THE LONDON MISCELLANY

Painting : Prakash Karmakar 56

Painting : Papia Ghoshal 57

Painting : Helmut Thoma 58

Painting : Papia Ghoshal 59

TANTRA FESTIVAL 60

Photograph : Chandan Debnath 61-62

Poetry

The Aghrana For Going Back 63

Dipankar Roy

Translation- Sridam Kumar

CHRISTMAS EVE 65

Richard Berkeley

NEW YEAR’S EVE 65

Richard Berkeley

The Dance 66 Uncle Jon

I burnt fire 68

Papia Ghoshal

Translation - Christopher Arkell

Painting : Kamalika Kundu 70

Painting : Aninda Roy 71

Photographs : Marina Wright 72-73

Paintings : Rajarshi Chattopdhyay 74-75

Modern Art Movements Beyond Kolkata 76

Rajarshi Chattopadhyay

Photographs : Liudmila Rudykh 79

Photographs : Marina Wright 80-81

Photographs : Jan Mayers 82

Dance in the spring fire

Photograph : Jan Mayers

Dance in the spring fire

Demosthenes, the 4th Century BC Athenian orator, was fond of telling his audience of free fellow Athenian democrats (all men, no women, no slaves and no barbarians permitted entry) that at the very darkest hours in the city’s history, light – in the form of peace, prosperity and victory over the Macedonians, was only a moment away, if only the men of Athens would listen to him, follow his advice and sacrifice their present indolence for an instant’s hardship. A future of sunny uplands would stretch before them all (putting aside, of course, the women, the slaves and the barbarians) if only they would make a bit of an effort; build a huge navy; line up in squadrons with their best armour on; and go off to fight the Macedonian foe.

Alas – some might say “of course” but “alas” captures the shades of pity in the whole venture – events didn’t quite turn out as the Great Orator hoped. They never do, said Harold Macmillan, that mock-Edwardian relic in the age of the Beatles and James Bond, sadly. “Events, dear boy, events…….” The events that did for the Athenians were the defeat at the hands of the Macedonians in 338 BC at the Battle of Chaeronea; the theft of Alexander the Great’s Treasury and its deposit into Athens’ keeping; and the final determination of his survivors to crush Athenian democracy once and for all in 322 BC.

All a long time ago, many will point out. Very true – but History (to give it a degree of Personality which it doesn’t quite deserve) has a habit of repeating itself, rather like an extra helping of pudding at the end of an indulgent meal. Russia devouring bits of Ukraine in 2014 and 2022? Russia devouring bits of Poland in 1772, 1793 and 1795 – oh, and again in 1939. A British Prime Minister confounded by intransigent unions and a great inflation? Choose from Rishi Sunak in 2023 and Edward Heath in 1974. A Prince of the House of Windsor married to an American rebelling against his family and nation? Take your pick from the Duke of Sussex from 2018 to date, or the Duke of Windsor from 1936 until he died in 1972. The point of these illustrations is to emphasise that History always repeats itself – or, more accurately, repeats on itself. And that truth also lies at the heart of Demosthenes’ exhortations to his fellow countrymen. Alexander Pope, the Eighteenth Century’s most refined poet, had it right when he wrote:

Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never IS – but always TO BE blest: (Essay on Man, ll 95-96)

No matter how grim the present circumstances, we all instinctively look for something better. The springiness of hope, the leap of faith, the trust that tomorrow will be better than today, that dawn comes after the darkest night; this sense is – to use an ugly but useful current cliché – “baked into” the acknowledgement of History’s circularity. No matter how often it returns – like the Biblical dog – to its vomit; no matter how many times it repeats on the humans who endure its bad habits; the leap of faith, the spring of hope, is eternally in the human breast.

There is a fashion for denigrating this lively quality, this hope. Generation Z (“GenZee” as the infantile commentators label it) is presented as having no hope at all. They are told they face a world which will eat them all up, fry them, drown them, gas them and generally expunge them from the face of the planet. Of course, “GenZee” is no more (or less) than a marketing tool, designed to sell to young people who know no better, as many toys and amusements as they can borrow the money to pay for. Still, however factitious the label and meretricious the descriptions of its members, those born around the turn of the last Millenium are being given (or sold) some pretty grim prognoses. But it is easy to see where that instinct comes from, if one recalls the trait of History to repeat itself. Go back just 900 years (a blink of an eye for India and China) and a similarly bleak view of the world from the European point of view, was current. The whole of Western Christendom would go to wrack and ruin unless the Saracens were driven out of Jerusalem. It was that determination which drove men of all classes and stations in life, to Take the Cross, become Crusaders and get themselves out to Palestine to make a considerable mess there of the existing order of things (the Eastern Christians in Constantinople were largely appalled but powerless to do much to stop the disorder). Hope sprang then in many a human breast. GenZee are given their crusades too – largely grouped under the brand of Wokerism. Hmmm – one may wonder how they will turn out!

So each fresh start, whether motivated by a crusading instinct in 1100 or a wokeristproclivity in 2023, expresses a Leap of Faith, a Spring of Hope, in the face of the repetitions of history. The fact that these leaps and springs all end, like pride, in a fall, does not stop them being, each of them, a great kick against all that goads us into ploughing the same old field again and again. These are the twin forces – the Leap of Faith and the incurable Eructations of History – that shape our time on this planet. It is therefore worth quoting the two lines which follow those quoted above:

The soul, uneasy and confined from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

Now, as Hamlet might say, there’s “a consummation Devoutly to be wished.”

Dance in the spring fire

Photograph : Jan Mayers

Dance in the spring fire