Kant's Philosophical Project

Jhuki Jhuki Si Nazar - Translation

गाना / Title: झुकी झुकी सी नज़र बेक़रार है कि नहीं  (Jhuki Jhuki Si Nazar)

चित्रपट / Film: अर्थ (Arth)

संगीतकार / Music Director: कुलदीप सिंह (Kuldeep Singh)

गीतकार / Lyricist: कैफ़ी आज़मी (Kaifi Azmi)

गायक / Singer(s): जगजीत सिं (Jagjit Singh)

Hindi/Urdu

झुकी झुकी सी नज़र बेक़रार है कि नहीं 

दबा दबा सा सही दिल में प्यार है कि नहीं ... 

तू अपने दिल की जवाँ धड़कनों को गिन के बता... 

मेरी तरह तेरा दिल बेक़रार है कि नहीं... 

वो पल के जिस में मोहब्बत जवान होती है 

उस एक पल का तुझे इंतज़ार है कि नहीं... 

तेरी उम्मीद पे ठुकरा रहा हूँ दुनिया को... 

तुझे भी अपने पे ये ऐतबार है कि नहीं...

Translation

These folding eyes, aren't they anxious

Even if repressed, is your heart soaking in love or not?

Count the times your youthful heart is beating

Just like mine, is your heart restless or not?

That one moment in which the feelings of love blossom

For that one moment, do you await or not?

In chancing your promise, I am rejecting this world

On yourself then, do you have enough faith or not?

on Academic Discourse

Notes from early 2022

Pangana, Himachal Pradesh

Pangana is a small town in the state of Himachal Pradesh. I visited it as a part of the settlement studies program with students. The place is about 5 hours away from Shimla and 10 hours away from Chandigarh. We were put up at the HPTDC Mamleshwar hotel which accommodated about 49 of us. 

The most interesting part about this place was the warm hearted people - the pahadis - who were so giving and caring. For the 6 days that we spent there, they opened their hearts out to us, making space for us in their homes, preparing us beverages, serving us fruits, telling us about the place, singing for us, dancing with us. Some of them even gave gifts that they knitted out of wool over the days we were there. 

The overall town used to be organized around the fort-temple tower just adjoining the fort walls. The king patroned a few people to establish their shops along the old market street that branched to the temple. This market street however, is hardly active. A new market street has emerged in the town that caters to vehicular traffic and new enterprises.

The primary occupation of the people here is agriculture - they grow apples, peas and other vegetables that are exported as well as consumed in the village. The more recent enterprises people have began are transport and local departmental stores. The centre of the village is occupied by the upper caste population, while the lower caste people are on the upper margins of the village. Geographical proximity is the primary indicator of caste difference in the village.

The built form of the town is fast transforming from older shingle / slate roof houses to concrete construction primarily because it is the image of the modern and easier to maintain. Maintenance of the house was also primarily a female activity, hence women are generally invested into new construction techniques. Older houses are planned around courtyards and wrapped through verandahs. Walls are made up of slate and floors are made in wood.

The entire town winds around the temple. Most roads lead to the temple fort, and it is the focus of the town - visually as well as organizationally. Houses are nestled in their landscapes. Most houses have fruit plantations like berries or pomegranate. People have an innate knowledge about every grass that grows around them. They understand their properties for different everyday purposes - from construction to medicine. There are some commonly owned fruit trees which are not claimed by any one from the town in particular. Roses grow in abundance, along with a variety of succulents that erupt from the crevices of the mountain embankments. 

The fort temple is the most complex and rigorous building demonstrating the traditional kaat-koni method of construction. While spatially simple, it weaves around numerous myths and history around which the village rhythm revolves. There is nothing more to take away that the old school slow timeless charm that one can only enjoy in the quietude of this town and its people. 

Accidental Landscapes

 

A Garden from Himachal

Chandigarh Trees

No one talks about these large trees that may be as old as the designed city of Chandigarh. In the scorching months of summer, these trees are the solace for the concrete-ridden city. The foliage of these trees span anywhere between 25 to 30 metres. Many of these are fruit trees, bearing black berries or such other fruits. The city swims in a soft smell of the foliage.

 

Domestic Fragilities

concept note for an exhibition curated by Farah Siddiqui and Natasha Mehta as an extension to the project 'Life with Objects'

Domestic Fragilities

More often than not, we seek that our homes have permanent fixes - in the furniture we build, in the fixtures we install or even in the finishings we invest in. Our domestic landscape in large parts comes to be defined by the mantra of durability. It might however be misleading to think of homes as places that accommodate mere permanence. In fact, they are the spaces that hold the very transitory and gradually depreciating physicality of life. We create the myth of permanence around us only to hold the escaping fragile human condition. In living with objects then, it is the fragile wares that mirror our state of being. Our investigations on life with objects extends into exploring this very condition of domestic fragilities which brings us to consider objects with care, attentiveness and sensitivity while they continue to silently serve their function with utmost artfulness.

The notion of ‘domestic fragilities’ is particularly relevant at the cusp of coming out of a pandemic. The present times have resulted in increased attention to our bodies and considered contact with the world around us. Ceramic is one material that expresses the precarity of this lived phenomenon more intimately than any other. Historically, baked clay and earthenware allowed humanity to store grains preparing them towards eventualities of droughts and floods. Across many cultures, earthen vessels are symbolically instituted and broken in order to mark life and death. Ceramics have remained principal objects of exchange that record lives and landscapes of their times. As objects that may be broken, damaged or destroyed more easily than others, engaging with delicate wares like ceramics within our domestic spaces quietly inculcate within us values of caution, attention and sensitivity.

In quietly sitting and serving our everyday needs, ceramic wares allow us to reflect on our gently transforming selves. They sit in different corners of our homes - on tables, in chests, our bedsides, showcases, kitchen racks – creating new equations with our bodies, reminding us to approach things with tenderness. Different cycles of time are embedded in their usage. They may be used to preserve and protect perishables over long months, hold flowers or fragrances for weeks or insulate us to the heat of the moment while sipping our morning tea or coffee. Ceramic wares may not be timeless, rather they respond to time in different ways. In being brittle, ceramics demonstrate the unique quality of holding toughness and weakness together in its materiality. The subconscious consideration of these contrasting aspects is what makes ceramics artful. It is in the realisation of such domestic fragilities that we become more human.