There is a fast disappearing art form of storytelling in Rajasthan that has a large painted canvas called a phad in the local dialect with folk paintings, almost like a stylised cartoon strip that rec Niladri Paul — acrylic on canvas There is a fast disappearing art form of storytelling in Rajasthan that has a large painted canvas called a phad in the local dialect with folk paintings, almost like a stylised cartoon strip that recounts the tales of specific kings or stories from mythology. The storyteller — or Bhopa as he is called — lights up the section he is talking about with a lit mashaal. The Bhopa is a one-person army who dances, enacts theatre, sings, plays an instrument and tells the story. I often think of myself as the proverbial Bhopa of Indian arts wherein I hold up the mashaal to light up areas of the arts in the hope that there will be one person in the audience who will understand what I am saying and will carry forward my message to help change matters for the better. My phad is my writing — be it this column or other writing for journals, my sporadic audio-visual presence and my books. I leave no opportunity to propound the message of the Indian arts and artistes across the board with an almost crusader’s zeal. How much it had helped, I frankly don’t know, but I award myself full marks for trying!In this lean season when arts take some sort of a backseat to emerge after the rains — awash with new ideas and renewed with energetic fervour — I find is the time to introspect as what ails the arts. In one such moment when I was taking a mental chakkar of the various arts, I feel the major problem that has remained unchanged in the last 30 years is the lack of trained management cadre to manage the arts. There are institutions galore, governmental, semi-governmental, autonomous, private, performers and artists who set up small institutions with governmental grants or lands et al, who all reel under untrained personnel and are able to do only as much as they can in a private capacity. When there are controversies, the government takes the easy way out by handing the institutions over to ‘artists or artistes’ as the case may be to temporarily placate ruffled feathers. I feel if there were trained personnel, the institutions — both public and private — could really take the arts forward in a big way, make a global presence, make the arts self-sufficient, access the schemes floated by the government, tap into the funds allocated under CSR initiatives in public sector undertakings, create synergy with similar institutions in other parts of the world, leave the performers and artists/artistes free to create so that they are not pushed into creating for rozi-roti. These trained administrators could help streamline the institutions and maybe hold charge of several small institutions. It could be made mandatory for all institutions that access public money to appoint one such person whose salary could even be paid partly by the government. I feel this will go a long way in preserving the arts by making them self-sufficient. Of course, a bigger outlay for the ministry of culture would help too.The reason I don’t run down the government — any government for that matter, is because but for them, many more of our arts would have died. It is thanks to welfare schemes and patronage, however small, many arts and performers have survived. The transparency that has come thanks to the internet has helped a lot. However, much more still needs to be done to better organise the arts sector.In the contemporary arts sector, avenues need to be opened so that advertising and school teaching are not the only options for an artist for dal-roti. My heart bleeds when I see really good artists opting for school jobs — not because I don’t think they are important jobs but it is my conviction that it ruins their own idiom, makes their work over-simplistic, they end up reaching out to the lowest common denominator. Many artists keep trying to valiantly practice their own work, but the truth is it just doesn’t work. However, only those who have a calling to teach should teach. Buying by institutions like the National Gallery of Modern Art and Lalit Kala Akademi must be re-opened and instead of attempting to match market prices, there should be a system of grading artists like singers and dancers a la All India Radio and Doordarshan. National coffers of art should be filled up thus to make our collections invaluable. Artists too should support such ventures, for it should be a matter of pride to have your work as part of national institutions. And it will help in pricing outside as well, for it will re-repose the faith of both buyers and collectors and neither will feel cheated. This slump in the arts has largely taken place thanks to arbitrary pricing by galleries and artists with no water marks as reference points. New public buildings, which have to now follow the rule of two per cent for acquiring art works of the total cost of the building is one of the best ideas, but this percentage can be increased to make it viable for the artists to sell to institutions at a logical price and not necessarily market price. While I am China wholesale Electric Instant Water Heater Faucet happy that Subodh Gupta got `2.50 crore for his public art project, I would have been happier if three slightly not-so-well-known artists could have populated three spaces with their art. Not for a minute am I propounding compromising quality, but a relatively equitable distribution goes a long way in making arts self-sufficient. The Bhopa recounts the story, but is anyone out there listening Ministry of culture mandarins Minister of culture The Prime Minister’s Office Dr Alka Raghuvanshi is an art writer, curator and artist and can be contacted on [email protected]