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[zarahdelhi]

Mother

You are ageing, mother. The wrinkles on your skin match the number of holes in our thin blanket. You are ageing, mother. The debility of your limbs is in accord with the rotten legs of our rented table. You are ageing, mother. The freckles on your cheeks are a gift from the plaster that is pitifully peeling off the walls. You are ageing, mother. Your voice fades in our youthful noise of ignorance and blind aggression. You are ageing, mother. The cracks at your finger tips become wider with every forced dinner party rendered incomplete. You are ageing, mother. As your lips adjust themselves to bend into that perfect smile, waiting for a reward, the hinges in your shoulders creak and the inertia of afternoons melts into the rusted routine of evenings. But, mother, you are ageing.

  -Shivangi Sharma

[zarahdelhi]

Don't fly too close to the Sun! The rays will punish you. Don't love the immortal Dawn! Time will maim you. Don't listen to the voices in your head! We will lock you up. Don't yearn to live Don't ask for death. Smile. Sing that song they taught you in school. Don't sulk. It's bad manners.

A Short and Sweet poem by Turni Chakrabarti on her interpretation of the theme.

[zarahdelhi]

Try to draw outline of a ‘Conflict’, And you are likely to field yourself in a ‘Space’ Similar to ‘Kashmir’. Try to magnify the outline, so much so, That a porosity enables an elephant To exit to enter to exit elsewhere and beyond Try to imagine yourself a Kashmiri, And you will photograph a ‘glas kul’, Full of fruits of bullet-hole-wounds. Try to vent your anger at Lal Chowk Srinagar, You will blast a Red Paint drum, A work of art will happen. Try to throw shit-balls at Armed Forces on Fateh-Kadal Bridge Cowards will jump into the river with a parachute. Try to listen a Poet’s passionate call for union With his beloved : “ karR-sa Myon Naie Andey MeaR-Mandey MadanVaro “: It becomes politics. Try to grow a simple Water Melon in the outline, A hand tattooed with AFSPA would Pull the trigger twice to give it a pair of nostrils. Try to think what a father said in Kashmiri, today: “he died on spot, his brain matter was out” A political matter would reverberate on the roads. Try to read history of histories of Kashmir A real would shake your myths, resultant porridge Would be healthy for a just ‘Freedom’ debate.

Inder Salim

(He is an Indian Performance Artist and also known for his words)

[zarahdelhi]

(I am not) Religious in India

  I was born in a very liberal Hindu Brahmin family in Kolkata. Idol worship was very staunchly practiced throughout my entire household. Durga, Kali, Shiv and the whole pantheon of Hindu gods and goddesses had a separate seat of power in my home. They held sway over all days of the week barring none.  Religious festivals were of the utmost importance most of all the Durga Puja. I spent days on end lying on my grandmother’s lap and listening to stories of the pantheon of gods. The story of Ganesh’s Birth, of Durga’s creation, of the Dashavataras all fascinated me dearly. I used to even do my own part for Rath Yatra; I used to have a small rath with 3 stories, one each for Jagannath, Balram and Subhadra. I used to walk around my entire neighborhood with them in tow, showing off my majestically decorated rath to all the other kids in the neighborhood. These were my humble religious beginnings.

Even from my childhood I was never taught secularism and nor was it ever imbibed in my ideologies and principles. My world as a Bengali was divided between “bangali” and “abangali” (People who spoke Bengali and People who didn’t). I saw everyone as one, heck I did not even know what religion was properly until I moved to New Delhi.

New Delhi put me in the mix with a lot of different people who were a lot of different things. There were Jains, there were Sikhs, there where Muslims. Also as an added factor right in front of where I lived there was a Hindu Temple, a Buddhist Monastery, a South Indian Temple, a Church, a Sai Baba Dhaam and a Mosque a little distance away. Being a shy introvert kid I used to visit these places of worship with my maternal grandmother. She would sit and meditate/pray and I would go around eating Prasad and solving all the mysteries of the world.

Then I was exposed to more of the world and its cultural diversities, the first of which was Hellenismos, the entire pantheon of Greek Gods and Goddesses. I was truly fascinated the world of Heroes and monsters with 9 heads and everything that came along with it. I wanted to live in that world, be a part of it. To Be Hercules, to be Poseidon, to be Hermes, it was what my heart yearned for. I cannot call it a phase growing up because even if today people ask me about my religion, my prompt answer is Hellenism.

There on as I delved more and more into darker forms of music I got interested in more obscure religious sects, this was definitely a phase but a rather interesting phase of my life. My first meeting of this stage was with Wicca. Wicca is basically a modern pagan, witchcraft religion and so it involves the ritual practice of Magic. Wiccan spells are usually cast inside a sacred circle and consist of spells of healing, protection and banishment of negative influences. If you have read or seen the Da Vinci Code, it is the religious sect to which Sofia’s Grandfather belonged. I don’t really know what got me interested in Wicca but I was practicing it in secrecy for almost 2 years and had performed every rite of passage to be a member very methodically until something even more risqué caught my attention.

My next tryst was with Satanism and it was not exactly worshipping Satan as most people saw it. How I had reached a prolific anti-Christian sect I do not know but the main idea was planted in my mind by a certain Greek Philosopher named Epicurus. It was these lines from an astute piece of logic put worth by Epicurus that set my mind wandering to different places:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

These lines are called The Problem of Evil which in turn led me to read more about Hedonism and directed me towards the beliefs of Satanism. The Satanic Bible was a very interesting read and the views it put worth were something that my ideologies agree with. In it Satan represents indulgence, instead of abstinence! Satan represents vital existence, instead of spiritual pipe dreams! Satan represents undefiled wisdom, instead of hypocritical self-deceit! Satan represents kindness to those who deserve it, instead of love wasted on ingrates! Satan represents vengeance, instead of turning the other cheek! Satan represents responsibility to the responsible, instead of concern for psychic vampires! Satan represents man as just another animal, sometimes better, more often worse than those that walk on all-fours, who, because of his "divine spiritual and intellectual development," has become the most vicious animal of all! Satan represents all of the so-called sins, as they all lead to physical, mental, or emotional gratification!

Satan was the embodiment of knowledge whereas God was all about blind devotion and these ideas were embedded deep into my belief system and they still are. After this I started reading more and more about religion and came close to something from my birth religion that caught my fancy. This was the concept of the Brahman in the Vedas, something that modern day Hinduttva had long forgotten. The words in the Vedas could not have been truer.

Firstly Brahman is not God. When we speak of Brahman, we are referring neither to the "old man in the sky" concept, nor to the idea of the Absolute as even capable of being vengeful, fearful or engaging in choosing a favorite people from among His creatures. For that matter, Brahman is not a "He" at all, but rather transcends all empirically discernable categories, limitations and dualities. Brahman is described in the following manner: "satyam jnanam anantam brahma", "Brahman is of the nature of truth, knowledge and infinity." It also said the lines “Aham Brahmasmi” which literally translated mean I am Brahman or I am god. Notice that it is god and not God.

At this point of time I was thinking about Atheism since I clearly could not decide what was god or what he could or could not do. Nor what he should do and neither what he wanted us to do. It seemed stupid to me and clearly being Agnostic at this point was impossible because I was not at all open to the idea of God. It was then a friend said to me “Nobody can become an atheist. Remember, if someone tells you that he is an atheist, he is just lying, or being fashionable. There is no such thing as an atheist. Even atheists believe in something, and everything is God, so the something atheists believe in must be God too, so atheists do believe in god, so atheists don't exist.”

My answer was short and curt “Since everything is God, if I kill you now it will be an act of God.” Saying this I walked off into a state of belief; a belief of everything in the world as it was but not agreeing or admitting to God having had any part to play in how the World had rolled into all of our perspectives. This is now my current state of Atheism. 

By Archisman Misra

[zarahdelhi]

Self & Society

Self & Society. The theme is as simple as it sounds. It involves yourself and the society or the world that exists around you. Society can have different faces at different points of times, revolution, protests, celebration, these are all various faces of Society.

Society can also be a reflection of the people it contains; auto wallahs, bus drivers, beggars, priests, businessmen, entrepreneurs, they all form a part of society. The addition of the word ‘self’ just adds your perspective to your artwork, to perhaps justify how society is nothing but an extension of yourself.

We are looking for stark images and different forms of paintings that try to encompass YOU(the artist) and SOCIETY(the world that you see) together into a painting or photograph that tells a story many times over.

Event Details and Submission Guidelines -

Facebook :https://www.facebook.com/events/139632589567129/

Online : http://www.zarah.co.in/exhi.html

[zarahdelhi]

Pull yourself out of your comfortable reality of the English-speaking elite and imagine being pushed to the margins of the society simply because there is no one who speaks or understands your language, no one who acknowledges your sentiments expressed in an undecipherable pattern of words.

It has been estimated that within the next 50 years, almost half of the world’s 7,000 languages will become extinct. Linguists claim that one language dies every 14 days. In our own country, languages like Bangani, Kuruba, Nihali, Onge, Great Andamanese and Shompen have sunk into oblivion, thanks to the prestige accorded to English speakers.

Unaware of these alarming statistics and relaxed in our homogenous sense of the world, we continue to be slaves despite 60 years of Independence. We are modern slaves to cultural imperialism. We continue to abandon our mother tongue and native languages and prefer speaking English, Spanish or Mandarin instead. It is difficult to recognise the tragic results of the loss of a language. The recognition becomes even more difficult when we are used to an urban space of ‘progress’ and ‘modernisation’ that stresses on a homogenous apparatus where everyone is a clone of everyone. Not only have people increasingly adopted the same language, but even the vocabulary and diction are becoming scarily similar. The politics of language is such that once a tool for imperial expansion, English in our modern nation has become a status symbol, an emblem of a person’s social proficiency. The price of modernization is being paid by smaller communities and tribal groups which find themselves alienated in a society where there is no recognition of their tongues. In the name of globalization, political and economic forces have succeeded in making the world a global village, but have perhaps chosen to neglect the actual villages where the rural and tribal population exists. As a result, these communities, labelled as ‘primitive’, are forced to succumb to the complex pressures of the globalised reality. Further, lack of modern civic amenities, poor medical and educational facilities, diminishing economic opportunities, unemployment, and poor government policies push the indigenous population to migrate to bigger cities and towns. This migration is not only geographical, but also social and psychological.

Language is a living organism, inhabiting our heart, our brain and our tongue. And with the loss of a language, a culture dies. Traditional knowledge unique to that community dies. The past history dies. The ancestors and legends kept alive in the folk songs die. Folk myths die. Conventional traditional expertise dies. Such drastic changes in the economic and social sphere force the traditional bonds to weaken over time, thus rendering socio-cultural diversity incapacitated. Threatened by homogenized and dominant ways of life, indigenous population often faces personal chaos on questions of identity and belonging, which are closely interwoven with the native language. And it thus becomes self-explanatory that speaking in the dominant language becomes the only means to ensure social reputation and any linguistic minority is looked down upon at. This is the product of colonisation and a speaking evidence of its victory over our mental and social landscape. The constant erosion of the self-esteem and identity of native language speakers is our post-colonial truth.

As linguistic and cultural diversity is brutally crushed in the mad race to conquer the peaks of development, we need to slow down and question our lopsided, miscalculated definition of progress. A language is not merely a cultural artifact. It is a way of expressing unique sentiments and giving voice to the relationships with nature and other humans in a way our developed societies cannot imagine.

Language stitches the past and the future together.

  By Shivangi Sharma

[zarahdelhi]

Whatever It Takes To Be Happy

I was documenting few Street kids this year for a Project by an Ngo called “Feet for Future”. Being with these kids for almost a month I realised lot of things about people surviving on the streets. These children made me realise a lot about our Society and how it treats them every day. Of course there are lot of NGOs now; that are working on Child Trafficking and against their exploitation but not much has changed about the life on the streets. These children are very scared to go to an Ngo or even a Shelter because they feel they get more exploited there and are made to do bad things and are even encouraged to take up drugs or other forms of addiction.  Surviving on street they are aware of everything happening and gradually they toughen up according to the world that they see.

There were many kids who ran away from home as they were beaten up by their alcoholic fathers or they were just pushed away to work and earn money to support their family.

Sherudin a 12 year old boy ran away from his family in Kolkata two years back and came to Delhi to earn a lot so that when he goes back to Kolkata he doesn’t have to live with his father. He wants to live with his mother alone in a big house.

Ajay at 14 years of age has been dragged into the addiction of smelling diluters. He says that he has been in this city for 4 years now and still hasn’t earned that much money to go back to his city.

Rehmati a young girl who lives with her older sister and brother in law stays in the outskirts of Delhi. She has to wake by 4am get her younger siblings ready for school and then take the local bus at 6am to come and work at Fathehpuri, Chandni Chowk. She is only one who runs the family, she says her elder sister does not work and her brother in law is an alcoholic so he wastes all his money on Alcohol. When I ask why she doesn’t say something; she says that if she says anything against them they will beat her and will not even give her food. She wants to study and learn maths so that no one takes advantage of her when she works.

There are so many stories that cannot be even put into words, but the thing I saw in these kids was that no one was sad or unhappy; they know what their life is and they accept it. They smile every day, joke with their friends and show the world how tough they are and that is what makes them so special. I did not set out to do this project to gather funds or improve their lives with promises. I just wanted to show that they are not different from other kids. They just need love and understanding from the rest of the societ.

By Barnita Haldar

[zarahdelhi]

After struggling a lot and after overcoming so many obstacles these Chaiwallahs finally decide to leave home for their 'apparent dream lands' in search of jobs and a better living, with the blessing of their family members. At first glance, these people, much like everyone else become mesmerized by the colours and charm of the metropolitan cities. However all that glitters is not gold and the cities hold a lot of struggle for them ahead.

While doing this project I met 7-8 Chai wallahs, most of whom have been working in this business for years and a few who just started with it.

Initially everyone has to face the same kind of problems, different languages, different way of living and alien cultures. In spite of all this, they become an essential part of the society, serving nirvana to people dealing with tension and stress, the "Shaam ki chai". Most of them have a special bond with their regular customers, if a customer does not show up someday the Chaiwallah feels incomplete. Not just on the economic front but also emotionally because a customer is another conversation of the day, however for some Chaiwallahs it does not even matter.

Probably for many of us a cup of tea and a cigarette in evening is an escape from our monotonous lifestyle. It's our behaviour and the way we treat them, that gives them the motivation to adapt to a completely different lifestyle and helps them settle down in a new city. For a few of us its nothing more than another cup of tea, but to some the simple idea of having tea from a roadside tea stall is 'unhygienic'.

Whichever way it is, in today's fast-paced life these Chaiwallahs play a vital part in our lives, it may be small but they have certainly earned a place in the society. So much so, that if they were to be evicted from our lives, or if we were somehow hindered from paying them a visit, not only would we feel the lack of a common ground for conversation but the city would lose the sweet smell of bubbling tea that lurks often around these tea shacks. - By Abhishek Malik