Siddharth Sivakumar
Remembering Parvez Kabir
Pedalling around the campus on his bicycle with an impish face, Parvez Kabir looked more like a student than a teacher.
But behind his youthful informality and charming personality was a seasoned critic, someone deeply committed to the study of art history. Parvez-da always elicited friendly conversations, and yet today, I am hopelessly fumbling for words. He passed away on the 27th of September. His untimely demise has left us struggling to keep calm, assailed by the flashes of memories, fragmented conversations, and his articulations of aspirations which would now remain so, nticipating fulfilment.

He had achieved what many dreamt of, but was yet to realise his own dreams. Our grievances and this pulsating heart will remind us of our being, and his death. He had studied in Patha Bhavana, the same school I have been to. Although by that time he had left school, “Parvez” was a familiar name, recalled by teachers to set an example, to demonstrate quality and dedication. So when he topped the school certificate examination, it hardly came as a surprise. What surprised others, including his family, was his decision to join the art college. Following the ritual, his family wanted him to pursue further studies in science. It was one of his teachers, Avik-da [Avik Ghosh], who finally convinced the family; ensuring them that a bright future awaited their son in the arts. Avik-da’s words turned prophetic. Apart from his popularity
amongst students and young professionals, he slowly started to gain acceptance from the art fraternity. Parvez-da had covered a lot of ground during his short career. His academic interest spread across the primitive to the renaissance, and converged upon the modern and the post-modern concerns of the present day. His articles like “Primitivism in Picasso”, “Leonardo”, “Meditations on the Laocoon: El Greco and Lessing”, underscore his scholarly merits. Although he was intrigued by Leonardo and Raphael, inspired by scholars such as Marin Kemp and E. H. Gombrich, he was equally drawn towards Indian aesthetics. While he was familiar with the rasa and the dhawani theories, he took pleasure in producing articles on shilpashastras, Orissa temples, and other traditional art forms and architecture. In the 2012 Kochi Muziris, he had participated in an art installation project with a bunch of young students from Kala Bhavana. His curiosity with the emerging forms of art, resulted in a week-long unofficial work shop in Kala Bhavana, where new installations came into being on the chatal around the trees. I have never attended any of his classes apart from the one lecture he had delivered in my department. In the evenings I would sometimes meet him, accompanied by other friends and students, in some coffee shop at the Ratanpally market. His non-academic interests assumed centre stage in our casual talks. He was a great admirer of Godard, Truffaut and Bergman, often intrigued by Akira Kurosawa, Zhang Yimou and Spielberg. He was inspired by Satayjit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak’s sense of aesthetics, while instinctively responding to Hitchcock, Tarantino, Rodriguez and even the early Ram Gopal Varma. His diverse interest in films radiated and spread across the people who interacted with him. I still remember how Parvez-da told me of his experience of watching Satya, one of his all-time favourites, bunking an afternoon study session. While he described how thrilled he was to find himself watching one of the biggest cult movies of Bollywood, he jokingly added, “It was a very risky affair since we were very much living in the Avik Ghosh regime.” On another of those evenings, he confessed to a letter he had written to Manisha Koirala as a teen-age fan. His involvement with the local film club benefited both the club and the students. He was gifted to watch films differently. And this was a problem for many who preferred to see films in the conventional light. He hated the plaguing complacency of our time. He told us that it needed to change and that we should stop patting each other’s
backs and get out of our eternal glee! He was undoubtedly one of the best chess players around and spent considerable time playing with students and foreign players online. He knew some of the famous games by heart. Talking of remembering things, one has to appreciate his hyperactive brain that never lost facts while being engaged in creative endeavours. He refused to pen down the sharp and witty plays he had produced for the Nandan Mela. But he reassured us that he remembered each dialogue and could instantaneously produce the play any day. Parvez-da had encouraged me and many others to write. He would patiently read and reply in detail. There were times when his feedback would exceed the length of the original text. His sharp criticism and frankness were never discouraging;, rather they were the guiding force one could truly depend on. There were instances when he would rubbish some of my writing without beating about the bush. But I could always challenge him. He was the kind of person who would happily agree to disagree. But in recent times, with his various projects and plans unfurling, it took him some days to reply to my mails, to comment on something I had written. I impatiently awaited his response, and whenever I saw the glowing green spot popping up in my Gmail account indicating his nocturnal presence, I would hurry him, annoy him, as taking liberties was the practice. But as I browse through my mails late at night, I no longer see his illuminating presence; the inviting green light has disappeared with his amiable personality.

As he died of a cardiac arrest following a short but severe viral attack, hundreds of students, his teachers from both
Patha Bhavana and Kala Bhavana, along with his colleagues gathered in Kala Bhavana to pay their last respects. All stood in silence, clustered around his body, like bricks forming a tomb. Wrapped in white he lay lifeless on the ice bars, pairs of leaking eyes searched around instinctively, trying to trace him at the places he was mostly found. One of his students said that he wished Parvez-da would surprise everybody by standing up and declaring that it was just a “Performance Art”. But it wasn’t. His death on an autumn night brought darkness to the lives that were greeted by his smiling face every day, and produced a shockwave on the social media. Facebook accounts of his friends blacked out as they put up black profiles and cover pictures. Condolence messages were exchanged; beautiful images of his were searched over the net, and subsequently shared amongst friends. He who had left Facebook months ago, once again came alive in his death.
He had put mind before body, and it abandoned him. As nights wake up to light, his being seems more distant; unreal as
it were. But those who have known him, can still hear his voicein familiar arguments, see him in familiar spots, and feel his
perky presence as friendly faces meet to discuss new ideas. His presence lingers, and will continue to, in those he loved, and in the ones that loved him. Life continues, and we keep on acting, playing our parts with its inherent imperfections—playing an exuberant sonata on a piano with a missing key. Life continues, and we keep on acting, playing our parts with
its inherent imperfections—playing an exuberant sonata on a piano with a missing key, that’s how Siddharth Sivakumar feels about the early demise of the young art historian, pedagogue and friend of many, Parvez Kabir