ANJOLIE ELA MENON
A show by the artist had to be wrapped up because the Shiv Sena had protested her work, Raising the Kundalini. The work, which the artist says has been interpreted as subversive, depicted a sparsely dressed meditating sadhu, figures of various Hindu gods and goddesses rising up the ridges of his spine. “The principle was that it takes enormous effort to raise the life force or the Kundalini and each figure of a god was a mark of success. The painting was about the spiritual quest of an ascetic,” Menon explains.

On the protests that seem to erupt at shows across India, she says, “Fundamentalists are at the lowest end of understanding as far as Hindu philosophy is concerned. They are just a crowd of goons hired to beat, burn and destroy. They’re so ignorant they pulled Jatin Das’s beard thinking he was Hussain.” Simplistic criticism of art, says Menon, goes against the grain of Indian culture. “Classical Indian art is full of erotic or human love but it has always been a metaphor for divine love. Objecting to a nude goddess, like Husain’s Bharatmata, is absurd.”
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