Magic of love
in Soulful Folk Tales from India
Rasa Renaissance brings forth more juxtaposition of Rasa Art and Rasa Literature
Rasa Literature is an established familiar tradition. Mumbiram’s Rasa Art is an entirely innovative concept. Experiencing them side by side is an enlivening opportunity.
Enlivening Visions of Enlightening Deeds !
Mumbiram has a large repertoire of choice tales of episodes in the lives of people who are inspired to perform noble deeds either in order to mitigate the agony of a fellow man, or in respect of their fidelity of their Love for the Beloved, or to honor a solemn promise or to rise to some such exquisite devotional ecstasies.
Some of his favorites are sourced from the epic Mahabharat or that ‘Storehouse of Rasa’ – Shrimad Bhagavatam. Some others are from popular scripts of Raas-Leela Drama Companies of Vraja Vrindavan that had once installed Mumbiram as a resident artist. Some other are tales passed on through generations of devotees living in remote areas of rural India.
Some of them acquire wayward aberrations under the influence of time. Mumbiram’s versions are diligently researched and refreshed to conform to sound devotional principles and delectable Rasa Flavors !
Mumbiram relishes the Rasa of regaling his friends and fond-ones with his favorite tales.
When Mumbiram narrates these tales he transposes his little audience into the ambiance of the time and place of the tale that he is relishing.
Here in these presentations Mumbiram has juxtaposed his stories with images or details from his own Rasa masterpieces that he had created independently. They were inspired by real people and real happenings in the artist’s personal universe. Those familiar with Mumbiram’s Rasa Renaissance will say that Mumbiram’s life journey has been guided by his inordinate passion for Rasa. For Mumbiram himself, Rasa is nothing if not shared with other Rasiks. It is not by accident that Mumbiram’s muses appear in his paintings with an aura of the protagonists of heroic tales from the scriptures. Mumbiram has a passion for seeing his muses in the context of the classics. This is a characteristic feature of the Prema Vivarta mood of Bhakti Rasa. In the Prema vivarta mood one is reminded of something from the eternal loving transactions in the eternal Goloka realm.
Mumbiram’s choice of these noble stories and the juxtaposed images from his own art both conform to the tenet of Rasa Theory according to Bharat Muni that “entertainment is a desired effect of arts but not the primary goal and that the primary goal is to transport the individual in the audience into another parallel reality, full of wonder, where one experiences the essence of one’s own consciousness and reflects on spiritual and moral questions”.
Mumbiram‘s Manifesto of Personalism is rightly identified as a clarion call of Rasa Renaissance in our times. It eloquently expresses what noble ideals Rasa Art is capable of kindling in the Rasik art-lover‘s consciousness.