Description:
This work arises from Sahir Ludhianvi’s iconic poem Yeh Duniya Agar Mil Bhi Jaye Toh Kya Hai, a searing meditation on desire, disillusionment, and the cost of pursuit. Sahir’s life, marked by abandonment, resistance, and pain of sorts, offers a poetic and political compass through which I examine the intimate terrains of meaning, mortality, and creative purpose. At the center of this piece is a sari; a delicate, handcrafted fabric that entangled me in moment of near-death. The sari while soaking the weight of the event, also soaks many intergenerational stories.
As I was rushed to the hospital in excruciating pain, clueless of whether I will make it, questions kept erupting like molten lava out of a volaco: what have I built, has it mattered, what shape does survival take when its terms are always shifting? This work becomes a vessel for such moments.
Presented within xxx, an exhibition tracing the currents between tradition and contemporary form, the piece situates itself in shared lineages and symbolic practices. The sari, woven by local artisans and inscribed with text, becomes a tactile record; where language, memory, and material cohere. Asking the very potent question:
”What is it worth, this world, even if it’s mine?
