Poverty looks the same all over the world. In Latin America, South East Asia, Africa or South Asia, the cities sprawl with haphazard construction, houses stacked precariously or crushed together with no breathing space.
Trees grow from corners and crannies and there are always sounds of commerce. Fruit sellers, flower sellers, merchants of sandals, roughly made skirts and shirts, stalls bursting with colour, and in the nighttime, lights.
There are always beggars, some missing limbs, with features exaggerated by malnutrition and faces struck by desperation. Young children run around construction sites playing in cement half-clothed. Their teenage brothers look gangly; some work at 12 or 13.
In India, the ancient lives within and around this poverty. The people carry with them not only their own lives but the actions, thoughts and art of those who came before them. In India, you can see the ancient and old in the youth. Nowhere is this more evident than in Mahabalipuram.
Mahabalipuram is a small coastal town south of Chennai which boasts of a rich past heritage as a trading port of the Pallava kingdom. Today it is a tourist town where you can see its various pasts in layers; as the centre of a kingdom between the 5th–8th century CE, but also more recently as a sleepy fishing town.
Mahabalipuram is famous worldwide for its rock temples, monolithic rath structures and open-air relief rock carvings. These represent some of the oldest and most beautiful examples of Indian art.
The Krishna Mandapam’s Reflection On The Contemporary
One of these is a rock relief depicting Krishna lifting Govardhan Giri above Vrindavan to protect the people from Indra’s wrathful rain. The gentle curves of the rock show a broad and firm Krishna holding up the mountain with one hand and holding his other hand in a boon-granting posture. His face is serene.
Below the mountain is a village scene. A cow takes care of her young, licking its back. Women carry pots on their heads; one carries a mat and food in a sling. There is a man with an axe and the women hold on to children by their hands.
There are cows and ox throughout the relief and Chinese-looking lions frame the corners of the panels.
The art of this relief is intricate but bold. It has many aspects that reveal themselves as you observe the panel for longer. Although based on a mythological story, the panel shows a beautiful Indian village scene. The village has formed the basis of Indian civilisation for thousands of years.
The faces of the relief have features that you could find today in the region. The panel evokes tenderness and emotion as one realises the continuity in the civilisation around them. It moves one to think of the level of artisanship, technique and most of all, philosophy, that human civilisation had achieved 1,500 years ago.
In some ways, the scene in the panel complements the world one can see around it. The faces of the panel are reflected in the people of the town and in the people who come to visit it.
The people of Mahabalipuram share the same beauty and rhythm. There are many elements of village life that lives on in the lives of the people. Yet, in other ways, the scene is a contrast to the modern town.
The signs of poverty are everywhere. Women, both adolescent and older, sell necklaces to dismissive tourists. There is desperation in their eyes and the sun beats down mercilessly on their faces. There are beggars and even among some of the shopkeepers, one can sense a lack of stability.
There is an air of uncertainty in the tourist economy of the town.
Many scoff at the idea of a pristine past, but it must be acknowledged that the art of the Mahabalipuram carvings is a product of the people of this country.
Many see the artistic heritage of India as separate from the people and representative of a past aristocracy, but the poor and working people of a civilisation represent its creative spirit and its striving. Thus, it is also to the poor and working masses of this country that this heritage truly belongs.
Our People Deserve More
As one walks around Mahabalipuram, one cannot help but feel that the beautiful people of our nation deserve more. They deserve a life where they can achieve their full potential without worrying about food, shelter and education for their children.
Our people must be allowed to live with dignity and not have to plead and make themselves small and pathetic to earn a few rupees.
If there is anything that the ancient monuments of Mahabalipuram can teach us, it is what is possible when the people are allowed to develop and contribute to art, as well as to science, literature and philosophy.
The children of our nation must be given a chance to do this and to build on the civilisational potential that we have.
The people of Mahabalipuram realise the ancient monuments are part of their own history. They recount the visit of Xi Jinping and Modi to the town in 2019 with pride. This visit continued the example set by Nehru, who invited Zhou Enlai to see this example of ancient Indian civilisation in 1960.
Unexpectedly this small town also represents the potential of Indian and Chinese friendship since ancient times when there was trade with China under the Pallavas. The cultural influence of this can be seen in the architectural motifs of the rock carvings, especially in the lion figures present throughout the monuments.
Mahabalipuram epitomises the need of the present time — for young Indians to draw on their civilisational roots, reassess their history and find a new synthesis of their traditions that can show us a way out of our present crisis.
We must look back to the old to find our way into the future, but this cannot be done without seeing the role the masses of people must play. Young Indians must make themselves worthy, through study and struggle, not only of our immense and rich heritage but also worthy of the people of this country.
It is only by recognising the beauty and creative spirit of the people of our land that we can achieve our country.