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The LILA Interdisciplinary Quarterly

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Matters in the BODY

Mitra, 

Greetings from LILA!

“Shocking one’s morals is an elusive concept, amorphous and protean. What may be obscene to some may be artistic to other; one man’s vulgarity may be another man’s lyric, so to say.”

Noting the above, the High Court of Kerala recently refused to categorize a magazine cover with a woman breastfeeding her baby as ‘obscene’. The Bench cited many writers and previous judgements to uphold how the human body has, for so long, been celebrated and transformed by different Indic ways of living as well as practices of art.

Another arrival of hope – we cheer that judgement of ‘response-ability’, a quality of which veteran Col. JP Santhanam writes movingly in this inaugural issue of our Quarterly, BODY. We deem that verdict a moment of courage, for, being part of a continuum where we are at once “microbes and planets”, we must endeavour to find our connections. Thus, we have attempted to slow down to inter-act with our speed-afflicted age, towards reclaiming the playful touch of an experienced human – as seen on our masthead peopled by Cartoonist Unny’s lila. Likewise, artist Sajitha R Shankhar’s exploration of dancer Chandralekha has found its way through time, space, and genre to form the cover of BODY. This bare portrayal may not be visually soothing for many, and so, like Neruda, we feel response-able to “explain a few things” about our inter-actions in this issue.

Just as we see the need to make known the stratifications within a body ‘normally’ kept covered, we choose NOT to let an affected body be sensationalised. Hence do Zahira Rahman’s water colours, painted with hope, reach us from the endosulfan-affected Kasaragod. So do we claim our ‘alterbodies’, recognising the lack of viable alternatives for technology, the need for ‘samvad’ between voices, the vicious circles of development, the possibilities between work and play. We draw from the power in the grassroots and the inviolability that empathy and humour can bring; from the multiforms of our desire as well as body movements expressing the mind. We train ourselves for the ‘unothering’ offered by somatic immersions; in our bodies, we feel ‘the parts and particles of happiness’.

We aspire to reveal our many-splendoured heart to the regimes that attempt to turn us one-tongued. So we translate ourselves into a multiplicity of languages that sing aloud: ‘let the body speak.’ In our time of spectacle, we meditate on slowness and learn ‘to sit still with an active mind’ even as we ‘journey against being or creating the perfect’. As more and more artists and workers are martyred around us, we mark art as a tool of labour that shall equip us to create an ‘unperfect swaraj’, where every day we may make ‘(in)visible reclamations’ of our being human and, thus, translocal. It is out of our concern and hope for our children who must inherit this swaraj that we celebrate our Renaissance Person for the quarter, Alok Som, who believes that “growing and keeping a communion with the common and general require some level of education or training.”

And, we dedicate our BODY to beloved artist and matchless friend, Priya Ravish Mehra, who has taught us that “opposites contain each other,” and that “anything injured, harmed, disfigured, demeaned and degraded has the potential to be recuperated, conserved and cherished, and to be continually bestowed with fresh value, energy and utility.”

Please mind this BODY; we hope it gives you some matter to think about.

Heartily

Rizio
for TEAM INTER-ACTIONS

We dedicate our first quarter to 'Our Laughing Buddha'

Garhmukteshwar. Photo: Amba Sanyal
Shantiniketan. Photo: Anandi Mehra
ILF Samanvay. Photo: Gita Mazumdar
OddBird Theatre. Photo: Raghav Pasricha

Priya Ravish Mehra
(28 April 1961 – 5 May 2018)
“And, Something Written, Something Thought”

Lilaight of the Season

Celebrating Priya Ravish Mehra

Lilaight

Priyadarshini: Gallery

By Team Interactions / May 15, 2018
Lilaight

Towards an Unperfect Swaraj

By Rizio / May 15, 2018
Lilaight

In Memoriam P.R.M

By Friends of Priya / May 14, 2018
Lilaight

(In)Visible Reclamations

By Priya Ravish Mehra / May 14, 2018

Basic Conversations

Critical responses to the contemporary development models that have radically altered the way we deal with the basic human needs

Jacob Vadakkancherry

No Body’s Health?

Marion Nestle

Body-Food-Development

Aesthetics of Conflict

Column by Shivani

Unothering through Somatic Immersion

Shivani Karmarkar

How have political narratives been able to brainwash citizens of our nation into developing a sense of fear and distrust? Why have we lost the conviction to have faith in our neighbours and why do we grow increasingly distant from them?

Leelatoon by Unny

Cartoon

Renaissance Person

A critical reclamation of the creative individual whose multidynamic praxis is our hope for a New Renaissance.

Alok Som: Artist, Architect, Cook, Weaver, Teacher

“My journey is against being or creating the perfect. Growing and keeping a communion with the common and the general requires some level of education or training,” says Alok Som, our Renaissance Person for the Quarter.

An Article by Dolonchampa Chakraborty

Body – Mind Communion: The New Renaissance

An Interview with Alok Som

Interposing Concepts of Body and Art

Reflections

Articles

Col JP Santhanam (Veteran)

Body Wars for Peace

Zahira and MA Rahman

Endosulfan Tragedy: The Inheritance of AfterBodies

Prayas Abhinav

Technology is Not Unnatural

Satya Sagar

Body Earth – Inside Out

Navtej Johar

The Parts and Particles of Happiness

Lijo Stephen Chacko

Blurring Boundaries: Between Work and Play

Rubaru

Interviews

Madhavi Menon

Body Desires

Tenzin Tsundue

Body Belongs

The Gundecha Brothers

Body Sings

Tripura Kashyap

Body Dances

Wordactions

Salma: Poetry in Translations

Let the Body Speak

“When you write what is in your mind, it makes you feel that you are sharing it with someone. And that encourages you to write more and more.”

Know the poet and the translators here and read the translations
Original in Tamil
http://lilainteractions.in/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/salma-audio.mp3
English & Hindi
English http://lilainteractions.in/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/rizio-Recording.m4a Hindi http://lilainteractions.in/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/shruti-hindi.m4a  
Bangla, Dogri, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Punjabi, Telugu, Urdu
Bangla http://lilainteractions.in/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Bangla-by-Dolonchampa-Chakravarty.m4a Dogri http://lilainteractions.in/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Dogri-by-Promila-Manhas.m4a Urdu http://lilainteractions.in/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/bodyspeaks_urdumAiA.m4a Kannada http://lilainteractions.in/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Kannada-by-Mamta-Sagar.m4a Malayalam http://lilainteractions.in/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Malayalam-Satchidanandan.ogg Marathi http://www.lilainteractions.in/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/krutuja-marathi.m4a   Punjabi http://lilainteractions.in/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Punjabi-Vanita.m4a Telugu http://lilainteractions.in/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Telugu-by-Rasika-Meena-Kaushik.wav
German, Greek, Spanish
German http://lilainteractions.in/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/German-by-Sarah-Eichner.m4a Greek http://lilainteractions.in/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Greek-by-Constantina.mp3 Spanish http://lilainteractions.in/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Spanish-by-Subhro-Bandhopadhyay.m4a

Artactions

Sajitha R Shankhar: Paintings

Bodies and Alterbodies

A view of Sajitha R Shankhar’s visceral engagement with and raw understanding of the body.

Revisits

Our Earlier 'BODY RELATED' Inter-actions

Body and Nation

Sex and the Market

Body and Games

Body and Beauty

Managing Epidemics

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