Stories from Sandarbh

Ramesh, whose age cannot be determined from his looks (he could be in his late thirties or he could be in his late forties) is from Bhai Ka Ghada, a small village around 22 kilometers away from Partapur, where the Sandarbh Workshop has been happening for the last five years. He lives in a traditional village hut, clean and spacious, with his wife and five children. During favorable seasons, he tills the land and when nature plays pranks, he goes to Partapur town and pulls hand carts. But when Sandarbh Workshop is happening, Ramesh Bhai (artists call him with love) does not do any other work. He is there at the club where the artists are lodged, doing errands for them. His weather beaten skin may tell us the story of his struggles, but his sparkling eyes make us feel humble for there is full of hope and love for life.

Ramesh Bhai

Bhupendra Singh Vagla aka Bapu is in his early twenties and is from the same village as Ramesh. He is a landowner’s son and is educated. He wears denim jeans and jacket, and in the village environs he sticks out like a hero. Of course, he can claim himself to be a star as he is a member of the theatre group led by Yatin Upadhyay, the chief functionary of the Baneswar Lok Vikas Sansthan (Baneswar People’s Development Organization) and the spirit behind the Sandarbh Workshop. Caste, religion and class do not keep them apart when it comes to Sandarbh. There, they are all participants and volunteers.

In Bhai Ka Ghada, I did not find any television antennas or Dish Antennas. However, most of the houses have Salman Khan, Karishma Kapoor posters. They are worshipped along with the images of gods from the Hindu Pantheon. Welcome posters with two women showing lighted lamps adorn the mud walls. Patricia Uberoi would definitely like to go and see this village. Bapu has a mobile phone, but many villagers don’t have it. They live with pure intuitions. However, they like gadgets and technological accessories. That is why when Rahul Jain trains his camera towards the womenfolk of the village, they all oblige to this young shutterbug from Ratlam with a streamlined physique, with sparkles in their eyes, redness in their lips and agility in their bodies.

We are there with Sindhu RV to install her works in the courtyard of one of the mud houses. Sivamani aka Sonu, the nine year old son of Sindhu has already become a star amongst the kids with his painting skills. Later he and my son Maitreya run behind sheep and puppies while the village kids hang around Rahul and Koumudi Patil as they hold still and video cameras. “Village children run behind cameras while the urban kids run behind puppies,” comments Rahul. That is quite true.

While Sindhu installs her work (forty two stoves made of clay and fitted with decoratively painted wood pieces) the village women forward a request and a demand. Once the work is done, Sindhu should give one choolah (stove) each to every family there. Sindhu is happy to do that. But they would not take it for free. They will ‘buy’ this work from her for five rupees per piece. Finally it is agreed that Bapu would manage the business later and the rest of the installation would be placed in a ‘living museum’ functioning from one of the mud houses. Living Museum is purely a Sandarbh driven idea. A part of the house or an unused building is enunciated as a museum where the daily utensils would be stored as if they were in a museum. Each utensil is labeled and the origins are marked. Interestingly, if anybody needs to use one of those utensils and artifacts they can take it away for the purpose and return at their will. That completes the philosophy and working idea of the Sandarbh ‘Living Museum’. There are two museums now in Partapur; one in Bhai Ka Ghada and the other in Nava Padra village.

Sindhu decides to perform in one of the houses where a ‘living stove’ (a stove in use) is painted by her. Sindhu finishes her performance and other women invite Sindhu to come and ‘perform’ in their kitchens. A young girl in the first house where Sindhu did her performance requests the artists to hand over the colors to her. Then this young girl starts painting the motifs around the stove as if she were in frenzy.

‘Sannado Sannado lal lal Sannado’  is a traditional festival song from the Vagad region. The language is something like a mixture of Gujarati and Rajasthani. The local DJs recently remixed this song with contemporary beats and it became a run away hit. Wherever you go you listen to Sannado Sannado. Gattu Bhai and Suresh, who drive us around in a Bolero play this CD to our relish. The CD has been scratched due to overuse. Every music shop we go to get a Sannado CD tells the same story, “Sold Out.” Now in Vagad region none listens to mainstream Bollywood songs. They all have become fans of Sannado. For the last few months the local DJs have been minting money by making remix CDs of local songs.

We are not deprived of the live version of Sannado for Roshan Bhatt, a post graduate in Sanskrit and Jyotishi (astrology) and BLVS theatre group member has learned all these songs by heart. By night Roshan gets ready with his troupe members Vinod Patidar, Hitesh Damor, Nishant Upadhyay and Nitin Trivedi to entertain the artists and visitors with Sannado song. Shreyas Karle, the Workshop-in-charge pitches in with a small drum while young artist Lochan Upadhyay manages a huge plastic drum. Sindhu’s wood pieces suddenly become percussion instruments in the hands of artists like Somoo Desai and Chintan Upadhyay. Sannado makes everyone to shake a leg and the night’s cold turns hot. Chintan Upadhyay, by the end of the musical performance shows his expertise in percussion by beating on everything available with Sindhu’s woods. Reji Arakkal shows a dhol to Chintan and he breaks the leather in one stroke, and this act of breaking a drum seems to have given him a lot of pleasure.

Hemali Bhuta, Heena, Mrinal Kulkarni, Devang Anglay and Pramod look very sober in the beginning. Once Sannado catches up, they get up and start dancing. Sindhu does not dance as she cannot jump throughout thanks to health reasons. Koumudi is healthy but she is too hygienic and is afraid of others touching her while dancing. Once the dance is over, people come around the fire. Some kind of trivial discussion start and by the end of it, Mrinal asks a question, “What is feminism?” Everyone just vanish and I find them later under heavy blankets having sound sleep or at least pretending to have it.

In most of the art workshops single women artists get so much of attention from their male counterparts and Sandarbh is no exception to this. Malavika comes and she is alone. She is supposed to paint a collapsed bridge in Mahi river. Next morning most of the camp members find themselves in the cold river water, barely clad and painting the concrete blocks vigorously. When the work is almost finished, her fiancée makes a dramatic appearance in the scene. In the Gone with the Wind fashion, she goes into his embrace and leaves the camp leaving several hearts broken and several noses running. Koumudi Patil too is single but she has already declared that she is not ready to mingle. And her height makes many guys keep themselves away from her. Barbara Ash is inaccessible to many as her British accent makes them say either ‘yaa’ ‘yaa’ or just grin. Art historian Rajesh Singh gives her company throughout as he finds a suitable person to exercise his rights on 19th century Ox-Cam English.

Barbara Ash does not want to reveal her age as she believes age does not matter. I try to convince her that age does matter at times as it would help an art critic to contextualize her works against the intellectual formation levels of the artist. Finally she yields to my persistence and tells the closely guarded secret. But she did try to reveal her mind to a local craftsman who promised to make a flower with woven bamboo pieces. Chintan strongly believes that three craftsmen left Barabara’s flowers unfinished as they could not stand or understand what she exactly wanted out of them. According to Chintan, Barbara’s idea was to tie bamboo made flowers to the electric posts. Now with no success with craftsmen, Chintan says that we should see the poles as conceptual work of Barbara and she screams at him at whenever he looks at an electric post and smiles.

Chintan has another complaint to make. His driver cum body guard Suresh, who came along with Chintan to Partapur is made to participate in Mansoor’s performance. Suresh is given the role of a bull and with his bulky physique he performs it well. Chintan says that the young artists are so ruthless that they would not even leave a simple driver alone. I am given the part of the Industrialist farmer in Mansoor’s performance while the artists carry the yoke. Seeing this Chintan says, “Now you are doing the right thing. These ……should be really driven by a person like you.”

Ashoka Kansara is a local artist and he helps Lochan to do his ‘Khumakkad Ghar’ (moving house). There are Iqbal Bhai and Salim Bhai, two pious men to help Ashok and Lochan in welding things together. On the last day of Sandarbh, they too come to Partapur bus stand where the final display is done. They bring their collection of sea shells along and make the image of a flying bird out of it. Ashok presents his own sculpture and Bharat Singh, a young college student comes up with his own presentation in thermocol.

Yatin has a performance to do. He along with Bhavin, Hitesh, Vinod and Roshan become green men and confront the local public against the backdrop of a Maruti 800 with front wheels raised to a concrete bench in the bus stand and all its body covered with blue pigment. Somoo Desai makes an extempore minimal installation using steel wires tying between the concrete bench and a peg in the ceiling. Chintan makes an installation of labor using small pieces of rocks, basket, spade and their shadows. The ticket counter of the bus stand is turned into a video projection booth, where the ‘overloading of people and ideas’ is projected by Chintan.

P.N.Dayal, an unassuming young man runs between BLVS office, Club and bus stand keeping the Sandarbh machinery well oiled. A village is turned into a public museum. A bus stand is turned into an alternative art gallery, where the local people have all the access. The smell of cow dung, urine and vegetable waste is there in the air. They contrast the costly room freshners of urban galleries. Another DJ version of Sannado is heard full volume from the loud speakers. And it rocks. So is Sandarbh 2007.