Guess who found themselves in a soup, recently? Mona Lisa. That’s right. Climate activists threw pumpkin soup at the Mona Lisa exhibit in the Louvre, Paris. They were protesting for a sustainable food system. Why anyone would waste perfectly good food to protest for…..perfectly good food, is beyond comprehension!
Thankfully, Mona emerged unharmed, with not one of her brown locks turning white from shock or orange from the soup. The lady had the last laugh (or enigmatic smile) thanks to her bullet-proof casing. Her artist, Leonardo Da Vinci, must be turning in his grave. A misunderstood genius, his vision was far ahead of his time. But even he would not be able to decipher this generation’s copper-bottomed lunacy. Why vandalize someone else’s life’s work to prove a point?
This isn’t a first for the Mona. She has been a veteran food magnet or rather, a cause magnet, based on how the sticky situation is interpreted. Climate change is prompting Mona Lisa to unfurl an umbrella to shield herself from edibles on revengeful projectile paths. Soup companies must be competing with one another to hire her as their brand ambassador with the tagline, ‘Every Spoon of Soup is for a Good Cause!’
In the past, the works of renowned artists like Van Gogh, Monet, and Vermeer have also been targets for campaigns, ‘to make this world a better place’. But at what cost? Oil spills, climate change, global warming, poverty, the list of causes worth fighting for is long. However, unruly actions do nothing to resolve the situation, other than landing the perpetrators in hot soup, pun intended.
Vandalism is not restricted to just paintings, and definitely not just to the international scene. In India, while no one has flung hot rasam or daal yet (thank God for small mercies), there have been other acts of rebellion. Gwalior Fort, Lodhi Gardens, Humayun’s tomb, Red Fort, all are part of a long list of monuments that have fallen prey to some form of vandalism, like graffiti work, scribbling, or littering. Why does anyone engage in vandalism? Is it to attract attention, to justify political ideologies or just an outlet for boredom?
Many years ago, I visited the Golconda Fort and was shocked to find careless etchings on the walls. There were declarations of love, heart symbols, and a game of FLAMES. Is this what ‘love etched in stone’ means? In a foolhardy attempt to render love timeless, timeless artwork has been destroyed. A heritage site is not a personal canvas for expression! The perpetrators must understand that not only are they damaging public property, but they are also ruining it for the future generations.
In a similar incident, a cousin said she had a bad experience while visiting the Ajanta caves. Someone discarded trash carelessly within the complex. When she rebuked them, instead of picking it up, they told her to mind her business. If you are defiling a public monument, isn’t it public business already?
In 2019, 4 men toppled a pillar over at Hampi. On questioning, they revealed that they had gotten carried away with excitement and were competing with one another to see who was strong enough to lift the pillar. Inspired by Baahubali? Now we know why Kattappa killed Baahubali- because he shifted a monument! In a separate instance, a man was arrested at Hampi. He claimed he accidentally toppled a pillar while taking a selfie. From strength to strength, from pillar to pillar, from one bad excuse to another bad excuse. The occurrences are many, and the reasons are bizarre.
A holy site in Andhra was vandalized by a group claiming that they were seeking the treasure of Raja Krishnadevaraya, who ruled Vijayanagara in the sixteenth century. Sounds like a plot lifted from a Hollywood movie! If only they would understand that the treasure is not within the site, but the site itself.
At one extreme, statues are uprooted and religious symbols defaced to defend ideologies. At the other extreme visitors are embedding their signatures to prove ‘they were there’, which is akin to walking around with a birth certificate to prove your existence. Social Media has done everyone a favor by creating location tags that digitally ensure one’s visit is recorded and broadcast. Leave that poor monument alone! At this rate, monuments ought to have a ‘marked safe from visitors’ tag.
Art is beauty. Art is heritage. Art is joy. Soup like art, brings joy, provided it is slurped, not flung. Enjoy both, but separately. Exercise your moral compass instead of using geometry box compasses to carve love proclamations on monuments that are over hundred years old. There needs to be a way to safeguard art and ensure its posterity. Be it a masterpiece in a glass case or a monument in the open. Public education and sensitization are key in being vigilant and raising the alarm before any untoward incident occurs.
Today’s generation believes being delusional is the solution. (Delulu is the Solulu) We live in the delusion that we are rebels with a cause, but what the cause is, we are not sure of.