Art and Nostalgia

Nostalgia is delicate yet potent. In Greek, "nostalgia" literally means "the pain from an old wound." It's that sweet pinch in your heart far more powerful than memory. Memory then, is a just sequence of events that happened sometime ago, Nostalgia is a scenic boat journey that takes you to places where you’ve been aching to go. It isn't a spaceship, its not a wheel, it’s a time machine, it’s a merry go round. It goes backwards, and forwards. Reminding you of how things were and how things are.

In our minds we travel thousands of miles away from the boredom of form and monotony. Into the abstract world where shapes give way to design and ergonomics are compromised in lieu style. It is often studied in great detail the things that set the humans in the same measuring scale of the animal kingdom. We have been categorised as evolved apes, and termed as homo-sapiens. Enough evidence to support the theory of evolution has been propounded by scientists and researchers for centuries now. Genetic and evolutionary facts have been gathered accurately; however we have yet to study the other side in greater detail. We have yet to throw light on what truly separates us from the rest of the living world around us. What makes human beings human? What makes us susceptibly superior to all other species on the planet?

The answer is art. Humans are perhaps the only species on the planet that invest their time, money, and energy is making and enjoying art. Art is the most voluntary aspect of human life. While other species are in a constant 24x7 battle between eating and being eaten, it is only human beings that have enough emotional peace and energy to perform and appreciate art. Because in its most carnal sense, art is the least required for our survival however art satisfies yet another deep and more innate need. It  is this feeling that art resonates that separates us from the rest. Doing something purely hedonistic and deriving pleasure just from the very existence of creativity.

It’s funny how time and tide changes behaviours. Now, in a world full of humans working 9-5 like robots, there is barely an incision of any art form in daily lives of people. The age-old arts of design, culture, paint, embroidery, and expression are being killed daily with streaming media and non-stop need for engagement. The appreciation of traditional arts takes us back to a time when man took pleasure in his own labour. When creativity was valued priceless and imagination took form sooner than expected.

The connoisseurs of art understand it, and that’s what makes art worth its while in investing. It’s the value of human expression. The true currency of creativity.

Pranav Malhotra
Team Pashtush India.