Kala Rang_2013

“Kala Rang” or “The Black”, explores another side of the same colorist coin. While white represents purity, black is the antithesis, the opposite of that– the impure, the dirty and the unholy. In this work, I reveal the hypocrisy behind the Western idealization of mud baths, where the simple practice of cleansing the body with mud, a common practice in third world countries/South Asia, is transformed into an exotic ritual for the rich to indulge in, The orientalist lens has manifested the concept of mud baths as a luxurious indulgence costing upwards of thousand pounds that again purifies and cleanses you. The disgust towards the darker color mysteriously vanishes in front of this exotic oriental ritual, as they go on to engulf their body with dark mud. An everyday act of necessity turns into a spectacle to perform and experience “for a lifetime”, an act that can be purchased monetarily. 

Through my performance I try to reclaim the act of rubbing mud on your body to cleanse it. As I rub the dark mud over my brown skin, covering it in a layer of black, clad in traditional Indian jewelry, donning some bangles and an anklet, I retrieve this exotic ritual back to my ancient cultural space. Once the illusion of the spectacle breaks and the hypocrisy is unveiled, the shallowness of the luxury mud-baths is exposed, and the act exits the purview of the West.