Osian's Auction Catalogue The Masterpieces Series | March 2010

6 ‘It has been the best of times, it has been the worst of times…’ for all of us. Some of us may experience the volatility with greater unrest, others will absorb calmly within their stride, transforming themselves while rooted in the unshakeable principles which create their ethos and vision, urgently learning from the crisis and emerging stronger and wiser than ever before. Osian’s is on such a path. After ten years of celebrating ‘creativity in infrastructure’ and establishing a unique ‘swaraj for the arts’ for India, we are for the first time, under pressure, consolidating, to the joy of many, and the relief of most. It is overdue, as we had over-stretched ourselves like few others would dare. Yet it was necessary and inevitable, the only way to truly change a paradigm. The road-blocks and obstacles were clear from inception, and well documented in all my essays on infrastructure-building for the arts, starting from 1994. Yet, intellectualizing a future crisis and experiencing the meltdown first hand are poles apart. Every major systemic transformation requires the taking of great risk, with the abundance of stamina and courage, the quiet resilience to bear criticism with mind focused on the path to be forged ahead, along with the unflinching love of the dedicated few and many. The integrity and vision of the individual is but the glue that binds it, irrespective of the knives the foes and friends must throw… for all change (whether good or bad) is resisted, especially in India, the ‘Queen of the Status Quo’. The last ten years is witness to this magnificent and difficult journey, part of one’s thirty year plan, which soon many will forge together as clarity of task deepens. Yet even today few really grasp the concepts and roots of the infrastructure building vision. How does it work? How will fusing aesthetics and ethics also tackle economic bottlenecks? What role can art and culture seriously play in the developmental plans of India? Is it really sustainable and viable as a financial model and value system? Will the intelligentsia take up implementation of the idea, which once upon a time we sub-contracted out to the world of business, politics and the like? All I can say, is that over the next few months many new ideas will clarify the next steps as Osian’s moves towards a much deeper and far reaching growth, taking art and culture and the values of creativity into the daily reality of the middle and working classes of India, along with the global audience. Ten years of work will suddenly be shared with the world in a new way, transforming the knowledge base with which we all perceive the worlds of art and cinema. A wonderful ‘obituary’ that I recently read on myself and Osian’s, representing a tradition of such sophisticated slime concocted by using a dash of facts, a dose of distortions and a lump of lies, shaken into a fancy frame, only makes more resilient the fight to change this deeply complacent and mediocre system. Today, the decency to do the right thing is seen as stupid and immature, while implementing sly practices to handle the nature of the peculiar system is seen to be mature and successful. However this will change, honesty will not be seen to be an Indian crime a few years from today. Yet for this to be the students, intelligentsia and the creative communities must unite, upon new platforms which are economically independent from patronage, while rooted and built to nurture creative integrity and freedom. ‘It has been the best of times, the worst of times…’