Though the winter this year was quite severe in Delhi this year, it brought in lot of good shows. Whether it was T.V. Santhosh at Nature Morte, De-saturation with Alok, Josh and Pratul at Palette Art Gallery, Manisha Parekh’s show in Bodhi Art, Nagji Patel at Gallery Espace, Baiju Parthan at Vadhera Art Gallery, or Gargi Raina at Bodhi, all the shows brought in lot of energy in the art circle of Delhi. Santhosh’s show had not usual Delhi crowd but a considerable amount of his friends from Baroda and Mumbai.

I met my artist friend from Baroda at T.V. Santhosh’s show. He was looking at the mixed media sculpture titled Counting Down, in the lower gallery of Nature Morte. There was a smile on his face as if he is reflecting on something. We started chatting.

Me: Why that inquisitive smile?
Him: This sculpture should have displayed in Faculty of Fine Arts Baroda.

Me: [I had almost forgotten about the place, incident. Not heard about the situation in Baroda since long.] Why in Fine arts Faculty? Watch dogs are everywhere one does not have to go to Baroda, It happens in Delhi too [I argued citing the recent incident where the right wing activists tried to destroy the show of “anti-national Husain”].
Him: The countdown is already on in Baroda. The hounds are in the system itself and those Gestapo would soon pounce on the Faculty.

Me: I thought all those issues are cooled down.
Him: They froze it. Kept every issue in the cold storage and behave nothing had happened. Only ray of hope was the Governor’s Committee report.

Me: Which was....?
Him: Extremely positive. It recommended that Prof. Panikkar have to be reinstated and the University should release the results of Chandra Mohan.

Me: Then....?
Him: Then what yaar? We celebrated thinking it is the first rays of hope and we would see the sunrise soon. But nothing happened.

Me: Governor is not taking any action?
Him: Doesn’t seem like.

Me: Now Modi back in power...
Him: May be he can do something.

Me: Him....?
Him: Yaah... he can look at the two reports, one by the University committee and other by the Governor.

Me: Why should he listen to Governor’s committee?
Him: In academic matters a sensible chief minister should listen to eminent academicians and academic administers like Alagh or Sudarshan [Y.K. Alagh, Convener of Governor’s committee and the director of IRMA. He was also once the vice-chancellor of JNU, Delhi] [Sudarshan Aiyengar, member, convener of Governor’s committee] not some shop keeper of Baroda.

Me: Shop Keeper....!!?
Him: Yeah... one Mr. Mukund Shah.

Me: What is the shop keeper doing in University Committee on art practices?
Him: How do I know?

The grin came back to my friend’s face.

There he is... one among the many hounds. He said pointing at one of the watchdogs in Counting Down

The counter mounted on the watch dog counted down... 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8....