REDEMPTION
Is every human equal here? Who am I? Who are you?
After a certain point in history, humankind was divided into specific categories based on their physical and geographical features which created a significant imbalance — adding permanent senseless caste structures into this worsened inequality. Of all the regions of India, Kerala (Southern India) had and have the most rigid and elaborate caste structure.
During my trip to Kerala, I visited Parasinikadavu Muthappan temple in Kannur, a city in the Northern part of Kerala. Irrespective of caste, creed or religion, everyone is welcomed there to share the place to experience the spiritual comfort and relief and to have the offerings together, which was once (and still, in rural areas) restricted in the name of Untouchability (a practice of imposing social limitations on a person by the reason of their birth in particular castes). Muthappan is the deity worshipped at Parasinikadavu. In a society where discrimination and violence against the marginalised are viewed as usual, Parasinikadavu Temple goes against the ''traditions'' and the ''culture''.
I consider Muthappan and the Parasinikadavu Temple as a shrine that is thriving testimony of secular harmony, which I consider as a form of Redemption of hope and belief. Along with the video, journal and the prints, this project act as a protest against the casteism that still exists in India.
Is every human equal here? Who am I? Who are you?
After a certain point in history, humankind was divided into specific categories based on their physical and geographical features which created a significant imbalance — adding permanent senseless caste structures into this worsened inequality. Of all the regions of India, Kerala (Southern India) had and have the most rigid and elaborate caste structure.
During my trip to Kerala, I visited Parasinikadavu Muthappan temple in Kannur, a city in the Northern part of Kerala. Irrespective of caste, creed or religion, everyone is welcomed there to share the place to experience the spiritual comfort and relief and to have the offerings together, which was once (and still, in rural areas) restricted in the name of Untouchability (a practice of imposing social limitations on a person by the reason of their birth in particular castes). Muthappan is the deity worshipped at Parasinikadavu. In a society where discrimination and violence against the marginalised are viewed as usual, Parasinikadavu Temple goes against the ''traditions'' and the ''culture''.
I consider Muthappan and the Parasinikadavu Temple as a shrine that is thriving testimony of secular harmony, which I consider as a form of Redemption of hope and belief. Along with the video, journal and the prints, this project act as a protest against the casteism that still exists in India.
Is every human equal here? Who am I? Who are you?
After a certain point in history, humankind was divided into specific categories based on their physical and geographical features which created a significant imbalance — adding permanent senseless caste structures into this worsened inequality. Of all the regions of India, Kerala (Southern India) had and have the most rigid and elaborate caste structure.
During my trip to Kerala, I visited Parasinikadavu Muthappan temple in Kannur, a city in the Northern part of Kerala. Irrespective of caste, creed or religion, everyone is welcomed there to share the place to experience the spiritual comfort and relief and to have the offerings together, which was once (and still, in rural areas) restricted in the name of Untouchability (a practice of imposing social limitations on a person by the reason of their birth in particular castes). Muthappan is the deity worshipped at Parasinikadavu. In a society where discrimination and violence against the marginalised are viewed as usual, Parasinikadavu Temple goes against the ''traditions'' and the ''culture''.
I consider Muthappan and the Parasinikadavu Temple as a shrine that is thriving testimony of secular harmony, which I consider as a form of Redemption of hope and belief. Along with the video, journal and the prints, this project act as a protest against the casteism that still exists in India.
Is every human equal here? Who am I? Who are you?
After a certain point in history, humankind was divided into specific categories based on their physical and geographical features which created a significant imbalance — adding permanent senseless caste structures into this worsened inequality. Of all the regions of India, Kerala (Southern India) had and have the most rigid and elaborate caste structure.
During my trip to Kerala, I visited Parasinikadavu Muthappan temple in Kannur, a city in the Northern part of Kerala. Irrespective of caste, creed or religion, everyone is welcomed there to share the place to experience the spiritual comfort and relief and to have the offerings together, which was once (and still, in rural areas) restricted in the name of Untouchability (a practice of imposing social limitations on a person by the reason of their birth in particular castes). Muthappan is the deity worshipped at Parasinikadavu. In a society where discrimination and violence against the marginalised are viewed as usual, Parasinikadavu Temple goes against the ''traditions'' and the ''culture''.
I consider Muthappan and the Parasinikadavu Temple as a shrine that is thriving testimony of secular harmony, which I consider as a form of Redemption of hope and belief. Along with the video, journal and the prints, this project act as a protest against the casteism that still exists in India.
THE WALLS
THE WALLS
Mathilukal or the Walls is a novelette written by the much-celebrated author from Kerala, Vaikom Muhammed Basheer. It was later made into a film by acclaimed filmmaker, Adoor Gopalakrishnan. ‘The Walls’ has as its plot, a tragic love story, taking place in an unlikely and sober setting of a prison. The story noted for its autobiographical elements should be read in the light of Basheer’s life as a prisoner. He was a prisoner during the time of India’s struggle for independence. In the story, the lead character portrayed as Basheer himself is a prisoner leading his lonely life chatting with flowers and trees and quarrelling with squirrels to waver his boredom away. The meaningless and frustrated life of Basheer is suddenly incised by a woman’s voice from over the wall. The emptiness of his life is filled with the tender love that he forms for the voice of the faceless woman, Narayani, a woman prisoner who speaks from the other side of the wall. She becomes his reason to thirst for freedom. Meeting her becomes his purpose of life, and he waits for it. Unfortunately, the day Basheer is eventually freed from the jail falls on the day they had planned to meet each other in the prison hospital. The ill-fated lover ends up holding a rose for his unseen beloved outside the prison gate with a heavy heart. It leaves a streak of pain, for the reader knows that for him, freedom meant meeting his beloved at last. It becomes even more painful that he never gets a chance to tell her that he is liberated and he hasn’t betrayed her. The picture of Narayani waiting for Basheer to appear in the hospital would be devastating for anyone. The story, however, could be understood in multiple ways. One is the literal loss of love, and the other is the question what if had everything been a mere fragment of imagination? What if Narayani was his technique of coping his loneliness? What if Narayani is a metaphor for freedom itself? The story remains open-ended, with questions unanswered.
What if Narayani was real?