Editor's Note.
It's like hanging off a roof, too weak to get back up, strong enough to hold on. Or perhaps it is learning to see yourself from the perspective of the roof. Two people, now one, revisit the world via "the mediation of the difference in their gazes" (Alan Badiou, In Praise of Love).
Love is anxious about the future, torn in the present, exhilarated by the past. Love is swept away by ideas and angst, and bound, entranced, steadied by weight. Anchored. Light and floating
Because it overcomes time: yes, indeed, only in love, is eternity finite.
Read MoreLove is anxious about the future, torn in the present, exhilarated by the past. Love is swept away by ideas and angst, and bound, entranced, steadied by weight. Anchored. Light and floating
Because it overcomes time: yes, indeed, only in love, is eternity finite.
By Waylon D’Mello, Issue 17, Love, February 2013
Ali Kazim’s meticulous multi-layered watercolour paintings are voyages into personal spaces of sublime contemplation. His subjects are, most often, lone men painted on wasli, a hardy paper inherited from the Mughal miniature school. This story is an imagined reverie between two lovers who live on separate continents. I use the form of love-letters as a window into the candid space that only the people experiencing a relationship can fully inhabit, much like the spaces of Kazim’s subjects.
The Prince departed on flight 9W-229 and took with him the King’s ability to dream. In its place was left a dark shadow that sat on his chest like a playful cat that nipped at him at every instance of sleep.
2011pigments_on_paper_122x61cm(back).jpg&w=585&h=350&q=100 "Dark Cloud")
My prince,
I’ve been trying to sleep for hours now but something keeps me from slipping into my dream white slumber. The film of perspiration makes my skin glisten a Dravidian hue that’s blacker than purple but browner than black.
I’ve been trying to sleep for hours now but something keeps me from slipping into my dream white slumber. The film of perspiration makes my skin glisten a Dravidian hue that’s blacker than purple but browner than black.
2011pigments_on_paper122x61cm(front).jpg&w=585&h=350&q=100 "Untitled (Self portrait- front), watercolour pigments on paper / Ali Kazim, Jhaveri Contemporary; 2011.")
The acrid smell of dry sweat that lingers on our sheets distracts me as I coax myself asleep, stripped down to the striped cotton polyester skivvies you left in my room. Maybe I stole them.
Why are you not here with me?
_2011,_Hair_and_hairspray_suspended_from_ceiling,_dimension_vary.jpg&w=585&h=350&q=100 "Untitled, human hair, hairspray, and invisible thread / Ali Kazim, Jhaveri Contemporary; 2011.")
My king,
In Brazil they have a word for this fascination I have with the twisted shafts of your wavy mane. The strands of white hide in the confused bundle like invisible thread, overpowered by the mystery of your chaotic tangles.
Cafuné, they say, is the pleasure I get from tenderly running my fingers through your hair. Like a spritz of hairspray, my every stroke sets your jute-like tresses into fractal disarray. Your knotted morning mass is reminiscent of every toss and turn it takes for our bodies to finally settle in the comfortable suspension of translucent dreams.
Such a mess. I am.
_pigmenst_on_water_colour_paper,_24x26inches,2011.jpg&w=585&h=350&q=100 "Untitled, pigments on water colour paper (self-portrait series) / Ali Kazim, Jhaveri Contemporary; 2011.")
Weeks pass and the king is still unable to sleep. The 12,706 km between him and his prince bears down on his shoulders. In the morning he cannot bring himself to look at his bedhead in the mirror. When he finally glances at his reflection he sees the prince’s feet on his shoulders. The king slumps to the bathroom floor and falls into a hazy slumber on the cold winter tiles.
When you wake up I hope you think of me and know that I will always love you. If I cannot be near you now then know that you are in my heart. Let the ghost of my presence stem legs between your nakedness and the empty spaces of your bed. The fearless love that you proffer has made me your brown, and you my white. Until we are together again, it must be enough.
I sometimes weep as the distance between us begins to feel real because without you my prince, I cannot be satisfied.
I hunger for you my king, like clockwork- every day when I wake, every night before I close my eyes and in the haze in between. You sit in the crevices of my consciousness, waiting to greet my wandering thoughts at every free moment. You are always on my mind and if for a moment you cease to be, I know it’s because you’ve taken time to inspect my heart, where you will always have a place.
,2012,pigments_and_gold_leaf_on_paper,38x28cm.jpg&w=585&h=350&q=100 "Untitled (self portrait series), pigments and gold leaf on paper / Ali Kazim, Jhaveri Contemporary; 2012")
The king muses about the mere week it took for their love to acetate the anxiety that lovers have before confessing true devotion. Like a solvent it had stripped the colour off his skin exposing the loneliness he breathed before they met. The gold leaf wall in front oh him catches the flickers of amusement in his thoughts.
It never ceases to amaze me just how quickly you came to consume my person. The ways of love have much eluded me but all I know is that our love is incalculable. There are some that measure their love by how little they must endure of each other and they may be the luckier for it. But I think that those who love hard cannot love without hardship.
Soon, my prince, we shall be reunited.
,2012,_pigments_and_gold_leaf_on_paper,38x28cm.jpg&w=585&h=350&q=100 "Untitled (self portrait series), pigments and gold leaf on paper / Ali Kazim, Jhaveri Contemporary; 2012.")
The prince books his passage to India whilst the king pretends to sleep in his chamber on the other side of the world. The colour slowly returns to his skin as he plunges into his first dream in months.
My king,
From you I have learnt that when love is forlorn you must not test it; when it seeks to run away, you must hold it close and guard it so that it may not inflict harm upon itself.
This is the year you come back to me. Oh, thirteen, lucky for some. Insha’Allah- the two of us.
Waylon D’Mello is a freelance writer and performing acrobat of start-up proportions for www.Gloop.in.
Ali Kazim is a painter from Pattoki, Pakistan, whose works show in galleries around the world. He grew out of the cinema board painting industry to a graduate from the National College of Arts, Lahore.
Also in this issue
Illusion: Seeing Beyond Seeing
Meaning: In Search of Significance.
Melody: A Different Tune
Rhythm: Ordering Time