On a Dark-Dark Night, I Could Almost Hear Her
By Jatin Gulati
(Excerpt)
Walking the city at the dark hour, one could hear the wails of the dogs as if the city awaits its disheartened passerby.
The pumps which run the city now propagates its tranquillity. Vehicles
which carry the journeys of the people, now sleep in every nook and corner like fallen crows.
Wild grass finds the way through the cracks to offer its warmth to the cold-blue sky. ‘On a dark-dark night, I could almost hear her (2019-ongoing)’ is a chimerical conversation between the city and the dweller.
Referring to the Oil Blockade crisis that happened in the landlocked country Nepal in 2015, the work transcends to a time of ‘stillness’ which is seen as a microscopic image of the coexistence of personal and the political.
Exploring the overlap of relationship, conflict and freedom with the subtext of the incident of the past, it allows speculative thoughts — whispered between the ‘two’ — to intervene the narrative.
On a dark-dark night, I could almost hear her,
Humming a song of the crisis.
I kept writing her,
And she kept enunciating.
Jatin is a visual artist and writer who graduated from the Pathshala South Asian Media Institute, with a background in architecture. His work often explores the overlap of history, lived experiences and speculations unveiling non-place territories. He was selected as one of the ‘top 12 graduates to watch’ in 2020 by Phmuseum. In 2020, he has also been awarded with the Toto Funds the Arts, Tasveer Emerging Photographer of the year.
He is currently living and working in Delhi, India.
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