20. Back Home

Once again, I was back in my old world. The installation objects took a bit longer to arrive, since they had not been redirected from London. A vase with roses was decorating my table, connecting the two worlds for me. At first, returning made me feel insecure. The mental image that was taken on departure had to be readjusted to reality. But many things were soon familiar, and I was happy to be here again.
    The parcels with further works, which I had posted from Varanasi, lay, somewhat disheveled from their voyage, in my studio. To untie them and exhibit them would be one more homecoming. I was curious to see how they would be perceived in this new environment, and what they would tell of my experiences in India. But this was a step for which I was not ready yet. I was still suspended between two worlds.

My husband Jörg had organised a surprise party to celebrate my birthday and my return. He had somehow made me wait in my studio, and suddenly some 25 friends where present as if out of a dream – people who all had, in the widest sense, something to do with my India visit, but whom I had not expected to see that soon, and together. Anna, who had visited me in Varanasi. Alexandre, who lived for some time in the studio and had recorded my performance on video. Meris, who works with me on the art project for girls, Thomas, with whom I had prepared the exhibition in Delhi, Julian and Basil, my two sons, Jörg, my husband and many others who are close to me. The many birthday wishes, first in Delhi and now here, seemed like a good omen for the coming 50 years.
    Many people in Switzerland and in India have contributed to the wonderful experience I had. Some of our threads, or should I say strings, are still in my hands, and I look forward to tie them together at both ends.

19. Delhi with Deneth

On completion of my exhibition, I had a few days left for sightseeing. To move around in Delhi is not that simple, and the quarrels with Tuktuk drivers to avoid exorbitant fees is a daily ritual. This negotiating is a part of Indian culture, which you cannot escape, a game you simply have to play along. Together with Deneth I visited several of the places she had intended to show me. I was surprised to learn how strongly Delhi is influenced by Islamic culture. In the city's South we visited Qutb Minar, a 70 metre high minaret dating back to 1,200 A.D., and now a world heritage site. It is one of Islam's most outstanding monuments I have ever seen. I was particularly impressed by the intricate language of its engraved ornaments.

Through the Internet, the Gordian knot with the rich owner family of the Varanasi studios caught up with me again. For months I had been trying to convey that they were not honest with us. Before leaving to Delhi with Thomas, I had listed my meals meticulously, day by day, and paid all outstanding to conclude my stay. Now they were claiming that I had not paid for October, attaching a detailed statement. A few days later, an e-mail dementi arrived – I had apparently paid. However, at a closer inspection of the November statements, I realised that the amount listed for purchasing eggs would mean 738 had to be consumed by six artists, who were not even all present throughout the month. When I divided the amount listed for bananas and arrived at 1,800 pieces, I could definitely not take them serious anymore, and I was happy to have left the place –  a place I would not return to. I had to respond, since it is my concern to visit a foreign country in a responsible manner, which also includes financial responsibility. If the prices listed in this statement were to reflect the actual market rates, they would signify instant starvation for millions of people in this country. For me, honesty is an important aspect of cultural exchange; opening ourselves towards another culture requires trust and mutual interest. Had I returned straight from my studio to Switzerland, I had not taken a positive image of India with me. In Delhi however, I had many beautiful encounters that brought India close to me.

On the day before departure, I visited Ramesh at Ekta Parishad. He had been kind enough to help me find accommodation in Delhi. This organisation shows one of the facets of India that capture my interest. Ekta Parishad was founded 30 years ago by human rights activist Rajagopal and fights for land reform in India. In 2007, they organised a march of 25,000 landless farmers from all over India onto Delhi. In the spirit of Gandhi they sat in front of the parliament building and refused to return home until Sonja Gandhi gave them the assurance that they would be given land, and that the necessary laws would be enacted. 60 years after India's independence, they demanded independence for themselves.
    My absorbing conversation with Ramesh sharpened my view of India further. India is not a poor country, but it is a very unjust country. One third of the population, around 400 million, are homeless, slum dwellers, migrant workers, landless farmers. They fight for their daily survival, and one meal per day is what most of them manage to scrape together. To give these people a voice is what Ekta Parishad stands for. India's economic boom is meaningless to them, since it is the third of the population at the other end of the social scale that profit from it. India holds two records today: Among the world's ten richest persons four are Indians, and it is the country in which the highest number of children suffer from malnutrition. In daily life, on the streets, this disparity is evident, even to the tourist. As an artist I cannot change the lives of these countless people. But what I can do is to respond to the situation in my own language and to recognize it as a fact.

I spent the eve of my return with Pierre, a Swiss friend of Thomas. He showed me photographs of his second home in Uttarakhand, a fascinating region at the foot of the Himalayas. He is building, together with others, a school for Pundits, where children can learn the ancient art and wisdom of Vedic chanting and rituals. Although this tradition is a recognised world heritage, it might face extinction due to the declining number of  practicing Pundits. Pierre explained that Alka coincidentally originates from a Pundit family in Uttarakhand, and that her father can chant sections of the Veda. I find this background very fitting for her. With these images in my mind I left for the airport. Around midnight, I sat on a bench outside the airport for a while. Across the street, a few homeless slept in a tight knot, wrapped in blankets. The nights in Delhi had turned quite cold, about 10 degrees.

18. The Exhibition

On arrival in India, more than five months ago, I first spent a few days in Delhi. I visited several exhibition halls and galleries. Thomas had arranged a meeting with Alka Pande, the Visual Arts Gallery curator at the India Habitat Centre. This Centre is a huge building complex with a beautiful court. Countless NGOs and foundations dealing with habitat and improving living conditions have their offices here, including the Foundation for Universal Responsibility of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Several restaurants, a congress centre, an open air amphitheatre, and the three art galleries under Alka are part of this complex. 
    The Experimental Art Gallery, the smallest of the three spaces, seemed to be the most appropriate for the work I wanted to develop here in India - a work that then had its imaginary existance in my mind. I had not taken anything with me, since I had given myself the task to create this new installation on the spot, with local material. While meeting with Alka, whom I experienced as a very straightforward person, we fixed the dates for the exhibition. I planned to implement it in collaboration with Thomas, with whom she had previously done exhibitions. This gave me the opportunity to work towards a goal while in Varanasi. Without this exhibition, my exchange with India would have been lacking an essential aspect.

Now, five months later, Thomas and I found ourselves in Delhi, with bulging bags and suitcases, containing for the most part the Red Strings Through My Hands installation. In Delhi, a city with 12 million inhabitants, or with 20 if you include the suburbs, everything seemed bigger and more modern to me compared to Varanasi. It was like jumping from the middle ages into the present.
    We first ended up at Connaught Place, a multi-layer circus and city centre, in Mr. Chaudhary's guest house. After I had been unduly disturbed by his cat during the night, we moved closer to Pahar Ganj, into a hotel full of antiques, overlooking a lively plaza with its adjoining Hindu Temple and a vegetable market that gave me the impression of being in an Indian village rather than in a metropolis.

Together with Deneth, a Sri Lankan artist and our local coordinator, I put up my exhibition. I was happy to have her support, although I felt sorry for the reason she was in Delhi. She had wanted to fly from Nepal to London in May to visit her sister, who lived there since many years. It would have been her first trip to Europe, and she had been really excited about it.
Her flight happened to coincide with the end of the civil war in Sri Lanka. She was held back by the Indian police and had to spend a few nights in prison. This turned out to be a misunderstanding: She was found not to be a Tamil Tiger on the run, and she had been arriving from Kathmandu. Nevertheless, they had confiscated her passport and she had been struggling with the legendary Indian bureaucracy to get it back since then.

At the exhibition opening, the Swiss Ambassador unexpectedly welcomed the invitees. He was supposed to be in Bhutan, but his trip had been postponed due to a heavy storm there. And Alka Pande had shortened her trip to Europe, so she was able to address the visitors as well: «I would like to express my gratitude to Nesa, who's acquaintance I made five months ago, to Florence, who accompanied the exhibition from the Swiss Embassy's side, and to Thomas, who brought us all together. In this room, which we named Experimental Art Gallery, we intended from the start to show works that visualise the artistic process. Nesa is one of the rare artists who opens this process to the viewers. Yesterday, she arrived with her bags, in which she had rolled up her textile installation, and it is fascinating for me to see how she has transformed this space with them. As a metaphor, she uses the sari, the standard dress of Indian women, and in her video the process of creating the long strings through tearing, knotting and combining the saris is made visible. Garlands, malas, have a central function in Indian culture. However, she places them in a new context, in which she includes her own experience with the Indian culture in Varanasi, where she visited places that are of great importance for us Indians, such as the Manikarnika Ghat. What Nesa did, was to bring back to us these places in her own language and with her own personal perspective. Bringing together completely different cultures is what is happening on a global level. Her access to our culture is further visible in her drawings and in the small dress, the object on the floor. I had a fascinating conversation with her about this work, which she has developed like an anthropologist. For us, this exhibition is a step on a long journey of exchanges between Switzerland and India. It is not just about chocolate and watches, it is about art, and art is finally an exchange through the heart.»
    For me, this was a beautiful opening reception, with many good conversations, and including Swiss chocolates.

The following day was my 50th birthday, and during the morning a group of young women from the College of Arts visited the installation. They showed strong interested in this work unusual to them. After two hours of exchange, one of them wrote in the red booklet, which I had kept near the entrance for feedback: «Your work for me is very inspiring. But I think we have language problems. You don’t know Hindi and I don’t know much English. But I like your work and I like you.» This was a wonderful birthday gift for me. I will include the red booklet in next year's exhibition in Switzerland, in order to tie the two cultures together on this level as well.
    Alka had organised a birthday party for me at her home, with a sumptuous lunch buffet in her garden, with birthday cake and candles and Happy Birthday. For me, she radiates the quality of an archetypal mother figure that is common to all cultures. And with this quality, she also leads her galleries, comprising her work and team as an extended family. I consider it a privilege to be able to work with women like her. Behind her stand women like Krishna and Suprabha, who deal with the many details, which are so important in the end.
    The Swiss Ambassador, Mr. Welti, invited Thomas and me to his residence in the Embassy. We drank a glass of wine in the amazing park and listened to its inhabitants. Every evening, hundreds of birds sing and twitter on the trees, until they fall silent almost simultaneously. He told us that every now and then, he receives a visit from the peacock who lives in this garden. I like this image: The ambassador, visited by an ambassador of animals, parading silently in his office to mark the presence of animals and nature in this country. As artists we have to fight for our place in a similar manner. However, as Mr. Welti explains, he is usually absorbed in economic issues, since India is a huge market for Swiss enterprises. Even though it is just a third of the Indian population that participates in this market, it comprises 400 million people. Opening an art exhibition is hence an exception in his daily work, but nevertheless we appreciated his participation.

During the following days, the exhibition remained well visited, and during my hours of presence I had many interesting conversations. The writer Kuldeep Singh, after having spent a long time in the exhibition hall, left a note in my red booklet: «Red strings through my hands is a beautiful observation and perception, that allows the viewer a deep insight into the past, present and future of the Indian world. To be a human in this world means to be the world, and life is what we, in a permanent boundless movement, make of it. In its eternal depth, life unfolds in all four directions and can be challenged from any angle. In his self expression, a human being is eventually invincible.»
    Kush, a young woman who visited the exhibition several times, translated it for me. Deneth added an echo to the Hindi statement in her native Singhalese, coming yet from another world: «You are demonstrating at a very deep level the differing lives of women in India. When I first saw your long red strings, they reminded me of Rapunzel's fairy tale. Indian women to me often appear imprisoned, and they remind me of this story.»

Imprisoned and expelled was how Sunitha appeared to me, a woman I was supposed to meet in Delhi on behalf of our common Swiss friend Maya. After marrying against her parent's will, she and her husband had fled to Switzerland, where they were not accepted as refugees. Back in Delhi, they moved in with his family and had two children. She and her children were often beaten by him. She had left him a few weeks earlier, and her own parents had refused to take her back. All these years since her Swiss trip, she had kept in touch with Maya, who had asked me to hand over some money to her for a new start, so she would not have to live on the streets. I called her and asked her to visit the Habitat Centre during the weekend. When she arrived with her two children, she made a very closed-up and insecure impression on me. I felt that as a single mother, she would need further support. The violence, to which she had been exposed during the past years, had left its traces on her. She had been locked up in her husband's family home. She hardly knew this city in which she grew up and lives in, and whenever she had some money, she was being cheated, as she explained to me. I urged her to contact an NGO who takes care of abandoned women. Together with other women she would have to learn to survive. Money alone would not really transform her condition. As a single mother, she would have to fight hard. In this society, it is still the family that carries the responsibility for all its members, and to be an outcast in India, even in Delhi, means complete isolation.

In my red booklet, I found another comment by a visitor: «It is good to see a different medium and people reacting on the Indian women. We need to be recognised and helped.» A work of art can open a world, can bring something hidden into the open. I was happy to see that Indian women understood my language

18. Divided Realities

At the Assi Ghat, I met Aarti once more, and Beat, a Swiss who lives here and speaks fluent Hindi. Since he was with her, I requested him to put forward my questions to Aarti. She explained that she had guided me around during Thulsi Puja to show her world, since she had felt a spiritual connection between us. She did not talk about herself nor mention her story in his presence. I joined her to Thulsi Ghat. She kept talking to me for a long time and the longer she spoke the more I could sense her vulnerability. Having seen all these men hanging around the Ghats in the dark myself, she seemed so exposed as a woman in her niche, and I could sense the source of her hurt.
    She had adopted a dog with three puppies and had prepared a corner for them with worn-out clothes. At her bedside she kept an iron pole now. At night, her only protection were the two saris covering the entrance. She offered Chai, boiled with Ganges water, but I had to decline.
    I had been sick for a week, and my stomach was still cramped, a hard knot. There are many ways to ruin the stomach in Varanasi. The time and manner spent in the upper-class world of my studio environment, in which I felt imprisoned and controlled, had given me a stomach ache, too. My hosts seemed to live in two contradicting worlds. They presented themselves as art sponsors on the one hand, and on the other they punished with contempt those who belong to the wrong circles. Manoth, the gardener, had been fired in the meantime. He had complained as they had cut his salary, and he had to leave instantly.
    The situation among us six artists who share the place as temporary guests was not easy either. We are thrown together out of very different contexts, and there is little that binds us together. As we sat one day on our maroon plastic chairs around the Formica table in our brown-beige dining room, being served with lunch by our cook Chinta, our conversation revolving around sicknesses, it all seemed absurd to me. I suddenly felt old and sick. Sharing my life with strangers who have nothing in common. The absurdity was enhanced by the fact that we, six adults aged 18 to 50, are all healthy and well looked after by servants. For them, this was not an issue. They considered it  convenient and they did not waste any thoughts on it. It struck me that we had travelled from Europe to a distant country but were kept away from the real India. This place had nothing to do with India, it could have been anywhere in the world.
    I believe the most important residency experience in a foreign culture is to relate one's life and art to the lives and ways of living and art of the locals, to engage in dialogue. Wherever I could build relationships I was able to contribute as an artist: at the school in Sarnath, through my friendship with Aarti and others, and in developing my Delhi installation. These are the most exciting aspect of my study visit. These are the experiences from which I can further develop my work as an artist. To capture these precious experiences, I had crocheted a small bundle of hair – my own hair that I had lost and collected during my stay in India. The outcome was a fist-sized bristly object, a personal saving device.

Suresh, an artist and teacher  in Varanasi, invited me to give a lecture on my art at the Benares Hindu University. Participation was overwhelming! I showed the students a selection of artworks and projects from the past 25 years, and spoke about my path as an artist. On conclusion, a student asked me what the essence, the main message of my work is. This type of question tends to take me by surprise, but nevertheless I came up with an answer: The fragility of human existence is at the core of my work.
    Three weeks later, the master students of the sculpture faculty invited me as guest of honour to their exhibition. The majority of their works were attempts with unusual materials, and to some extent with artefacts. For most of them, this show was their first installation, and I encouraged them to continue their research, to take further levels with practical experience. Their gift to me was a garland of flowers, a mala. I kept it safe and will integrate it with all other malas in my installation.

Thomas, who meanwhile had become an important companion in my project, had defined my encounter with my hosts as «Gordian knot», in reference to my knotted sari strings. This term (in German «unlösbarer Knoten») inspired me to come up with a final artwork in the Varanasi studio – a series of drawings. They are actually Red String sketches, a contemplative preparation for the Delhi installation. Drawing is my way of thinking with the hands. In this sequel I entangle three red lines of three shades. Each of the resulting knots has its unique form. But none can be untied.

I will however cut this Gordian knot, will leave and return to a different reality, to Switzerland. I will be able to leave behind to some extent the social divide that upset me throughout my stay. For the majority at the lower end of this hierarchy, the knot seems tight, and I am not sure how they can open or cut it, nor how they can shape their own destiny. So many seemed lost to me. For many, life here is very harsh, and many lives are worth nothing.
    As I drove home one evening in a Rickshaw, I heard a window shatter, and a body came flying out, landing on the pavement. This was an spindly looking kid of maybe 14 years in dirty shorts. From the inside, a shop, eight well dressed and well fed men came rushing out and thrashed the boy with feet and sticks. They were so brutal I feared the undernourished lad would not survive the beating. He had apparently thrown a stone into a windshield. That moment I became aware of my powerlessness. What could I have done to stop it? I did not have an answer.

Although I had often felt alone, I had never lost touch with my work. I had started this trip and this project Red Strings Through My Hands with a quote by Volker Adolphs, a quote that stressed the fact that participating in another world, and experiencing your own limits, was only through the body. Varanasi reminded me of my limits every day. Hence, another quote from his Going-Staying to conclude this stay seemed appropriate.
    «Philosophy has always been occupied with death and not with birth. Both are blind spots on the border to non-being, of not yet and no longer. But birth, the reason I am here, is in the indeterminable past; death is the future towards which I consciously move, inevitably and yet free. If death sets down each single and personal boundary line beyond which I must remain or override, then life can only be the movement that strives towards that boundary. To say in life that now I go or now I stay still makes sense; in this way we adapt our life, give it direction and order.»
     Soon I will take off to Delhi, together with Thomas. I have packed the Red Strings, they are ready and waiting to be disentangled for the exhibition there, to be installed in a space, to create a story in combination with the video. A story of women, of Varanasi, of connecting, and simply of being.

17. Thulsi

I like to spend the evenings at the Assi Ghat. It is a beautiful place. Beneath the large tree sit the old men, on the stairs the youngsters. The children of the ferrymen try to sell candle lights - small banana leaf cups with small candles, decorated with tagetes blossoms. They keep asking me every time if I would please buy one, and I keep explaining that I would only buy one if I feel that wish, and that I would not wish for one every time. Aarti spots me and walks up to me. She seems happy. Her wounds have healed well, and she gestures with her arm that she feels strong.
    Tomorrow the Assi ghat, and in particular the Thulsi Ghat, would be hosting a festival. Tulsi means basil, and so it is a festival in honour of the holy basil herb. My son's name is Basil. Was it a coincidence, that I had chosen Thulsi Ghat to be my favourite spot in Varanasi? Or did the name sound familiar, awaiting revelation of its true meaning?
    At her shelter entrance, Aarti had built, together with others, a life-size reclining sculpture for the festival, which she was determined to show me this evening. The festival would start early next morning, before sunrise.

As I arrive towards 6 a.m., women have already filled the stairs. They sit in groups, and in their midst they have spread all the items they brought: copper pots with water, malas, bananas, coconuts, red powder, clay and tulsi – basil. Some of the groups knead miniature figurines from the clay and place them in the centre. Others sing mantras and move lights in tiny clay pots in circular gestures - aartis. This is how these devotional lights are called, and this is where Aarti has her name from.

Aarti approaches me on Thulsi Ghat, full of enthusiasm. We first visit her sculpture, which is already covered with malas, flowers, fruits and small lamps. Women touch it and circle it in an endless procession.

Aarti guides me up the stairs to the building's terrace, to the entrance niche of her abode, and shows me the breathtaking view over the Ganges with the rising sun. She indicated that I should take a picture, as always when something seems significant to her.

In a corner of the terrace, someone has dumped wet clothes on one of the small shrines. She removes them, grumbling, and asks me to photograph the shrine as well. I take a picture of her as she approaches the shrine god, and as one of the owners of the wet clothes approaches her.

Through a narrow lane at the top of the Ghat it is possible to enter the building, right above her shelter. An empty corridor leads around a cube at the centre. This room opens towards all sides and contains statues covered with malas and colours. Everywhere people pay attention to these statues and shower them with blessings.

In spite of the fact that they are innumerable in this city, my impression is that they are better off than many humans. To understand this, I probably lack the proper piety.
    Towards the Ganges, a wide corridor opens, covered with a maze wall – an amazing room that allows a view to the outside world as if in a transformed perception. Seen from this perspective, the river radiates a tranquil holiness, illuminated by the morning sun, loosing its factual status as a sewer.

We leave the temple, and just across the stairs she points to a shrine and urges me to take a picture. At the next temple, she rings the bell. I remove my shoes and both of us step over the threshold. We are circling the inner building, when suddenly a Sadhu, who seems to be in charge, rudely tries to make it clear that I am not allowed inside. Aarti comes to my defence, and we complete our round. The main feature of this temple is its pond. Three stairs of about thirty steps lead down to the water. Actually, the stairs are fenced, the gates are closed. For Aarti, this is an important place in her neighbourhood, so she knows which gate to open, and how. She leads me down the stairs to the water. She takes a sip, and she sprinkles my head with it. For me, this walk is one more encounter with Aarti, this slim, short woman who opens up her world to me.

She then guides me to a busy road, parallel to the Ghats, where we drink Chai. Adjoining the tea shop is an ashram. Its numerous inhabitants are Sadhu who make their short daily pilgrimage down to the Ganges in their orange robes.

Sadhus are sitting on the floor. Most are elderly, often rough guys, who have found a home here and will probably stay for the rest of their lives. Aarti wants to introduce me to her Babaji. She leads me to an elevated area, where thirty men sit on chairs. This causes a wave of protest, which irritates me and makes me want to leave, but Aarti insists I should follow her. However, the men signal in a policeman, who appears within seconds and makes it quite clear to me that I should leave. This is an obvious hint to Aarti as well, and she gives in, without having greeted her Babaji.
    Out again, she walks into another Sadhu in front of another tea shop, with whom she shares her sad Thulsi story for half an hour. She shows me the hospital across the road, where she was treated after the incident. In her narration I can feel her hurt, her anger.

In the ashram's court, about hundred On the way back we buy a bag of apples and she guides me to the next temple. To enter, we have to force ourselves through a low opening, and we suddenly emerge into a perfectly silent court, where another one of her Babajis sits. We sit down at a distance. Young men are polishing metal tools. This Babaji makes a friendly impression. Aarti speaks to him for a while, knees in front of him and touches his feet.

I wait at a distance. She is a strong woman, mastering her life with close to nothing, and then she kneels on the floor to touch someone's feet. Would I have to be a devotee myself to grasp the significance? Aarti visits all her Babajis regularly, touches their feet, and in return she is accepted in a community that gives her safety as a Sadhu.
We visit yet another court with a huge Bodhi tree and a small shrine. However, the guardian of this place detests my presence and grabs my arm with a threatening gesture. We rush out.
    Back at Thulsi Ghat, the procession around the clay statue continues, the crowd is still large. An old woman sits in front of Aarti's home – she has obviously been waiting for her.
    Aarti has taken the whole morning to show me her world, a world I grasp with difficulty, a world she lives in with difficulty.

For my installation, which I had been imagining for a while, I had chosen Thulsi Ghat without knowing its secrets. Unfortunately, I could not continue my work on the video recordings, since my hard disk had crashed due to constant power failures, but this is another story. Once I return to Switzerland, I intend to work on them in my studio. They will be a window to Thulsi Ghat. I take a decision to record Aarti on video, as an answer to the recordings of my performance. We do not speak the same language, and we do not lead the same life, but a bond has grown between us for which I find no words.

16. Alexandre

We met in late June in Delhi and took the flight to Varanasi together, a few days later. Alexandre is a writer and journalist from Neuchâtel (a city in the French speaking region of Switzerland). He was among the artists who received a scholarship for a period of time at the Varanasi studios. His stay would be shorter than mine, since he shared his scholarship with colleagues. As we jointly discovered this world, new to both of us, I had the opportunity to see the city though a different pair of eyes, through his poetic ways of facing reality.
    Alexandre assisted me with video recordings of my performances in town. While «on the set», he was facing difficulties, since recording requires full concentration and he could not answer the many questions of the curious passers, gesturing to them his inability to enter distracting conversations. For days following the recording, many of the young men who linger around Thulsi and Assi Ghat and were hence caught on tape, kept asking us what the recordings were all about, and what kind of movie we were going to produce.
    On his experience with our joint work, Alexandre wrote a very poetic note in French.

tulsi ghât

assise les cheveux laissés au hasard du vent
elle griffonne
mécaniquement
du tissu

on commence par elle
nesa gschwend artiste rebelle d'Helvétie
on l'entend déjà protester
elle ne veut pas être l'image
elle aimerait que le passage
le mouvement du bord
de gange
crée
le rire
l'inquiétude

on reste là en inventant des signes
un paquet de gémissements sur tissu
ensuite eux les habitants, les légitimes du ghât
font ce qu'ils savent faire
déambuler
“attendre/oublier” écrivait Maurice Blanchot
peut-être que cela
peut-être déjà cela
artisane guerrière
ou juste fantôme illusion
à nous spectateurs de choisir
certains en la voyant songeront
à une méduse
à un albatros
à un chien errant

artiste, voyageur, curieux d'Inde
on se frotte les yeux
de délectation et d'incompréhension
face à tant de dieux
et de bouteilles en plastique remplies
pour garder une goutte de Gange sur les genoux

à varanasi humblement
le regard fixe
un brin mélancolique
nesa laisse les autres la contempler
sans la comprendre
on peut penser qu'elle érige
une frontière de plus entre les peuples
mais elle se rend simplement sur un lieu pour être avec
tout en restant seule
renvoyant l'humain à sa pauvre condition
qu'il soit
ethnologue ou mendiant
alexandre caldara


tulsi ghât (English adaptation)

sitting, her hair a toy to the wind
mechanically
scribbling
on a cloth

let's start with her
nesa gschwend, rebellious Swiss artist
one can hear her protest already
she does not want to be the image
she would love the current
the flow along the banks
of the ganges
creating
the smile
restlessness

she rests, inventing signs
a parcel of complains on cloth
then they, the locals, those owning the ghât
do what they know to do
hang around
«waiting/forgetting», wrote Maurice Blanchot
maybe just that
maybe that already
artist-warrior
or simply a phantom, an illusion
for us onlookers to decide
some, seeing her, consider her 
a jellyfish
an albatross
a stray dog

artist, traveller, curious of India
we rub our eyes
with delight and incomprehension
facing so many gods
and filled plastic bottles
to keep a drop of Ganges on the knees

in varanasi, humbly
staring
a touch of melancholy
nesa lets the others contemplate her
not understanding her
we may think she puts up
one more border between peoples
but she simply puts herself in a place to be with them
while staying alone
confronting man with his bleak condition
be he
ethnologist or beggar

alexandre caldara

12. Aarti

For the installation, in which I intended to define my own body as a location, as my place in the world, I had developed a concept, imagining that I would realise my work in one of the Ghats as a video and as a textile object. Shortly after my arrival in Varanasi, I headed to the Assi Ghat and from there walked along the river to find an appropriate place for this work. Each of the eighty Ghats has a different aura, and from the first visit onwards I felt particularly attracted by the Thulsi Ghat. A pair of stairs lead down to the water, and one leads upward to a building that stretches along its full length. Between the two stairs are three tiny shrines, containing statues of gods. The shrines open towards the river, and seen from the walkway above, they look like simple sockets.

I sat on top of the middle shrine, facing away from the river, and looked straight into the entrance of the building behind it. To the left and right of the entrance, a woman had installed herself in two small niches. In one of them she had set up a kitchen, made up of several clay pots, a pan, a plate and two tin cups. To make fire, she collected wood at the river bank, and she took water from there in a bowl. In the other niche, she had set up a sleeping corner with saris and old clothes. She hung her saris for drying over the Thulsi Ghat name board, with the others she shielded her entrance from looks.

On the same Ghat lives a man as well, not her husband. She is a Sadhu, alone on her spiritual journey. He was usually sitting down near the river, together with a group of men who often argued in loud voices and started a fight every now and then.

Not far from this entrance I intended to set up my camera for my video work. I sat there for long periods and observed the coming and going of people and animals, and the river beneath them, and that is how I came into contact with her. Aarti is a beautiful woman of about 40 years. She does not speak English, hence our communication was via gestures and by being together.

 

A few days later I returned to Thulsi Ghat with Alessandre, who helped me record the video performance. During this performance, I noted with red pens on a white object whatever occurred during that time at that place. I wrote directly on my body as well, and due to its softness the writings turned into a jumble of lines and letters. The object covered the ground around me, so I found myself in my own small space; later, I would installe it as a walk-in space. I sat for about three hours in forty degrees Celsius, observing all the events and noting them on my body. Meanwhile, Aarti sat in front of her shelter and followed the performance in its full length.
    A few days later, when I was sitting at the exact same location, she came down and sat next to me. We looked into each other's eyes while she fanned the air for both our faces. I continued visiting her with gifts of apples or mangoes, sitting with her on the stairs in front of her modest home. Once she came out with a cloth bundle, which she had kept near her bed, opened it and showed me her two books. One was full of colourful images of Hindu gods and goddesses, and she explained the Hindi text, and sang some of it to me.

When I visited her a few days later, no saris were hanging in front of her entrance. The kitchen was in a mess. The bed had been burnt and small liquor bottles were lying everywhere. I sat for a while and tried to imagine what happened, and then left.

A few Ghats further down she walked into me, I had not recognized her immediately. She was thin and had cut her hair very short. We sat down together on one of the stairs, and she showed me the treasures she had with her: a flower garland, a bit of flour, rice, half a coconut, which she wanted to give to me. I took a small piece and returned it. Then she showed me her injuries - she had burns on her legs and abrasions. From her gestures I could conclude that the man living on Thulsi Ghat had been drunk and had become aggressive, trying to burn her in her bed. She had been able to flee, went to a hospital and then to an ashram. She made a very weak impression. I gave her some money and she turned towards Thulsi Ghat. She wanted to return to her shelter, move back into her niche and continue her life as a Sadhu.
    I was relieved to have met her alive, but shocked about the events. Stories of saris catching fire, declared as home accidents, are read and heard here every day. But this was not a note in a newspaper, it was not a second hand story. It happened to a real woman, to Aarti.

Two days later I returned to Thulsi Ghat. Colourful saris hung in front of her entrance. Aarti proudly demonstrated her cooking to me, her store, her clothes and her sleeping corner. For an hour or so she rambled on in Hindi - about herself, about her life, about crossing the river. Then she picked a small booklet and sang some of the texts to me. Important for her was to stress the fact that she is a Sadhu, that she wants to be alone, and she emphasised it with a gesture towards the inside. She did not seem angry, but sad, fragile.

14. Manikarnika Ghat

The flower garlands are an important artefact for the decoration of the dead. At Manikarnika Ghat, consecutively, hundreds of malas are lying at the banks of the Ganges. They are a major source of food for the goats and cows living on this Ghat. Manikarnika means «the jewel that fell from the ear». A beautiful metaphor: When life comes to an end, a small stone falls out of the ear. Is it the inner voice that is silenced and hence petrifies? The Ghat's name my have a gentle sound to it, but the place is rough. This is probably Varanasi's most famous spot, known way beyond the city. Each day some fifty bodies are burnt on its pyres. To grasp the significance of this location I had to re-visit it a number of times.


foto rote Zeichnung 3


Everywhere men are present, death seems to be male around here, women are excluded. Their participation would make the proceedings too emotional, and that would create more karma, an impediment for the dead. This was one of the answers I had heard. On a first visit, arriving unsuspectingly, one is soon beleaguered by «tourist guides» who want to take you to a place where sick, poor people are apparently housed, for whom pyre wood must be bought in advance to make sure they get a proper funeral, to avoid their body being simply dumped in the river. This story and the place are obviously invented, and the donations demanded are outrageous. Once one shakes them off, one can sit on the stairs and observe the activities on the Ghat below.
There are porters – short, dark, and usually very thin men who carry the wood, heavy pieces of about one meter each. Some are so thick they seem as heavy as the porters themselves. Burdened with the heavy loads, they appear even shorter. I have never heard any of them speak. Silently they unload the boats, pile up the wood, keep it ready for weighing.
Another group prepares the pyres, each pile about one metre high, for the corpses. At the bottom, an opening is left to lit the fire. These are the fire guardians. They are taller, rougher, and most of them have rugged faces with teeth blackened from chewing betel. Their clothes are dirty and their interactions are tough, among themselves and with others. They virtually grab the dead from each other, argue at the top of their voices and easily get into fights. It is a hard job, and everywhere smoke, waste and stench. They kindle the fires with long bamboo sticks, make sure the bodies burn well. After three hours, they pick out the women's charred hip bone or men's sternum bone, and pass them to the river. Usually, around a dozen fires are burring simultaneously, and down at the river bank new dead bodies await their turn. Decorated with flowers – the men wrapped in red, the women in gold cloth, all are carried on bamboo stretchers down to the river by groups of pallbearers. The bodies are briefly submerged in the river, then await allocation of a pyre on its banks. Priorities are subject to complex regulations, but I could not decode them.
Not far from where I sit a man gets a shave of his beard and hair. A tiny tuft at the back of the head is left. He is the one who will light the fire, the eldest son of the family, or the husband of the deceased. Groups of men circle the dead, they remove the coloured cloth and lift them onto the pyres. They cover the body with an additional layer of wood, leaving the face free. Some add offerings, others walk five times around the pyre, some wear white clothes, again others start the fire with a bundle of thick grass and wait for it to catch on, then leave or sit away and drink tea.
On this Ghat, I rarely see moments of true farewell. They do exist, these subtle moments, like jewels in a pile of rough stones. An elderly man had placed his wife's body on the pyre, he was alone with her. He had covered her with wood and freed her face from the linen, had placed her hair behind the pile. She looked so peaceful, as if asleep. At some point three women in beautiful saris appeared, stood for a few minutes next to the body, and left. He then lit the fire. Thick smoke billowed up until the fire caught on. It took long to reach her head, to destroy the image of the sleeping woman at the river, to merge her body with the burning wood. Three hours later, hot ambers remain and the hip bone. It is thrown into the river, the ambers are put off with holy water and this life has come to an end.
Above the Ghat hundreds of birds are circling, mantras are sung in a small temple behind the terrace, and facing it is a group of men gambling for money. I leave, confused, not knowing what to do with all these impressions. I loose my way in the labyrinth of lanes behind the Ghat and finally emerge in front of the Chowk – the location of my video performance.


fotos atelier malas

13. A Chain of Roses

Flowers, in particular roses, are sensitive to touch and tend to loose their petals easily. I wanted to capture this fragility in a series of drawings. I drew the same simple object, a rose garland, as it changes shape through my touch, and simultaneously looses petals, which I re-integrated into the drawing. Whatever falls off turns into a basis for a new constellation. In my drawings, the rose malas look like cells, but I leave their development undetermined. They are not complete, just suspended in time, caught on a piece of paper. Their transformation could continue at any moment. Red strings through my hands, again.

This first step of reduction to the cell level was a good preparation for my installation and the video work with the strings made of saris, which I would wrap around my neck and body like a giant mala.

12. Flower Garlands

In my studio I tried to maintain my own world. I had prepared well for the stay in India, and had planned to work with simple material, which plays a dominant role in daily life. Apart from the saris, I focussed on flower garlands, which are brought into the city by the thousands every day - thick bundles wrapped in old saris, carried by women on their heads. Once in town, they spread the saris the roadside, lay out the garlands and wait for their customers.

I always try to imagine the enormous work involved in garland making: how the thousands of roses, tagetes, lotus, jasmin and other flowers who's names I don't know, are planted, watered, grown, cut and lined up on strings. These malas, as they are called, are used in every day life in varying contexts.

They decorate gods and godesses, shrines, entrances, dead bodies, they are gifted and hung around human necks in appreciation. I was overjoyed when my student girls in Sarnath presented me with five tagetes blossom malas as a farewell gesture.

These flower garlands embody «vanitas» for me: a fast withering decoration, an obvious symbol of impermanence, worn on our bodies, to which mortality matters most.

11. The Gordian Knot

The encounter with the family who owns these residencies, the palace and much more, was the most difficult part for me. They seem to live in an illusory world, cut off from the reality encompassing them – a reality that burdens this country, and they disrespect whoever is hierarchically below them, which is almost everyone. It seems to be a gifted privilege that they enjoy different rights than most other human beings here.
    No-one else in this country behaved so disrespectfully towards me as they did. I was reprimanded by the landlord himself, in the same way he scolds his employees. They are one of the richest families in town, but in spite of this fact money issues became very difficult between me and them. They tried to take as much advantage as possible without any feeling of guilt.
    When I did not simply accept their bills and asked for a detailed invoices with receipts, the landlord himself shouted at me, stating that he would not even need to talk to the poor person I am. Shortly after this scene, I heard a knock on the back window of my studio: Manoth the gardener handed me a small bunch of flowers.
    The following day I confronted «Sir» again and told him that his statement had deeply offended me, and that in my view he had not just offended me personally, but the 98 percent of the population in this country that are much poorer than him, well over a billion people, with whom he shares this country. I told him that I would not accept the way he treated me. «I am an aristocratic person», was his response. What speaks better for this ignorance? Unlike the silent majority I raise my voice, defend myself. What about the many people who are not speaking up for fear of loosing their existence?
    When he repeated his rude behaviour towards me, I asked for an apology. I could not simply tolerate it. If he could come up with an apology, he might perhaps see that his behaviour towards his employees was unjustified. And the invoice, a routine procedure in comparable contexts, was never presented to me. It is clear to me why. The ignorance of these privileged circles is one of the substantial causes of social imbalance in India. I learnt for myself how painful disregard for human dignity can be.
    To demonstrate my dissociation with my host family, I decided to descend from the rickshaw or tuk-tuk a few steps before the gate, and walk the rest of the way.

10. We No Person

To be in an alien place means new encounters, which are the biggest surprises and challenges. In my artist «residence», my studio, which had been put at my disposal by the Cultural Council of Swiss Cities (KSK) for six months, I came to live with people I had not chosen myself. On the one hand, there is the family owning the residences, on the other hand, their employees who worked for us, cooked, cleaned and organised the place. The family lives in a colonial palace fronted by a meticulours English lawn, adjacent to our row of bungalows. On Sundays, they would usually show themselves on the balcony, dressed in white.
    At the start, I had a hard time accepting that someone cooks and cleans for me and does things, which I have done myself for a lifetime and will continue to do myself. I am not a Madam and I do not wish to be one. Manoth, the gardener, called me Nesa Madam, following which I addressed him as Manoth Sir. He would wind himself out of it saying «I gardener, no Sir», to which I would reply «I artist, no Madam». And he would laugh. During the month of Shiva he walked barefoot back to his village with other young men, carrying holy water from the Ganges for their relatives. He once asked me if I could lend him money, he would return it after the weekend. I handed it to him, and the following Monday he showed up with a fragrant handful of jasmine flowers in front of my door and gave it back.
    By and by I began to understand that he and the other employees were grateful to have their jobs. Even if the salary is meagre in my eyes, they make a living of it, they survive. With our cook Chinta, I tried to converse on a minimal English vocabulary about her life, about women and her two daughters. She is strong, fighting for her family's survival. She is the only bread winner at the moment, making about one hundred Dollars a month. Although her daughters have completed college, of which she is really proud, it seems impossible for a young girl from a lower cast to find a job. For Chinta, the most important is to find a man for her eldest daughter soon. It would be impossible without a substantial dowry. They would all do it this way in their circles, she explained, and no-one would accept a marriage that was not arranged. They would be treated as outcasts by their relatives.
    Then there is Anup, the manager, a sensitive man who had been married off at seventeen. His wife had died a year ago, and he was now looking after his little son and his parents.
     And there is Subas, with his ever dreamy face. He has two children as well, they would be nine, ten years old; he does not know exactly, he cannot read and write, and both had been born in the hut they inhabit. He makes about thirty dollars a month and has to feed his family with that amount, his mother and two kids. Their daily struggle for survival is a reality, and they share it with a majority of the population in this country.

On a human level, they do not count much for the family in the palace. As I returned one evening from Sarnath, I found Manoth in the garden, sitting on the floor, trying to re-arrange some plants. Behind him stood the patron, dressed in white, reprimanding him loudly. Sir left and returned with a shovel, which he threw in front of him, continuing his shouting. I sat myself into the garden with a glass of water. This did not seem to impress him. As he left, I turned to the gardener, who was close to tears, and tried to explain him that no-one may not treat him like a dog.
    It hurt to see the disrespect he faced from his employer, as well as from most others. Those who work here expressed it once quite clearly: «We no person». This was about the shortest summary of the violation of human dignity I could imagine.

9. The Tiny Dress

In my studio I wrote on the tiny dress, which I had brought as a sample. I wrote down the thirty articles of the human rights, for the girls in Sarnath as well as for the girls in Bern. While writing, my thoughts were with them, wishing them a self-determined life, which seemed a distant dream, not a given fact at all.
The result was a small object, on which the sentences wind themselves over the dress like veins in a body. I dipped it into oil, a material that I used in many of the works developed in Varanasi, to associate the object more clearly with the body, with its vulnerability, its nakedness.

8. The Sarnath Girls

I had brought a white children's dress from Switzerland. It was one of the dresses I had sewn for a group of migrant girls, used for an art project that confronted them as personalities and as a group. My plan was to repeat this work, done with girls from mixed cultural backgrounds living in Bern, Switzerland, with a group of Indian girls. I was curious to see if this project would take a different route, if there would be similarities in expression, and the impact of the very different cultural environments in which these two groups of girls grew up. Most of the Indian girls I would work with are farmer kids, growing up in a society which postes special difficulties for girls and women.
    I had brought the white dress as a sample, to have more of them sewn by a tailor in India. The girls would have to wear them to protect their own clothes while painting.

From early August until the end of September I worked with sixty girls at a school in Sarnath, a town outside Varanasi, and we concluded the project with a huge exhibition in the school garden. It was apparently the first ever art exhibition at this school, and the girls were really proud to display their artwork.
    Since I had mentioned in my speech at the opening, in front of the thousand school kids, that these girls had expressed their inner life with their colourful paintings, one of the girls confronted me directly, and asked which of her paintings would show her inner world best. When I pointed out one of them, she contemplated it for a while and said: «Then is my heart very colourful».
    It was a mutually enriching experience. We shared the same human condition: the insecurity to express ourselves as well as the uncertainty of pleasing all others. But there was much more uniting than dividing us. The girls wanted to be taken serious, to be accepted, so they could show their creations with confidence. The trouser, which I was wearin here mostly, is still full of blue colour stains that are not washing off. They remind me of the Sarnath girls. Of Singha, who was never sure of herself and kept asking «Good, aunty, good?», of Priyanka, who worked intensely and presented me a beautiful card she had designed. A landscape with butterflies hanging from tiny strings. Into the landscape she had written: «You taught us very nice things. I will miss you very much. I hope you will must come here soon.» And all the other girls, who again and again looked at me with large eyes, having had a first chance at artistic self expression.

7. A Red Scrap,﷓ Lost and Found

It was later, while watching the video, that I noticed the strict hierarchy of this world of men, and how social and religious affiliation is displayed with clear signs, mainly through the dress codes.
However, perception is always subject to the perspective one takes. A few days later, I returned to the location, intending to photograph my point of view from the Chowk. Someone had left a small red scrap of cloth on the street, and no-one but me seemed to notice it. Motor bikes ran over it, people walked by it, a group of young men stepped on it. The scrap seemed to me to be a leftover from my red saris, a small personal hint.

Standing on the Chowk, observed by all these men around me, a feeling of freedom swelled up inside me. The freedom to be able to stand there, to travel to a foreign land, to encounter the world as an artist, to say «no» to something, to fight for my rights, and all in all, to have a voice. These personal rights are out of reach for countless human beings. Sharing their lives became more and more important for me in Varanasi, and so I started to search for the Human Rights on the Internet, and to read the thirty articles they encompass. One of the most difficult challenges I was facing over and over again, was to distinguish between my lack of cultural understanding on the one hand, and human injustice on the other. Injustices that hurt people are many in this society.