Free Loading in the Times of Art

Recently, the Hindustand Times, New Delhi edition carried a page 3 item on one of the opening receptions at the Palette Art Gallery. The writer of that item had a major complaint- so many free loaders haunt Palette openings, so better next time ‘Rohit and Rahul of Palette Gallery control them’, he said.

What is the definition of a free loader? A free loader is someone who gate crashes in ceremonies and feasts, mostly in a decent dress code, mingles with the invited guests and make maximum out of it. Freeloading is connected mainly to gluttony and these gate crashers do that purposely to enjoy free food and drinks. Free loaders are everywhere- from marriage receptions to art show openings.

When it comes to art show openings, I would say, free loaders are perhaps the only people who seriously watch art. They have a reason to be super serious about art because they want to fit into the crowd that pretends to have some ‘sincere’ feelings for the works of art displayed. Times have changed in such a way that anybody who takes an extra minute before a work of art, he would be looked at with suspicion for it has become an accepted fact that the ‘openings’ are not for art watching. Openings are meant for socializing…for chilling out, for striking right contacts, for just being there.

Let us deconstruct the phrase ‘free loading’. As I mentioned before, free loading is all about enjoying free food and wine. If it is so, who are the free loaders? The invitees who do not care about art but want to chill out or the uninvited ones who try to care about art and also want to ‘chill out’. I would say both. To put it in other words, in art openings, whether you have an invitation or not, you are a free loader.

My artist friends would not disagree with me if I say that once upon a time we were all uninvited free loaders. Yes, before the art market boom, most of us (now rich and famous) used to wait for an opening and attend the openings ‘self invited’. We liked to go to Peter Nagy’s Nature Morte, then at Qutub Colonnade for free ‘red wine’. Prima Kurien’s Art Inc (now defunct) at Shahpur Jat was preferred for the free ‘Old Monk’ rum. Max Mueller Bhavan gave all of us some kind of dignity as every one, irrespective of class and status, waited strategically between the lawn and kitchen, for free beer and whiskey. At that time free loaders were not distinguishable for everyone looked in and out free loaders.

When address changed from ‘Mr. So and So, Q-1275 (barsati), Behind Raju Pahalwan’s Tea Shop, Fifteenth Gali, Near Gudiya Cinema, Bhojpuri Chowk, Pitampura, Delhi, Phone 2345667 (Ashok STD Booth contact number- please leave the message with him)’ to ‘Mr. So and So, F 10, Def. Col. N.D. 980-420-007’, we all started getting invitations and our status too shifted from being an acknowledged free loader to a nebulous free loader. Now we recognize the free loaders quickly because we find our erstwhile alter egos there.

Coming back to the present times, there are two types of free loaders- Desi and Videsi (local and foreign). In high voltage openings, you find more videsi free loaders than desi ones. Being true Indians we still have the colonial hangover so we do not ‘see’ them as free loaders, but as guests. A French visitor who happened to be in one such openings, after having enough of drinks and chicken tikkas told me in his broken English, ‘I don’t know why I am here. But in our country, this kind of art (showing the works displayed on the walls) is not entertained anymore. Anyway, you guys are really generous. Look at the amount of drinks and food that you lavish on your guests.” Even our temporary bar tenders do real ‘service’ to the videsi free loaders to prove Indian hospitality and servility.

Any injustice brings forth unionism. Hence, one could see the Desi free loaders making their own coteries in openings. They sit or stand in groups near the bar and strike up friendship with bar boys and in turn they are served abundantly. Amongst these groups, they seriously discuss art, in between borrow a ‘fag’ from others (which the invited guests too do quite often) and chill out. Out of the many good things about these free loaders, what strikes one is the respect that they show towards the catalogues. While most of the invited guests shove away the catalogues ‘somewhere’, these ‘marked’ people religiously take away their catalogues, press kits and whatever given to them in the opening. They do leave comments on the visitors’ book, complete with the address so that, in due course of time, they too become invitees.

I vote for desi free loaders because they are like cheer leaders in IPL cricket matches. While the stars strike fours and sixes (gossips, back biting, bitching and complaints), these free loaders admiringly cheer them up from the side lines. Most of them have become permanent presences in show openings that you cannot avoid a ‘hi’ and ‘hello’ from them without returning niceties. Free loaders are innocent people who try to make their evenings happy and meaningful. They endure all those art and art talks only to be happy. Free loading is the Tao of surviving the lonely evenings. In free loading, the invited and the uninvited are united.

Last fifteen years that I have spent in Delhi, I have come across so many free loaders (of course, I have witnessed my own self transforming from a free loader to an invited guest), whose stories are really touching. Recently, the same Hindustan Times published the story of an old man who claims to have rich sons living in Canada. Seeing the photograph of the man crouching in a dingy room filled with catalogues, brochures, paper cuttings and press kits, I recognized him. He used to visit all the major cultural functions in Delhi, with an obese young man who could pass for his son. They sit through seminars, lectures and discussions. Later during the coffee-lunch-dinner break they stuff their coat pockets with Bisleri bottles and splurge on eatables. Organizers try to weed them out but they fight back in ‘good and respectable English.’

The picture in HT reminded me of all those days. Now abandoned by health and even by his young companion this man lives in delusions, conjuring up non-existent rich sons. I think English is the only protective cover these men have to save them from daily humiliation. English and its magic keep these men at par with their videsi counterparts. In English they dip their sins of being a free loader and in English they find redemption. Oh English journalists, just listen….these free loaders know more art than you know in your slavish life that runs between coffee machines and condescending copy editors. You better leave them alone.

PS: The addresses used in this article are fictitious. Any resemblance to the real addresses is purely coincidental.