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