Flex Mentallo

Headmaster: [leading a school prayer] Oh Lord, we give thee humble and hearty thanks for this, thy gift of discipline, knowing that it is only through the constraints of others that we come to know ourselves, and only through true misery can we find true contentment. "Ripping Yarns" Tomkinson's Schooldays (1976) School bully was nearly 6 foot tall at the age of 14. He was a great athlete, especially at the 100 yards dash, all power and pumping arms. But when we ran the cross country, he always made the mistake of running off too fast, as though he could somehow defeat the laws of aerobics and win by sheer determination.. I was weedy, and slow, but when I ran, I could run for hours, so inevitably I would run him down, being careful to cross the track to the far side as I left him (all power, etc) flailing in my wake. His many victories took only seconds - my few, much longer. We were never friends. School bully's nemesis was Mr Brannigan. He was our form teacher in third year at St Cuthbert's Grammar School on the western fringe of Newcastle on Tyne, a ten mile journey every day from my home on the Northumberland coast. Mr Brannigan was only approximately 5 foot tall. Every single school day that year, he would bounce into class, and the first words from his mouth would be "Stand up Sumner!" And not without trepidation, School bully would rise slowly to his feet, towering over his teacher. Whereupon, to the daily mirth and occasional downright hysteria of the class, he would proceed to poke School bully repeatedly in the stomach. As I said, School bully and I were never friends, but one day, by sheer chance, we both happened to catch the early bus home. Since no-one else was present, and his street cred was not in danger, School bully deigned to speak to me. It wasnt exactly a conversation. More a monologue on the theme of his life plan to become a rock star. He spoke with such absolute certainty about this I decided he must be as crazy as Werner Herzog, but I wisely refrained from pointing out the statistical unlikelihood of this. On the other hand, local band The Animals had recently reached the top of the charts with House of the Rising Sun. Along with The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Dave Clark Five, and The Kinks, the group had introduced British music and fashion to the world. Like every other boy my age I was keenly aware of this... ...but that was the only proper conversation we ever had and I thought no more of it. The years passed, and as I've recounted earlier, I went to India, returning to the UK in 1982 after a two year absence. Many things were different. Fashions had changed. People had begun to become noticeably more health conscious. There were people on bicycles, and skateboards, and even roller blades, listening to music on portable players. And the music was different as well. The atrocious "Sugar Sugar Candy Girl" music of the late 70's had been replaced by the Eurythmics, and The Police. And all of this was good. Years later, perhaps 1992, I was working as a community artist at a large psychiatric hospital in Tooting Bec. There was another community artist working there and I noted from his accent that he came from the same northerly climes as I. We compared notes, and it transpired that like me he had been attending St Cuthberts Grammar School in the 1960's - a year or two ahead of me. We chatted for a while, and then he said, "Sumner did alright for himself didnt he, aye?" I said, "What, you mean our old friend school bully? Why, what did he do?" He looked at me in quiet amazement and said, "You know, man! Gordon Sumner! Sting!"

I will....

Sometimes Sometimes things don't go, after all, from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don't fail. Sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well. A people sometimes will step back from war, elect an honest man, decide they care enough, that they can't leave some stranger poor. Some men become what they were born for. Sometimes our best intentions do not go amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to. The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow that seemed hard frozen; may it happen for you. -- Sheenagh Pugh

Little did I know in 1985 that it would take me all those years, or indeed that my life’s journey would be so intertwined with Nirmal and the villagers. One day in that year, a friend turned up at the school with two bicycles, and invited me for a tour of the local countryside. I agreed with alacrity and off we set. The countryside is a labyrinth of trees and paths, which suddenly open up into paddy fields a mile wide. Then all at once we came to another village. And my friend dismounted. We entered a ruined courtyard, and in the courtyard was a dry stone fountain. And I will never forget what he said next: “Michaelda, this is the house where they filmed Pather Panchali.” And all at once it was as if I were character in a movie. The zeta beam had struck me after all. For in the 1968 census it was estimated that there were almost a million villages in India. And here I was, in the one.

Nirmal has since died at the ripe old age of 101. I am now the Chief Executive of an arts and health charity. But even now, more than a quarter of a century on, Nirmal remains my inspiration. He would tell such stories! But the greatest tale was the tale of Mohan, who had been so committed and so beloved in the village. He was clever, yes, creative and ingenious, conjuring schemes to wangle free schoolbooks for the poorest children for example. But above all he was kind and compassionate, giving freely of his time to help others. I discovered that everyone I met could remember where he or she had been when he or she learned of his death. And little by little a picture began to emerge in my mind’s eye. It is a picture that has taken over 20 years to complete, and then only thanks to the wizardry of Photoshop. It is unlike the earlier, brightly coloured paintings, and consciously intended to evoke the feel of mediaeval, threadbare tapestries. Nirmal sits at lower left, a small child in his lap as he teaches. A group of adults stands in a tight huddle in the centre – based on a worn out photo of Mohan’s funeral. A figure lies in the water staring upwards. But the floating figure is not Mohan, but me.

Ever since I have tried to put into practice what I saw, learned, witnessed with Nirmal and the hundreds of village children with whom we worked. Between visits, back home I became by turns an exhibiting painter, a community artist, an illustrator. Some of my village images even made it into print.

When I first arrived there in 1982, the roof had not yet been erected. Nirmal told me of Mohan, a young student who had been his right arm, but was tragically murdered in 1978 for the sake of a few rupees, his mutilated body found floating in a pool. I suppose in time and through the course of many visits, I became a surrogate for Mohan in Nirmal s eyes, perhaps even in my own. In 1985 I returned to the village for an extended stay – the first of many.

In 1980 I fulfilled a lifetimes ambition and went at last to India for two years as a commonwealth scholar. I’ve been going back ever since. I met many interesting people there and indeed, it was there I learned that nothing is more important than to meet people who do interesting things, who live by their own lights. Like Werner Herzog, I will go anywhere to meet them. But then I’ve always thought he was slightly crazy. Of all the people I met there, Nirmal Sen Gupta was the most interesting, and the one who most changed my life. He had led an extraordinary life long before I ever met him. Imprisoned by the British for publishing seditious literature in the 1920s, he went on soon after to help found All India Radio. He published novels, exhibited paintings, became a linguist able to translate Arabic to Chinese - and when the war began, joined the Indian version of the army’s special forces. He was later tasked by Indian premier Nehru to help negotiate the surrender of Japanese forces in – I think – Indonesia. He would tell these stories in such a matter of fact way! After the war he became a high-ranking civil servant. On his retirement in the mid-60’s, he took up residence in a village outside Calcutta. Little by little, children came to him, and an informal village education movement was founded. Later to be called Paddy field School, after the first location teaching took place (literally a roofless shack by the side of a paddy field), the movement grew. The first generation grew up, began teaching the next. The Jesuits of St Xavier’s College in Calcutta took an interest, offered to build a school and charitable dispensary.

From Wikipedia: Serendipity means a "happy accident" or "pleasant surprise"; specifically, the accident of finding something good or useful while not specifically searching for it. The word has been voted one of the ten English words hardest to translate in June 2004 by a British translation company.However, due to its sociological use, the word has been exported into many other languages. The first noted use of "serendipity" in the English language was by Horace Walpole (1717–1797). In a letter to Horace Mann (dated 28 January 1754) he said he formed it from the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip, whose heroes "were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of". The name stems from Serendip, an old name for Sri Lanka (aka Ceylon), from Arabic Sarandib, which was adopted from Tamil "Seren deevu" or originally from Sanskrit Suvarnadweepa or golden island (some trace the etymology to Simhaladvipa which literally translates to "Dwelling-Place-of-Lions Island"). Christophero Armeno had translated the Persian fairy tale into Italian, adapting Amir Khusrau's Hasht Bihisht of 1302. One aspect of Walpole's original definition of serendipity, often missed in modern discussions of the word, is the need for an individual to be "sagacious" enough to link together apparently innocuous facts in order to come to a valuable conclusion. What follows is, in a manner of speaking, a tale from the islands of Serendip....

Les Yeux Sans Visage:

I also took inspiration from movies, none more so than the strange poetic movies of Georges Franju… Judex was remade around 1963 by Georges Franju (who also made a classic horror film called "Les Yeux Sans Visage", which I highjly recommend to anyone who doesnt know it) In his version of Judex, Franju sought to recapture the feel of the silent fueillades. As with Cocteau's "Orphee", the imagery is poetically surrealistic, and beats the pants of modern cgi -not because itis more convincingly realistic, but because it is dreamlike. Some stills:

JEAN DE BOSSCHERE 'An immense dragon lying by the waterside.' Illustration to The Reward of the World from Beasts and Men, Folk Tales Collected in Flanders (Heinemann, 1920) linky: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_de_Bossch%C3%A8re

E. J. DETMOLD 'The Rukh which fed its young on elephants' Illustration to The Second Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor from The Arabian Nights (Hodder & Stoughton, 1924) linky: http://www.bpib.com/illustra2/detmold.htm

HARRY CLARKE 'For the love of God, Montresor, Yes, I said, "For the love of God." ' Illustration to The Cask of Amontillado from Tales of Mystery & Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe (Harrap, 1919)

HARRY CLARKE 'And the dead robed in red and sea-lilies overhead away when the long winds blow.' Illustration to The Dying Patriot by James Elroy Flecker from The Year's at the Spring, an anthology of poems compiled by Lettice D'O. Walters (Harrap, 1920)

HARRY CLARKE 'I am born of a thousand storms, and grey with rushing rains.' Illustration to All is Spirit and Part of Me by L. D'O. Walters from The Year's at the Spring, an anthology of poems compiled by Lettice D'O. Walters (Harrap, 1920)

HARRY CLARKE 'Methinks a million fools in choir/ Are raving and will never tire.' From Faust by J. W. von Goethe, translated by John Anster (Harrap, 1921)

HARRY CLARKE 'Is there anything in my poor power to serve you?' From Faust by J. W. von Goethe, translated by John Anster (Harrap, 1921) linky: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Clarke

VERNON HILL On passing to an open space we came. Where flared a raging fire, and one within Burned, and in flickering flame writhed too and fro, Around him spirits danced in furious glee. Illustration to Canto viii, The New Inferno by Stephen Phillips (John Lane, 1911) linky: http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/2008/12/01/december-and-vernon-hill/

KAY NIELSEN 'This good fairy placed her own baby in the cradle of roses and gave command to the zephyrs to carry him to the tower.' Illustration to Felicia from In Powder and Crinoline, Old Fairy Tales, retold by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (Hodder & Stoughton, 1913)

KAY NIELSEN ' " Your soul - ! My soul - !" they kept saying in hollow tones, according as they won or lost.' Illustration to John and the Ghosts from In Powder and Crinoline, Old Fairy Tales, retold by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (Hodder & Stoughton, 1913)

KAY NIELSEN 'And this time she whisked off the wig, and there lay the lad, so lovely, and white and red, just as the Princess had seen him in the morning sun' Illustration for The Widow's Son from East of the Sun and West of the Moon, Old Tales of the North by P.C. Asbjornsen and J.I. Moe (Hodder & Stoughton, 1914) linky: http://nielsen.artpassions.net/

EDMUND DULAC 'The cup of wine which she gives him each night contains a sleeping draft' Original illustration to The Story of the King of the Ebony Isles from Stories from the Arabian Nights, retold by Lawrence Housman ( Hodder & Stoughton, 1913)

EDMUND DULAC 'The Princess burns the Elfrite to death', original for illustration to The Story of the Three Calendars from Sinbad the Sailor and other stories from the Arabian Nights (Hodder & Stoughton, 1914)

EDMUND DULAC Original watercolour for frontispiece illustration to Princess Badoura, A tale from the Arabian Nights, retold by Lawrence Housman ( Hodder & Stoughton, 1913)