keepitsafe

Over the last week I took a trip into town which means a customary visit to my favourite bookstore. Armed with a list of books I would like to read, and a light wallet (thanks to student life) I ended up picking only two books, The High Priestess Never Marries is one of them. I discovered Sharanya Manivannan's with Ammuchi Pucchi a children's book and have wanted to read her writing for adults ever since. At times I think I am best a connoisseur of books, it is the medium I am most one with.  There is much in written text that has the power to generate imagery and emotions for me. It also helps that all this churning is within and has no desire to be seen.   The High Priestess Never Marries is an anthology of stories of love and consequence. If analysed from the Rasa framework as defined by Dr. Ganesh Shatavadhani, the book uses all four elements of creating sublimation. The Rasas are explored and created using poetic prose, and use Vibhaava (the cause), Anubhava ( the ef...

Over the past week I have been immersing in the Rasa theory and the talks on Indian aesthetics by Dr. Ganesh Shatavadhani, Ashok Vajpei and Alka Pande. I was absolutely in awe of Dr. Ganesh Shatavadhani and how he goes on to explain the process of creating beauty in Indian traditions. I also read The Invention of Modern Aesthetics: From Leibniz to Kant, by Lars Olof Ahlberg , where the concepts of western Aesthetics are discussed at length. Baumgarten, the Father of Aesthetics gives his definition of aesthetics as, “The science of perception, whose objects are things perceived and which are to be known by the inferior faculty”. Aesthetics is thus concerned with a from of knowledge, albeit of an inferior kind compared to rational (logical) knowledge. However, after hearing Dr. Ganesh Shatavadhai and Ashok Vajpei I felt that the concept of aesthetics, or literary devices as described by Western connoisseurs are rather flat and uni directional in comparison.  In the Indian framework, ...

On Independence Day I watched the most delightful play I have seen in a long-long time, Tssuinn Tapak  (pronounced Su-eee tup-ak) at @Rangashankara.  My thoughts are analysed through the Rasa framework which I have written about in my previous blog. My focus  continues  to be around how a story builds a relationship with the audience, the idea of Sahridhaya / The  Aah !   is core to this  understanding.  My readings on ' Visualisation and Cognition - Drawing Things Together'   by Bruno Latour and  ' Nonsense as a Fine Art'  have also helped me with defining  my  cognitive experiences.  As Latour says, "The most powerful explanations, that is those that generate the most out of the least, are the ones that take writing and imaging craftsmanship into account. They are both material and mundane, since they are so practical and modest, so pervasive, so close to the hands and t...

My choice of props from the Petti - 2 main Characters - the farmer and his 8 daughters, Scenario props trees/woods, the blue box and the women as Symbolism props for a treasure chest and the Earth Goddess.  Watch / hear my rendering here :    Rendering an act of cognition.  Observations -  As I was rendering the story a few things happened which I was acutely aware of -  I told a folktale and based on prior experience I ‘knew’ that a folktale could have elements of myth like talking animals, goddesses etc. This knowing was embodied and my choice of props was directed by this knowing. I didn’t take too long to choose my props either.  After I chose my props my mind was making connections between the props even as I narrating the story. The act of building these connections was a thinking process occurring ‘under' the main thoughts. I was able to do both - render a story and plan my next move.  I was taking visual cues from my props and building dep...

Before I read the English  translation  of  Sugandi Alias Andal Devanayaki,  a  Malayalam  novel over this week, I came upon a very interesting article by Amrutha Patil in which she talks about the true idea of art and maintains that good art should create the Aah! in its audience. The  Aah!  here is the sign of a  heart  that has been moved. She goes on  to  say that the Indian tradition has believed that  transmitting of Rasa's is the highest endeavour of any creative encounter. The Rasa Theory which has its origins in 500 BC identifies 9 primary Rasa's that maybe experienced.  The Aah!   completely tied into the   frame of 'Sahridhaya' that I was interested in exploring. The Aah! is all about transferring and building a relationship!  I then went on to hand-make a template to access my Raskia experiences through the Rasa and Aah! framework to see what moved within me. Read on! Click on the image t...

കഥ പെട്ടി   Kathha PETTI - Chest Of Stories Idea  A box of curiosities to render stories nomadically.  Design of  the activity  To start off the storytelling a dice will be rolled twice. The first throw will determine the number of characters of the story. The second throw will decide on the limitations/situations to be incorporated in the story.  Based on these numbers an assortment of props will be picked out from the Kathha Petti for the narration to begin.   The curiosities in the box are chosen based of 3 categories:   1. Characters - figurines of animals / people for protagonists.  2. Imagery - situational and environmental elements of the story. 3. Symbolism - metaphorical objects to create ironic twists.  Dice and a set of instruction cards.   Rendering Practice  Through this activity I intend to curate my own cognitive practices, and examine how imaginative connections are made through the physical curiosities of th...

my immediate reactions to the viewing. 

Areas and interest that emerged at the end of three days. Areas of inquiry that has emerged after Target mapping broad ideas -  Upon plotting these ideas using a target map the core of my inquiry will explore.  Retelling - How are the Rasas explored and awakened through telling?  Relationship - How is the reader moved into a relationship with the story?  Sahridaya - How/When do the teller and listener build a relationship of one heart? What are the aesthetics of this space?  With these facets as the core, the lens of inquiry would also be on the devices, metaphors and ordering of the story that allows for a full formed emotional response to build.  Through the end of my practice of being a connoisseur and story teller I would like to see how this map moves around or gets rebuilt.  My explorations in  the  space of stories will be from movies, books, theatre, music videos,  and  museums. 

Day 1 How did I pick a story? Did I Know Or Think? The 20 books that I picked were a mix of fiction, non fiction, some were text books ‘masquerading’ as picture books. I gravitated toward my selection books naturally and did not make a huge effort to choose. It was the titles that first spoke to me. But I wonder now if I was placing a certain expectation from them based on this (Thinking?). Did I sort of know what to expect from each of the books?  Was my selection based on a certain expectation based on prior knowledge of what something should mean when it looks a certain way? How had expectation become embodied in this form?  However, when I began reading the book there were 2 books which completely surprised me. Anno’s Mysterious Multiplying Jar, I had imagined was a historical tale, but it turned out to be a story of factorials! Mukund and Riaz was the other, the story started out as a simple tale of friendship, but turned out to be about the partition of India.  Wha...