The Songs of Our People – Vol 02

It’s 6:38pm. These days it gets dark well before 5pm. The weather app tells me it’s 9°C, it feels a lot colder. Evenings are difficult, more so when the day’s been overcast. What is it about the sun that seems to lift our spirits, even in winter, even if slightly? I’m thinking about things I need to do tomorrow, none of it seems to matter. A part of me feels like the night is going to swallow me, a part of me wishes it does. Maybe if I check my email, I’ll find a sense of purpose. But as I swipe down on my screen to refresh the page, the only thing that greets me is the memory of hope. It’s a passing phase, one side of my brain reasons. It’s a recurring phase, the other side counters. I feel like I’ve been staring at the ceiling forever. It’s 6:50pm, it’s 9°C outside.

Martin and Luca

All that is beautiful is alive here

Cherry Blossoms, Shillong, 2022

Sometimes we get just a drop of it, sometimes it washes over us. We ration when it’s scarce, we share when it’s plenty. We get by.

Lodhi Garden, Delhi, 2022

Abundance

Repeating Shapes, 2016

It’s past ten at night, the rush hour traffic is just about dissipating. The air is pregnant with a downpour, windless. I’m trying to ignore the dust of the city sticking to my face and arms and focus on the music playing in my ears. It’s been a long, hard day like many others this year and I just want to be able to get this weight off my chest. The rickshaw is approaching Juhu and as it turns a bend, I can see the waves reaching for the road; it’s high tide. The turmoil of the sea unlocks the heaviness in my chest. Ali Sethi’s voice blends with the first few drops of rain on the plastic roof of my rickshaw. It’s almost eleven now, I can feel a teardrop escape the corner of my eye and trickle down my face, it begins to pour. 

The Songs of Our People Vol 02

If you were to cut open the veins of my work, may the serenity of the hills bleed out. May the quietude envelope you and hold you in its comforting embrace. This is all I wish for you, this is all I wish for my work to do. May your meeting with my work feel familiar, like lunch with a childhood friend with whom goodbyes are filled with vague promises of meeting again. This is my work filled with nothingness; nothingness that was so spectacular, I could never grow out of it. Meet me here, this is where I am from. 

Women on the ferry, 2017