Khed

My notion of nation is derived from the stories told by my grand father. The stories of his own life and history played crucial role in shaping of my way of looking the nation where the past merges with the contemporary and memories creeps into the lived experiences. The harsh even-haunting memories of bloodshed, parted bodies, torture on female mass that constructed both his stories about partition and the nation also affect me a lot. I cannot imagine the nation without his interpretation of how it was created and freed. His participation in the freedom struggle and his tiny sacrifice are marked and underlined in my imagination of nation forever.  

My performance is a reconstruction of the very act my grand father, Asim Akhanda, performed on the eve of 15th August 1947 at Benaras Ganga Ghat. He sacrificed all the belongings that bore the imprints of his sacrifice for the great cause  in the river Ganga on the very day of our Independence. he sacrificed them with a Khed/Regret.