Peer Review and the Art of Warli and Dekora

In academia, peer review can get thankless. More so, if you do one per week, right through the year and still keep receiving review-pending reminders. I haven't reached that hectic visibility yet, but do enough to already feel swamped.

No real complaint. Peer review is part of my job.

The thing that most reviewers dread is not those standard peer-review requests that provide enough duration for completion of the task with enough competence. It is the unexpected, one-night-stands, rather demands, that put us off. The anguish felt as a reviewer is measurably more than that felt as an author, awaiting the review results of our submitted paper.

Real complaint. Overnight peer review is (also) part of my job. But this micro-muse has a happy ending.

One such short-notice requests was entrust, rather thrust, on me via my friend, who claimed expertise about my expertise on the required topic as the back of his hand. With such friends, we don't need enemies.

To be fair, I was given a week for completing the review of three papers on a specific topic, submitted to an international conference. There was also a peremptory phone call from the conference organizer, requesting not if I can do it, but whether one week is sufficient or a few extra minutes are required to exercise my competence for completion of the task. Let us say, in short, I was charmed into submitting the review-script (a la manuscript) on time. I did.

And forgot about it.

After a few moons, one fine day, an attender staff came into my room without announcement and demanded in a gruff voice if the adjective people use to call my attention upon is the same as what is printed on my name-board outside. Yes, I said. This is for you, he politely growled (if that is possible) and dropped a hefty packet on my lap. Is this a letter-bomb or what, who gave this, are you sure it is for me, who are you; for all those remonstrations he chose to answer the one for which he knew the correct answer. And left.

Convinced by then that the packet is for me and my lap and would remain on my lap, tying me forever to my work-chair, I was gingerly rummaging through all the packing material with my bare hands. Presently, a spice-ball of prickly discomfort marinated in twangy annoyance was welling up from my stomach and threatened my taste buds. For, the correct answer given by the now absent attender was: The Conference Organizer. Yep, the packet was sent to me by the conference organizer who had charmed me into submission earlier. I was certain the packet contained more papers for my peer-review. Hence my consternation.

To cut a long ugly unpacking scene short, out came this:

With a note of thanks for my efforts from the Conference Organizer.

That is Warli and Dekora art combined into one fusion art picture.  Warli art is discovered only in the seventies, of all places, near the bustling city of Bombay, practiced as a sacred art-form by the Warli tribesmen. Drawn on the walls during marriages, curiously, Warli art is almost devoid of straight lines - observe the paintings on the periphery in the above picture. Read more about the Warli tribe of India, their art-form and some proponents. Dekora is again a tribal art of India originating from the state of Madhya Pradesh, the paintings made from hand made castings.

Related posts:

1. A Suggestion toward Open Peer Reviewing
2. Your Review is Hereby Summarily Rejected
3. Identify from its title, the music review of SVK
4. Double Dipping Articles