Subbacultcha

To continue on with the cool things theme, I went to this on Wednesday:



And now I’m the proud owner of this:



So now I know what it feels like to be one of those people who goes to an art exhibition and can then actually afford to buy something they see. This scroll set me back a worthwhile AUD$18.60, and included a personal explanation by the artist herself (it’s a depiction of an indigenous dance). Monimala also gave my friend and I a performance of one of her more elaborate paintings which involves singing the story frame by frame. It was fantastic to be able to get this personal. Of particular interest where her paintings telling the story of the tsunami, full of chaos an, err, death – really, it was better than I’m making it sound. See, developing country living is worth it – Monimala Chitrakar one day, Marc Chagall* the next?

While I'm on the topic of culture, I'm fresh from my first 'guitar group' for kids which meets every Friday morning at the local cultural centre. It was quite an experience, where the first half was spent with the teacher, Shahin, playing me snippets of songs by The Beatles, The Eagles, Bruce Springteen and John Denver earnestly asking "Do you know this tune?" Each time I would nod, and start singing along with the chorus. After this happened over ten times he said "wow, we have the same taste in music!" Hmm... How to explain that everyone knows these songs in Australia?

After the group finished I was packing away my trusty guitar when Shahin asked me whether I was nihilistic. Huh!? I thought. How did we go from 'My guitar gently weeps' to this!? And on it went:

Shahin: Sometimes I feel like the world is so heavy, and I can't carry it and I feel a great weight and everything feels dark
Me: Um, right. That's, um, sad
Shahin: How do you feel about the world?
Me: Err, how do you mean?
Shahin: I mean you have read the great philosophers. I can see you understand much about the world. I want to hear what drives you, how you get out of bed everyday
Me: Oh. Well, wow, that's ...
Shahin: Tell me!
Me: Oh, well, if you really want to know ...

And so began an hour discussion of why Nietzsche went mad after watching a horse get flogged in the street and whether Kafka was on to something when he became a beetle and whether Like a Rolling Stone by Bob Dylan is actually as good as everyone says.

Not quite what I expected when rocking up to guitar for kids on a Friday morning in Bangladesh, but there you go.


*shhh, I know he’s dead, but a girl can always dream