6. The Statue at the Chowk

The collection of these objects was not to be a private affair. I wanted to bring them into the public domain. To this effect, I searched for a place in town. Around the Chowk, all kinds of vehicles move in circles and turn off here and there, day and night, and from this spot huge quantities of goods are carried to the shops, particularly to the tiny ones in the narrow lanes of the city centre, lying right behind.
    Across the street is a police station, from which regular megaphone messages warn of pick-pockets, and from which appear the policemen, sitting around the Golden Temple in dozens, thoroughly examining each of the narrow lanes leading there. Others patrol the streets, threaten rickshaw drivers with their sticks and actually hit them, if these do not move soon enough from forbidden places. Every now and then, the death are carried along this street to the pyre ghat, most of them wrapped in beautiful red and gold cloth, decorated with flowers, carried by groups of young men, followed by more young men who sing mantras. Behind the police station lies the city quarters populated exclusively by Muslims. Small shop after small shop are lined up, mostly selling hardware and household utensils. The street that divides the quarters is used by both Muslims and others. A few flower dealers sit along the plaza corners, and further behind is the auto rickshaw parking lot. Whoever approaches the lot is instantly surrounded by the drivers. Right in the middle of the plaza, around the concrete circle, sit the labourers and wait for work.
    This plaza, more precisely this circus, appeared to me to be the navel of this city, the centre point around which everything revolves.

  It was here then that I positioned myself with my sari object, an alien body. Alien as a white-skinned person, as a woman, with my foreign dress, with a strange object, which I was carrying around my neck like an oversized māla, motionless. I just stood there, was there, nothing more.
Around me was constant motion in many rhythms and tempi. Women, however, did not exist in this public space. Men dominated the scene, sitting around, observing, showing off, dragging goods, driving their vehicles around the circus. They were the ones who reacted to my presence. One of them wanted to hand me a flower, and left in anger when I remained motionless. Others circled the plaza, observed me from various angles; a street kid came and stood next to me, directed by an elderly man to make him part of a picture. A policeman came and threatened him with his stick. A man positioned himself behind me and kept rewrapping his head scarf over and over, yet another one changed his trousers and a group of youngsters sang along with the hit tunes, which blurred across from the police station from time to time.