My work in the Museum on International Museums Day

18.05.2024

The views expressed in this piece of writing do not reflect the views of any organisation that I work at. They are my own personal views. I have heavily censored this piece and taken out more personal comments as this piece is intended to give a general and apolitical idea of my day to be on the safe side.

In the morning, I started off the day by giving the tours which I have written. My darlings and pets, my tours explore issues of art, fairness, equality and bias. What was best of all was that I was able to give the tours to families with children. The mothers are thankful because they get to hear about art and culture, away from the daily cares of the family and the children. The fathers listen patiently. Some of them are interested, some seem interested only because their partners are interested. Some of the children listen and interact with the questions. Some of the children clearly pay no attention to anything that is said. But, you hope that you are planting the seeds for the future and for justice. Preparing the grounds for all to share their vision in a just society.

This was followed by a stint on ticketing. The pleasures of ticketing are knowing that you know the knowledge about all of the various ticketing combinations: concessions, offers, third party vendors. You can use that knowledge to help the museum’s mission and to sell tickets to walk in customers, persuade them to purchase and come in with your knowledge of the museum. And, also, there is a challenge to try and sell as many souvenir guides and tote bags as possible. To aid carers with the special children with sensory bags and headphones. I helped quite a few today. I also spoke French to several customers – I am basically fluent for the purposes of the museum. Ticketing helps me practice my speaking skills in the language. For this role, loving the place you work at and loving to open access to it for everyone motivates you to perform as well as possible.

Next, there was the welcome to the museum’s galleries and helping the children to navigate activities around the museum. This is one of my favourite roles in the galleries. Because how often in life do you get to give people an adventure to go on together, which is what the activity is? I tell people about the story that we are telling in the museum. I show them the ropes to the wonderful place where I work.

More tours again. The highlights today? An Indian family who were completely enraptured by the tour and left me some wonderful feedback. And then there was a visitor from Colorado that was also a tour guide and she professionally assessed me and told me that I had done a wonderful job. She was very testing – she asked me a whole heap of questions about art materials!

There was the patrol of the main gallery next. Here, it is a case of problem solving. I reported some things to maintenance. I reunited families that had strayed from each other, including stopping a little blonde girl in a rainbow dress from crying like her heart was going to break and taking her worries away from her by showing her that I was a strong adult that could solve her problems – I made her stop crying in five seconds. I broke up an argument between some protective parents and smoothed things over. I investigated a dangerous incident which could have caused some injury – children being naughty. I talked to some of the customers and asked them how their day was going. I directed someone with a research enquiry. I showed directions to people. I stamped cards. I gave out stickers for completed adventures. I took photographs of families all smiling and enjoying their time in the museum. I also told off people for misbehaving, dealt with abandoned property and made sure everything in the museum was clear, clean and safe. I take all my duties seriously and don’t look at any task as being beneath me. The visitors are our guests and our responsibility.

I hadn’t bought lunch so I went to my cupboard and just heated up two small plastic tubs of spaghetti in tomato sauce.

After lunch, it was the main gallery again. Activities included dealing with a case of mild vandalism in the museum, investigating a potential issue with the facilities (luckily there was no issue) and also dealing with a first aid incident. I also had a full blown conversation in French with a woman who had a child with her. Good practice again. The end of the day was clearing the museum and making sure all the exhibits and art was in order.

Throughout the day, I talked to the other museum staff in Visitor Experience, the Learning Team, one of the Senior Managers who was very pleased to see me after a while, the Maintenance Team, the Cleaners, and the Retail Staff. It takes a multi disciplinary team to run a museum.

What was one of the biggest highlights of the day? Another staff member came to me with a query. This staff member had asked several other staff members about that query. Nobody knew anything about it. But I knew. And when I told this staff member, they told me that the knew that I would know even if nobody else did. That’s how much my colleagues respect me and my experience in the museum.

Quite a satisfying International Museums Day. I do love my job. I work in museums to spread education. And I always feel that I do that at the end of the day.

The Birds; The movie ‘Indian’; Longing and Desire

09.05.2024

Ships. Homes. Cats, flowers. Doors. Birds. So many symbols there are for women. With the birds, I think of Leonardo Da Vinci and the dream of freedom.

Every symbol of woman, every assignation of identity questioned in an age that wants to tell us that there is only gender and its constructions, no essence that is being discovered. Writers like J. K. Rowling say that the idea of woman is being erased and cancelled.

What can one think in this age about women? What is permitted? And what is true? How can anyone ever know? Is it still possible to even speak about women without becoming a tyrant to be felled?

Across each of the camps they fight. And where are we, that look upon each camp with suspicion? That are never included because of the colour of our skins?

This is a piece of artwork which I was never able to post. Sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I don’t want to share what is my heart and my mind with others. So many secrets. So many knowledges. So many pictures, words, stories.

In the recent Hindi drama, they say that there is not much difference between love and revolution. Love is my revolution. The one that I can achieve by myself. The revolution that I dream about, the other one, that cannot be achieved by one man alone. But where are the men for that revolution? The world has stopped giving birth to men.

When I was young, I watched a movie ‘Indian’. A retired freedom fighter from India in his seventies punishes the corrupt world of the modern day nation state that took away his beloved daughter from him. He finds his strength again. The strength of freedom. It is one of the best Indian movies ever made. It is Tamil, not Hindi. I watched it in the Hindi dub. The music is a classic. Over and over again, I think of that movie and the freedom that India has still not attained because of the corruptions of the modern day Indian state and the roles that it calls for, the nature of its belonging. The marring and damning history of the modern day Western state that casts its nefarious shadow upon the world.

But there are those that come still from the age of freedom when we fought against colonialism, racism and oppression. My grandfather has not died in me yet. The spirit of Punjab has not died in me yet. And still, in Westernised India, there is hope. Because they are releasing ‘Indian 2’. The nostalgia craze has swept India. Let us hope that they do not destroy the meaning of this movie. Let us hope that the Indian is still the Indian. Inquilaab zindabaad! Long Live the Revolution! Inquilaab sada zindabaad! May the Revolution Live Forever! Jai Maa Kaali! Long live the Dark Mother!

My friend told me today that I have had the journey of the hero in this journey of love. I have transformed myself. But the transformation is not complete, I have told her. Because there is still the heroine missing from my life. Maybe it is never going to be Helen. Maybe there will never be a heroine. Do you know what my friend said? As long as you long, you have the heroine. As long as you have the desire, you have the heroine. The longing is there.

And Helen? How can Helen not know that I love her?

The Suicide Tree

02.05.2024

When I was a teenager, my grandfather told me a story about a tree in the church graveyard in the corner near his house which we used to walk past every time we went to see him and my grandmother. My grandfather used to live in London, so it was always an adventure to go and see him, because we lived in Essex. London was different, exciting.

But the problem was, that we didn’t know what London was really like. In Essex, we were protected in the Indian family. We lived secure lives. We had stability. We were raised the old-fashioned way. We expected adults to be together forever. Marriage was for life. What other people did hadn’t penetrated our lives.

We were just sitting there on the sofa. My grandfather began the story. It was a very short story. One morning, just a regular morning, they found an Indian man hanging from that tree we walked past every day. Dead.

He had married a woman from India and had called her over to England. But then, shortly after the marriage, she started hanging around white people. And then, she left her husband for a white boyfriend.

Everyone said it was a suicide. That the husband had despaired of life. But, my grandfather said, how could anyone be sure? What if it had been a murder?

A story that was forgotten at the time. A mysterious affair seen through the eyes of a teenager. Shocking because it was the first realisation that an arranged marriage was not for life for everyone, like we had been taught that it was. Shocking to think that someone could break their wedding vows like that.

When I think back on that tale from the life which my grandfather told me – a tale I keep on thinking about over and over again nowadays – I remember what happened to him. My grandfather’s father deserted his family for another woman. Which meant that my grandfather was raised in absolute poverty. He later went blind in life because of malnutrition from the formative years of his childhood.

This was the man that had told me the story about the suicide tree.

Holiday Day 3: Four Museums, Five Exhibitions

28.04.2024

Me standing next to the poster of Mother India, the film I got my name from. In real life, her co-actor Sunil Dutt saved the actress playing Mother India from a fire which broke out. Her name is Nargis, a flower – why women are flowers for me. They fell in love when she looked after her hero Sunil (her son on-screen) in the hospital.

The purple flower is broken – purple for Athens, my identity at school was Athenian in Athens house… 💜

The Valentine’s card made thinking about Helen this year.

Museums and a charity bookshop aside from copious amounts of art history study, where I managed to make myself well into the assignment (still 3 hours of wake time left since it is only 20.38 as I am writing). Here’s the itinerary:

1.British Museum – Greece, India
2.The Wellcome Collection – Jason and the Adventure of 254, The Cult of Beauty
3.The British Library – Beyond the Bassline: 500 Years of Black British Music
4.The National Portrait Gallery – The Time is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure, Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron: Portraits to Dream In

I will write about each of the exhibitions in due time – all except for The Cult of Beauty.

What can I say about the cult of beauty? In reality, Helen is the most beautiful woman in the world to me because she was kind to me. It was her behaviour that I was attracted to. She is beautiful. There is no question. But I did not notice her when I first met her. The effect was over time based on her behaviour. It is the same with all the women that I am interested in right now. Over time. That is the essence of beauty in real life – beauty through relationship.

As I was looking at Greek art and Indian art, I was struck by a curious thought. We all know that the ancient Greeks got a new confidence when they defeated the might of the Persians. It shaped the racism that was to come afterwards. I have been shaped similarly. I have been shaped by the Indian Independence movement when we beat the British. Because the quest for me is still freedom. I don’t believe that India has got it yet. Because the nation is not freedom. The Western law is not freedom. Anarchy is freedom. The village is freedom. Self rule in its unmitigated form. Dharma, not law. Freedom is still to be achieved. Freedom is still to be fought for. The war is not over yet. The scholar is still in the war. I am still being shaped by the past victory to consolidate our position. It is not suspicion – it is fact. The prize is still for the taking. Remain The Tiger. Don’t break. Tiger is still alive. Tiger has been alive for six thousand years and will live until the end of time. For freedom from oppression.

I am shaping to the new layout in my room. A new place to think and to dream and to create. I stare at the bookshelf for inspiration. I stare at it with love. It is what I want to become. So many books to read. So many things to learn. Hope springs eternal. Ambition is undefeated. The dream of education.

I saw the Rosetta stone today. I saw it with Helen. We read it together. I still have my memories if nothing else.

I compared the ‘Crouching Venus’ with the ‘Crouching lions’ in the Nereid monument. The woman is defensive, the lion is aggressive. The woman retreats from the gaze, she is hiding. The lion is fierce display. The woman is shame, the lion attack. The woman looks as though she is not moving at all, the lion looks like it is just about to flash like lightning. Which one, though, is the more powerful? That shame will douse any flame from any man. When you see them shrink from you as though you were a wild beast, all you feel inside is dismay. The lion, you would fight with. With the woman, you have to turn away.

I saw Michelangelo’s Pieta in the shop and I really wanted it. I am looking for a sculpture in my room now there is space so that I can be like Freud who collected these curios. My statues of the Hindu gods and goddesses are in the corner we have made for my mother to worship. I won’t get a female nude because of my mother, of course. The naked Kali she tolerates because that is the religion. I will have to find something else that I am interested in.

I got a finial bangle of some Egyptian cats to wear. One of my friends told me to get a bracelet a while back instead of getting my ears pierced. It was expensive, but what do I work for anyway if I am never going to spend the money? I have wanted one like it since I was a kid but never got round to it. I love finial bangles and torques. I was going to get the lion one first – my middle name is ‘Sim’ which means ‘Tiger’ from the Sanskrit word ‘Simha’ like the god ‘Nar-Simha’ (Man-Tiger). The word is the same for ‘Tiger’ and ‘Lion’. However, I got the cat, because the Tiger is a cat too. And I liked the design better and it was more visible than the lion design. The woman serving me helped me to put it on and take it off, although she actually looked like she didn’t want to serve me. That’s kind of what you expect from a lot of these women. The one in the charity bookshop was exactly the same. Why do you work in retail and customer service if you don’t actually want to even talk to someone when they are engaged in a one minute talk with you?

Books I’m interested in that I saw:

How to be a Renaissance woman – the role of women in chemistry and botany as they made make up for themselves
Plant Life – laser cuts and flaps in this children’s book

I was watching the dancing hands of an Indian woman as she was talking to her husband or boyfriend on the tube as I got back. It was an energetic dance. I had my headphones in and wouldn’t have understood her language anyway. All you can do is observe as an outsider and speculate on what they are talking about and why her body was moving like that. Next to me, a very beautiful Indian woman was sitting there. She was the most beautiful woman I saw all day. She looked at me as I was getting off, then walked past me as I stood on the escalator. As I passed through the barriers, I saw her walking towards the end of the tunnel. Believe it or not, I started walking fast – it was a race. I wanted to see if I could get past her. Before she finished going up the stairs, amazingly, I managed to get past her. I won the race. How could she beat me? I have the body of an athlete. I can walk as fast as some people can run. Why did I race her? I’m an athlete. I’m competitive. I don’t like anyone beating me. Helen has won. She beat me. But that is something I can’t do anything about. Because in the arena of choice, the women are the queens in this country.

Astounded by how silent London is when you are a lone bachelor around the town. The only people that talk to you are other men – quite a few in the tube today and then one in the shops on the way home as I was carrying flowers. No wonder so many men are desperate for female company. Luckily, I work in the industry that I work in which is full of beautiful women to talk to.

Why don’t I just buy myself a wife from India and the children will come? People have asked me. People tell me to do it all the time. Why not? Because I have principles. Because I am a lover, not a buyer. I am not going to buy someone with my British passport and my superior wealth to them. Despite this culture calling us Indian men misogynistic pigs (when they are misogynistic themselves), I believe in choice. Not arranged marriage with its casteism and its inequality. And because I want someone that I can talk to things about – someone who has had access to art and culture and the frame of reference that I know about and have studied for them to talk to them. I would rather go it alone than compromise on love and my principles. But what do I get for having principles: the treatment I get from women here in this country. You can’t win, whatever you do. Not if you have been raised like an Indian man in a white culture.

The Turner Prize 2024 – ‘Punjabi’ Art is Shortlisted

24.04.2024

What’s on the Turner Prize shortlist this year in terms of ‘Punjabi’ art? Covered with a giant white doily, a red Ford Escort vehicle is presented to us. The ‘art’ is in front of a photograph of a family with the car.

Rosie Cooper, director of Wysing Arts Centre, who sits on the judging panel, said Kaur sees the vehicle as a “representation of her dad’s first car and his migrant desires” and it “blasted snippets of uplifting pop songs referencing freedom and liberation throughout the space”.

https://news.sky.com/story/artist-who-covered-sports-car-with-giant-doily-nominated-for-turner-prize-13122021

Suneel’s Comment

Obviously the artist shortlisted in this country – when they are Indian – would necessarily be female. This is what ‘diversity’ means to white people when it comes to the Subcontinent – the women. Their books, their art, their cinema. It is all celebrated. Because they are heroic ‘victims’ of Indian culture to the West. Us men are to be ignored and marginalised. Because we are the ‘oppressors’ of women in this culture.

And what about this piece which white taste has valued? The big white doily is the key. It covers over the car. The migrant desire – according to the rules of white society – is to be covered over in whiteness. The white doily – the whiteness – is self-consciously patterned and artistic – it is the touch of art in the piece. Otherwise, there would just be a car and a family snapshot. The white doily – the whiteness – is what creates this exhibition as a piece of art work. It is what demonstrates ‘taste’, ‘selection’, artistic ‘discrimination’ (the pun is intended).

And what about this ‘migrant desire’ which – despite the capture of the car in the whiteness that is like a constraining net – blasts songs of freedom and liberation (laughable)? It is ideology at work. The veil of ideology covering over the vision of the car, the white veil over things for the migrant experience. Blinding the eyes and vision. Interfering. Coming between self and object, mind and reality. Art is the white veil itself. What else is? They sing of freedom. When they are the exploited. They sing of liberty. When they are constrained and bound by the white net.

The car. The phallic symbol. Red to signify status and dominance. Gross materialism. Migrant desire is couched as greed. Desire for masculinity in this patriarchal white supremacist society. Desire for control – one drives a car.

Desire for freedom – the car represents freedom. A cliched symbol of freedom the car. But this one is caught up in the net. Even the music – they blast snippets of songs about freedom. Even musically, the freedom is partial, disrupted, interrupted, punctured by purposely oppressive silence.

Do you know what the net signifies in India? The net of maya – illusion. Gross materialism. Trickery. What comes between us and the understanding of reality. The doily is perhaps maya. This white culture and its control, its limitation of freedom for the migrant. The doily becomes kitcsch art – described by several art historians as the artwork of a capitalistic, unthinking and unfeeling, philistine and totalitarian society.

Yet, there is a paradox. If I remember correctly from the Metro newspaper article that I read today about the art piece, the doily also represents the Sikh and Indian workers that worked in textiles factories in huge numbers when they first migrated here to the United Kingdom (Metro 24.04.2024). So this net of whiteness is being created by the migrants themselves. Their deference. Their blind adulation. Their willingness to be exploited. Their inability to revolt against the systems of power.

So what are the migrant desires of the Father in this image? As seen through the eyes of a Punjabi woman? Desire to criticise the wants of the Father? Or an attempt to be sympathetic to his wants?

The artist writes:

‘In this show I am having a conversation with personal histories,’ explains Kaur, ‘exploring improvisation and political mysticism as tools to reimagine tradition and inherited myths.’

https://list.co.uk/news/43283/jasleen-kaur-alter-altar

But is this a re-imagination? Look at the piece again. It tries to base itself against reality as ideology – against the photograph, the representation of reality. The photograph has the Indian family in it. The base unit of Punjabi and Indian culture. The finished art exhibit has no family in it. It has a relationship merely to the Father in a patriarchal system of culture. A Father that wants to be covered in whiteness. Is this what is valued in this culture? Probably. The probability is on the side that adulates whiteness and patriarchy. The family is forgotten in favour of the Master. In favour of isolation and individualism. In favour of the desire for mastery and control and power.

One Day at Work in the Museum as a Tour Guide/Visitor Experience Assistant

20.04.2024

Another day where I spent the whole day talking to people and smiling at them. Here’s how the day went. Here’s how it is to make education real in this country for people, so that they are immersed in the culture and the heritage that make London what it is and their lives what they are.

9.40-10 am – Before the day officially begins at 10 o’clock, I go down and arrange the ticketing desk. It is a charity. It helps the others get the day started without having to rush around. This career in education and in the enjoyment of education and culture is my choice, my vocation. I put in extra time however busy I am. It doesn’t matter if I have to do tasks that aren’t the most exciting in the world, the most glamorous or that give me status.

Satisfaction in knowing that I have done extra for others and for the museum. It is my love that I am giving.

10am-11am – Welcoming guests into the museum and telling them the layout. Giving them the narrative of the museum and showing the children how to use the trail cards, teaching them about the history of the exhibits.

Satisfaction in knowing that I am telling the people that have come in about the story in the museum – the history of us in London and how our world has been arranged. Satisfaction in giving the children an adventure – how many adventures do you get in life?

11am-12pm – Giving the customers the art tours that I have written about feminism and art. Compiling statistics about the tours and collecting feedback cards.

Satisfaction in knowing that I am spreading education, satisfaction in knowing that my writing is reaching people and having an impact. Getting a reaction about the knowledge that I am spreading face to face.

12 noon – 1pm – Covering breaks in some of the galleries and talking to people, ensuring the safety of the customers and checking that everything is stocked up and working. Reporting issues to get things going again. Telling the customers about the architecture in the building and some of the most emotive stories about the collection. Handing out little presents as mementoes to the children and some of the visitors.

Satisfaction in helping people, in taking care of everything, in spreading education face to face.

1am-2am – Patrolling the most popular gallery. Talking with each of the customers to see how their day is going. Talking about the exhibits. Stamping the trails.

Satisfaction in giving people attention and making the day for the children with their stamps. Satisfaction in spreading education.

2am-3pm – Welcoming guests into the museum again and telling them the layout. Giving them the narrative of the museum and showing the children how to use the trail cards, teaching them about the history of the exhibits.

3pm-4pm – Lunch

4pm-5pm – Giving the customers the art tours that I have written about feminism and art. Compiling statistics about the tours and collecting feedback cards. Emailing the tour statistics.

Satisfaction in collecting the numbers and showing the evidence that we are giving the visitors a great experience and something extra.

5pm-6pm – Seeing a new art exhibit at the museum which was created by children.

Satisfaction in how beautiful my role is and how I get to see all the wonderful exhibits in the job that I love.

Day Off – How Do You Capture a Distinctive Portrait?

09.04.2024

The Cosmic Dance – Kali dances on Shiva as this is the only way to contain her bloodlust and destruction.

What can I say? I love Kali. So every woman I love becomes Kali. And I become Shiva. It is fate. It is the cosmic dance.

……

Easy. Simple. Unimaginative. There is a preconception amongst some of the non photographers that a portrait is nothing much. Not a real exhibition of skill. Especially the selfie.

Yet the way that you pose and the way that you present yourself to convey your identity is a skill. Whether you want to look appealing or hostile, whatever emotional bond you want to create with the viewer through the craft.

Today, I took it to the basic level. I held the camera at arm’s length in front of me and pushed the button. The magic of technology.

How did I convey my identity?

First off, I posed in front of the bookshelf which is my library. So that indicates that I am a reader.

Then, it was time for the framing. I chose to cut off bits of my face. To add the mystery. It is a technique taken from Japanese art too – I volunteer at a Japanese art gallery. Japanese art itself is influenced by India and Buddhism. So there is that happening there.

Lighting is positioned to catch in the eyes which have been described as my best feature by others, not just women. These eyes are the eyes of my grandfather. It is the family connection. Eyes themselves are described as the ‘windows into the soul’.

The face is filled with light to alleviate the appearance of wrinkles – I am standing next to the window. Light creates a flattering portrait.

In one portrait, I look into the camera. Intimacy. A direct and confrontational challenge. We stare into each other’s eyes. The aggression. The other two images, I look away. The creation of distance. The air of introspection. The books in the background add to that idea of the introvert.

No props. The face fills the frame. There is no distraction. The complete focus is on me. Therefore, the images become intense and illustrate my intensity.

All considered decisions. Yet, the portrait itself is regarded not only as a vulgar, but also narcissistic form. Even though we always present ourselves in our best light to other people. At least in public.

……

Called my friend in the morning who is recovering from the operation for support. She is still suffering. When I call her, she doesn’t want me to go. I said bye about four times. That is what love is.

Contacted my mentor who is recovering from cancer to hope his operation goes well.

Leg is fucked. But the doctor got in touch so I called back because I missed the call as I was talking to my friend. No appointment. But they will call again tomorrow to try and sort one out. How fucked is the leg? Painful. Swollen. But I still ran on it to get to the bus and I caught it. So how fucked is it actually? If you believe in your body and you have mental strength, you are invincible. The Tiger is capable of smiling whatever happens. And helping others despite anything. I have been raised to be a hero and a warrior. There is a saying in India: Men don’t feel pain.

Writing about the Japanese art for the Japanese art gallery in the morning. Then, wrote an article about Indian film songs for the new volunteering space. Then I wrote some new tour excerpts for some other plants for the Gardens. So all the volunteering stuff is done. About four hours invested into art, education and culture and to save the world by inspiring people about plants, climate change and the environment.

Bought some books on history and the V & A and its history at the charity bookshops in the local area. That was one hour gone – that’s why I had to run for the bus.

Bought some lilies for myself and my mother – I walked down. Another forty five minutes. As I walked, I admired the gardens in the local area. It is the time of growth.

I took the photographs, made the artwork. But what would the day be without a poem about Helen? Here it is. For her. Even if she is not reading.

she is always late

she hangs around the people

that are always late

time is not something she really thinks about

or they think about

because they are young

and their dismissal of time

is a part of them

and I who watch the clock always

feeling time’s hot fangs and breath behind me

I who waited patiently forever for her

for nothing

I for whom time is slowly running out

to do the things that must be done

I who does not have any time with her

I wonder at her dismissal of time

Integration – The Way of the Tiger

06.04.2024

There is a reason my name is Suneel. I am named after Sunil Dutt. My Indian mother gave me this name. Because Sunil Dutt saved the life of the actress who played Mother India in the film. My mother named me shortly after the actress’s death.

You’re probably wondering what that has got to do with the idea of integration in this country. Everything.

I was discussing the issue of integration with my friend. She is an immigrant. So her position was that she should integrate into the culture of the host country. Because that is her choice. She came here. So that’s what she feels like she needs to do.

I am not an immigrant. I have been raised by immigrants here. And my mother – who raised me the most – chose to preserve our culture. Indian culture. Punjabi culture. So my situation is different. I didn’t have the choice to come here or to be born here. And? I have chosen Indian culture. Punjabi culture.

Just because everyone else is doing something, I am not going to follow like a sheep.

I am not going to change for force or for love. The power of India is within me. Six thousand years of power, the way of the tiger.

And I have seen the love that we get from this country for looking and being different as Indian men. They don’t listen to us. They don’t respect us. They don’t love us. We are the most under represented group in this country in literature, the arts, music, film, everything. If they are never going to accept us, why would I change myself for them?

They dishonour my mother every day in this country. They call India a nation of rapists. They call us misogynistic pigs. They are right wing racist and xenophobic extremists but that’s how they label India. They call us backward for supporting our culture and our ways. The women here won’t love us. And they want me to integrate?

The story my mother told me about Sunil Dutt wasn’t just about his heroism in saving Mother India. It was a story about honour too. My mother has given me the name to protect our honour, the honour of Mother India, which this society dishonours every day.

So that is why I don’t try to integrate in this country. I do things the Indian way. The way that I was raised. I think like an Indian person. I act like an Indian person. I listen to Indian songs and watch Indian films. If anyone tries to attack India, I attack them. I will fight for our way of life until the bitter end. They came into our country and forced us to follow them. I am in their country now and I will see how anyone forces me to do anything in my own home and in my life. Because here, there is one thing that is supreme. And that is choice. And my choice is India.

Why I Work in Museums and Art Galleries as a Visitor Experience Assistant

02.04.2024

I have a PhD and several degrees, including ones from a top university and First Class Honours. And when people find out, they ask me, ‘Why are you working in a museum as a Visitor Experience Assistant?’

The very fact that these people ask this question is revealing. These people think that the job is low status and low paid. They think it doesn’t require any skills, that it is a dead end job. That it is not a job for a professional person. Perhaps they think that the job requires no education or talent. That the job is not meaningful in any way.

Whey then, do I work as a Visitor Experience Assistant in Museums and Art Galleries? Do I really care what other people think?

No I don’t care what other people think. Other people are imposters, status-obsessed, uncultured, boring. They will work in an unsatisfying job for money and a bit of power.

On the other hand, I work in a job that gives me meaning in life. I believe in education and its power. When I work, I help people to educate themselves in their free time and have fun doing it. Unlike a state education and compulsory learning, I give them the things they need to be able to be free and learn. This job gives me a mission in life: to spread learning, to change this world of ignorance, to give culture to the people and, especially, the children.

This job is like a holiday to me. I enjoy it. I am in the most beautiful places in the world guarding treasures, the most important aspects of our history and heritage. I get to help people which makes me feel even better about myself. This job gives me not only purpose, but happiness.

And the people in this line of work are artists, musicians, writers, actors. All the creative people that you can find. We have wonderful conversations and we are all good friends with each other. We care about each other and we are all on the same wavelength.

This job gives me the time to think when it is not super busy. This job gives me a good life and work balance. This job lets me into so many museums and art galleries for free. I live the lifestyle of a millionaire doing this job.

People think you don’t have to do anything as a Visitor Experience Assistant. They are wrong.

While I have been working as one, I have helped to kick off the tours project in a museum and written my own tour scripts which involved research and original thinking – skills derived from my PhD course. I have given tours that other people have written – which required the skills of memory, performance, public speaking, humour, people management. Peppered with original research to add the extra flavour.

While I have worked as a VEA, I have planned and designed learning activities for children during half term. Which required the skills of imagination, creativity, planning, understanding of children and education.

While I have worked as a VEA, I have attended meetings about people and resources and contributed ideas and solutions. Skills which required creativity, compassion, empathy, public speaking, the ability to make arguments and the ability to innovate.

Those are the extra things. In the ordinary course of the job, you are responsible for giving a great experience to people, for being able to talk to everyone, to teach people about the exhibits, to look after the health and safety of everyone, to be able to work with several different teams, to be able to think on your feet to solve any problem that arises. You have to be able to know your museums and art galleries inside out and to know massive areas of history, culture and art.

So when people say do something with your PhD, do you know what I say? I say that getting my thesis published as a monograph with a top publisher or articles with the top academic journals didn’t make me happy. It didn’t give me anything. But working as a VEA has given me pay, good friends, good perks, good experiences and memories, happiness. It has given me a career in museums.

The petty, selfish people that undervalue arts, culture and people skills, that ask me why I work as a VEA, revealing their insensitivity and patronising nature, these are the people that are wrong. They think money, status and power is what you need in this world. What you need in this world is to find your niche, your people, your destiny, your happiness.

Working as a VEA allows me to remain a writer, an artist, a poet. Working as a VEA allows me to study an Art History degree with the Open University in my mornings and evenings. Those are my ambitions and those are the things that direct how I live my life, my work. For me, the most important thing is fulfilment, not what the ignorant value. It is what I value that matters. It is my choice. I have what I wanted.

Everything I want from a museums career I get through volunteering: art history scholarship in an Interpretation department, being a Virtual Curator on social media online. I am getting every cerebral pleasure and satisfaction from what I am doing. I am being read by tens of thousands of people on social media.

What more could you ask from a job than happiness and to change the world of ignorance? The fulfilment of duty, pleasure, education and inspiration?

How Westerners See Indian Tradition and Indian Mothers: Analysis of the T-Levels Tube Poster

11.02.2024

You can see the poster here (not shared on my blog for potential legal reasons):
https://tlevelinfo.org.uk/

The tagline of the poster is ‘One thing parents and teenagers CAN agree on’.

The Indian mother stands back to back with her daughter. The two women are looking at each other sideways, both with their arms crossed. They are both smiling. The Indian mother is dressed in traditional Punjabi clothes, with a typical Indian hairstyle. She is wearing Indian costume, Indian jewellery like the bangles. The daughter is wearing a Western hairstyle with dyed red hair. She has a nose ring instead of the nose stud like her mother which is more of a Punjabi tradition. The daughter’s fingernails are painted black, a Western colour. She is wearing Western clothes and Western jewellery.

It is obvious that that the Indian mother represents Indian tradition. When the poster designers thought of the fight between the generations, they decided to base tradition on the Indian mother. The daughter represents rebellion against the mother and Westernisation. The Indian mother is not ‘assimilated’ or ‘integrated’ to borrow the garbage vocabulary of this racist government in the UK. On the other hand, the daughter is ‘assimilated’ or ‘integrated’. She represents the future – the people that are going to do these T-Levels and get ‘educated’. This last point is important – the one that is going to be educated is the Westernised one, not the traditional one. The one that is associated with wisdom and the truth is the Westernised one. Rebellion against Indian tradition is made ‘cool’ – the teenager looks ‘chic’ and sophisticated while the Indian mother is austere.

In the poster, the following racist oppositions are made against Indian mothers and the Indian tradition, largely through implication. It is pointless to say that these oppositions are not happening – the whole poster is designed as an exercise in contrast and comparison:

1.Past/Future or Tradition/Modernity – The Indian mother is ‘backwards’ looking. This is represented by the fact that she is ‘behind’ the Westernised teenager. The daughter looks backwards at her mother only to go forwards and to differ from the Indian mother. She is associated with the new qualifications in the form of the T-Levels and the new.
2.Non-Integration (non-assimilation)/Integration (assimilation) – In the Tube poster that I saw (which you cannot see on the webpage I have provided below), they cut out the Indian mother’s elbow in the poster. In other words, what is being marginalised in the Tube poster is the Indian mother. Both bodies are not equal in size and stature – the daughter is made to have the greater stature and dominate the frame (actually, you can see from the photograph that the mother’s body is more dominant in stature – it has deliberately been made to look inferior). The mother appears as a sheer vertical, the daughter has a more interesting triangular pose which draws more attention. Why? Now we are in the realm of speculation. It is probably because she is not seen as integrated into Western culture because she is different. So they cut out her Indian suit and her different form of fashion, vision and style.
3.Age/Beauty and Youth – The younger daughter appears more beautiful, so the viewer is made to associate Westernisation of womanhood with beauty and greater attraction.
4.Clothes/The Body – The teenager shows off more of her body with the bare arms. This could be associated with many things, but the one that seems to appear to be relevant to this poster is the idea of honesty and openness, since the T-Levels are associated with wisdom and truth. The Indian mother is completely covered up, so the contrast is apparent – she is associated with a lack of wisdom.

The Mirroring

The two women mirror each other in their postures. This is crucial to the message of the poster – even the Indian woman who is not assimilated in this culture can agree that T-Levels are a good idea – even someone blinded by ‘tradition’. This is the greatest trick of the West – the idea that its education – which is the reason that the two women are separated in the first place – is the superior form of education, the best way to go. That the education is somehow objective and not targeted at eliminating difference and Indian identity in this world through its arrogant Eurocentrism and prejudice of any different way of thinking or doing things.