Inheritance at Play

Amol’s grandfather,Gunaji Patil,was a povada singer,who travelled across villages in Maharashtra narrating stories and ballads. But sustenance became difficult. “He left Lanja,our native place,and migrated to Bombay to work as a BMC worker,” recalls the 26-year-old artist. “He stayed near Crawford Market in a place that had 32,10 x10 rooms on a single floor. The rooms housed people from small villages — poetry singers and folk musicians — who had,like him,moved to Bombay,” he says. Within this new community,away from home,Gunaji found solace in poetry and music. As a reaction to this,Amol is showing a video at the exhibition,where he makes a jacket of adhesive and mehendi — a process that took him three days. “If there was even a small reason to celebrate in one house,the whole bunch would gather. They were all they had and always stuck together. The mehendi and Fevicol is a symbol of this togetherness,” he says.

Another piece is a tribute to his father’s work in theatre. During his work with the BMC,he started writing plays about the workers for cultural programmes. His plays explored the grief about migration and a longing for home. “Though my father wrote a lot of plays,I never got a chance to see even one of them,” says Amol,“So I decided to stage a performance of those plays.” Amol studied photos of his father’s old plays,imitated his poses and then drew those sketches on a black cloth that he used to make faux wings of a theatrical stage. A film shows the action on stage,where Amol has recreated scenes playing inanimate characters such as a table fan,a newspaper,a periodically ticking grandfather clock,and flapping doors. All this with the wings bearing ghosts of all his father’s characters.

To every piece in the exhibition,Amol attaches a memory. For instance: under a soft yellow light,Amol exhibits a patch of land which upon closer inspection appears to vibrate lightly. “In my village,there is an annual competition held between a father and a son. They both play the tasha,a terracotta drum with goat skin stretched over it,with a Rs 100 note on it. Whoever moves the note towards him with the vibration,gets the money. This is my representation of that memory,” he says.

Amol regrets that he could not show his work to his grandfather,who passed away a year ago,and his father. “Although it is just my work,it is not a one-sided conversation. There are multiple conversations happening,between my grandfather,my father and myself. This exhibition is my way of carrying forward their work in my own style.”

amruta.lakhe@expressindia.com