Marxist Tagore? A statuary warning

Beware the image of a bearded worthy. Lest he, bearing luscious facial hair, be mistaken for another barbate great. Which is exactly what happened in Tripura's Bishalgarh town when local BJP leaders furiously demanded that a statue of Rabindranath Tagore 'resembling' Karl Marx be replaced. You would reckon that Tagore bhakts who double as Marx nastiks could know the difference. But the statue, garlanded, as every year, on Saturday on Rabindra Jayanti, didn't seem to pass critical muster. The shared attribute of the beard must have added to the burden.

But mistaking Gurudev's flowing white locks with the more carelessly-controlled stack of Communist No. 1 is a bit lazy. Be that as it may, it is true that statues departing radically from the personages they are meant to look like are common in India. There are Ambedkars that look like Subhas Bose, and vice versa. One Maradona statue in Kolkata could have been a dead-ringer for Karz-era Rishi Kapoor. There are some statues that don't resemble anyone, their identities being up to the beholder. So, with beards adding to the confusion, it's best to be more careful when installing such statues. The National Museum of Pakistan in Karachi should, in this context, be told to carry a more prominent label with its famous Mohenjo-daro 'Priest-King' bust, lest it be mistaken for someone else.