Monday 12 August 2013

I see a doll's house!


                                      
                                           " I see a doll's house" (in sign language)

                                                      Dolls made by souvik.

He sits on a bench gazing as water ripples on the lake in front of him. It feels the wind as he does, its surface tingles as his skin does. Silence has always been a part of his life but calmness is something he had to work on. Watching the water now gives him a sense of peace. Then the ripples on the water turn into indented dots as the calm surface of the lake is assaulted by monsoon shower. He continues sitting on the bench taking in the sight, soaking in the rains. The lake becomes an ally, a kinship is formed, storming of the water becomes symbolic of the constant onslaught he had to incur as a deaf man trying hard to lead a normal life….. A creature of habit, Souvik learnt early on life that the only way to normality is uniformity. A routine life made things easy to handle, perseverance being the key to it all. Hence, every evening he puts on his favorite blue cap and walks down to Lake Gardens in an attempt to escape the morbidity of city life.

 As a boy, being accepted by his peers was a huge problem for Souvik, his inability to communicate within a group made it difficult for him to play games, so he kept away from the madness of playgrounds and would often spend his evening play hour hiding in a Japanese monastery nearby. At four o clock, a monk would start drumming a taiko (drum) announcing the start of prayers and chanting filled the shrine as other monks would pray and beat fan shaped taikos in unison. Souvik, being indifferent to the music generated would usually sit in a corner and watch the uniform movement of sticks hitting animal hides on drums making it quiver on impact. Then one day things changed, from being a soundless listener he was handed a taiko by a monk so he could be an active participant in worship, wide eyed and unsure of himself he followed the movement of hands around him striking the drum with all his might till there was a rhythm to his drumbeat. Tears of joy ran down his face, his orison was heard; he finally found himself among those monks and felt like he belonged, being able to function in a group brought some sort of meaning to his existence. It was his first lesson in life teaching him that his deafness could not be a handicap as long as he used his gift of sight to hear the inaudible giving him the confidence and ability to blend into normal life . His eyes right then had become his ears and he could feel the music in the shrine.

It is expected that anything you lose comes around in another form, so a hearing impaired souvik developed phenomenal sight, but to define this man sporting a blue cap as just that would not be enough. Yes, silence has been a constant companion through life’s inconsistencies but a perceptive mind and creative hands are what led him through. Among the other things he does, souvik is also a doll maker. He makes dolls  because it brings him joy, stitching, gluing up tiny miniature beings, he builds a love parade of bride and grooms reflecting different cultures from all over India. ‘A Doll’s House’ is how he describes the world, where people romp and play with one another in the name of love, devotion and every other fallible emotion that makes one want to build worlds of pretence permanence. A perfect manicured life of people coming together and aspiring for bigger brighter things unable to see the fleeting nature of it all and weighing their happiness in their designed lives. “A moppet existence” are the words he uses to describe his life and many others around him. He cannot help it, but people with so called normal lives sadly continue their moppet show by binding themselves to lives of compulsion whether it is an unfulfilling job, filial ties or simply a sense of duty, they continue a life of pretense burying their deepest dreams and desires and continue exhibiting a doll like make belief existence.



 Thus with a strange all knowing smile, a man who is heedless to all the noise this world is making, steadily lives a familiar life between work during the day and stitching dolls in his free time. A man who meticulously views the kaleidoscopic humanity overflowing around him and captures it in his dolls, a man who realizes that though his handicap may be inflicted by fate, his will to live a wholesome life shall not diminish, an undeterred spirit gazing out at the lakes awaiting his day of reckoning when he shall look back and realize his time on earth was not in vain.    

                                                             Mira the doll.

                                                   A bengali bride and groom dolls.

If you would like to purchase the dolls made by souvik, kindly contact us on kriyakalash@gmail.com

Monday 28 January 2013

The Wind Flute




                                                                              Lord Krishna in Brindavan


                                                                  Tribal motifs on the wind flutes




Lo behold! amidst the lush green foliage of Brindavan stands a blue complexioned man with his eyes like lotus petals, half closed as he plays his flute entrancing the living with his music. A lustrous peacock feather flutters in the crown adorning his head, a celestial divinity standing amidst men, women and beasts transforming the forest into an ethereal paradise….... As I open my eyes and let go of my vision of Lord Krishna, I utter….......   "Om namo vishva-rupaya \Vishva-sthity-anta-hetava\ Vishveshvaraya vishvaya\Govindaya namonamaha"(I offer my humble obeisance to Lord Krishna, who is the giver of pleasure to the cows, whose external form is the form of the universe, who is the cause of  maintenance and dissolution of the material universe, and who is the Lord of the universe)

Gopalpriya, Dayanidhi, Vasudeva, Narayana all names of Krishna is the God of love, a celestial cowherd, he usually stands with one leg bent in front of the other raising his flute to the lip in the ‘tribha mudra’ emphasizing his position as a divine herdsman.

In the hills of Chattisgarh roam earthly herdsmen swinging wind flutes as they watch their cattle grazing in the forest lands. They belong to the Gond tribe, the oldest tribe settled in these lands, well-known for their love for art and music. A singing minstrel (Pardhan) passes them by, announcing his arrival to their village playing his stringed “banas” (fiddle). The Pardhan is one of the last revered story tellers entrusted to spread folklores of magic and mystique through songs. The village is abuzz with the news of Pardhan's arrival, the “cheliks” (boys) and the “motiaries” (young girls) leave their youth dormitory and run to assemble under the great mango tree. Hand in hand the courting couples listen to the fiddler as he begins his story about “The Peacock and his ugly feet”. With a toothless grin, the Pardhan begins singing in a throaty voice describing the fourteen days God took to create the universe. After creating the earth, skies and everything in between in seven days, God decided to create something spectacular and of unimaginable beauty- the peacock! It took God three and a half days to design the peacock’s feather and the rest was spent on creating the birds body. Realizing that time had run out, God created the bird’s legs in a hurry and such a magnificent bird of beauty was given ugly and ungainly legs. Thus, even now when the peacock unfurls its feather and struts about in pride, the sight of his repulsive feet humbles him. The story then comes to an end but the fiddle continues to play accompanied by the muted notes of the wind flutes swung by the shepherds nearby. An idyllic scenic atmosphere, Brindavan recreated in this rustic earthly borough of the Gonds.

Now, the Gond tribesmen are known to use all available natural resources to its optimum level. Their artistic skills honed and perfected through generations transform utilitarian objects into pieces of aesthetic value. The wind flute is one such example, its mains purpose being to control the cattle from wandering around and to scare away animals while trekking in the forests, but one can’t help marvel at the artwork done on the bamboo stems or appreciate its musical notes as it is swung around.  The artwork comprises of tribal motifs of simple drawings in straight lines of fish, leaves, deities and so on which are engraved by a hot iron rod on the bamboo. Gond paintings and metal art are well-known and appreciated but their music which is intrinsic to their heritage is slowly fading away. Pardhans or singing minstrels are abandoning their inherited legacy of being singing chronicles of Gond literature and taking up other types of work to sustain themselves. We at Kriya Kalash want the musical journey of the Gond tribe to continue and are promoting the wind flutes made from bamboo by the Pardhans in our blog. Our sincere wish is that you join and support us in this venture.




                                                              Krishna-Radha painting by Jamini Roy.


                                                                   An illustration of Gond Tribals


                                                          A horizontal view of the wind flute.



If you would like to purchase the wind flutes made by Gond tribals kindly contact us on kriyakalash@gmail.com