Can there be a personal football? If so, I have something similar. During my playing days, I always liked football more than cricket; later, I had no other option but to play shuttle badminton. All were fun, but football rose above all others. I had gone to the Kozhikode stadium only a few times. Once, Inder Singh was playing. He stopped the ball when it reached him from the sky, and the ball became a pet animal tied to his feet. At first, he moved the ball towards his own post, then made a U-turn, ran fast, dribbled a few players, aimed at the goalpost, and shot. It was a goal. I heard of Pele but could not watch much of his play. Then came Maradona. He did what Inder Singh did, but on a scale and in art that was exponentially greater. For some time, football lived in me for the love of Maradona’s dribbling and leaping beyond the world. Then came Messi. I saw in him the cumulative progression of what I saw in Inder Singh and Maradona. Messi, too, was taken by age, though his brain...
The earliest treatise on sculpture, by the ancient Greek sculptor Polykleitos, is nonextant and dated to 450 BCE. The earliest Indian treatise on sculpture is the Vastu Sutra Upanishad, authored by Pippilada Maharshi; its date is unknown. The Vastu Sutra covers traditional aspects of sculpting, from materials to techniques. Yet this work offers no discussion of sculpture as an independent art form. Perhaps the cultural context of that time was not fertile ground for such questions. Sculpture’s close connections are with architecture and painting. In earlier times, sculpture was closely related to architecture. In cities and temples, statues were compulsory. Sculpture is a sign of civilisation and culture; for this reason, the invading country disfigures the statues of the existing power. The statues are not demolished or removed, but dismembered to keep them as signs of the new power. Even in revolution, this is common. This is called iconoclasm. In post-medieval times, relig...