Jah love: Shibu Natesan And the Spirit(s) of Bob Marley.

                  Benoy.P.J

In Shibu Natesan’s painting of Bob Marley, “Jah Love” (Oil on canvas, 2005) Marley appears to be seated on a chair which seem to be close to the wall, in between four women church singers draped  in four  different colours, each  attired in matching clothes, shoes and gloves of a particular colour. 

Shibu Natesan, Self portrait

On the back wall, there are the framed portraits of Haile Selasie –I  towards the right of the Marley image and of Marcus Garvey on the left  reminding one of the stage in Santa Barbara, in 1979. Though Marley is positioned as seated on the chair, it is obvious both by his size and the placement of his legs somewhat to the middle of the floor in the  painting, that  the figure of Marley exists as placed in a somewhat illusionistic  and ambiguous space. The Reggae singer faces towards us in an almost iconic arrangement, larger than and somewhat to the front of the two women in the back, one clad in yellow and the other in green. If the painting were to follow a strict ‘photo realism’ the image of Bob would have been placed in the background and all the four women would be in front of him, since he is seated on a chair placed behind them, and his body would have looked somewhat smaller, compared to that of the women in the back. But to Shibu, who is subtly aware of the flow of Marley’s  geopolitics,  in an iconic representation of Marley he could not be represented in this manner. Because Marley himself was and is an active force in music, in emancipatory geo-politics, and religion, he could not be represented as being seated on a chair in the background. It was not the fixity ascribed to his identity, but the movement between spaces and towards an egalitarian beyond in the people everywhere, that had characterized this singer’s oeuvre. To Shibu, the question then was how to represent him as an active force and agent provocateur  so that in touching him an active line of force could be evoked (a move similar to the one evoked in Ram Kinkar Baij’s images of the Santhals, where the Santhals are no more objects of pity but active forces in movement.).  Hence comes this positioning as if on a chair in the background, which doesn’t seat him squarely on the chair but evokes him as something of a spirit (that too not a spirit tied down) that hovers  in a space above and beyond the chair, half seated (crossed hands – also invoking a cross of another kind)and half dancing. A cross between the white man and the black woman(parentage)  and between different musical genres, placed on a cross that has the four women as its edges, above which Marley hovers,  and itself is connected to another cross- this time formed between the legacies of Haile Selasie-I(1892-1975)

Haile Selasie .

 the  Ethiopian king,  spiritual and political leader, the force behind a positive vibration- Rastaman vibration- and Marcus Garvey(1887- 1940)

(In a photograph taken by James Van Der Zee), orator and proponent of black nationalism, Pan- Africanism, and a person who had inspired Nation of Islam and Rastafarianism, and the two women in the back ground, one dressed in yellow attire (which could be auto- referential to Shibu –the yellow of the Sree Narayana tribe(?)) and one in green(Islam?). Red, green and yellow are the colours of the Ethiopian flag. While the women in the foreground have books in their hands( a Black Bible, a Red Book) the woman clad in yellow, even while keeping her hand in a similar position may be seen as touching Haile Selasie’s image with hers, and the woman in green appears to be either reading from a smaller book (the green book- a force behind much of the anti-colonial and nationalistic upsurges in Africa and the Arab world(?)) , from Garvey or from a beyond. In spite of the differences in the covers they may all be reading the same book –the Old Testament, which was the sacred text for Rastafarians also. The work is a contemporary take on the “Adoration of the Lamb” (1432) by the Van Eyk brothers in the Ghent  altarpiece.’ 

Detail of The Adoration of the Lamb from The Ghent Altarpiece


The Adoration of the lamb’ is a work that was based on the ‘Revelation of John’ which may be considered as a futuristic  part of the Holy Bible where a future event is predicted, namely, the second coming of Christ. The arrangement in Van Eyk brother’s painting has been described in these words:  

 

“Central panel of the most famous work of art by the Van Eyck brothers.

On the foreground to the left, a procession of figures from the Old Testament. Prophets are holding books and some patriarchs are carrying attributes of Jewish feasts. Apostles kneel to the right. Behind them, the Church authorities. Between the groups, a fountain - symbol of eternal life.

Angels adore the lamb. Four of them carry symbols from the Passion: the cross, the spear used to pierce the side of Christ, the spear that held the sponge with vinegar, and the pillar of the flagellation. The blood is caught in a grail.

The groups approaching from the background are, on the left, martyrs, and, on the right, virgins. The pigeon in the top of the painting represents the Holy Spirit, shining light on all who are gathered.”  *

In his painting, Shibu adopts the basic composition of Van Eyk’s image, this time to mark the positioning of Bob Marley in music, as a Prophet, a new voice that was uncompromisingly egalitarian and anti- authoritarian.   By virtue of his ambiguous positioning Marley hovers above all these different crosses of egalitarian and liberating forces through his music and life, and thus has become, in this painting, an icon of equality, justice, freedom, end of slavery and a different universalism. The words are crystal clear in this: “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery”. A new agency, and a new song. A music sensitive to the fact that the music of God is in everyone, and refuses to play to the tastes of connoisseurial authority and its petrified academism (Brahminism) that refuses to acknowledge the common man as a creator/listener/ viewer of art .

While Marley faces us, the women singers have their faces turned towards the left side of the painting, towards something else, something that we still do not know, but something that is still there. The floor is composed of black and white (a little muddied with a slight tinge of ochre yellow, to be more exact, bringing to mind Genet’s description of whiteness in his play ‘Blacks’.) floor tilings. While Bob keeps his feet in a black space (Black egalitarian politics) the feet of the women are mostly in the white ones or in somewhat ambiguous positions, where they also cast their shadows. This is the particular relation that Bob Marley’s position has tried to address, since as a person of mixed parentage, he had insights into the ways in which both systems worked, and he had opted for the black square as his own location. At the same time he knew that there was something in sexuality and gender that had connected black women to the other ‘races’, and to other women, since he was also aware of his mother’s position and the mixed legacies of his own music. This could also have been a reference to Black faith, which was ultimately something that could form the backbone of another kind of universalism, a faith  in God and humanity, and in politics that came from the face of adversity and could only be deep. Since he was well aware that it were the black and marginal folks of the world that had kept this faith alive, his musical voice propounded this faith everywhere and for everybody without a tinge of self doubt. Since the ‘women’s question’ was also one that was asked constantly by white folks to implicate black men(lynching), he was aware that it was a complicated issue. To deny this question simply would be to avoid the murky areas of the relationship between races, and since he knew that this would be unacceptable to black women, he tried to endorse it with all his will, while at the same time pointing towards the different side that black women’s politics had to take, in its double edged presence in faith, gender, race and class. As a spiritual leader who had taken along with him an African trajectory of submerged  spiritual knowledges, and as a king who had instituted equal rights and justice constitutionally in his country, Haile Selasie had inspired the Jamaicans, especially Rasta men, and Bob Marley celebrated this indigenous model over all models of Universalism that were tainted by slavery, racism and colonialism.

“Stepping on the shoulder, on the breast

And stepping on this branch and that branch….”

Thus goes the lines of a native song in Malayalam held in popular memory as sung by C.J. Kuttappan a well known Dalit singer.

                                C.J.KUTTAPPAN


 The Bob Marley of Shibu’s painting is a person of this strategy and subtle tread, one who hovers over his black square, but also moves on through the white and coloured spaces, because the point, once you are able to stand somewhere (identity) is to move on, and to find ways to do so. Having stood somewhere, as a ‘Black man’ of mixed race parents, and a womanist (No woman, no cry) himself, Marley was also aware of the fact that to stand, you have to step on the space where you stand, and to step there with a certain irreverence, because ultimately the irreverence, or the spirit of freedom that touches you as the enunciating subject is also one that needs movement, and to move on you need to step in and on several spaces. To step on the ‘shoulder’- which in Malayalam is associated with fraternity (to put arms around someone’s shoulder, to climb on ones shoulder etc.) and on the breast (at once a space connected to motherhood , feminine difference and sexuality) and further on one branch and the other one (Where the ‘branch’ is the branch of a tree , to climb which you will have to step alternately on one branch after the other. This branch, then is also a space, a space of knowledge upon which you step, when you ‘hope, step and jump’.). Stepping on the shoulder or breast, like any person who has handled kids would know, is not simply an attempt at belittling fraternity, but a fundamental trait of knowledge, because knowledge is always a movement and it refuses to stand alone or to always stand in the same place, and is, like a fidgety kid always stepping around and climbing up everywhere, including on to its mother’s body, dancing to an unknown music that permeates its soul. This irreverence brings to my mind the story of Mr.M.J.Pandit, a dalit of central Kerala who was a follower and aide to Mr.P.J.Sabharaj, a spiritual and community leader of all sorts of social and political outcastes and most marginalized sections who had lived in a space well beyond the legally accepted. 

DCUF

Bhramarshikal Sabharaj Thirumenikal was a grate organizer of adi Dravidian from India born in 1926 oct 2 at Kottayam in Kerala. His father was grate poykayil Johanan and his mother was Marampadathu Mariyam. He always believed in Poykayil appachan’s songs,speech and adi Dravidian policy for the revolution of depressed people.

P.J. SABHARAJ

Sabharaj himself was supposed to be an illegitimate son of Poykayil Appachan, and had around him people who were totally outside the sphere of ‘legitimacy’. As a leader, he had valiantly fought for these people, being ‘illegitimate’ himself in so far as legitimacy goes within the conceptions of a ‘criminal’ justice system. As a preacher, singer and crusader of this ‘liminal’ space, M.J.Pandit used to adorn himself with the title ‘Rev. M.J.Pandit’. Since it was a known fact that he was a person who had left the service of the church behind as a preacher to seek the solidarity  and fraternity of the most marginalized, people were want to ask him about the title, to which he would reply laughing: “No man. That ‘Rev.’ doesn’t stand for ‘Reverent’. No way. It stands for ‘Revolutionary’.” And Mr. Pandit knew that (The name ‘Pandit’ itself was chosen as a sarcastic diatribe against Brahminism.) God was, in spite of all attempts at misguiding the people to the contrary, a true Revolutionary. And in another song coming from the subaltern anti- caste movement, we have two contradictory notions about god: One of a ‘Lord that turns the stone inside you’ and the other about a ‘Lord (Brahmin) that circumambulates around a piece of rock.”

The idea of ‘stepping’ in these various spaces, as the native song reveals, also brings up the question of several other varieties of ‘stepping’ : stepping on someone’s toe, stepping on the head of early egalitarianism(Vamana), stepping on bad blood(Kaaliya),on  Poothana(illegitimate mother),on  Karna (illegitimate fraternity), on ordinary people (down trodden). In reply to these comes The Wailer’s and Peter Tosh’s voice- ‘I am a steppin’ razor…’, an open challenge, a courageous call to action. Marley knew that the true calling of God lay in his basic notion of equality, justice, liberty and fraternity, and hence he called out for that from Jamaica (Equal rights and justice..) and that call was taken up by people from all around the world. As a person born and brought up in the immediate surroundings of the historic sites of Kerala’s anti-caste spiritual resurgence, Shibu could easily find solace in the musical traditions of Africans and Afro- Americans and to him the music of Bob Marley was the mascot of a world presence to which he could return without any inhibition. As an artist, he had done several portraits of Bob Marley all through his career, and to put it in another way, one could say that as an artist trained in print- making, it won’t be excessive to say that Shibu Nateshan is adept at the art of making a correct impression.