When we were in our mid-30s, my friends and I were at a nightclub where one of the men in our group was smitten by a gorgeous woman. When we found that she was 60, we thought it was hilarious. The joke’s on us now as a 60-year has won the Miss Universe Buenos Aires beauty pageant. The realisation that the woman in the club was perhaps in the same league as the new Argentinian beauty queen evokes a mix of emotions that we had not anticipated when we were young hotties.
Alejandra Rodriguez seems to be a remarkable woman – a beauty with brains, she emphasises fitness and is both a lawyer and journalist. Whether or not she clinches the title of Miss Universe Argentina and advances to the final, she stands as a symbol of push back against ageism. The ‘new paradigm’ of beauty is also a paradox of sorts; if we›re honest, her achievements while redefining beauty pageants inadvertently raise the bar for women her age and pose new challenges.
Until Alejandra arrived on the scene, we could look at the toned bodies of lissom lasses working out next to us in the gym or swimming laps in the pool with ‘Ah, we had those too when we were younger’. We could vengefully spy Botox, lifts, and tucks of those of our vintage who are defying age. We can no longer take comfort in memories of pulchritude; we are now compared with and expected to be like the svelte Argentinian. She seems so charming that we can’t even dislike her a bit. It’s enough to make you swoon if the heat wasn’t already causing you to do so.
One way to forget the heat beating us down is to immerse ourselves in art. And so I headed to an ArtPark event. Here, Dimple Shah, a performance artist, had tied strings of tiny plastic pots to her body – the kind with which children play ‘house, house’. As she walked around in a small circle trailing them, they rattled rhythmically. She launched into a poem she’s written, ‘A psychological thirst’. “Neeru, Neeru (Water, Water) in my dreams, I hear the sound of water drops.” Dimple speaks the truth indeed; on days when taps run dry, I swear I hear the ghostly mocking echo of water drops.
SG Vasudev who conceptualised the community art event is an eminent contemporary artist, an enthusiastic mentor and enabler of the arts and artistic community. He’s another example of breaking the ageist stereotype – at 82 he continues to exhibit works in different cities. (Hear him on my podcast “A Life in Art” SG Vasudev in Spotlight with Sandhya). He was one of the key people responsible for bringing the National Gallery of Modern Art to Bangalore. But he realised that very few Indians go to art galleries in India and they are also inhibited about talking to an artist. That’s when he thought of the ArtPark as a platform for artists and an opportunity for people to observe the artistic process, learn, and acquire art at affordable prices.
For over six years, on the first Sunday of each month, a couple of dozen artists gather to draw and paint at the Sculpture Garden on the Ravindra Kalakshetra campus. The artists include those who are well-known and those who are struggling. They are treated as equals and supplied with acid-free drawing sheets to work on during the day. The completed works are sold at a fixed price of one thousand rupees.
The ArtPark Committee is a group of volunteers currently headed by Bhagya Ajaikumar and raises funds to provide artists tables, chairs and refreshments. ArtPark also travels to other venues as invitations to hold started pouring in from campuses and other cultural centres. Its 75th edition was at the Bangalore International Centre.
Vasudev has advocated the interconnection of art for as long as I can remember; I count him as a mentor and sounding board as do many others. Fittingly, the milestone event of ArtPark was a true composite of various cultural streams and involved theatre maven Arundhati Nag, the soulful musician MD Pallavi and award-winning poet Mamta Sagar apart from artists.
In an increasingly divisive world, such events help evolve creative expressions and offer inspiration for calmer, gentler times.
Sandhya Mendonca is an author and host of ‘Spotlight with Sandhya’ podcast.