Just as Ganesha symbolises new beginnings, Shiva’s dance of destruction or the tandava symbolises destruction of the past. The past that holds you back from letting the new come in, the past, which keeps you connected to that ‘non-existence’, the past that is keeping you ‘attached’ to the ‘gone’, that past has to be relinquished for the new reality to take shape. Only when a tandava reaches its saturation, tabula rasa follows and it is the start of a new day, a new beginning.
From the series titled, “Tabula Rasa…for a new beginning”!
Tabula Rasa in Latin means a clear slate, and originates from the Roman tabula or wax tablet used for notes, which was blanked by heating the wax and then smoothening it, to give a tabula rasa. In Psychology, it relates to the theory that at birth the (human) mind is a “blank slate” without rules for processing data, and that data is added and rules for processing are formed solely by one’s sensory experiences. And so in order to reach for his goals and desires, despite the setbacks that one has faced, one needs to clear his mind to reach a tabula rasa and start afresh. In this series, the artist has exhibited pictures those describe the meaning of ‘Tabula Rasa’, ‘before it is reached’ and ‘after it is reached’ in the human mind.
Shivani Pandey 