Colours on canvas — bright & otherwise

Jasmine Singh

From country to country Nostalgia would travel, bringing up the rear as it were, reminding us, according to the exhibition catalogue, that “we are victims of today, hostage to tomorrow, and nostalgic for yesterday.”’ 

Qayenaat, who was still devoted to the increasingly estranged thing called art, had her life demarcated by three bold colours, which were like three visible yet disjointed patches of a painting. 

The first stroke held her to a precious segment of her ordinary past called Baban, who was her ex-boyfriend. The other, was a bold stroke of her current identity, which was not as grand as her name, instead it was trying to find meaning in smaller things like struggle for the claim for her father’s life insurance. And, the last patch of colour, still wet stood out as a disjointed part, looking almost as a small undiscovered place — Simhal!

 Like Baban’s installation work, Nostalgia, wherein each new piece was a surprise in relation to his prior work, and offered no clue about what was to follow, writer Anjum Hasan’s lovely-lost, disillusioned, hurt-in-love, nearly penniless, guilt-driven Qayenaat has her life marred by self-created surprises that are equally surprising for the readers as well. But when the writer decides to elevate this surprise element with the simple and sinuous rhythm of an old dance form, it begins to sound like a set of long, uncoordinated sounds! 

The author takes Qayenaat to Simhal, making her walk through the empty corridors of Modern Nritya Academy. She makes her meet the obsessive King only to make her run away to rediscover herself. It wouldn’t be too filmy to say that The Cosmopolitans is a ready plot for a film that has love, unrequited love, pain, jealously, longing, discovery of self and everything returning back to normal. This plot, however, meanders through unnecessary long lanes, making the journey wee long. All the same, Anjum paints Qayenaat, the girl next door, (this 

is if you are living in an artistic neighbourhood), with many relatable attributes, with jealousy driving her to the highs and lows of life. At the same time, the author hovers around the periphery of the art world, diving into it sometimes, but with all subtlety, as to not to hurt the composition. 

In this process, you can clearly hear an echo, which comes from the hollowness of art world that looks all rosy, arty yet so unexplained, just like Baban’s installation works. Cosmopolitan is a world, cosmopolitan is a place, cosmopolitan are the people, and cosmopolitan is the art…When used as an adjective, cosmopolitan are people who are familiar with and at ease in many countries and cultures. 

Anjum’s cosmopolitans are well-travelled, they mingle in different cultures, they talk of different cultures, accepting and appreciating them as a piece of art, but at the same time, these cosmopolitans reek of emptiness, and often look for an escape route. Some like Qayenaat end up touching base with themselves, while others like Baban and Sathi, her friend, are left with their disillusions that don’t interfere with their art affairs. 

The unabashed debate on art, love for cheap whiskey, struggle for sustenance, finding real meaning of life, The Cosmopolitans throws in a bevy of characters, all relatable to the extent of loathing and loving, painting the right ‘nostalgia’.