A deeper pull

And the earth, if she chooses to bless you…will allow you to listen to the songs of silence and write poems on her heart...

It was during my stay at this artist residency in Badanga as a part of a group of around 20 something artists handpicked from different parts of the world to comment on the environment through their community- based projects.  The second day of the stay and the group was taking the village tour to understand the place and the community better. Overwhelmed by the sight of the hills mysteriously textured with slate stone, I impulsively uttered, “maybe I should paint a mountain”. I had no idea at this moment that this random utterance would be taking me up to this journey of joy, learning and discovering more about my own 'self'- Swarth. The delight of such a joyful journey to be taken in case you are being chosen as an instrument by the art to manifest itself...how can someone refuse it? Even when at the back of the mind you keep on blaming yourself to have fancied it and now you must walk this unknown path! But then, you don’t know any other way, coz be it land art or canvas or paper or whatever medium…this many a times is a constant exercise one has to go through if you love experiments and are fond of challenges. 

The mountain, after being painted in blue…to me looked more like a reflection of my own spirit. It was a routine for me to go every day to the mountain, meditate and spend half of the day there painting the rocks. The children of the tribal village would join me after their school is over early in the evening. They would climb the rocks barefoot and reach the most difficult of the spots and help me in the work that took us around a week to finish. Many times, the kids were meditating with me, and I was the happiest person to join in this collectivity of innocent souls. Also posting a video of some carefully picked images to show all that I was doing there- the background song is written by one of the most celebrated poet-saint, Kabir- who lived in the 15th century, sung by Kumar Gandharva. The song narrates a longing of the spirit to merge into the eternal spirit, the unknown.

The work

Title: ।। चिदानंद रूपः शिवोऽहं शिवोऽहं ।।

                   I am the eternal spirit

                    I am Shiva

                    I am Shiva

                    
                         

There's much I absorbed during my stay at this place which I wish to narrate in bits and parts, keeping it for the next posts...for there's certainly a beauty in absorbing, pondering, wondering, wandering, seeking, and telling.....

p.s. Posting a video of the work I did and the fun we all had. I must mention here that the images in the video are few of my favorite ones however not of very good quality, the reason being lack of documentation, with just one videographer among 17-20 artists. It was hard to get images, and finally, the artists decided to share their collection of images taken by their respective mobile cams and a few from the personal camera.