Tasveer Ghar: A Digital Archive of South Asian Popular Visual Culture

Miniature Societies and Grihani Aesthetics

In contrast, Rasquachismo and Domesticana

Rasquachismo, a term first gained currency in the streets and theaters of Mexican-American or Chicano neighborhoods and was used by scholar and critic Tomás Ybarra-Frausto to describe a funky, irreverent sensibility that debunks conventions and spoofs protocol. Rasquache art is ephemeral, playful, visceral, elemental and delights in what high culture finds banal. It projects an alternative aesthetic, a “good taste of bad taste” that more often than not “subverts the consumer ethic of mainline culture” by celebrating the limited resources yet abundant creativity of Chicano communities. It is interested in retro style: low and slow cars, playful dressing when mainstream culture is fascinated with speed, height and seriously casual chic. Rasquachismo, as a sensibility, has historical, economic, political and cultural specificity.

Domesticana is its feminized/feminist counterpart and as Amalia Mesa Bains has written, uses rasquache strategies while questioning its masculinist formulations. In the ornamentation of their homes and altars, Chicana women work with a feminized style to suggest that the domestic sphere is both paradise and prison as they negotiate a racist public sphere and patriarchal community and familial spaces.

See Mercer, Kobena ed. Pop Art and Vernacular Cultures. London and Cambridge, Mass.: INIVA and MIT Press, 2007.

The transcendence the miniature offers and hence the image of the world the display presents, are a product of grihani aesthetics, which celebrates social order and tradition, not social commentary and critique. Indeed, scenes of processions and events incorporate both Brahmins and the constabulary! And at a time when many south Indian middle and upper class families are straddling the Indian and the global, the rural and traditional function to smooth over and bridge differences, reminding people here and there of common origins and utopian moments, even as they make relationships in other places. The possibility exists in these changed circumstances, that the display itself will be wrested from the purpose of making or asserting Indian tradition and instead serves NRI domesticity. For many grihanis who live between here and there, the bridging thus is not successful. When the protocols of Dasara display and comportment are extended beyond the familiar, women like Kamala post such comments on their blog:

Saratoga is one of those quaint little towns in Silicon Valley …that is filled with Tamilians. I am not sure how this came to pass, but there is a huge concentration people from the Tamil community who celebrate all the festivals with great gusto….I discovered that there is a whole kollu circuit that the Tamilians in Bay Area travel during these 9 days, and many travel 100-150 miles miles over the weekend… The conversation did not vary much and this kollu celebration was a tailor made opportunity for them to catch up on which company was going IPO, what stocks are doing well, who has started what company, and who made how much money etc… While it was nice to go around and see Kollu celebrated in Silicon Valley, I somehow preferred the way it was celebrated in Madras, which had a touch of sincerity and innocence.
http://kamlasindia.blogspot.com/2005/10/kollu-dasshera-dusshera-navararti.html

Acknowledgements
Arun Kumar, Organizational Support; Mohan and Lina Vincent, Photography; Ramsons, Mysore for sharing their collection

Sources
Stewart, Susan. On Longing. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1993.

http://pqrshanth.blogspot.com/2005/10/dasara.html

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http://www.gadasallifamily.net/navaratri.htm

http://good-times.webshots.com/album/561110448eGYhPZ

http://vineelascooking.blogspot.com/2007/10/happy-dasara.html

http://www.indiavarta.com/womanslife/news.asp?topic=-346&Title=Trends&ID=
IE_20051004060851&nDate=10/4/2005

http://theyumblog.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/navarathiri-golu-or-dasara-and-sundal-recipe/

http://sundar72.blogspot.com/2005/10/golu-photos-another-photo-blog.html

http://usha123.livejournal.com/

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http://www.lifescapesmemoirs.net/chatterjee/streams/chatt10.htm

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http:/ /www.fullhyd.com/scripts/articles.php3?articlePath=general/toys.htm

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http://kamlasindia.blogspot.com/2005/10/kollu-dasshera-dusshera-navararti.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do7eAV-ZyEI

http://masalamagic.blogspot.com/2006/09/happy-navratri.html

http://www.indianfolklore.org/pdf/newsletter/ifl_07.pdf

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http://www.bangalorephotographyclub.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=5697&sid=
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http://www.ramanuja.org/sv/bhak ti/archives/oct96/0038.html

http://www.venkatarangan.com/blog/CategoryView,category,Miscellanous.aspx

http://mangalasatyan.tripod.com/sthreeshakthienews/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7omCs7CuoXA

About the author:
Annapurna Garimella is an art historian and designer. She and her colleagues at Jackruit in Bangalore (www.jackfruitresearchdesign.com) curate exhibitions and research, write and design for individuals and
institutions engaged with the arts. Jackfruit also funds Art, Resources & Teaching (A.R.T.), a non-profit
dedicated to building research and teaching material for the artists and teachers (www.artscapeindia.org).

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