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