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Introduction
Some how's and why's of the writers of Bahurupiya Shehr, presented on the occasion of the book launch.
I want to thank all of you for being with us here today. My name is Yashoda, and with me is Shamsher. You all probably have many questions about the book, and the making of the book. So do we. Here are some “why's” and “how's” from the writers of Bahuprupiya Shehr.
Why the CITY?
In living in it, the city seems close; but it seems far when it is narrated. It is this distance which becomes a challenge for narration. How?
The city wears many masks. It takes on a new guise with each mask. Countless forming, dissolving shadows agreeing to be co-travelers, such
is a city.
Traveling with another without ascertaining his identity increases ones curiosity, smolders desire. Through writing, through narrating, we try to exhaust distances. We bring our sense of being alone into conflict with our attraction across distances. From watching it, the relationship with the city becomes one of talking to the city. When this happens, the city neither lets us sleep, nor lets us awaken from our trance.
Why a BOOK?
Every book is a resting place. A means to keep ones thinking alive. A book has the capacity to carve out its own place in every context. A book makes space in our lives for us to halt and be lost in ourselves.
One argues with a book. A book is rejected. A book is also accepted, made one's own.
Amidst the many rejections of the city, this book is our hope to find an acknowledgment, an acceptance.
Why this NAME?
Shape-shifting! Is the person sitting before me the same as I see her? Or is there more to her than what I can see of her here? Instability is
the breath in every image. After all, is there anyone here, whose image is the same everywhere? Or who does not feel a restlessness at being
pinned to an image?
A name underlines something. But “Bahurupiya” [shape-shifting/polymorphous] relates to every passing image. It is an endeavour to acknowledge the possibility of recognising the tug inside each one, before they are named and marked. In “Bahurupiya” one feels the scale of the possible, and also finds a corner for a weakness. In “Bahurupiya” there is that shadow too, which we may not want to come face to face with.
How was it written?
To us, writing is not about falling into someone's life; writing is to put down in words the time, questions and tussles that have been narrated to us, and in which, splashing about like a novice swimmer, we try and find a shore of our own thoughts. This is the scaffolding in which we start collecting the scraps of desire to express, and so write. In entering this realm, the stream of questions we pose to ourself, and the answers we ourselves provide, is relentless.
That we have entered someone's life is not the important thing – no entry pass or card records or marks it. What matters is, what are the
terms with which we let someone step into our life. This is what produces for us the challenge to go beyond a mere transcription of the real.
We found our ways of expression from those around us, from those near us. In the world of ideas, we are our own guides. How are we acquainting ourselves with a space and how is the space introducing itself to us is always a fraught question. Maybe the eye says the answer is clear, but in our mind the tussle – with that which remains beyond clarity – continues. Because when it comes to thinking, no thought is complete in itself.
Every word pulls us within it. At the same time, each word also holds in it a possibility to embark us on a flight without a destination. In
writing we transgress our own limits; in joining words into a sentence we continuously settle into and uproot within us many ideas of what a city is.
Writing! Need, habit, entertainment and hobby are not what we desire. In needing, we are alone. In habit we are chased by boredom. It is not
entertainment, because that makes us dependent on the new. It is not a hobby, because hobby seeks futile gatherings. How is writing different
from these?
To us, writing is to follow our insane desire over huge distances. This desire gives us a force to tussle with ourselves. And the tussle makes
us vulnerable not only to our own thoughts but also leaves on us a special imprint of the images of many others.
Nothing is near us. But a sudden incident or change can make the knit of the city come unraveled. It is not easy to stand before this – yet we
search a language so we may be able to.
Changes feed our desire and curiosity to write, changes animate our minds and propel us into creating our own contexts of thought.
Why an imagination of a reader?
Everyone lives in her/his own context, tries to live in her/his own context. When we read, we debate with that which is settled in our minds, we explore the different dimensions of the images we have accepted as complete, we are provoked. When we read, we create a different sight with which to view ourselves. Reading nurtures the seeds of a third context beyond “yours” and “mine”. A third context, where lives knock at the realm between the imagined and the real, searching and making their meaning.
Why write what you did?
Every space has its specificities, gathering which it keeps alive its stubbornness to live, to continue. The texts in this book dwell in the challenges of this stubbornness. Connected to this is time. Time, whose capability is not only in its certainty. The time of the past, the
present and the future form a triangle; within which fading and dense memories are selected, nurtured.
Each instance of time is different from the other. This difference becomes the tension, the conflict between two texts. We question this conflict, as much as we stoke it. The smouldering heat that the texts contain, their questions, the decisions in them, the measure of spaces in the texts – all these are the heartbeats of the texts. Time, moments are the texts' pulse. Sometimes the pulse – or the time – becomes strong, at others, it grows weak. When small moments join with thousands of others, we find ourselves among others. Our texts inhabit this ecology of the measure of moments. In the scale of the small moments, sometimes we feel ourselves extending beyond our own measure.
May 01, 2007
**
After this, the writers read some selections from the book.
Back to Bahurupiya Shehr
Why the CITY?
In living in it, the city seems close; but it seems far when it is narrated. It is this distance which becomes a challenge for narration. How?
The city wears many masks. It takes on a new guise with each mask. Countless forming, dissolving shadows agreeing to be co-travelers, such
is a city.
Traveling with another without ascertaining his identity increases ones curiosity, smolders desire. Through writing, through narrating, we try to exhaust distances. We bring our sense of being alone into conflict with our attraction across distances. From watching it, the relationship with the city becomes one of talking to the city. When this happens, the city neither lets us sleep, nor lets us awaken from our trance.
Why a BOOK?
Every book is a resting place. A means to keep ones thinking alive. A book has the capacity to carve out its own place in every context. A book makes space in our lives for us to halt and be lost in ourselves.
One argues with a book. A book is rejected. A book is also accepted, made one's own.
Amidst the many rejections of the city, this book is our hope to find an acknowledgment, an acceptance.
Why this NAME?
Shape-shifting! Is the person sitting before me the same as I see her? Or is there more to her than what I can see of her here? Instability is
the breath in every image. After all, is there anyone here, whose image is the same everywhere? Or who does not feel a restlessness at being
pinned to an image?
A name underlines something. But “Bahurupiya” [shape-shifting/polymorphous] relates to every passing image. It is an endeavour to acknowledge the possibility of recognising the tug inside each one, before they are named and marked. In “Bahurupiya” one feels the scale of the possible, and also finds a corner for a weakness. In “Bahurupiya” there is that shadow too, which we may not want to come face to face with.
How was it written?
To us, writing is not about falling into someone's life; writing is to put down in words the time, questions and tussles that have been narrated to us, and in which, splashing about like a novice swimmer, we try and find a shore of our own thoughts. This is the scaffolding in which we start collecting the scraps of desire to express, and so write. In entering this realm, the stream of questions we pose to ourself, and the answers we ourselves provide, is relentless.
That we have entered someone's life is not the important thing – no entry pass or card records or marks it. What matters is, what are the
terms with which we let someone step into our life. This is what produces for us the challenge to go beyond a mere transcription of the real.
We found our ways of expression from those around us, from those near us. In the world of ideas, we are our own guides. How are we acquainting ourselves with a space and how is the space introducing itself to us is always a fraught question. Maybe the eye says the answer is clear, but in our mind the tussle – with that which remains beyond clarity – continues. Because when it comes to thinking, no thought is complete in itself.
Every word pulls us within it. At the same time, each word also holds in it a possibility to embark us on a flight without a destination. In
writing we transgress our own limits; in joining words into a sentence we continuously settle into and uproot within us many ideas of what a city is.
Writing! Need, habit, entertainment and hobby are not what we desire. In needing, we are alone. In habit we are chased by boredom. It is not
entertainment, because that makes us dependent on the new. It is not a hobby, because hobby seeks futile gatherings. How is writing different
from these?
To us, writing is to follow our insane desire over huge distances. This desire gives us a force to tussle with ourselves. And the tussle makes
us vulnerable not only to our own thoughts but also leaves on us a special imprint of the images of many others.
Nothing is near us. But a sudden incident or change can make the knit of the city come unraveled. It is not easy to stand before this – yet we
search a language so we may be able to.
Changes feed our desire and curiosity to write, changes animate our minds and propel us into creating our own contexts of thought.
Why an imagination of a reader?
Everyone lives in her/his own context, tries to live in her/his own context. When we read, we debate with that which is settled in our minds, we explore the different dimensions of the images we have accepted as complete, we are provoked. When we read, we create a different sight with which to view ourselves. Reading nurtures the seeds of a third context beyond “yours” and “mine”. A third context, where lives knock at the realm between the imagined and the real, searching and making their meaning.
Why write what you did?
Every space has its specificities, gathering which it keeps alive its stubbornness to live, to continue. The texts in this book dwell in the challenges of this stubbornness. Connected to this is time. Time, whose capability is not only in its certainty. The time of the past, the
present and the future form a triangle; within which fading and dense memories are selected, nurtured.
Each instance of time is different from the other. This difference becomes the tension, the conflict between two texts. We question this conflict, as much as we stoke it. The smouldering heat that the texts contain, their questions, the decisions in them, the measure of spaces in the texts – all these are the heartbeats of the texts. Time, moments are the texts' pulse. Sometimes the pulse – or the time – becomes strong, at others, it grows weak. When small moments join with thousands of others, we find ourselves among others. Our texts inhabit this ecology of the measure of moments. In the scale of the small moments, sometimes we feel ourselves extending beyond our own measure.
May 01, 2007
**
After this, the writers read some selections from the book.
Back to Bahurupiya Shehr