A yearlong observatory for an occupation of time
Fairytales have never been about fairies per say. They carry deep, disturbing connotations that would be deemed inappropriate for their target audience if not cloaked in the linear felicitations of filial, romantic and moral closures. They have also always been White, and in colonial extensions of epistemic occupation, shaped reading experiences around the world, cumulatively … Continue reading Manifesting Sideways
The first piece of paper that I folded to make an object took the shape of a paper plane. Birds and fish followed, as extra-curricular classes in school offered lessons on how to transform a square piece of paper into weightless, multi-dimensional objects that bore likeness to their functional/live counterparts. There was something exciting about … Continue reading Between Pleats
A rooster wanders in a coop designed especially for him to inhabit, as his caregiver, Nirali, paints a canvas in his likeness within its perimeters. The animal and his impression fuse when the former stares at his two-dimensional rendition, often carrying drops of the paint on his white plumes in poetic acknowledgment of his double. … Continue reading Glitch in Progress
In Ismat Chughtai’s Lihaaf, the eponymous quilt heaves as a shadow on the wall, illuminated to a pair of naïve eyes as the motion of an animated elephant under covers. This image has persisted as the manifestation of a desire harboured in secret; in a zenana and between sexually like bodies that aggressively yearn for … Continue reading Porosities
1 “किताबों को देखना क्या है?” The cover of a book is both an aesthetic and commercial decision. It’s a portal to the text; an ‘optical echo’ of the literature inside. The cover signifies that the text is not abstract meanderings in a head or draft anymore, that it is definitive and contained in a … Continue reading Text & Tongues
