The Idiolect of the Ghats by Ananya Singh

*RECORDING A JOURNEY

THE IDIOLECT OF THE GHATS* *RECORDING A JOURNEY

ANANYA SINGH ROHIT DASGUPTA

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We extend our gratitude to Dilip Da Cunha, Deepta Sateesh, Arpitha Kodiveri and Vivek Dhareshwar and our peers; but for their participation and prodding our project would have been languishing in our heads. A special thanks to Shambhavi, Sanika and Aditya for graciously allowing us to use their photographs.

CONTENTS SECTION A

Introduction

Preliminary Process

Interpretation

Initial Plots

SECTION B

Manipal

Malpe

St. Marys Island

Manipal

Agumbe

SECTION C

Intermediate Plot

The Idiolect Of The Ghats

SECTION A This section records our project before our visit to the Ghats. Discussed within are the key terms we have used in our project, the inspiration for our project and our expectations of it.

INTRODUCTION R

e-imaging and re-imagining the landscape is no easy task. In order to attempt re-imagining the landscape we had to let go of our preconceived notions about the Western Ghats. This process was slow and laborious because when confronted with unknown or new data we instinctively reached out for what we already knew, therefore we clung to the image of an already imagined world. The imagined world that is in our possession is inherited and is never questioned but accepted as truth. The task of re-imagining the world is to establish new connections between the entities in the world, to discard established connections and to redefine the entities that comprise the world. At the heart of re-imagining the world lies the belief in the existence of multiple worlds.

PRELIMINARY PROCESS T

o aid the process of re-imagination we developed a lens. A lens in terms of our project is a conceptual framework that we would use to interpret the Western Ghats. We commenced the construction of the lens by picking out the phrase “to see a world in a grain of sand” from the poem Auguries of Innocence by William Blake. This phrase was a source of much inspiration, interpretation and motivation for our project. It also produced the two central tenets of our lens, one of which are the twin concepts Kuccha and Pukka. Kuccha and pukka have been traditionally used in context of food and foodstuff. Kuccha is understood in this sense as raw, uncooked, unfinished, undesirable and inferior while pukka along the same lines is understood as cooked, finished, desirable and superior. When the use of these words is extended to the context of architecture, manufacture and so on, they retain the earlier sense. Therefore, a pukka road, made of concrete or pitch and tar, is better than a kuccha road, made of earth, mud or loose stones. Everyday occurrences seen in the light kucchapukka reveals a world that at first glance seems composed of objects. However upon looking closer it is seen that behind these objects are processes that binds them together. Here the objects constitute the pukka and the processes that unite the objects constitute the kuccha. Obviously there is a tendency to see the world as comprised of objects because they are that much more visible and tangible than the processes which tend to act in the background hidden, invisible and often intangible. To test our lens before visiting the Ghats we studied a local dhobi (roughly translating to washer-man).

While ironing the laundry he uses the iron and water from a container. The iron is powered by burning coal. The washed clothes are transformed from their raw, creased state to a pressed and folded state. They are made ready to be used. From this study we understood that the kuccha lies underneath the pukka. It is analogous to the spine in a human body. Thus, these processes produce and support the livelihood of the dhobi. The acts of folding, of putting the coal in the iron, of ironing out the crease constitute are all kuccha. The iron, the water, the ironed laundry –all these are just brief pukka moments. The world seen in these terms appears to be a series of continuous kuccha spines that are interspersed with ephemeral pukka moments. These spines intersect each other. For example; the iron that appears as pukka in the activities of the dhobi is a kuccha spine in its own right when seen elsewhere, like when looking at manufacturing of irons.

of objects that signify something to us; that these are commonly employed in house, these are architectural, that these are functional, and so on. Thus, these objects constitute a language, of sorts, that is used by humanity at large. We are not confused whether the window be made of wood and glass or plastic and metal. What is recognized is the idea of a window. The idiolect then is the unique path traced by an object as it is used. The trajectory is unique because of the terms (kuccha-pukka).

The second tenet of our lens is the idiolect. In a certain way the idiolect is really the evolution of the –kuccha-pukka. It is absurd to imagine objects as being exclusively kuccha or pukka. The iron at the end of the day remains an iron; what is affected is our perception of it. The real change then is not in the object itself but in our terms of perceiving it. Our imagination enables us to conjure a probable past and future of the objects that compose our world; it reveals the scope of purpose, use and motion of everything around us. When we see ruins we guess that in the past it may have been a house, a shop or a mill because of some tell-tale signs. A stove, a chimney, a door, and a window are a collection

INTERPRETATION W

hen we started off with the phrase “to see a world in a grain of sand” we had written it down as “to see the world in a grain of sand”. The difference made by the change in the article made us aware of the plurality of human existence. After our visit to the Western Ghats this understanding refined itself so that we then understood the role of the local in the making of many worlds. The women sieving the sand using the fishing net are partaking of an activity that may conventionally be written off as being an instance of widespread phenomenon. This individual act would be compared to a non-existent homogenous idea of sieving and then discarded in pursuit of more examples of “sieving”. Thus there is the idea of sieving. Our proposition takes the stand that the sieving of sand using a fishing net gives an idea of sieving that is worth studying by itself, because this manner of sieving is absolutely and irrefutably unique. Even if it were the case that in some other part of the Ghats something similar occurs this would still be distinguished from that by virtue of its location, the persons involved and so on. Earlier we have said the idiolect is an evolution of the idea of kuccha-pukka. The former differs from the latter by virtue of the recognition of the local. The local conditions, whatever they may be, alongside the kuccha-pukka is in our view an alternative to the conventional mode of viewing ourselves and our surroundings. The modern scientific method offers a model of viewing the phenomenon observable in the world by articulating laws. Our model is not in opposition to this method per se. Rather it reveals the manner in which the scientific method is internalized by

humanity at large. There is a widespread failure to appreciate that the scientific laws are arrived at a posteriori. These laws are assumed to be a priori. Such a view is a grave threat to the spirit of curiosity. Any enterprise in re-imagination is motivated by curiosity. And should such an enterprise lack curiosity then it is skirting the unknown without really immersing itself in it. The decision-maker is not necessarily in possession of a nuanced understanding of science and its methodology. In general such decisions are bound to come into conflict because of the underlying assumption that there is one way of living. Plurality must be practised actively when making decisions that affect people who live differently.

INITIAL PLOTS

SECTION B This section records our project during our visit to the Western Ghats. Our choice of means of recording the Ghats was the camera. We tried to follow a process where we clicked our subject after every step we took towards it.

MANIPAL

MALPE

ST. MARY’S ISLAND

MANIPAL

AGUMBE

SECTION C This section records our project after our visit to the Western Ghats. At this juncture we departed from our previous model of plotting to arrive at our present mode of representation which is the Idiolect of the Ghats.

INTERMEDIATE PLOT

THE IDIOLECT OF THE GHATS T

he intermediate plot had the effect of a large picture which reveals no details. In order to bring out the nuances of the various actions we had recorded in the Ghats we decided on excising the action out of the photograph by drawing on the images. We then mapped out the same action using four sets of parameters. We looked at the actions at an object-level, at a process-level and at the intersection of the former two levels. For the fourth set we laid out the actions drawn out on the basis of them being kuccha or pukka, thus arriving at the idiolect of the action. See The Idiolect Of The Ghats.

FIN 45

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THE IDIOLECT OF THE GHATS* *RECORDING A JOURNEY

Our imagination enables us to conjure a probable past and future of the objects that compose our world; it reveals the scope of purpose, use and motion of everything around us. When we see ruins we guess that in the past it may have been a house, a shop or a mill because of some telltale signs. A stove, a chimney, a door, and a window are a collection of objects that signify something to us; that these are commonly employed in house, these are architectural, that these are functional, and so on. Thus, these objects constitute a language, of sorts, that is used by humanity at large. We are not confused whether the window be made of wood and glass or plastic and metal. What is recognized is the idea of a window. The idiolect then is the unique path traced by an object as it is used.