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| Vol. 4, Issue 5 May 2012 |
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Arts & Reviews |
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Feature |
A Story Like No Other
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| A Nepali man’s extraordinary journey into a world of Surrealism and American legends |
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INDRA TAMANG |
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| Ruth and Charles at his home in the Dakota for Thanksgiving dinner in the 1990s.
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| I |
NDRA B TAMANG CAME FROM A NEPALI VILLAGE that had a witch doctor but no electricity. In his 20s, he met an American poet who changed his life. For the past four decades, Tamang has lived in the iconic Dakota building in New York, and mingled with folks like Andy Warhol, Tennessee Williams and John Lennon. |
But that’s the past. Let’s flash forward to the present.
On a rainy day in April, a small room at the Woolworth Building in Lower Manhattan was crammed with art lovers and well-wishers from the Nepali community, who were there to attend the opening day of Tamang’s photography exhibition, titled Charles Henri Ford and Indra Tamang Collaborations.
They jostled for space while peering at the black-and-white photos that were accompanied by haikus written by his boss, Charles Henri Ford, who died in 2002 at the age of 94. Poet, writer, editor, filmmaker and photographer, Charles led many lives and mastered many arts. A routine provocateur, the famous Surrealist poet co-authored America’s first experimental genderqueer novel, The Young and the Evil. The book, published in Paris in 1933, was banned in the US and UK until the 1960s.
“It’s great to see how Indra has emerged from Charles’ shadow,” said Ashok Gurung, senior director at the India China Institute at The New School and a native of Nepal. “I think he has evolved from being a minor player into an artist.”
In 1974, Tamang left for the US to work as a domestic help for Charles Henri Ford. In 2009, Charles’ sister, Ruth Ford, a famous actress, died at the age of 98, leaving Tamang, now 58, a valuable Russian surrealist art collection and two apartments at the Dakota building, near Central Park, all of which he estimates are worth $6-8 million.
The news hit Nepal and New York like a bolt of electricity and Tamang was catapulted into the limelight. There was a good deal of drama as well since Ruth, who was married to the late Hollywood actor, Zachary Scott, had disinherited her daughter and grandchildren. The daughter challenged the will in court and the case was not settled until April last year.
| DOTSON RADAR |
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Charles Henri Ford, Indra B Tamang and Ruth Ford at Ruth’s apartment in the Dakota building in 1976. |
“The newspaper reported him as a lucky man who won a big lottery but with this exhibition, more of his art will come out and more people will know him for his work,” said Mukta Tamang, who teaches anthropology at Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu.
Charles gave Tamang his first camera in the 1970s. He has since acquired many cameras that he’s used to photograph widely in New York and around the world. Tamang’s exhibition showed his photographs of people and places from Greece, Paris, New York, India and Nepal. The accompanying haikus, which were in French, offered both a philosophical and humorous commentary.
“Let the other people be homosexual/ As for him/ He’s not that queer,” is one of the hundreds Charles penned.
Instead of writing them by hand, Charles had cut the words for the haikus under Tamang’s photos from French magazines. “The East at your feet/ Fragrance that gives/ Muscle and daring,” read one poem under a photo of naked children jumping into a dark pool of water just outside Kathmandu.
Despite some tutorials, Tamang said that his French wasn’t strong enough to understand what the haikus meant. For him, the photos are a record of the places he and Ford visited together and the people he met on their many excursions.
Asked whether he saw himself as an artist, Tamang grinned and said, “I’m not saying an artist myself but if somebody else says that I’ll accept it.”
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Readers' Comments |
Total Comments
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Christina Murphy
12 June 2011
06:58 PM
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a very indulgent piece, miss the point of it but I liked the insight into the lives of these characters
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Joshi
8 June 2011
10:17 AM
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It is a fascinating account. I have met Mr Tamang, but I did not know all these facets. A very good account by Betwa Sharma. I don't know wheter the writer is Nepalese, but I would want to inivite the writer of the account (him or her) to Nepal. And take the story from there. The future is in New York where Indra Tamang lives, but the roots and temperament of the central acharacter comes from a country where there is want. It was interesting to understand how Indra got adjusted and became comfortable in the middle of creativity and the big players in a metro like New York. Inda's future is in the avenues of New York. There is the possibility of a video-documentary. Definitely, I want to see a followup story, a second part, beginning from the streets of Kathmandu, the places where Indra worked and the lower slopes of Nepal.
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Anita
7 June 2011
11:12 PM
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Very good reading of a subject caught between two cultures. Wonder what does Indra Tamang say to Yoko Ono when the two meet. Anita
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Javed Akhtar Abbas
7 June 2011
10:15 PM
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I do like such narratives. A capably done article. The character of Indra and what he confronts - the contrast between the complexion of a world that Indra left behind and the American lifestyle - all this comes out well in the article. It could make a decent movie straddling two worlds. So, who will make the movie. Or, should it be a documentary, which restricts itself to the US circuit. Javed.
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DC Chatterji
7 June 2011
09:47 PM
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A very interesting article - written well. But, what will Indra do now. Stay at the Dakota? Good to read an article to do with Nepal and Nepalese that has broken out from the stranglehold of the Mahendra-Birendra dynasty, Maoists, China, royal marriages between erstwhile royalty of India and Nepal, and sherpas.
Chatty
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Girish Bhandari
7 June 2011
08:48 PM
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I teach journalism and this piece is a work of modern journalism in its style and treatment of an unusual subject.
It feels like a real story without attributing too much or too little to the characters and their lives. What is refreshing is that Betwa Sharma doesn't try to fit Indra into a certain role that readers in this or that part of the world may want him to be.
The detachment makes the article in Caravan powerful. I hope to see more of this work in India.
Girish
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Deboleena Mitra
7 June 2011
12:48 AM
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I think this article is bland and haphazard - a laundry list of events, occurrences, quotes, and anecdotes. Its jumpy style is not engaging, and actually quite irritating. At the end I find myself wondering what the whole point is. Who was Indra Tamang? Why is he always laughing after his quotes? What work has the author of this article done except for perhaps listening to Tamang and transcribing anecdotes? What does he feel about Nepal? What was his reaction after the royal massacre? Did he sense alienation as a Nepali house help in the New York arty hipster set? All that comes across from this pathetic piece of journalism is that Indra Tamang was a Nepali waiter who went around clicking photos of famous people when a benefactor brought him to New York. But who WAS he? Little style, almost no substance. Not up to the level of Caravan at all.
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Hom Nath
6 June 2011
05:12 AM
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As I know Indra Tamang for almost 25 years, a nice hearted man, clear opinion, helpful character and a very sincere music student having a lot of respect towards his teacher, has never changed himself even after a great change in his life. He has a divine character, a material world could not change him. He remained human being to human being forever. Hom Nath Upadhyaya.
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Bindu Jaykar
2 June 2011
07:54 PM
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A Nepal connected story which is unconnected with the kingship in Nepal or the Maoists. The images in the story bring out a certain profile of New York life. No problem with that, because there are interesting insights on art and living. But, there was a world that Tamang left behind. The hotel, Panorama hotel, where Tamang met Charles. By the way, was Tamang carrying a photograph of his parents when he left his native place.
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Veer Dikshit
2 June 2011
07:21 PM
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The article aroused my curiosity and I am wanting to know more about Indra Tamang - what is his accent, how has he metamorphosed, what is his accent like, does he have an American nasal twang, does he sound Nepali on occasion, what does he actually do throughout the day for spending the hours meaningfully. I can understand that the article was focussing on the extraordinariness of an equation between particular human beings. But, still, I find myself seeking to know more about Indra Tamang.
Veer
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GRANT HART
2 June 2011
12:15 PM
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THE FORD'S WERE SO FORTUNATE TO HAVE HAD INDRA'S CARE AND LOVE. ELDERLY PATRICIANS ARE NOT THE EASIEST PEOPLE TO LOVE. NICE GOING INDRA!
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