Besides performing at the Emirates Literature Festival I was also requested to work on a project that brought art and words together. I was given a piece called ‘Sea of Fists’ by Prabhakar Pachpute who spent 2 weeks completing it at the Jameel Arts Centre in Dubai, UAE. I was inspired to write a piece called Home. It was surreal and slightly overwhelming to perform inside the room where the artwork is and was created, while people were trying to connect art and prose altogether. Images are the art pieces and the prose piece I wrote continues after.
Home
Home. What is home to you? A place that was fought over, time and again.A battleground made of sweat, blood and tears. Home was made amidst the ravages of battle, a place where we struggled, we strived, we tore ourselves and the other apart, where we attacked and fell back to the ground but then stood back up – here, after the battle was fought, we lit a fire, made bed, and spread warmth across on the same floor to sleep. When morning arrives, the birds chirp and a battle cry is heard. We come back to business, with the same intensity, the same fervour, fighting and mustering for our lives, to protect the sanctity of our home and in its stead losing the sanity of our minds.
Let me speak about this space – where the body is saved, but the mind is lost. You look good, the outward is beautiful, you are liked, your company is wanted, you are
saying all the right things, you are doing what everyone envies – you are so close to achieving perfection. This is what is seen. What is observed though, what is seen beyond this body, so victorious, even vengeful, is you. The you, you were when you were given birth. Small, howling, wild, unknowing of everything beyond the facade of your body – and now after all these years – hollow. Your cries reverberating within, not heard by others – just shielded by your denial. And in the hollows of your body, you have found home.
This is the home we have created. We keep doing this to ourselves. We do this in our houses, we do this in our place of work, we do this in the relationships we forge, we do this innately, there is no shame about it. Survival was our first instinct at birth, indeed the very act of birth is survival. But we don’t know where to stop. Or how to stop. How do we pause. Where do we find ground beneath our feet – this place we call home – and say it is okay. It is alright. Today, we must not go to battle. Today we must not fight. Today we are here. There is space here, there is a place for me, in the quietness of your being. I have journeyed a long way, traversed treacherous paths, overcome many fears, done and undone many wrongs and who knows revealed many a truth on my travels to you. You is home. You is stretching out a hand, and displaying your true self – exposed, all your sins and all your virtues, your beauty and your ugly. You are opening the gates of your house, and letting in love that is beyond just a want.
So what is home, I ask again? We have been blinded by the golden glory of victory. The shine of achieving, attaining, perfecting everything has hazed the truth that resides within us. Standing tall with our banners, marking our territory, we have made islands of ourselves in this warfare.