Aruna Vasudev passed away on September 5, 2024. (Photo: Wikipedia)
Aruna Vasudev’s multidimensional personality made her truly irreplaceable. Remembered essentially for her immense contribution to the domain of cinema, especially Asian cinema, she had many other intriguing facets in her personality that contributed to her being recognised as a legend in her own time.
She wore her various accolades with immense ease and was an affectionate, insightful, and social personality who, it appears to me, had a deep sense of purpose. Perhaps this purpose was to share, communicate and showcase diverse sensitivities in an experiential and selfless manner. She was always more interested in pioneering interventions rather than celebrity status. Her writings and engagements reflected a deep critical and aesthetic bearing, rather than a factual articulation of techniques of the craft and its medium of representation. She looked at Asian cinema essentially as an art form, with a firm commitment to experiencing, exploring and showcasing to the rest of the world its strength and vitality. She endeavoured to present the “Asian essence” to Asians and Asian ingenuity and uniqueness to the rest of the world. This earned her a special position and stature internationally. She had a single-minded aim and vision.
Her assimilative capacity, her aesthetical strength, and sensitivity in every aspect of social and creative expression perhaps emanated from her being an artist and thinker at heart with a wide range of interests and engagements. As a result, the innumerable gatherings at her residence had rasiks from the varied walks of life that engaged her fancy — politics, culture, creative writing, poetry, dance, theatre etc.
Perhaps what pleased her the most was the interactive fertility of the interdisciplinary, where new ideas and possibilities emerged. She handled these with ease, glamour and elan. She was a real queen, her husky voice calling and inviting many of us to her gatherings, saying, “…have called only a few friends.” One realised only later that one was amongst a large group, of a size and scale that one could hardly comprehend. All this was part of her niswarth (selfless) agenda in binding people and sensibilities together with her larger ambition and purpose. Assimilating aesthetics, diverse sensibilities, theoretical studies in their realisational mode is what she achieved! This did not limit itself to the regional, but extended to the international in the true spirit of a cultural emissary, with a holistic vision of life and creative pursuits.
Our personal association with Aruna went back over two decades or more — particularly for my wife and a group of mutual friends. This small group of family and friends spent an enriching time together, observing, experiencing, drawing, painting, and interacting. Although they seldom exhibited, this exercise was more an engagement with the “inner self”; essentially swanta sukhaya (self-satisfaction). The intention was not to seek worldly appreciation — as a true rasik, each was pursuing the larger context of the subliminal creative expression through the medium of “Sumi-e”, the Japanese concept of creative expression that relates to the inner vitality of creative thinking and its representation.
It is evident that Aruna’s involvement with Buddhism served a meaningful purpose in her life which transcended material gains. Although she led her life on her own terms and conditions, the larger meaning of existence had a deeper metaphoric purpose which, when viewed in totality, reveals how to be a pioneer, explore the unexplored, unify sensibilities and celebrate life with ease, poise, and sensitivity — all of which Aruna achieved.
Alas, that husky, affectionate, ever-welcoming voice fell into eternal silence on September 5. When I last saw her at her cremation, her face wore a smile. The word “aruna”, as part of its literal meaning, represents the charioteer of the Sun god. In her life, Aruna was the charioteer of the Asian film movement, a true seeker with an Asian spirit and the zest to share it with the rest of the world. Aruna, you will always be remembered for your poise, elegance, sincerity, and vision.
The writer is an artist and former director, National Gallery of Modern Art
