melting
 

 Melting

 

I met Motua community out of the interest of a local cultural identity.  They are mostly known as a team of community people invited to play ‘Danka’ to a big ‘puja’ or worship arrangement.  But while talking I found they are Namasudra (Namassej or Namassut). The lowest of the four casts in Orthodox religious practice of Hinduism. So these people have migrated form Bangladesh in 1971 facing huge power threat. Still migrating, but the homeland remains in mind forever. They live at the end of a village, as they are considered lowest in society. They are poor. They are untouchables. They are not even worthy of getting a seat in a public transport.

But I found them as a symbol of life melting in everyday struggle. Taking its shape. Fitting in. Keeping distance and bringing change. They are like symbol of new border in the existing border.

I found them questioning the borders created by class, society, religion and frontiers. Their strength of fight as if tends to melt the boarders by a blow. They are effigy of how man made boarders melt.

Motuas by their existence contradict the borders civilization created for equality.

 

Derives from the Metropolis, Atbari Shib Mondir, Sarsuna, Kolkata
10 June 2016
Mediums: Paraffin, wax, brushes, traditional wok and kerosene stove to melt the mixture, one old blowpipe
Duration: 4 hour
Photo Credit: Shubhnkur Ghosh