Kochi_criss_cross Copy

<==> Every time I couldn’t sleep my father used to tell me a story of the magical brick. My great grandfather had the magical brick that had the power to take you to the [[`parallel world` |wheelLetter]]. I always wondered if the story was real. When I was seventy two years older than you, I found a broken brick in a playground. Thinking of it as the magical brick I always kept it in my [[`bag` |bagCon]] . One day I lost my way while coming back from school. I lived in a town across the river but somehow I was in the woods crying for help. As [[`time slipped into dusk` | clutchStory]] I could see a light coming from the middle of a forest. There was a house with [[`no doors` |lampStory]] and [[`window`| windowStory]] , made of precious stones sparkling and shining, lighting the whole forest. What caught my eye was the one ordinary brick among the precious stones. As soon as I touched the brick and a [[`mirror`| mirrorStory]] appeared on the wall. In a mirror, I saw myself sleeping on my bed with the brick lying on my bedpost. <style>img{ max-width:100%; max-height:100%; } </style> <img src="assets\image\3.jpg"> </div>

<==> After spending the day at the banks of river Jhelum I felt relaxed and calm. Although the downtown is always a crowded place but each footstep, every move, every flight of birds and every sigh adds some unfamiliarity. Water moved slowly, sun changed its direction and with that the change in the sky appeared in a perfect harmony. My eyes captured a glimpse of an unsual object, a clutch, that was somewhat standing out from the [[`rubble` | wheelStory]] adjacent to River Jhelum. But I moved slowly through the narrow lanes of downtown leaving it behind on the bank of river Jhelum. A person with his cart full of junk was moving along my side. Once again I saw a similar clutch, which I had left behind at river bank. Strangely my eyes got fixed on this red clutch now. It reminded me of downtown from my childhood days. Nonetheless I again moved on. Days later, I was cleaning the backyard of my home. I saw same red clutch but this time, I couldn’t resist. I picked it up. It was covered with dirt and dust. I held it in my hands, felt its texture, its dust, memories and time. Suddenly, this red clutch fell into pieces. Its scattering and [[`its reappearances` |lampLetter]] scared me. I threw it into the river Jhelum. Now, the red fishes have taken over the River Jhelum. <style>img{ max-width:100%; max-height:100%; } </style> <img src="assets\image\21.jpg"> </div>

<==> Looking at my parents’ wedding [[`photo`|wheelLetter]] album I caught the glimpse of an Izbundsoz. I was curious about it and started looking for it in my house. When I found the Izbund souz, [[`it was covered in dust` | clutchStory]]. It appeared thirsty for Izbund. <style>img{ max-width:100%; max-height:100%; } </style> <img src="assets\image\12.jpg"> </div> I cleaned it and then went to market to buy some izbund seeds to feed the long forgotten soz.I filled it with charcoal and started burning izbund in it. As soon as it started burning I observed water coming out of Izbundsoz. It took me by surprise. At first there was less water oozing out but slowly and steadly it filled the entire room with water and I started running out of the house. The water started coming out of the house. It occupied the entire place. I ran to the nearby hill. From there I saw the level of water rising up. I could locate the izband souz from distance as bubbles were coming out from Izbundsoz. I felt overwhelmed. I was feeling scared for my life as I could see water rising higher and higher towards the sky. After twenty seven hours the level of water stopped rising. I was alone on the hill [[`witnessing` |lampCon]] all of this. I wanted to go to the other side of the newly formed lake but couldn’t. Next morning when I woke up I saw the window of my room floating on the water. I sat on the window and started my journey towards the other side. The presence of water on all sides made me feel cold. The [[`red clutch` |clutchCon]] floating on the water brought some warmth. I turned towards the red clutch and grabbed it, looked inside it and found some photographs. I sailed for about 19 hours and then finally reached other side, where I wanted to go.There were many people present there looking at this lake with wonder and wanted to know about the unfamiliar occurrence and had many questions about the presence of a strange Lake which is now known as Dal lake.

<==> I am a mirror. I cannot feel any pain maybe I am dead. As I am not buried yet, my soul hasn't left my body entirely. I am shattered into many pieces. [[`Some pieces are present whereas others are missing`| brickStory]]. The missing ones lure me . I can't find them. I have lost my sight partially. I can see the faded reflections of light from some objects near me. I can feel its presence and that reflection of light is keeping me awake. Deep down I still have a thought, an urge of reincarnation and with every tick of the clock my urge becomes stronger. Every passing minute, every passing second I feel stronger and more energetic and that energy is pulling those missing pieces together. Or could be that those objects are filling my voids? My sight is better and now I am able to see. I can see that I'm in a junkyard and there is a [[`broken bulb` |lampLetter]] and a [[`broken cup` |cupCon]] in front of me, from which [[`I have put together the pieces` |cupStory]] to make myself into a whole again. I realize now that they probably were reflecting their light and kept me awake all this while. Did they [[`sacrifice their life` |lampStory]] to heal me or did my urge kill them? I don't know what happened. All I know is that I am not happy even when I am alive. <style>img{ max-width:100%; max-height:100%; } </style> <img src="assets\image\8.jpg"> </div>

<==> He was sitting somewhere outside the solar system. There he saw planets revolving around the sun. This spectacle took him by surprise. Meanwhile, he met an angel. He asked him why all the planets revolved around the sun? The angel told him that it was a wheel made by the divine power. He confided to the angel that he also wanted to run a wheel like that. The angel agreed and showed him a place where he could run his own wheel. He chose a beautiful valley dotted with numerous shrines, high mountains and caves. One day, he was walking on the bank of the river Jhelum where an iron wire caught his eye. He thought of making a wheel from it. Once while rolling the wheel on the bank of Jhelum, He was lost in the playful moments and carried in his heart an unknown joy. Suddenly the wheel got stuck in a mesh of barbed wires on the banks of river Jhelum. He tried hard to free the wheel from the enmeshed wires but failed in his efforts. Time passed. <style>img{ max-width:100%; max-height:100%; } </style> <img src="assets\image\24.jpg"> </div> After eighteen years, he saw the same angel in his dream. He requested the angel to take him to a safer place. The angel took him to a cave. There he felt safe. One night while looking at the sky, he saw the [[`moon eating the stars`|bagLetter]] wildly. The wind started blowing fast and it smelled strange. In no time the wind turned into a storm. When he went out in the morning, the houses had collapsed and there was only [[rubble | clutchStory]] left. The [[bricks |brickCon]] had fallen, the [[windows |windowLetter]] were burnt and everything broken. He saw people looking for other people, but he began to look for something else. He moved his hands hastily and found the wheel under the residue. His childhood memories appeared clear and vivid.

<==> Moving beyond the realms of thoughts, there is a world that is left unmarked since ages.The window may appear as a source for the recollection of already existing world. As far as the definition of a window goes can it ever be defined? Window towards the end of the realm may take itself as a subject of desolation. <style>img{ max-width:100%; max-height:100%; } </style> <img src="assets\image\18.jpg"> </div> It was around 4 o' clock on 19th of May. A girl with shimmering dark eyes, and a sharp nose always on the verge of crying was sitting beside her window in her room.[[`Everything was scattered` | clutchStory]] in the room and the earthy smell filled the voids of despair as [[`she was recollecting her childhood memory` | brickStory]]. Like a child she believed that the world can be better by altering some of the sequences of love and empathy.Recollecting all her desires, she began to write about a story that she might have heard in the middle of her sound and soft sleep. [[`She wrote with shivering hands` |bagLetter]], visible purple veins as if the flowers gathered all over her hand for their survival in that winter. The cold would not escape her room for many more moments. She wrote the story of a girl who was forgotten and a word came up in her mind. She unknowingly stopped and stared at the [[lamp |lampCon]] with glimmer in her eyes. The tears rolled down her cheeks and the word was"Unknown".The word made her recall a moment she had experienced all her life as it was shattered because of someone, someone, dont know who bullied her and left her with no dreams. The room was filled with the odor of rage and disgust and she remembered the sight of her bag that had been like a friend when there was no one to confide in. She told no one about the story. As some sounds and voices came from the otherside of her window, she peeked through the window. Touching the surface of her old window she fell into a state from where she felt she would never return back. She [[`witnessed` |lampStory]] the voices around, the sound of the bullets,the foul talks and laughs of fellow humans that took over her senses. The odor of longing came whirling through her window. She heard the [[`creeping voices and the cries` |wheelLetter]] that got into her mind. Her souless eyes witnessed many more moments, those bursting sound of guns, the crackling fall of pellets as if [[`walking over the autumn leaves` |bagLetter]]. [[`The smoke covered the sky` | isbandsozStory]] and eventually made way inside her throat with its tingling feeling as if it was chaffing her for being so still and lifeless. Men were talking as if they were protecting us from ages when they were the mediators of distortion of my place. She was looking at the street. A shadow appeared from the other side. They tried to capture it. They caught the showdow and dragged it [[`from corner to corner` |cupCon]]. The more she saw, the greater she feared. She wept and remained still for a while. Looking at her distressed face, her mother gave her some tea and taking the hot cup in her cold hands the cup slipped from her hand broke into pieces. Every piece reflected its inner world. Staring at the broken cup reminded her of being on the edge all the time. She was standing near the window and watching outside where the shadow was nailed to snow. It had begun to snow.

<==> My Dearest Bag, I still remember the day I got you as a gift from my sister. I was happy . But nothing remains forever, I believe. One day you were torn and turned into ashes. Your absence has left a void inside me. It cannot be filled ever. They say, time heals all wounds, but time has frozen here. It still aches. I remember all those times past when you clinged to my back and how I hugged you when you were scared in that crowded bus. There is perhaps no point of writing all this to you; It will never reach you. I know my world would have been a little different. I used to share everything with you. I have no one to tell my fears to, now. I write just to calm myself of this [[ anxiety and stress |cupStory]] . It is a lot to witness everyday in this part of world. Every breath, every step, every walk brings in a new challenge. <style>img{ max-width:100%; max-height:100%; } </style> <img src="assets\image\6.jpg"> </div> Yesterday, Dal Lake was crying again. Its [[`tears swallowed the sun` |wheelLetter]], the moon and all the stars in the sky. It turns to [[`the shades of crimson?` |clutchCon]] Everyone was confused if it was angry or mourning? I went to college after months, today. As I was walking over the fallen Chinar leaves in Naseem Bagh, I could [[`hear the song of iris` | mirrorLetter]]. I await the almond blooms. I wish you were here. Thinking of you, Simrah.

<==> For years, I was there in the ruins of the old downtown house. Under the open sky. Covered in moss. I remember you playing nearby by the swing. You were five, making mud houses all the time. You had no friend, playing all alone when a boy brought down your fragile mud house. You left crying, your sobs piercing through my heart. I waited for days hoping that you are fine. <style>img{ max-width:100%; max-height:100%; } </style> <img src="assets\image\3.jpg"> </div> <==> You showed up after weeks this time to build the house of bricks. When [[`you reached out` |wheelLetter]] for me, I was surprised, I never thought I would be found under 10 layers of moss. You picked me up and cleaned my scars. You built a tower of bricks as high as the tower of Babel. This time you were invincible, the boy couldn’t touch your house. Carrying me in your little hands as [[`you danced happily and took me home` | wheelStory]]. You treated my wounds and tried to fix me. Even after all these years, you carry me in your bag [[`looking everywhere` |clutchCon]] for my broken half.

<==> It is 9:30 pm every thing is [[`enveloped in darkness` | mirrorStory]] except me. I am lit. I can see everything in the room: the [[`empty corners` |cupCon]], the shining walls, the carpeted floor, the broken toys, yellow ochre curtains and [[`the family sitting together` | brickStory]]. I can smell their breaths. I can hear their hearts beatings. I know they want to speak, laugh, and break the frigidity of the darkness. I wonder what make them switch me off whenever there are sounds heard from the outside. I keep asking myself what is it that that I am excluded from [[`witness` |bagCon]]. I remember, I watched the comedy show but the grief settled down right under my gaze. Time flew by. It carried the cracks of the present making way for my future. I feel breathless. I want to blow into pieces, so that each piece shall fill the cracks in time. <style>img{ max-width:100%; max-height:100%; } </style> <img src="assets\image\22.jpg"> </div>

<==> To the Red Clutch. Attic of House no: 178. Red Clutch. Hope you continue to exist in that flowing water where I threw you last time. I remember how I found you on the bank of river Jhelum in rubble. Something from within stopped me to introduce myself to you at that moment. Later, on my way back to home, I again found you when a person with his cart full of discarded objects was carrying you. And the third time, when I found you in the backyard of my home, I couldn’t stop myself from holding you in my hands. Do you remember the warmth of my hands? I clearly remember the feel of your texture, [[`your colour` | mirrorStory]], your gravity that touched me. You are not a mere piece of stuff for me but a confirmation that moved me to overlook your apparent fragility and see your inner strength deep within that has enabled you to [[`survive the travails of life.` |wheelLetter]] Needless to say, [[`time has impacted you` |bagCon]], but here you are, holding on to your strength and resisting all attempts of annihilation. Your existence has induced in me a sense of strength and has altogether changed my perspectives regarding the apparant and the real. <style>img{ max-width:100%; max-height:100%; } </style> <img src="assets\image\23.jpg"> </div> I wanted to write all this to you to let you know of your strength and how your existence has provoked me to think about my own strengths and my vulnerabilities. There is yet another reason why I wrote to you. I wanted to ask you about your [[`reappearances` |lampStory]] at different places which I feel had to convey something greater than what I understood. Am I precise in my appraisal? From A friend fortified by your existence.

=><= #### I’m your white cup. <==> You left. You left for six long months of winter. And it’s amusing how forgetful you are, always over-pouring me with tea. You forgot me on the topmost shelf two inches away from the wall. It has been weeks now, I’m here solitary, forgotten, dirty and half-filled with tea. It is snowing dust here and I’m frostbitten, thinking of you. You are anxious. You are always anxious. It’s like you live in a box. Is it my box? A box with eight corners. You are in the middle, hugging me in your hand and running all over the place. ==><== <style>img{ max-width:100%; max-height:100%; } </style> <img src="assets\image\2.jpg"> </div> <== You run from [[`corner to corner` |lampCon]]. Covering every inch. From one to four Four to six Six to eight And Eight to one We play hide and seek. [[`You forget me` |clutchLetter]] in a corner and then come back looking for me.

=><= #### Residual Landscape =><= *[[`Click to begin` |Trunk]]* <==> ##### **Concept Note** The knot against a barren door opens up. Is it an image of despair and anguish, a raptured depth or the narratives that become hard to exchange? Do interpretations of uncertainty and fear and their incorporation into and along side personal narratives become stories of resilience? Are vulnerabilities and resilience intrinsically linked? This work uses narrative responses to the ‘domicide’ in Kashmir as a starting point for an understanding of the personal and collective to conceptualize processes that intersect peoples’ lives in different ways. The turn to narratives encompasses the flux. The flux that exists between the individuals and the collective, between the personal and the political, the intimate and the public, between those who are on the fringe of a crisis and at its centre simultaneously to envision an open-ended future. Instead of examining the site only to recover traumatic events and interpret the existing discourses, this work marks a distinction in purpose. The work does not aim to generate memorials but generates an engagement in the processes of negotiation and reflection that also marks a practice in time. This practice makes available a distinct language - a textual, visual and material form – through which sensitive and vulnerable experiences could be discussed, assessed and critiqued. The language thus provides multiple perspectives of knowledge production and platforms for interaction between not only the forms that are implied but also the forms that are absent. A sense of exposure to risks in political armed conflict renders people powerless. By creating a language that emphasize on empathy, association, conversations, exchanges, flux, this work provides insight into the nature of vulnerabilities. Vulnerability does not encompass framing of particular subject such as a group, a person, an individual or a family but associates and further identifies larger population. These narratives are celebratory and contested, acknowledging and unpleasant, alienating and coinciding, while the ghoulish impulse cuts closer to the specific vulnerability being interpreted. The recognition of vulnerability rather than trauma cannot be easily distanced and foregrounding resilience over adversity finally brings the process into the medium of exhibition itself to provoke questions, to initiate critical conversations and reveal the uncomfortable and unpleasant histories through personal, political and collective narratives. =><= *[[`Click to begin` |Trunk]]*