Beyond

by Nikhil Shah (India)

I didn't expect to find India

Life is palpable, living in the spontaneity of it makes the places turn into narratives and memories, bringing in new ways to live the everyday. In times when images have become extremely commonplace, the idea of living a place asks for a conscious choice to not reiterate the already lived experiences and biases. Drifting with the dunes is the vibrant tribal community identifying themselves as Fakirani Jatt, miles from the fortification of Lakhpat in Kutch, lost and camouflaged amidst the wind and sand. Having heard of them, visuals of their beautiful vivid adornments my yearnings to be one with them had become a longing for the past a few years. Until recently August, when I made my way out from the city of Bhuj an escape into the vastness, expanses planar with no undulations, no markers to scale my linear meanderings, guided by nothing but lines of greys edged by sprouting blurred shades of olives and greens. The landscape reveals itself as infinite plains with bareness, an elaborate minutia of life forms that call to get absorbed in. A halt was abruptly marked by a signboard boldly announcing in red oil of human habitation around, reading Dhragawandh. In a matter of seconds, the moment dissolved, I was in browns, minuscule, nowhere, now, here. It blinded me, turning it into a tactile stillness. The way to the pathless land appeared. Treading on to chase distant sights of camel herds kept walking my way, with no trodden path to follow. The winds intermittently blinded me, with moments of barking silence of the dunes. My way led me to befriend Musa Bhai and his family who were making a move. To my inquisitiveness, they navigated their ways through the sounds of wind and the sun, the most primal elements they were in deep communication with. We walked further to a few hamlets which they called their transient commune, made of a few Pakkhas. The Pakkhas and the inhabitants expressed distinctive identities displayed through the attire in stark contrast with the environment around. Vivid hues of red black and yellows animated against the browns. Their presence itself was a celebration of existence in the desolated condition they lived in, as perceived by a stranger. Our homes are our extension said the young toddler Hesther, as I walked inside their home. We began our exploration within, a humble adobe with a feeling of emptiness and vivacity discovered with many small intricate embellishments. The wooden posts with patterns made by triangles, dots, and motifs signifying elements of nature and cycles of life announced itself boldly against the backdrop of grass woven skin of the Pakkha. The lady of the home, Afsoon with glittering eyes started narrating stories of their home and community. Our existence is temporary and so are our homes, we strongly believe in the idea that the day our settlements become permanent, it will be doomsday. We never wish to settle down in our lives and only accumulate possessions that we can carry with ourselves on our endless move. A nomadic being, with no trace, left as we walk further. We weave our cloth intricate as a matter of pride to pass it as a legacy and don’t sell it, the day we do so we would end up commercializing or relations. Our homes are created over again and this creation is a celebration of our being, there is a masculine part of it; the posts and the frame finely woven by grass mats that make up for its feminine counterpart. Further, as we traversed the landscape pointing the horizon she recalled her childhood days when they would ride over camel backs to the middle of the sea over an island where their tribes on the other side of the border would join and celebrate for seven days as the shallow sea around them would crystallize. Essentially beyond geographies, bounds and away from civilizations as we commonly come across. A balance that defines ‘the beyond’, making life felt and a possibility to immerse in it. This certainly reinforced my belief in living lightly, a path that has become a personal quest to craft a way of life for myself.