Now that this half-blasphemous title is out of the way, let me get straight to the point. Actually I think a bit of beating around the bush is warranted. When I read Tyler Cowen’s Discover Your Inner Economist, I wasn’t sure if i would be quoting part of this book on my blog. However, considering that I almost directly applied one of the ideas mentioned in the book, I think it deserves a mention.
The chapter in question talks about art galleries. Tyler tries to explain one method by which you could make that trip more interesting. “Just imagine”, he says, “that you are a thief and want to steal one of these paintings. You know you can take just one of them. Which of these do you want to steal?” He believes that thinking this way will allow you to enjoy the gallery much better.
One of the main features in Sringeri is the stone-carved Vidya Shankara temple. There are elaborate sculptures on the outside, most of them representing events from mythology. The last time I visited (16 years back) there was our tour guide who had put detailed explanation of most of these sculptures. Now, yesterday, there was no guide around. And none of my relatives were willing to accompany me around this temple putting fundaes. So I was left with the job of going round the temple for myself figuring out the various sculptures. Question was how I was going to motivate myself to go all round it.
I think I was better equipped than the average wannabe thief at a gallery. The beauty with stone carvings from the Middle Ages is that there is a lot of subliminal stuff. The artist would’ve somehow slipped in (with or without the knowledge of the guy commissioning him) a few “interesting postures” into his work. For sake of random “decency” most guides tend to leave it out. But you know that there is bound to be some interesting stuff. My mandate for last evening was simple – go around this temple looking for porn on the walls. And in the process capture on camera whatever I find interesting.
I must thank Tyler for giving me this kind of an idea. I didn’t really believe that it would work when I’d read the book. But work like a charm it did, yesterday. That half hour was one of the best half hours of that trip. Unfortunately, the guy who commissioned the temple seems to have been extra careful and not much has slipped in. I thought I found a little bit of “stuff”. Maybe I was biased in my thinking due to my “agenda” but I think I found a couple of instances of animal sex (animals having sex with other animals), an Amazon-like figure (which I think may turn out to be some Ardhanarishwar or something) and some figurines of women doing yoga which looked very suspicious.
Right now some NED is happening so I’ll? upload some images tomorrow. You can judge for yourself as to whether I was unduly biased or if the artist did manage to slip in some stuff.