 before followers and stats, It's been ignored since I've started posting stuff on facebook with more instant gratification. I need to train myself to become a Karma Yogi of the digital world, share without care or expectation, and while blogs make it easy to talk to myself and be honest, Facebook doesn't. I think it's a balance a lot of us in the online blog and art world are trying to figure out too : How not to crystallize.

All the talks on Khoya are exciting, but I feel I need to move on before I start to feel like a broken record, even if it's only to Khoya 2. There are new valleys to explore, new interactions to create and other universes within the narrative to paint and see and be before I become into a crystal of Childhood and Magic. These are phases and circles in the spiral. I was much older when I was younger, darker, scratchier, more instinctive but also sadder, affirming negative emotions in my life until it came to a total crescendo of near madness and fear. 

(some canvases from my older work when I was 15)

I was reborn as a child, rediscovered magic and love. But now I feel like I've grown up again and this time round perhaps it's not so bad. Khoya 2 is going to be an exploration of this growth, and newer realizations.  A new wave in the spiral. Relatively older and ready to learn again without expectation.

A photograph from this month's Time Out magazine.

I need to go back to the Source, to re-boot and refresh myself. Find what it is that made me glow first before I become crystalline. 

Hello bonifisheii.blogspot.com. I've missed you. 

PS- Ironically, this post was saved as a draft for months with all the pictures and videos in but no words:  A Microdocumentary about my life and connections which was so beautifully shot by Ben Henretig of Microdocs, the launching of myself as a brand of illustrated goodies and more. But instead, it's turned into an introspection on innerworlds and outerworlds. :) Perhaps this was meant to happen after all.
Thank you for all the love :)