On Design

In India one would find ‘good design’ – but in an entirely venal form. Here is a perfect fusion, but of evil intent and meticulously crafted horrid method. Here is design, but oriented to maximise exploitation of consumers as well as degradation of society as a whole...

So I wrote in an article titled "Design is Love", in the December 2007 issue of Mail of the Month of the Association for Design and Advertising (Sweden).

Read the full article here.

Image: From DesignBoom's Love Your Earth graphic design competition.

Pina Bausch in Calcutta

Pina Bausch and the Tanztheater Wuppertal are in Calcutta for their production Bamboo Blues, inspired by India.

I had the opportunity to see the dress rehearsal of the production yesterday evening, at the Rabindra Sadan.


Damiano Ottavio Bigi and Clementine Deluy.
Photo: © Gert Weigelt


Thusnelda Mercy and Pablo Aran Gimeno.
Photo: © Gert Weigelt

It was spectacular and exquisite, an uplifting aesthetic experience.

See pictures from the performance here.



After the performance, Pina and her troupe interacted with the staff and children of Talimi Haq School, Howrah where they had visited during their research trip in 2006.



I was moved to tears to see the warmth of the reception.

Also at the performance was Martin Waelde, who was the Director at the Max Mueller Bhavan (Goethe Institut) in Calcutta during 2004-07. Martin organised a major international conference (on "Does Culture Matter") in 2004. He also brought the German-Swiss theatre group Rimini Protokol to Calcutta, and Rimini's live / interactive production Call Cutta was played in Calcutta in 2005. Martin also brought Gunter Grass to Calcutta again, in 2005. And in 2006, he brought Pina Bausch and the Tanztheater Wuppertal to Calcutta. Martin's stint in Calcutta was completed last year. So it was great that he was able to be present here to see the spectacular result of his inititiave. Bravo!

Bengali communists

Juha Rudanko, a journalist from Finland, has written to me asking for an interview on communism in West Bengal.

Here are his questions.

Could you briefly outline your view of the most important phases of the emergence of the CPI(M)and its development to what it is today? What is the source of the CPI's support? Why has it stayed in power for so long? How have the CPI's policies changed over time? How much support does the party have today?

How does communist rule affect people's day-to-day lives? I guess the most obvious practical way is the frequent strikes, but are there others? Does the CPI(M)'s rule in West Bengal make people's lives somehow different from those in other parts of India? Could you give practical examples I could use to illustrate this?

In your blog, you write that the CPI(M) has no concern for the common citizen of Bengal, but only for the party's short-term interest. What does that mean in practice? Could you give examples?

You also write that the party rather than the state institutions runs everything. How does that work in practice? Are there parallels with other communist societies? What do you mean by "an insidious privatisation of public space, and criminalisation of life and politics"?

You write that "perhaps the worst oppression on the people is in the state of the primary education system and the public healthcare system – which in turn are in this state because of the extortionary activities of the CPI(M)." Could you please explain what you mean? How has the CPI(M) failed in provision of primary education and public healthcare?

Juha Rudanko's article in the Finnish magazine Kumppani is accessible here (pdf, 4 MB).