"Gavaaksh" was a bad marketing decision.
A name that's probably hard to pronounce, let alone remember, for almost everyone who didn't grow up speaking Indian languages.
...but "gavaaksh" was never a marketing decision anyway. Further, the name's great, layered meaning out-balances the hurdles of distribution it puts up.
"So the new name is Queen?"
"As in her royal highness...because it's outrageous. And I can't think of anyone more outrageous than me!"
(Bohemian Rhapsody-2018)
Flipping through a Hindi dictionary for no reason (as I often did), my eyes suddenly fall on the word vidhata.
विधाता
सृष्टि की रचनात्मक शक्ति। (the creative force of the universe)
ब्रह्मा। (Brahmaa- Hindu God of Creation)
Translation: Creator
It spoke to me.
It spoke to my perspective on art- being something great, something powerful…possibly divine…probably something greater than the mundane mortality of life.
It spoke to my hunger for being outrageous; rather, outrageously being myself.
(A hunger I still doubt I understand. A hunger that I often cloak as narcissistic—possibly a sign of my insecurities with this ambition:
"Is it surely not inconvenient for others to outrageously be oneself?" (the, yet undefeated, gatekeeper who guards the treasure I seek))
Freddie Mercury's words in Bohemian Rhapsody spoke my heart.
...and then, one day, seemingly out of nowhere, I realised that my relationship with my art had changed. That's the day I learned the word gavaaksh.
गवाक्ष
झरोखा।
खिड़की।
Translation: aperture
I came across the word while playing around with Google Translate (as I often do).
Overtime, I have learned to view art as an envelope, regardless of the medium. Music, dance, painting or prose, art is like an envelope carrying a message from the artist to the audience.
The message could be anything, but often, if not necessarily, it is something felt.
The audience feels the pain of losing one's beloved in the opening scene of Up. They feel the anxiety of walking up on a stage to face a crowd full of expectations in Eminem’s Lose Yourself. They feel an innocent, childish excitement in the song Bum Bum Bole from Taare Zameen Par. They feel the amazing beauty Van Gogh must have experienced from his cell’s window in The Starry Night.
Art is a packet for conveying something that was experienced. Art is important because words, when used literally, at times fail to fairly represent the complex human experience.
In this process, art becomes a window.
As one relives a feeling through art, he gets a chance to peek into the mind of the artist (a chance to indirectly stand in his shoes for once).
Gavaaksh, being a Sanskrit word, is loaded in meaning. While this definition is beautiful by itself, the true beauty of the word lies in a second definition.
Gavaaksh is the Hindi translation for Fenestra.
fenestra
(anatomy, zoology): a small natural hole or opening, especially in a bone.
(medicine): an artificial opening.
This second definition brings an almost literal angle to the idea of peeking into one's mind. The skull has a number of fenestrae for sensory organs (eyes, nose and ears), the essential apparatus for the first step of experiencing.
For the sake of transparency, I must admit that I do miss the flamboyance of vidhata. But maybe I continue to favour gavaaksh as it captures my understanding of art in a single word without compromising meaning. Maybe it's another sign, nudging me towards the understanding that art is greater than the artist.
With that introduction, I welcome you to my mind through project gavaaksh.
[All Rights Owned by Garv Agarwal]