In search of 'Shakti'

"In my 28 years in India, I have never once been told that I should believe other than what I believe," says cultural anthropologist, renowned photographer and author Stephen Huyler who seeks to bridge the cross-cultural gap in awareness between India and the more materially consumed West. By "not judging today against the aesthetics of the past," the author addresses the changing India he has explored since the 70s.

"There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception," said Aldous Huxley. Looking through Huyler's works is like an exercise in fitting the "things unknown" to the "things known." Documenting his vast experience through books and exhibitions held around the world, he is caustic about the Western media's portrayal of Indian society – the poverty and the forced "victimization" in portraying the lower classes. In his most recent book Daughters of India – which is seeing its Indian release through Mapin Publishers – he makes a very strong point in this regard. The book zooms into the lives of 20 women right from a daily wage earner at the bottommost level of the social tier down to a lady who developed her own software company. Breaking the stereotypical image of the woman as the weaker sex, the figures each make their statements. Huyler passionately details the extreme resourcefulness and resilience of these women in braving the daunting socioeconomic challenges posed by a patriarchal system. It is an achievement of personal freedom, which rather finds expression in paintings or craftwork.

He has also taken absorbing photographs adorning the pages. He says, "The photographs are a ploy to beguile the readers – only when the reader is drawn into the world of the characters will s/he get to confront the reality of their situations." Herein, Huyler brings in the concept of Shakti, also the name of a previous work by him, the deification of invincible female power in Hinduism. Though he feels "they [women] might not be able to escape the harshness of their situations, where individual freedom is wholly threatened," it is the defiance against "remaining under the thumb" that he wants to project. The book is a small step towards the recognition of this power and the empathy that Huyler feels is long due to a vast number of Indian women.

Stephen Huyler was introduced to India by Kamala Devi Chattopadhyaya, a freedom fighter who had worked with Mahatma Gandhi and Rukmini Devi Arundale, a Bharatanatyam exponent, whom he had met in the U.S. and was determined to document the people and cultures of the subcontinent. Even today, when 70% of the population in India lives in villages, our knowledge, and more importantly, our understanding of the lives of villagers is still hazy. Springing from an intimate understanding of Indian social system, Huyler's first project on the people and cultures of "Village India" is not an outsider's detached view, but an empathic anthology in words and images.

Originally a B.A. in Indian Studies from the University of Denver and a doctorate from the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies, documenting craftsmanship and traditional rituals through the breadth of rural India has been Huyler's lifelong passion. In his books like Meeting God and Painted Prayers and exhibitions like "Mud, Mirror and Thread," the extensive range of details on various forms of ritualistic worship and practices corroborates the vital, growing and inclusive nature of Hinduism as against the temporary and radical nature of Hinduttva, with its politicised agenda. Huyler speaks out of his experience when he states that "the family provides a forum for the ritual basis" for a plasticising religion in India. The ritualistic arts become symbols of the value system of a certain class, the meaning and scope of which is the key to understanding the nature of traditional sanatan Hinduism.

In an original approach to the subject, he documented contemporary potters, their social structure, living conditions, their techniques of production and selling, in his previous book Gifts of Earth: Terracottas and Clay Sculptures of India. Focusing on the use of clay in making votive terracotta for temples and houses, and also for daily household articles, the book is an exploration of this important social subclass. The project is a search for the sacred within the more powerful cultural and social mores.

Take a look at Huyler's website. The homepage image of a person bent down in obeisance to the village deity at a peepul tree is a paean to what the website will unfold. He confidently claims himself to be the best travelled North American in the Indian subcontinent. Religious piety, he believes, is central to the average Indian, but there is always an element of individual choice in the expression of the religious belief, feels Huyler.

A renowned art historian, Stephen Huyler has served as a consultant-curator for 24 museum exhibitions about India. Several of those shows have been collections of Indian art. Complete with lectures and workshops, these exhibitions are vehicles of awareness on traditional Indian craft and culture among westerners. He also co-curated an exhibition about sacred rituals in India entitled "Puja: Expressions of Hindu Devotion," which opened at the Smithsonian Institution's Sackler Gallery, in Washington DC, in 1996 and ran for over four years, closing in the summer of 2000.


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