History has turned many an iconoclast into icons. Venerated and worshipped, the meaning of their life's work is relegated to the attic once they pass away. Their faces, sometimes smiling, sometimes brooding, would be all that remains. These decorate the drawing rooms of their friends and foes alike. Reduced into an icon, and frozen in time, they see the world, in silence.
Che Guevara's iconic visage is, arguably, the greatest example of the ‘indefinite icon'. Used by comrades and corporates alike, Che the Icon is a regular in the haunts of millennials, for whom it is (perhaps) a byword for ‘coolness'. Therefore, I wasn't surprised when I found a nail and string portrait of Che in a hair salon in Trivandrum. He sits there, with reciprocal defiance in his eyes to the indifference of the hairdressers and their clients around him. Neither he nor his hosts know what he does there; do you?
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