Author: cturner703

A reflection by Jerri after visiting the inscription stones in Allalasandra, Bangalore.

The inscription stone in Allalasandra tells a story of the city that I cannot read. An old man also looking at the stone tells us that it was written by the hand of God, just as the ten commandments were also written on stone by a divine power.

How do we write history? And whose history do we read? A stone with images and script becomes the foundation for telling the story of the city. History becomes a means to give us identity and meaning in the present – we can look at a stone and feel a sense of connection to a past where people were also creating and telling stories of their lives.

What do the inscription stones of Bangalore tell us? About its past peoples, languages, cultures, battles, landscapes? Our need for stories to give meaning to our lives makes us want the stones to speak to us in the present. History is etched into them, just as our lives are inscribed on our bodies, chiseled into the fabric of who we are, and how we tell our stories to the world. Our loves, tragedies, creations, and habitual patterns are furrowed into us over time.

Touching the stone, I feel a connection to the heart of the city, and the foundation of what the city has become.

But I cannot read what it says.

You could say that the Urur-Olcott Kuppam Vizha began on the day when Carnatic musician TM Krishna walked into the offices of the environmental activist Vettiver collective and talked about a festival in an unexpected place. Or you could say it started 11 years ago, with Nityanand Jayaraman and the Vettiver Collective’s own Justice Rocks events. Or maybe you have to go back to when a young man, Vizha organiser K Saravanan, was persuaded by his teacher that turtle eggs mattered. What becomes clear from talking to the organisers, villagers, artists, volunteers (not mutually exclusive groups) is that the festival can mean different things to different people, because it is not a stand alone art event, but embedded in a network of aspirations, actions and campaigns along the Chennai beaches.

What surprised us most was the formal inventiveness of the music and dance performances, and the political content of songs and narratives. Not because we assumed naivety, but because we expected the politics to be in the curation of the combined events, rather than integral to each ‘number’. Instead, even within each individual piece, there  was often a deliberate meeting – even clashing – of old with new, elite with popular, Tamil with North Indian and so on. The result seemed a truly inclusive event that appears to be making some concrete differences to the two villages Urur and Olcott, by making their concerns more visible. Literally concrete. One of them is a slip road.

However, it’s important to recognise that two nights of festival and a beach cleanup does not accomplish this by itself. For one thing, Saravanan describes the  Vizha  as a sequence of events, like a river, beginning its course last August, flowing through the railway station, bus routes and fish market to reach the festival on the shore. For another, it sits alongside other, ongoing attempts to map and defend the use of the ‘commons’, the beaches that are the fishermen’s livelihood.

It was fun. Let’s not forget to say that. Sitting or standing in the warm breeze from the sea, the scent of jasmine from the girls’ hair, the taste of fried chilli and hot tea, the coloured lights and glowing costumes and the sounds of the drums… the senses overwhelmed but not exhausted. And the beautiful moment when a flock of flamingos filled the evening sky. These are moments when you feel glad to be alive. Let’s not forget that, too.

How lovely to revisit the beautiful campus at NIAS, with its cool arches and vibrant blossoms… It was, as always, such a pleasure to be there.

We got deep into the practicalities this morning, with occasional digressions to discuss questions such as –

Why is there often less emphasis on learning through artwork than teaching through it?

What are the effects of alerting people to the unexpected qualities of an area – does this tend to preserve or destroy it? Does art pave the way for gentrification, as some have suggested (here as well as elsewhere?)

How is local art entangled and engaged with politics on a wider scale? Is it possible to separate the local from the national? How do we engage with this in a non-threatening way?

How can the artworks empower the audience member, rather than making them vulnerable in public space?

And then back to more mundane issues in terms of timetabling, spaces, clarifications to be made and how many to invite.

Here we are, standing in a line, as is our custom at the end of a meeting…