The Grand Derangement
Newsletter 14.2023
My September began with not one but two incidents (in a series of unpleasant instances since 2021) that finally pushed my sanity over the precipice.
Since April this year, I have been focused on one tricky issue: What could I possibly do after finding out the true extent to which an academic I was so generous to, had pilfered my research methodology, my exhibition material, my colleague’s conference papers and possibly his recently disembargoed PhD dissertation, and was now boldly using our material and vernacular without citation or attribution to reinvent her career and online persona as a “green-thumbed scholar” with an expertise on “elite Mughal masculinity, gardens and olfaction”?
What could I, a critic-perfumer without any institution-affiliation or legal resources, do now that this person had an enabler-in-a-high-place offering protection and respectability. Furthermore, what legitimate forum did I have to redress such depth of intellectual dishonesty?
The power dynamics here were entirely skewed. If I did name this person and demonstrate the many tangible ways in she was intimately familiar with me and my work since before I launched Bagh-e Hind on 10th September 2021, would I be believed?
I am become Gorn, Eater and Destroyer of Prestige Cookies
Two weeks back this issue escalated so swiftly within the space of a day that the urgency to out her in the public domain became paramount (pun intended). Whether I would be perceived as an unhinged monster as a result, was no longer a consideration.
Over a decade back, a mentor of mine once likened the corrupt nature of academia to a club of malpracticing doctors. They need to protect one another. Their prestige rises through a series of appearances at conferences, institution grants and by having articles printed in publications no one reads. But once their reputation tars, they are always hung out to dry on their own.
And tar sticks. Realizing this truth put all the power back into my hands. The facts were that a junior academic in her first postdoc position, funded by a University in the UK had pilfered from me, an individual living and working in India without any support structures. As I do not rely on institutional opportunities, I had nothing to lose. As for my reputation in the long run— my brilliance, my originality, my perseverance through an ethical practice is on display for all to see since my first published piece of art criticism in 2009.
Cloak and dagger is their method, not mine, so the first thing I did was to alert my colleagues within institutions. Second, I outed her by name on my social media with incontrovertible proof to ensure she could no longer feign ignorance of our intellectual labour. The third thing— I formally wrote to the ethics committee of her university. One would hope that when people are made aware of their peer’s dubious ethical research practice, they would vet them instead of suppressing this information.
While this issue derailed my emotional health along with all the fun things I had planned to work on, there is good news to share! In between all the long naps I took to recover, I gave our project’s landing page a makeover by inserting animations of my hand-painted pop ups and Nicolas’ cluster of narcissi from his garden.
I completed my Nap Time chapter that now includes a Play Time section. Here you can see paintings and stories contributed by three scholars of early modern South Asia on sleep, magic and dreams. Pasha M. Khan selects a folio from Hamza-nama which is located in my favourite museum, the MAK-Wien. Sunil Sharma selects a 1560 painting from the Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot). And ofcourse, my Nicolas selects a most beautifully illustrated painting The dream of Zulaykha, from the Amber Album.
You can also enjoy our updated photo-gallery showing off the unique edition Playset I made for Nicolas, interspersed with images of plants he grows in his garden. The plentiful blooms of his Rosa ‘Gloire de Guilan', a historic variety of Damask rose from Iran, put on a real show this Summer— that plant is definitively deranged!
In this gallery, you can see how our practices of gardening, perfumering, scholarship, artistry and critique, merge so colourfully to create a bridge to the gardens of the past. In our serious-silly space, he always brings his sweet gulkand-rose-ness to offset my stubborn salty-mango pickle-ness.
Our open access garden-project remains open access. We built a resource list in our exhibition Catalogue that serves as a good starting point for anyone interested in the history and context of gardens and scents in South Asia.
Oh, the good news!!! Our Bagh-e Hind is included in the exhibition Beyond the Page: South Asian Miniature Painting and Britain, 1600 to Now (7th Oct), curated by Hammad Nasar and Anthony Spira with Emily Hannam, at the MK Gallery. This exhibition includes South Asian folios and manuscripts from various museums in the UK that are situated with modern and contemporary artworks. I only just realised that Hammad and I know each other since 2013! I recall, he said that my review of a Guggenheim exhibition of contemporary SE Asian art in Singapore didn’t pull any punches — and that is the nicest thing anyone has ever said about my art criticism.
I’ll say more about Beyond the Page in my October Newsletter but I want to end with a sweet flavour. As much as I complain, contrary to what I sometimes believe, I’m neither alone nor without support.
The Gorn banishes his enemies and returns to tend to his garden. To be continued…
