Tuesday, December 23, 2008

on a sunny December day in Delhi

I saw her suddenly on the abandoned Railway Tracks,
lifting a bag

Heavy it looked, but she managed to lift,
There was no home in sight, but she kept on walking
Fearlessly, towards a destination, i knew not
She stopped, but she was committed to move along with her luggage
There were times when she felt alone, frustrated
And sad

But she gracefully carried herself and her luggage
And moved ahead like an ancient traveler in a desert
Without caring about abandoned-tracks which looked like hungry animals
She did stop, but only to re-adjust her luggage
But what this luggage contains ? perhaps,
Thrown away stuff from Butcher's shop which her mother cleans
To cook and eat together with other family members.
They are homeless people

And they don't care, what a stranger thinks about them, They are perhaps as indifferent to the rest of reality as we are But they do pause, and wonder if they look similar
To those who look similar to them

Oh, this terrible weight; who on Earth gave them to lift all this ? They had to balance, food, shelter, family and all the forms of life,
But it is like stones in the bag,
Ah Delhi Metro, ( happiness and progress to all ), and they do
Lift themselves on their toes to see how it looks.
But where do they stand, even on these newly laid tracks, ironically abandoned
But only to cross that too, with their luggage,vital to life
But is there any sight of a home? or help even ?
Is it all about their own reality, just their own ?

Is it a mirage that something is approaching, can it be friendly ?
Yes, it can be, doesn't matter who,
Conventionally, it is someone from their own family, or community, that causes
A change, To someone who is after all a living child
Who dreams to jump, dance and play with dignityBut can it change radically ?

5 comments:

  1. Oh Inder
    I was just on the net when you sne this through....'she is a living child' is wonderful Inder.

    It is so refreshing to see something done like this, exisitng like this....something made by artist that is so personal, so important yet so independent from the weight of the gallery and art world - so to speak.

    Really I have been so sick the last few months but I am looking forward to getting energy back.

    I have been feeling quite dissollusioned about art (as Ioften do) but more so about performance and public art....it seems like all the ideals of these things - their anarchic autonomous nature that I fell in love with - have become everything that they hoped not to be. Like a brand name, public art and performance are like band wagons that everyone wants to climb aboard. But what we are forgetting in the mean time is their real characteristics. Was Delhi really an 'artless' city before 48 degrees arrived. WHat about the art that existed here before and continues to exist today, and will continue tomorrow when all the festival walks away.

    It seems that the fashionable fascination with art and the everyday is in most cases not an engagement with art and the everyday outside the gallery....but rather the gallery and all its insides being ppoured out onto the 'everyday' dominanting the art that was there before....

    Your recent image series captures the pain, kindness, injustice and humanity in our everyday.
    The painful struggle to carry this weight - with all it's physical and metaphorical references - is an art.

    The gaze at the metro, while standing on toes is an art.

    The boy who shares the weight is an art

    The implications of your personal vision - shared - is an art.

    Happy happy new year
    big hugs
    from an Alana looking forward to gain her energy again - and throw lots of shoes in 2009!!!!!!!!

    Allana Victoria Hunt

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  2. comment by Amitesh Gorver

    dear inder salim,

    thanks for such a thoughtful mail and for giving the coming year a very different welcome. all of us are living in these times of crisis, where there is terror outside and within, failures of the past and challenges in the future. hopefully, we will continue to do our bit as the world explodes, implodes and somewhere a part of it emerges from dark to dawn.

    looking forward to another year, to another opportunity.

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  3. Wallah kya baat hai
    Hamri yeh shaan hai
    Dikhney ko chand say bhi
    Bharat MAHAN hai.

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  4. by Nilofar Akmut

    have I met you? I get these emails from you that touch my heart. Thanks. I am glad to hear that there is an artist out there in the world who has a larger concern towards humanity.

    A pleasant New Year to you.

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  5. I learnt one thing today that an artist doesn't need a canvas to project his art, he can built and turn anything,anywhere...if he has a message it can be conveyed in any form.
    Superb presentation.

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