Rashid's Blog: A Place for Inquisitive Souls

When we were boys, every year ten days before the festival Dussehra, our mother would choose a small portion of mud wall and make a crude image of a woman, stars and moon and bullocks with the cow dung. We lived in the village. Almost everyone has some land on which agriculture was done. Also there were plenty of animals like cows. Houses were made of mud and walls and floors were plastered with wet cow dung. We did not understand all this and thought this as some folk art. It was called Sanjhi. Now this ritual has almost vanished like many other rituals which were observed in the rural parts of the country. The images slightly resembled the Warli art. Both were drawn almost in the straight lines meeting to form triangles and squares.

Sanjhi

Sanjhi images in my sisters home at a village in chandigarh

Earlier this month UNESCO held a major conference in Paris on cultural heritage destruction in Iraq and Syria. Headlining remarks by UNESCO director Irina Bokova emphasized that there is “no purely military solution” to the conflict and that bringing about peace will involve promoting ideological change. “To fight fanaticism, we also need to reinforce education, a defence against hatred, and protect heritage, which helps forge collective identity.”

To accomplish these ends, four ideas seem to have received prominent discussion:

1) Again emphasize the need to implement the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Properties in the Event of Armed Conflict, which has been raised by UNESCO before. The trouble is, there is pretty much zero motivation for any of the major actors on the ground in Syria to observe its stipulations.

2) Collect evidence for possible prosecution of people who intentionally destroy heritage sites as war…

नया वर्ष तू क्या लेकर आया है?

आशाएं विश्वास हमें तो करना ही है

क्यों न करेंगे? करते ही आये हैं.

वांच रहे हैं लोग राशियाँ राशिफल में

कुछ के चेहरे मुरझाये हैं,

कुछ के फिर भी खिले हुए हैं.

आँखों देखा नहीं समझते, कागद लेखे सीस नवाते.

पता नहीं क्यों विसराते हम इस यथार्थ को

वृक्ष बबूल का बोएँगे तो आम कहाँ पाएंगे?

बोएँगे नफरत जग में तो प्यार कहाँ पाएंगे?

बिरलाओं के लिए उजड़ते रहे झोंपड़े ज्यों ही,

क्या रोक पाएंगे कदम बगावत के हम?

शायद सत्ता का चरित्र ही यह है

धरती खाली हो गरीब से जल्दी,

कुछ का करें सफाया बागी, कुछ का सेना.

नए वर्ष में लगता है अब ये ही होना.

सीमित दंगे राष्ट्रवाद के फल देवेंगे कारपोरेट को,

हम आपस में सिर फोड़ेंगे, वे ‘सुधार’ को तेज करेंगे.

हम खेलेंगे जाति-धर्म के अंगारों से,

वे लूटेंगे सकल पदारथ जो भू-माहीं.

नए वर्ष में…