A reader wrote to say that in the last column on Amar Chitra Katha I overstated my case. “I don’t buy the Uncle Pai as promoter of Hinduism/Hindutva argument,” he said. That’s not what I argued. Uncle Pai’s intent may have been pedagogical — Indian children should know about the Indian past — but the ACK comics became a catechism in a Hindu-based national theology. History does do that. Show it an aspiration and it will design an ideology to fit.
In the last century comics were a mass medium. In the 21st, so is the Internet. Can we use the Internet to make the past accessible to modern Indians (1) at every level from schoolchild to policymaker and (2) without sacrificing the multiplicity of voices?
Simple: copy someone else’s work. Look at VanGoghLetters.org, a website on which any visitor can examine the 900 letters written to and by the artist. That site and a book called Vincent van Gogh — The Letters, both launched in 2009, presented the same material. They were the result of 15 years of expert labour.
This is how book and website work. Van Gogh’s handwritten letters are presented one page at a time. There is a full scan of each page, along with a description of its condition, a transliteration in French, and the best English translation available. There are footnotes, source-location-date info and such tidbits as what address was written on the envelope and what stamp applied. If van Gogh mentions a painting, his own or anyone else’s, an image of that painting is provided; if he mentions a book, it is listed and described.
What this uncompromising labour has produced is a window into van Gogh’s mind as he wrote. Ordinarily this wealth of information would be available only inside the head of an expert. But now here it is, all out in the public domain, and all free.
To think of it the idea is simple, like the one behind ACK: tell the story in an accessible way, using the most suitable medium. The difference is in depth and quality.
What if Indian researchers and designers were to apply this model to Ajanta? Take an Ajanta painting (such as the famous one pictured above). Who does it represent? Is the posture significant? What hidden grammar makes the shape of the eyebrows or the angle of the gaze meaningful? What is the history behind his headdress? Who are the figures in the background? Why are they there? What paints were used, and what techniques? What condition is the painting in?
Then, is he part of a story? How does it relate to the scenes on either side? Does the full set of images in a cave tell a specific story? Do different caves tell related stories? How about older and newer caves?
And we haven’t even begun to talk about the carvings. Done like this, the information will be available to any level of user. It could be someone’s Class 10 project or PhD thesis.
To what else could such a model be applied? The epics. The Vedas. Temple sculptures. Miniatures. The Arthashastra. Archaeological sites. Religious art. Religious rituals. Tribal art. Classic movies, scene by scene. The Constitution. Yoga. Maps.
One could even bypass the experts. Make it a Wiki project, where any user adds what he knows; better-informed users can referee it. Think of it as a 3D Wikipedia.
Sure, it’s not entertainment like a comic. But it will be a lot more fun than a textbook, and a lot more useful, for a lot longer.
