Whats your 200year plan Raghava KK

about 75 years ago my grandfather a

young man walked into a tent that was

converted into a movie theater like that

and he fell hopelessly in love with a

woman he saw on the silver screen none

other than Mae West the heartthrob of

the 30s and he could never forget her in

fact when he had his daughter many years

later he wanted to name her after Mae

West but can you imagine an indian child

named Mae West the Indian family said no

way so when my twin brother keshava was

born he decided to tinker with the

spelling of cash Ava’s name he said if

Mae West can be ma e why can’t keshava

be ka e so he changed case for spelling

now Kara had a baby boy called Rehan a

couple of weeks ago he decided to spell

or other miss pass Rehan with an AE you

know my grandfather died many years ago

when I was little but his love for Mae

West lives on as a misspelling in the

DNA of his progeny that for me is

successful legacy I know as for me my

wife and I have our own crazy Legacy

Project we actually sit every few years

are you disagree fight and actually come

up with our very own 200 year plan our

friends think we are mad our parents

think we are cuckoo because you know we

both come from families that really look

up to humility and wisdom but we both

like to live larger than life I believe

in the concept of a raja yogi be a dude

before you can become an ascetic this is

me being a rock star even if it’s in my

own house you know so when neighbor and

I sat down to make our first plan ten

years ago we said we want the focus of

this plan to go way beyond ourselves

what do we mean by beyond ourselves well

200 years we calculated is at the end of

our direct contact with the world that’s

nobody I’ll meet in my life

will ever live beyond 200 years so he

thought that’s a perfect place it should

situate our plan and let our imagination

take flight you know I never really

believed in legacy what am I going to

leave behind I’m an artist until I made

a cartoon about 911 it caused so much

trouble for me I was so upset you know a

cartoon that was meant to be a cartoon

of the week ended up staying so much

longer now I’m in the business of

creating art that will definitely even

outlive me and I think about what I want

to leave behind through those paintings

you know the 911 card one upset me so

much that I decided I’ll never gotten

again I said I’m never going to make any

honest public comment Lee again but of

course I continued creating artwork that

was honest and raw because i forgot

about how people reacted to my work you

know sometimes forgetting is so

important to remain idealistic perhaps

loss of memory is so crucial for our

survival as human beings one of the most

important things in my 200 year plan

that natura and I write is what the

forget about ourselves you know we carry

so much baggage from our parents from

our society from so many people fears

insecurities and our 200 your plan

really lists all our childhood problems

that we have to expire we actually put

an expiry date on all our childhood

problems the latest date I put what i

said i am going to expire my fear of my

leftist feminist mother-in-law and this

today is the day tee she’s watching

anyway you know I really make decisions

all the time about how I want to

remember myself and that’s the most

important kind of decisions I make and

this directly translates into my

paintings but like my friends I can do

that really well on Facebook Pinterest

Twitter Flickr YouTube name it I’m on it

I’ve started outsourcing my memory to

the digital world you know but that

comes with the problem it’s so easy to

think of technology as a metaphor for

memory but our brains are not perfect

storage devices like technology we only

remember what we want to at least I do

and I’d rather think of our brains as

biased curators of our memory you know

and if technology is not a metaphor for

memory what is it Nathan I used a

technology as a tool in our 200 year

plan to really curate our digital legacy

that is a picture of my mother and she

recently got a facebook account you know

where this is going and I’ve been very

supportive until this picture shows up

on my Facebook page and I actually

untagged myself first then I picked up

the phone I said ma you will never put a

picture of me in a bikini ever again and

she said why you look so cute darling I

said you just don’t understand maybe we

are among the first generation that

really understands this digital curating

of ourselves maybe if you are the first

to even actively record our lives you

know whether you agree with a no legacy

or not we’re actually leaving behind

digital traces all the time so netra and

i really wanted to use our 200 year plan

to curate this digital legacy and not

only digital legacy but we believe in

curating the legacy of my past and

future how you may ask well when i think

of the future i never see myself moving

forward in time actually see time moving

backward towards me I can actually

visualize my future approaching

i can dodge what I don’t want and pull

in what I want it’s like a video game

obstacle course and I’ve gotten better

and better at doing this even when I

make a painting I actually imagine i’m

behind the painting it already exists

and someone’s looking at it and I see

whether they’re feeling it from their

gut and they’re feeling it from their

heart or is it just a set of brother

thing that really informs my painting

even when I do an art show I really

think about what should people walk away

with I remember when I was 19 I did I

wanted to do my first art exhibition and

I wanted the whole world to know about

it I didn’t know that then but what I

did was I closed my eyes tight and I

started dreaming I could imagine people

comin in dressed up looking beautiful my

paintings with all the light and in my

visualization I actually saw a very

famous actress launching my show giving

credibility to me and I woke up from my

visualization I said who is that I

couldn’t tell if it was Shabana Azmi or

Rekha two very famous indian actresses

like the Meryl Streep’s of India as it

turned out next morning I wrote a letter

to both of them and Shabana Azmi replied

and came and launched my very first show

12 years ago and what a bang it started

my career with you know when we think of

time in this way we can curate not only

the future but also the past this is a

picture of my family and that is nature

of my wife she’s a co-creator of my 200

year plan netra is a high school history

teacher I love netra but I hate history

I keep saying niche you live in the past

while i’ll create the future and when

I’m done you can study about it she gave

me an indulgent smile and as punishment

she said tomorrow I’m teaching a class

on Indian history and you are sitting in

it and I’m grading you like oh god I

went I actually went and sat in on her

class she started by giving students

primary source documents from

india-pakistan from Britain and I said

wow then she asked them to separate fact

from bias I said Wow again then she said

choose your facts and biases and create

an image of your own story of dignity

history as an imaging tool I was so

inspired I went created my own version

of Indian history I actually included

stories from my grandmother she used to

work for the telephone exchange and

she’s to actually overhear conversations

between Nehru and at vina Mountbatten

and she’s to hear all kinds of things

you shouldn’t have hurt but you know

include things like that if this is my

version of Indian history you know if if

this is so it occurred to me that maybe

just maybe the primary objective of our

brains is to serve our dignity good then

Facebook to figure that out nature and I

don’t write our 200 year plan for

someone else to come and execute it in

hundred and fifty years imagine

receiving a parcel saying from the past

okay now you’re supposed to spend the

rest of your life doing all of this no

we actually write it only to set our

attitudes right you know I used to

believe that education is the most

important tool to leave a meaningful

legacy education is great it really

teaches us who we are and helps us

contextualise ourselves in the world but

it’s really my creativity thats taught

me that I can be much more than what my

education told me I am I’d like to make

the argument the creativity is the most

important tool we have it lets us create

who we are and curate what is to come I

like to think thank you I like to think

of myself as a storyteller where my past

and my future are only stories my

stories waiting to be told and retold I

hope all of you one day get a chance to

share and write your own

100 years story thank you so much choke

on