The Other
THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, MARCH 1961.
Side
DOWN
of the Coin AMONG THE
FROM OPPOSITE ENDS OF THE SCALE. A STRONGMAN AND AN ARTIST ::: BODY AND SOUL!" ARE BROUGHT TOGETHER. CAREFUL CULTIVATORS OF THE EXTREME, THEY SHOW EACH OTHER, AND US, TWO SIDES OF A COIN
"TIGER" ROBINSON
to
I'd pretend
giant'
be a
HE walks stiff-necked, and turkey chested, careful of his half-naked magnificence. He pauses, massively, be- fore his reflection in a mirror. Then slowly, lovingly, he lowers two 40lb, weights to the floor, hitches his leopard – skin briefs, and prepares to close his gymnasium for the night.
they think they're tough, they come for me, four or Ave at a time."
graphic
There followed description of a street fight. where three men ended in hospital, two ran away ond Joc Hobinson retired, bloody, victorious, hla self-confidence unimpaired.
Ponderous
To prove his gentleness he unbuttoned his shirt, dier into the enormous procintis of his chest, and produced a sliver chaln and medallion,
"There you are," ho said, "Gemink, the heavenly twins. That's my zodiac sign and it With menas I'm a quiet chap.
a split personality," he throw da
laughs for last yet one think he
sald
ponderously as though about to divulga some deep, un- Imagined secret, people seem to think muscle men are stupid. So I try to talk about as many varied subjects as I can work into one conversation.
"It shows them I'm not so thick."
He tried it on 'me.
"I read Plato, you know,” he Faid. "Those Greaks were They must have
pretty smart.
You've only got to look
what was important.
old age and shrivelling muscles.
koop it," he said.
Injury. He could not face life
his limbs.
at their statues to see they knew Joe Robinson has no fear of know a man of 83 who made brachiite Jump. Easy if you He is afraid, only, of physical without the full-flexed glory of Many years ago he fell and bruised a leg very badly. He developed a limp. plon of wrestling and judo, his father, he remembers, sat "It was the most terrifying muscle man and Mr World tie him on his knee and said, holder, pulls sojne gargantuan "Look son, you want to be big period of my Me," he said. garments over, his muscles and and strong like your dad, don't
to alt begins
a little more you? Well, it's time for you to
start in the human.
He is a simple man, icas and unreserved. His life has been bounded by the Umits of his body, and within these limits he has achieved
- Joe "Tiger" Robinson, ebam- When Joe was six years old
his ambitions,
Gentle
"When I was a little boy
"
Violent
Specialists told him he would
grow
JOHN BRATBY
by Sally Vincent
I try to look
into my soul'
•
stream at school, a dead loss at art schools. 1 was the sort the other kids pinned Kick mo notices on."
Ая
small child. John Bratby wanted to be a train driver. This kept him happy. until the ago of 10, when he last grip of his ambitions, 2-
Mist
1 didn't want anything.
lived in a nort of mist, always
on the edge of things until was about 17.
I
DANCING
GIRLS.
Dacca.
[AUTCH is one of those words like Geisha,
NA
partly a challenge, partly a reproach to people like me whose purpose in life is not simply to please men.
Sooner or later some exasperated man throws one of them at you as a declaration, of war against independent, self supporting, unhelpless
women.
"Then
They usually have as-little iden woke up and wanted something. I wanted, as men what nautch or Gelsha In feel, to marry Betty Grable. girls are like but are only sure And when I got over that I that they must be the opposite.
atarted to paint."
It in four o'clock. John Bratby reflects on the years since
seventeen.
of
Next time I thought. I would be able to tell be one up and them.
S
90
cut
Apve had to make a monastic Fort
fe for myself, myself off from the world. People intimidate: me. Par- ticularly men.
There is a huge svetion of the malo population who put on
Lahore seems as good a place
дру
I
persunded two decent cricket-playlog: Eng- Ushmen and one charming American to take me to see the cpposition.
this false act of masculinity SHAKY TROT
Well, it defeats me. I just can't
cope with it.
I
I can't slip on a masit, can't join in with Them. I've
Honest
-WITH- ANNE SHARPLEY
We were all utterly em- harrassed by one another and I could feel the cricket players cursing me under their breath.
Slowly the nautch gle? strapped leather anklets crowded
Then,
HIS body is a vehicle for a sort of erratic myself all the tire. Otherwise (If you are man) leave the hotel with the stoic air of a suburban
still-life group a corduroy jacket, I won't be able to create." wrinkled to waist height at the back; a mess of sweaters and shirts; knee-curved narrow trousers; lumpy, leather boots making a solid base to hold the ensemble upright.
*
Getting to the dancing bazaar with dozens of bells round her got to be completely honest with was very simple since you can't coyly concealed ankics.
without the drivers of the frail girl helping Daddy to lay a new and suicidal horse mbs called lawn, she started to stamp and tongos trying to take you there, rate.
Abdullah, the driver of our SILENTLY die went on: "Self-expression tonga, tried to accept the nows has to be scrupulously honest, and we was going impassively, otherwise it's worthless, 90 alf and we set off at the best shaky
She raised her arms and re- the time I'm trying to look into trot that his poor skeleton of
volved her wrists as though for a myself, into my soul if you like, a horzo could muster. His fingers, where they bought me a dog so that Td to find what it is I want to put
remedial exercise and her sari, emerge from unravelling red have lo take him for walks. But over. Anyone can tell it a pic-from which the statue of Queen
Past the empty frilly canopy shush-shushed just audibly. wool, are gentle and hranitely I didn't. I never get any exerture or a story is dishonest. Eb Vieterial has been removed to drums were tapped. and the The organ piped hymnally, the else. I'm horribly unhealthy, just looks like rubbish. which I'm not crazy about, but there's no alternative.
"That's why I have to keep tenaciously, is still, known as other vigorously played Instru Some inside my own home. thing's got to go, and I would can
where The Mall, past the huge cannon ment filled, the place with silent reveal my sensitivity to Kipling Wrote about, and which notes. rather it was me than my work." myself. Outside I'd lose myself in the days of British rule was
A wild eyed grinning man with treat myself #ike a sort of known as Kim's Cannon, to the a fat basket crept to my knee hothouse plant that has to be real town of Lahore which for where I sat in a sort of easy kept out of the cold,
nearly two centuries we tried to chair and crowned my knees I lost the exact balance of ignore,
with garlands of jasmine and floodlit roses.
weary.
His head seems too heavy for the small, hunched shoulders. His eyes, beneath the tramline frown of the perpetually, Inquisi- Live
worrier, are flerce and violently alive.
Urgency
1
a museum) down what, moro
an
Today, at 31, he has no doubt limp for at least four years, but
It is three o'cloak in the that the decision was a wise one. Joe would not accept their word. morning, John Bratby, an artist, Printing is all of John Bratby's
"It's only common sense," he He went to stuacies, threw him has left his studio for the first life. He produces one painting the mind I have now, # the sold. Every man wants to self at every kind of violent time in about a year. He's a day. in a fever of intense balance got put out in the Three great while be big and strong. A man wants treatment they prescribed. making a night's talk of it.
педелсу. Each painting is very smallest degree, it would mean domes rase 10re three moons With the prodigal optimism of to mease a woman, doesn't he? Within 10 months he was As though the sound of his múch Üle the last oric, each has the end of my painting, Le into the darke sky from the the East he had strung dozens of
"Well, then. Show me a better.
ycice is a rather absurd joke, ho the unmistakable Bratby style, end of everything. It would be Badshahi Mosque one of these delicate garlands and they woman who doesn't want her
Islam's rentest mosques "I fought it off.
lo talk about himself, which is the Bratby statement worse than death even." Sometimes begins
and would all be dead within man to be able to hold her
ou anything visual.
neighbour up. I think that if I lost a leg.... explaining haphazardly that ho
It is 0:30. The birds begin paradoxicat
of the hour. over his head!“
well, there'd be nothing else for is happy to do so because he's "I paint a person for what I to sing and John Bratby realises, nautch district. he told me, "I would pretend to Joe Robinson has the only it.
an egotist. I'd just have to
Another man brought a stick can put into them rather than bitterly, that he needs sleep.
The houses in the Street of on which there was a tuft of myself that I was a fantastically sort of confidence he will ever another one," he said.
"I believe," he says, "In what I can bring out of them. "Here's something you should Diamonds diamonds being the colton woul strong giant and everybody need. He has big muscles. Ho ewitched his thigh a little, work. That is, in painting. II force my own personality on to think about," he says. "Biology. euphemism for prostitutes assured me was a drop of ruse.
and on that he loved me because 1 avas gentle has a 50in, chest and is oft, 2in. as though rehearsing the possi- feel compelled to work as hand them, because I'm A boring It always defents you in the
seemed crushed and crumpled perfume, and quiet, except when things tall. He can defend himself, bility, then slapped himself and as I possibly can. If I carry on crotist." He laughs, went really wrong and then Not that he particularly wants got up for & powerful stride working at this sort of pressure If he fails to produce the would look into it and decide to be always fighting for his about the gymnasium.
He buttoned himself into a there it is," which side to fht for. My side convictions: but he has a com-
one day he is consumed with would always win.
fortable feeling that.
It black suede jacket, Collected a
Kuite. "Not very Ambitious," he comes to the point, he can copy of "Dracula" from his “I paint_indocry - with all the I've got to keep at it or I admitted. "because it was prac- always knock a man down. locker, and turned to me. windows shut, I smoke all the see myself sliding back towards tically foregone conclusion. "Same men are jealous, of "Do 4" he said, "look all time and I breathe in whatever nothing. My father and grandfather were ecurse, I just pity them and right in this jacket? 1 mean, i happen to be breathing out. I "I'm just the type who falls. both muscle men."
ignore them. But sometimes if I don't look all that big, do I?" never go out, Once
HEADS YOU WIN?
DON'T GAMBLE ON YOUR HAIR'S HEALTH
USE VASELINE HAIR TONIC
it replaces lost scolp olie-naturally.. Vaseline Hair, Tonic is the natural answer to all your problems, the ideal day to day hair dressing for amart men everywhere. In addition it supplements the natural oils in your scalp to keep your hair strong and healthy....so buy. Vaseline Hair Tonic and be certain.
VASELINE is the registered trade mark of Chetebiqugh-Pond's' Inc.
Sole Agents:- JAĦDINE, MATHEBON & CO., LTD. -.
Vaseline
Vaseline
HAIR JONIG
end,
I'm going to kill myself. But picture he has platuned in any NEXT WEEK:
He is 32.
EAR
my wife I was always bottom of the dim
川
"Ile's been growing ever since we got him! “*
Who's Who and...Who?
-{London Express Berulce),
Jalna pūliable for launching a Do...
Canoe
Hai Jutt bort thought-no
牙
against one another in a con- fusion of balconies and tolter- ing facades.
I sat watching that hard work- ing, well meaning girl trying to -detect the notes of the energeti- withered and cally played silent instrument shrunk together and there
was (avhost player sensing my
They had
a strong smell of their decay, bowilderment played even more And yet the whole street was wildly) and sirovo to imagine full of sound as though it were the smell of rose perfume?
all one tapping, fingling tam- bourine.
IN URDU
From every house came the pinnangunan Bound of bells and drums and instruments all different In melody but following the same beat,
The nautch girl began to sing
In Urdu, The world is full of
love let me all it with love of
Unshaded electric bulbs were you. Here voice was harsh, set haphazardly, lighting bai- penetrating, and in some abrasive conies in which prostitutes ant way, delightful.
stiffly, only head and shoulders I decided it was all rather nico showing all neatly in a row ke
and romantic and much moru dolls a child has put to bed,
Agradable than a London strip
Up and down the street club. wandered the men; their eyes flickering like shoals of silver fish in the shadows,
IMMACULATE
My companions complained that it made them very depressed and bored. We paid yout some rupees and despite the
disinclination of my two Englishmen and one American I decided we must try one of the dancing shops on the first floor, Sometimes a cow or a bullock "Good morning mem-sahib," would make its bored way I was greeted as we climbed a through them, Sometimes a winding stair and entered, tonga would dash dangerously room which had a strange dwarf through.
gallery like an over-developed
On the ground floor the doors picture rail round it on which and windows were flung open no foot could ever have stepped on brightly rooms in which but was supposed to give an the dancing girls sat smoking lusion of height and grandeur gigglinis laughing, waiting for to the room. the moment when a customer 'would step inside.
Then the doors and shutters
banged triumphantly shut maj the dancing could begin.
GARLANDS
• The local Messina brother "Very nice flirt girls this all up the stairs after us and house," said Abdullah, still not proceeded to show us what wo sure of my purpose in all this, should be daing. but falling back on the cus tomary potter for safety.
This consisted of holding up a rupee note when the nautch girl advanced, on it singing and The floor KRS covered in o light white cloth and by she had given her rupee's worth dancing and when she thought
-of
thom. contradictions Kint
snatched
moke this puch o difcult sub- Another continent to understand i wag and another with rose perfume man with garlands Immaculately clean, although, thô
--,
now
walls and windows were Bithy, on a stick helped repeat what In a corner at a censorious accmed to be an identical ritual looking church organ, A men
with an almost identical girl.
My companions curled in a blanket slept by his
groaning with boredom.
drums and another manant by urother instrument
which, githough he appeared to play it,1 I swear produced no noise · st
were
It would be the shine, AÍ the next shop teasina 'told us brightly can, though to 40+ "samure" "sin" thai, those delights::
"wero" williput end.
The nautoh girl iwas a sturdy, thick nosed smiling crentun 1 was pushed into the tonga with an elegatit plnit silk sari and 'taken broke 10 thể, hoteli twined roundt her and and of As we passed Queen Victoria's thos metu knitted stoolileg vucated canopy the turp that they wou here during the pinglabren #ghed and the cold sonson, that makes one American falled his pal You wonder how they ever had the wop, ma'am wood, taste ig invent, the suri.. — fanden, Räpivie #rrated).