Meeting Ganesa on the Lotus Pond

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Shapes that emerge from the childhood fantasies of the magical land, wild and beautiful, unlike anything I have ever seen before, but yet eerily familiar and personal as some ancient interpretation of a collective Rorschach test. Stolen notes from a psychiatric session that hasn’t happened yet. Pictorial code of answers to the Ultimate Question Of Life, the Universe and Everything, from our ancestors with a serious problem of interfering and converging dialectics of Hinduism, Buddhism and the reptilian race of Naga in prehistoric Kambuja.

The original Elephant Man is my above-mentioned friend Ganesa (Ganesha), in the first picture. He has a beer belly, which Hindus claim to be a representation of fertility, but he also holds a box of candy in his right hand, so I would say that he is a regular bon vivant. One tusk is broken, I suspect in a bar brawl, but the official story is that it happened when Parasurama, the Sixth avatar of Vishnu threw the axe at him. I don’t know what to believe here.

Worrier Monkey aka Hanuman, although he does not look it, is a son of a celestial being. He is also a pretty brave fellow who saved a princess once, or so the story goes in Khmer version of Ramayana (called Reamker).

Red lions gnarling at the door; roof structures mimicking seven-headed serpents and lotus flowers, I am guessing to reflect appropriately in the eyes of a foe or a friend; deities juggling anything that might come handy in their couple pairs of hands: sea-shell, disk, cake, the mace, rosary, vase; polpils-lions with trunks; ugly humanoids called Yaksas with bulging eyes and fangs all managed to get my attention with a high potential of becoming a centerpiece of some future nightmare.

Encircled by these manimalistic characters is a tranquil garden, and a Buddha in center amongst flowers and goldfish enjoying some kind of synaesthetic experience. It is also a good place for us, regular humans to get some peace and quiet in notoriously noisy Phnom Penh. I think it is the light that falls on the garden gently as the iktt silk, permeating it with color, that gives it its singular spacetime. Noble guards mark the corners, the conical domes, some covered with delicate three-dimensional lace and others resembling slices cut out from a giant Viennese Sachertorte.

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Photos

Extreme Case of Elephantiasis
Statue of Ganesa in front of the National Museum of Cambodia.

Warrior Monkey
Hanuman statue shows a pair of overweight earrings.

Feed the Lion
Do not see this statue after dark.

Lotus Domes
Blossoming rooftops of the National Museum of Cambodia.

Pierced Sky
Detail from the dome of the Museum.

Lotus in the Pond
Tranquil garden with the pond in the inner courtyard in the Museum.

Goldfish
Goldfish enjoying the life of privilege in the pond of the National Museum.

Buddha and the Magenta Flower
In the graden of the National Museum.

Soldiers
Soldiers in the eternal guard of honor.

Elephant
Stepping out of a shrub.

Comments

[Stephen]

Beautiful
I love these pictures, this commentary. Splendid work, baby! X,S

[Mehnaz]

cool pictures!
Funny, i was just watching a documentary of ankor wat this morning, thinking of you, then i opened this up. It looks beautiful! Hope everything's going well.

[Taca]

thanks
All is good. Stayed tuned for more. You are not going to start working on Asia, are you? A good friend just changed to SEA department, so maybe its in fashion?

[Angelica]

Thank you
Really enjoyed your comments and pictures. I was in India last summer and had a chance to learn a bit about Hindu gods and architecture. Fascinating and I'm glad you are having an interesting time there.