A holistic vision for arts and culture

Culture activist Neville Tuli feels India today stands at a unique threshold where art is genuinely emerging as a capital asset. Madhur Tankha finds out more from him...
Books are another extension of his abiding passion for art and culture. No wonder Osian's Connoisseurs of Arts founder chairman Neville Tuli wants to rekindle the love and respect for good old books and the written word among the middle class as well as the elite.
To achieve this objective, Neville has now simultaneously launched Osian's Publishing and Design House in pursuit of his vision for placing the arts and its creative value system at the heart of the country's developmental framework.
While the publishing division will focus on illustrated books on art, cinema, architectural heritage, popular culture and philosophy, the literary agency will deal with works of fiction and non-fiction.
From building a top class archive-library-collection of our culture to establishing the country's first auction house to film festival dedicated to Asian and Arab cinema, Neville has seen to it that Osian's develops a holistic infrastructure for the arts and culture.
Speaking about his background, Neville says he did his schooling in Mumbai's The Cathedral from 1975 to 1979. "Then I went to the United Kingdom for further studies. When I returned to India in 1994, I had a different outlook towards things around me than when I was 10 years. Art and culture are not penetrating the value system of our country. We have had a great tradition for learning, the Upanishadic concept. But now we have a huge black economy. So the mindset has to be changed," he says.
"At the Osian's," Neville says, "the auction house for the arts has been utilised to cross-subsidise subjects such as Asian cinema, popular culture, photography and most importantly the build up of the archive and our forthcoming museum -- The Osianama." In fact, the museum is now being taken forward to strengthen the infrastructure, supporting literature, poetry and philosophy. "Once these links are consolidated and each cultural discipline is interlinked with the other in a deeper respect for Indian arts, heritage will fundamentally progress and a practical development force will emerge which so far the cultural intelligentsia does not possess."
Noting that Osian's has been using its corporate entity as a cultural basis, Neville says while the intelligentsia has ideas it does not want to shoulder the financial aspect. "To change this thinking, we want to build our knowledge base and share it with our people. If there is sincerity then wealth will follow. Every human creativity needs to be nurtured, supported with an infrastructure that looks after financial needs. There should be integrity of intellectual debate, fearlessness and compassion. If we focus on material obstacles then we cannot progress. My role is to create new kind of idealism and integrity. We should have clear vision and purpose."
In two to three years, Neville sees the emergence of a new crop of writers, poets and philosophers getting their economic reward for their works. "We want to change the atmosphere that exists. We are far behind the West, as we cannot get some of our precious books written by Indian authors. These books are either in the U.S. or the U.K. We don't even have a memorabilia on our books. In the world of Internet, our mind is increasingly getting incapable of absorbing knowledge, grammar, synthesis and the art of letter writing. You know why letters fetch such high price during auctions because they aren't written anymore. So we want books to fight the enormous decay," says Neville, whose heart bled when he first saw books being sold on the streets of Mumbai.
Pointing out that Hindi films have not been able to achieve great success, as they haven't been able to form a connection with our literature, philosophy, textile and drama, Neville says one cannot see things in isolation.
"Once the cinematic culture can be transformed into one which sees filmmaking as first and foremost a great art form and thereafter entertainment that also fulfils a clear financial obligation we have the next major paradigm shift in the cultural infrastructure-building journey."
According to Neville, India today stands at a unique threshold where art is genuinely emerging as a capital asset with financial institutions ready to trust it as collateral and the public ready to open their minds to a re-examination of old pre-conceptions regarding the functionality and significance of an artist and cultural heritage.
Courtesy: The Hindu