Kajri Jain, Gods in the Bazaar: The Economies of Indian Calendar Art.

Kajri Jain, Gods in the Bazaar: The Economies of Indian Calendar Art. Kajri Jain, Gods in the Bazaar: The Economies of Indian CalendarArt. Durham: Duke University Press, 2007. 448 pp. Gods in the Bazaar is a rich and sophisticated treatment of visualculture in India. Kajri Jain's subject is the colorful world ofcalendar art and its presence across public and private spaces in India.Through close reading and ethnographic exploration, lain provides acompelling account of the way in which these images permeate everydaylife and animate the meaning of modernity in postcolonial India. lainunpacks the complexity woven into the everyday appeal of calendar art ina riveting discussion that is bound to generate conversation acrossdisciplines. The book offers a meticulous examination of this art formand forces a rethinking of a series of interrelated issues which lainaptly terms an "epistemic ep��i��ste��mic?adj.Of, relating to, or involving knowledge; cognitive.[From Greek epistm bundle." A bundle that includesideas about "the efficacy of representation; the authority ofvisual evidence; the imaging of identity, the notion of 'fineart'; taste as an arbiter of social distinction; the institution ofauthorial property; and the denigration of fetishism fetishism,in psychiatry, a paraphilia (see perversion, sexual) in which erotic interest and satisfaction are centered on an inanimate object or a specific, nongenital part of the anatomy. Generally occurring in males, fetishism frequently centers on a garment (e.g. , of technologicalmass production, and of commodity relations" (12). lain locatesthis epistemic bundle within the colonial and postcolonial landscapethrough the use of a historically grounded analysis of Indian"calendar" or "bazaar" art. This is an ambitious book about aesthetics and a commerciallysuccessful art form; at the same time it is also a carefully structuredsocial history of popular culture and the cultivation of publics. Jainmakes an exemplary contribution to the scholarship on how popular artforms intertwine with quotidian quotidian/quo��tid��i��an/ (kwo-tid��e-an) recurring every day; see malaria. quo��tid��i��anadj.Recurring daily. Used especially of attacks of malaria. practices and gain both meaning andvalue across communities and over time. Jain makes a strategic choice toreclaim the centrality of the term "bazaar" to her analysis incontrast to Christopher Pinney's use of chromolithograph chro��mo��lith��o��graph?n.A colored print produced by chromolithography. whichforegrounds the technology of reproduction or H. Daniel Smith'sterm "god posters" highlighting the predominance of religiousthemes. Situating the images within the bazaar with all its clutter andmessiness, she shows how "this arena of circulation has inscribedimages in an economy where sacred, commercial, ethical, aesthetic, andlibidinal forms of value are closely intermeshed Adj. 1. intermeshed - caught as if in a mesh; "enmeshed in financial difficulties"enmeshedtangled - in a confused mass; "pushed back her tangled hair"; "the tangled ropes"2. " (16). The bazaar,from Jain's analytical standpoint, is at once a place, a socialformation, a node of convergence in space and time, a cyclicallyrepeated event and a web of far reaching relationships. Hence althoughstigmatized, the very terms "calendar" and "bazaar,"serve as the point of departure to Jain's project of situating theimages within intersecting discourses and lines of power. Jain advances a compelling argument for why she wants to hold on tothe terms calendar and bazaar and says with a flourish--"Whathappens when ungraspable numbers of lurid, pungent, frequently tatty,often undatable, questionably authored, haphazardly archived,interdeterminably representative, hitherto undisciplined Indian bazaarpictures come crowding into the chandeliered baroque halls andimmaculate modernist spaces of art history: Do they render themaster's house unrecognizable?" (17). Jain notes that theremust be ways in which they do. The book, in a sense, demonstrates howthis happens. When calendar art unsettles, disturbs and speaks back tothe secular face of modernity, the terms of the relationship between theWest and its others are constituted. In an important intellectual move, Jain grapples with the limits ofthe term visual culture and how bazaar art both problematizes andcomplicates modes of visuality. Jain argues that art history tends totalk about the corporeality cor��po��re��al?adj.1. Of, relating to, or characteristic of the body. See Synonyms at bodily.2. Of a material nature; tangible. of images in terms that are bounded tospecific contexts. Her objectives instead are conceptualized through amuch broader framework where she works through the significances ofimages generated through "their circulation and exchange, theirrhythms and orchestrations, their enfolding into habit and ritual"(19). Hence what she offers is a "processual account" of theway the images work by addressing "the corporeal Possessing a physical nature; having an objective, tangible existence; being capable of perception by touch and sight.Under Common Law, corporeal hereditaments are physical objects encompassed in land, including the land itself and any tangible object on it, that can be aspects of imagesand the ways in which people engage with them" (18). What is most striking about calendar art is its sheer presence in avariety of spaces both secular and religious, public and private. It isnot uncommon to see a calendar image of either a mythological orhistorical figure appear in a doctor's office, barber shop or holda prominent place in a household shrine. This hyper visibility providesJain a space to talk about, among other things, how "postcolonialsubjects function across epistemically disjunct dis��junct?adj.1. Characterized by separation.2. Music Relating to progression by intervals larger than major seconds.3. yet perfomativelynetworked worlds" (14)--bourgeois-liberal and neoliberal ne��o��lib��er��al��ism?n.A political movement beginning in the 1960s that blends traditional liberal concerns for social justice with an emphasis on economic growth.ne modernismon the one hand and the world of those vernacular practices anddiscourses on the other. Jain captures these multiple influences withinthe site of the bazaar as they exist side by side in fraught balance.She makes an important critical move by not valorizing the vernacular orromanticizing it as the resistant space but demonstrating the ways inwhich formal and vernacular economies are mobilized by colonialism andnow neoliberal globalization globalizationProcess by which the experience of everyday life, marked by the diffusion of commodities and ideas, is becoming standardized around the world. Factors that have contributed to globalization include increasingly sophisticated communications and transportation . Jain moves with analytical skill from the printing industry ofSivakashi and the entrepreneurship of the local community to thetransnationalization of this industry as it gathers the diaspora intoits economic and visual reach. Jain pans her ethnographic vision fromSivakashi to the global consumer trail where bazaar art images appear onwrapping paper, T-shirts, jeans, handbags and underwear! Jainestablishes how this traffic of vernacular commerce and its pan-nationalconsumption problematizes the assumptions of a modernist, secular publicsphere and its terms of publicity. In the elaborations and detours that lain takes in this book, sheshows how these mythic and religious images are reconfigured throughprocesses of reproduction and consumption in the vernacular market. Thediscussion of Raja Ravi Verma, very early in the book, provides ameticulous discussion of how a pan-national arena of consumption iscreated by the circulation and branding of his lithographic lith��o��graph?n.A print produced by lithography.tr.v. lith��o��graphed, lith��o��graph��ing, lith��o��graphsTo produce by lithography. prints, lainsets the stage for the growth of the vernacular aesthetic and thecomplex and contested constitution of the category of the popular.Jain's discussion of artist M.V. Dhurundhar work for theWoodward's Gripe Water calendar is noteworthy in calling attentionto how iconic themes were reinterpreted and reworked to draw bothcolonial residents and elite Indians into a common narrative space. InChapter 3, Jain shows how early twentieth century images of deities oncalendars and advertisements did not necessarily direct attention to thequalities of the product. Rather, she states, the invocation of thedeity was to impart blessings or auspiciousness to the product and itsuses. So for example the luminous image of the goddess Lakshmi is linkedto a brand of kerosene keroseneor kerosine,colorless, thin mineral oil whose density is between 0.75 and 0.85 grams per cubic centimeter. A mixture of hydrocarbons, it is commonly obtained in the fractional distillation of petroleum as the portion boiling off used to burn lamps and cook. After establishinghow decontextualization reformulates social relations, layer by layershe opens up the very category of the popular and the common senseconstruction of the "masses." Economic liberalization has not meant the demise of the informal orvernacular economy but it is thriving and circulating in new forms. Jainengages with the bazaar as it intersects with the state, caste politicsand transnational commerce. The discussion allows her to connect people,moments and icons such as Amitabh Bacchan, Hindu nationalism and the newemergent muscular forms of the Hindu God Rama. The book comes fullcircle back to the town of Sivakashi and its current place in thecontext of globalization and post-liberalization scene in India. Throughimages, interviews and analysis, Jain is able to situate the bazaar andthe space of the vernacular within the exploding ripples of globalcapital. Kajri Jain's book is replete with beautiful collection ofimages ranging from gods and goddesses, to divine babies, to nationalicons. Through interviews, analysis and rich historical detail, KajriJain presents the performatively linked worlds of the vernacular and thecosmopolitan to reveal how "modernity exceeds its own--verypowerful--stories of itself" (355). This is a book about calendarart and more--it exceeds itself. Radha S. Hegde New York University New York University,mainly in New York City; coeducational; chartered 1831, opened 1832 as the Univ. of the City of New York, renamed 1896. It comprises 13 schools and colleges, maintaining 4 main centers (including the Medical Center) in the city, as well as the