The Silver Monitor

even the fly with head shaved, shouts "I must join the marriage party".

[rajatnayyar]

Everyday C scale is now a portal to the #possible.

[rajatnayyar]

ab maiñ samjhā tere ruḳhsār pe til kā matlab, daulat-e-husn pe darbān bithā rakkhā hai

[rajatnayyar]

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We adapted the practice of soundwalking into an ethnographic methodology for identifying and understanding people’s experiences of their everyday acoustic urban environments.  In editing these sounds into sound clips and visual mapping of the walks, I kept thinking how are we entangled in place making processes through our own routes and pathways.  #senseofplace #phenomenology #sensoryrealities

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Film posters for my next documentary film ‘Kashi Labh’. 

Follow instagram.com/kashilabh for updates. 

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Freestyle pencil and memories of Aaji in a little village in Bihar. Like I am on a train looking outside in to the fields, a far away house with its light, and the window gazes back at me. #daydream #blessingindrawing #pencilmeditation

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The waiting period ended last night. In this research about being-toward death, I learnt what being-with others really means. The relationship became so vast that I was one of the four carrying the body to melt away to nothingness. My fieldwork at Kashi Labh Mukti Bhawan is officially over after almost 3 years! I saw many families anticipating the good death and how they engage with Kashi/Banarasipan in this waiting period. Not only that I witnessed the hospice itself transforming architecturally when it remained shut for 1.5 years!

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Shankhanaad for the dying. Twice a day, priest staff walks slowly in single file, toward the room of the dying and they continue reciting mantras and ringing chimes and bells. Into the rooms they go and encircle the dying person. They would do the same even in vacant rooms with wooden cots in a daydreaming state. Tiwary had just returned from Vishwanath ji’s darshan and we joined the priests with a manjira (hand cymbals). #turbinellapyrum #dextral

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Drawing numbers to play housie.

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Kommuune this morning.

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Being-toward-death. 

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NELE

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Mouse in the boat, cat at the oars; frog sleeping, snake on guard.

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Making an attempt towards introducing everyone to Social & Cultural Anthropology. First episode – ‘Culture Concept’.

The concept of culture is rather hard to conceive. If people are left without any culture it seems that we will end up destroying each other and ourselves. Therefore, we have in some way traded our freedom to have a culture that protects us against the other. In this sense, culture is a set of rules and laws.

In other perspective, the west has come to understand culture from the philosophies emerging during the Enlightenment. In this case, culture is about excellence in everything: arts, ways to eat, ways to dress etc. When you look at an indigenous community, you might say that they are a culture that is becoming. Time for us is linear.

Today debates are about holism in culture. It is not only about symbols, rituals or traditions now it also about broader contexts and frameworks in which people behave and experience.

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I am a big fan of David Macdougall's films, especially Doon School Chronicles. Read this manuscript based on the keynote by him on Social Aesthetics and Embodied Cinema, at the conference 'Challenge of Atmospheres'. Essential for anyone interested in proprioception in / through cinema and social aesthetics / landscape / total institutions. Read here: https://goo.gl/pjL8ht Reopening the gates of Kashi Labh Mukti Bhawan as a unique sensory environment for dying a good death. #AccompanyingTheDying #LongTimeNoThesis

[rajatnayyar]

While reading about Shunko Tashiro of the Vihara Movement, I came across this text and this news around the same time. A very interesting context of why Buddhism survives in Japan?

A common saying familiar to most Japanese is, "Born Shinto, die Buddhist." The native Japanese religion of Shinto is a religion of "life and light," whose written tradition regards death as the most polluting and contagious taboo. As a result, it does not deal with death and dying (Lai 1983). Buddhism, which has been a part of Japanese culture for thirteen hundred years, functions to fill this social need by providing funeral and memorial rituals.

Buddhists in Japan have not been socially active in the medical arena except for committing themselves to performing funeral rituals. Whether they like it or not, they have won for themselves the title funeral Buddhism. This role is confirmed by Buddhism's near monopoly over funeral services for Japanese people of all religions.

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Dyingscapes.

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I spent the weekend filming the autumn equinox ritual with Thule Lee and family at Leesoja in Varbla forest. Prepared to see the tree outside my window shed leaves and be covered with snow. There are so many similarities between Regilaul (Estonian) folk songs and Bhojpuri Jatsaar (or activity based) songs. Working on finishing up this film which I started two years ago!