River Songs 2: Chambal

14 Dec 2012

The artists team reaches the bank of River Chambal around 4 PM from Kota.

They crossed the river on a boat and arrived in front of the Keshav Rai Temple.

Atul Kannad poet and novelist, Sahitya Akademy award winning novelist described many things about the myth, history and local lives of the river Chambal.

After spending some time on the bank and communicating with local people Samudra Kajal Saikia went to the river wearing a Gamosa (traditional Assamese towel). Then he started writing with white powder colors on the ground. The experience is almost like making an alpana.

“Aao nadi kya bolti hain suney

Is se pehle ki nadi ki bolti band ho jaaye”

(Translating:

Lets come and listen to what the river speaks

Before it stops speaking for good)

Samudra had a similar exercise before in March 2012 in Kolkata, on the Bank of River Ganges.

There he wrote in Bengali 

এসো নদীর ধারে একটু বসি, নদীটা শুকিয়ে যাওয়ার আগে।

আহাঁ পাৰতে অলপ বহোঁ নদীখন শুকাই যোৱাৰ আগতে। 

Let’s sit a while on the bank before the river dries up. 

for details:

http://kankhowa.blogspot.in/2012/03/disposable-river.html

Samudra Kajal conceptualized this as a long term project to continue the same sentence again and again on the river banks in multiple places. But this time he added two lines newly. May be over the period of time it will take a shape of a long poetry consisting multiple languages, according to the space. So in a way it can be briefed as: Samudra Kajal is writing a multilingual poem in multiple places over the period of time, not with pen on paper but with materials on river banks.

The activity happened under TANA-BANA, The Warp and Weft of Art and the Public Domain. 
A Public Art Event, 10th-16th Dec, 2012, Kota, Rajasthan 


Excerpts from Samudra's Personal blog on the earlier exercise: RiverSongs 1:

When I was in a field visit and research in interior parts of Assam in recent past, while observing the protest scenario against the BIG DAM on Brahmaputra, while facing the big big turbines on the 52 National Highway across the Sonitpur District the most striking but quite expected news came to notice: the mighty Brahmaputra is drying up to a scale never witnessed before…



I was spending my one year in Baroda, my second year of MVA, on the bank of river Vishwamitri. It was a dead river.

Detail of the work

the ghat

One of my favorite songs, “Nodi mathon boy, kaloiko noroy…” Loosely translating: “a river only keeps flowing without waiting for anybody else, who is there to stop its journey? One who has love for the sea, will just go and embrace the sea …” However, the lyrics is proven wrong. Perhaps at the time of composing the song the composers were not aware of the BIG DAMS, the international policies and the conspiracies of the states.

Performers Independent at Collaboration...

The mighty river Brahmaputra remains the backbone of the culture, economic resource, biodiversity and identity for the people of the land called Assam. The most celebrated personalities from Assamese culture and literature Bhupen Hazarika and Indira Goswami expired recently. Both of them were the greatest lovers of all times and the river Brahmaputra was the source of inspiration in their entire lives. However, news came up: the river Brahmaputra is drying up!!!

public interacting...

On 12^th March, 2012, I wrote the sentence in two places. One on the staircases of Babughat, the other on the ferry platform near to Babughat.