Abstract:
This book brings together a collection of diverse objects, each of which is marked by its Panindian nature, that is, by a nature that unites, affirms and lends itself to sharing. They are capsular objects of some sort, containing fragments, almost a powder, of the Indian collective identity. In a sense, paying attention to these collective objects seems to run counter to a convention that emphasizes above all the eclectic nature of India. Our design is to draw short portraits of these objects, familiar or unknown. But since these portraits are representations, as we say, for example, that a painting represents, they sometimes escape the constraints of description, in particular those which concern the duty of exhaustivity. As Stéphane Mallarmé understood poetry, the intention is to paint not the thing, but the effect it produces. And in the same way that the variations of a raga always return to the original bell, these portraits macerated in several modes, precisely five, summarized by verbs which specify the symbolic field: glorify, believe, fight, admire and savor. Whether they are gods, mythical or real, superstitions or totemisms, struggles to repair injustices, things that one marvels or tastes, there are hundreds of objects to narrate , To be deciphered. It is enough to stand at the edge of India, from a certain point of distance which reveals a little of the whole, and to take away the passing, recurrent images.
