Sometimes I wonder if everything I’ve thought of, everything I’m thinking of, has been thought before.  Often, it’s in bouts of depression and my conclusion is that I’m probably useless and unoriginal.  (Yes, I am being a bit dramatic but that’s me!)

These last few months, however, when I reflect on the originality of my being (how embarrassing) I have been grateful for all the thinking that has come before me.

At 93, Nadja is still making torans. She shows me some of her sketches.

Millions of people, doing the best they could, have lived lives and laid the groundwork for me to do what I do.  Being immersed in the world of craft, it is starting to make more and more sense that originality isn’t highly prized.  It’s nice, but it isn’t the point.

As I’ve been learning how to make a toran (a beaded wall hanging that is strung in a doorway) it amazed me that instinctively I said I’d prefer to follow a pattern that someone has done before.  As my elders have tried to show me new techniques or ways I could change my pattern my stock answer has been “I just want to do it this way until I understand”.

Mani strings the thread needed to weave the beaded toran.

Look at me, I’m learning!

Craft is about following knowledge, putting together history and the information that has come before you.  Piecing together meaning – understanding – through practice.  And only when one understands the story, the hows and whys, can one add a unique element to that story.

Making a toran in a traditional Parsi baugh (housing development), surrounded by people who know and appreciate the craft, who display their own torans, who have pieces of the past to complete my puzzle is a unique and vital part of learning the craft.  During the days I could wander the halls and see the different designs and aesthetics at play. I came to see what people appreciated and wanted to project in front of their homes.  People who walked by and saw me at my work recognized what I was doing and inquired about it.

My first little scallops complete!

Craft is not simply the creation of a product.  It is an assembly of knowledge, belief, skill, context and imagination applied and developed over time to create significant, living things.  Embedded in the process of craft are a multitude of social functions from religious practice to identity formation to relationship building to exercising power to visualizing the future.

The materials used, the process of work, the relationship of craftspeople to their community, the standing of the community within a larger society are all interconnected elements and the relationships constructed between these elements fuel the vitality and development of a craft tradition.  Craft has a soul and craft creates soul.  In order for that soul to thrive all these connections need to be maintained with dignity – human and environmental.

A young woman trains in block printing techniques at the Weaver’s Service Center in Bombay.

Hey lady, what’s your story?

For craft revivalists and preservationists, the challenge is how to hold this soul and help it do well.  Beyond the economic realm, what responsibility does the revival community have to help heal the social ruptures (oppressions) that have caused the decline and disappearance of craft traditions and the marginalization of craft workers?  How to construct a holistic view of craft revival that honors the complex social web that is at the core of craft work that goes beyond the houses of commerce?

I don’t have any answers but I am eager to follow the threads as I delve deeper into the complex and beautiful world of craft and it’s importance within all societies.

Saris getting ready for a steam which will set the color of the block prints.

A sari laid out for block printing.

From inside a paper shop.

I barely know it’s Christmas/Chanukah/Kwanza season here in India.  After all, being a country where the majority of people are neither Christian nor Jewish the holidays are different.  (I previously wrote a little about Diwali which just passed.)

But yesterday I took a walk in the paper, wrapping and trimmings market in Bombay and got to see some Christmas fun.

Festively framed.

Santa must be hot with all that wool.

Little tiny lanes with lots going on.

Lots of stuff

Oh Christmas tree, no little dradle around?

Speaking of the holidays, I would be remiss if I didn’t send along my fundraising call on behalf of freeDimensional.  I sit on the board and deeply believe in the work they do.  Please read my funding note below and help us keep artists safe. Ring the bells and sound the alarm.

Canvases are taken down, rolled up, used as stuffing. CDs are hammered into glittery bits, swept into unassuming piles. How to re-create lost treasure?  How to pry the fingers of silence loose? Our society shrivels in the dark, as someone waits for help.

It’s easy to overlook artists who aren’t celebrities. People steeped in cultural production on a small scale.  There are hundreds of thousands of people around the world who have dedicated their lives to creating, thinking and expressing what many people can’t or won’t express.  FreeDimensional thinks about these people.  What happens when a small artist gets targeted?  Who goes to those dark places to offer a hand?

FreeDimensional is attempting the work of a great spider – weaving webs of support and balance.   We don’t “rescue” or “save” anyone, we enrich and support existing arts and culture networks to light up when darkness threatens.  We offer tools, trainings, people-to-people connections, funds, space and awareness raising.  The more people there are, connected and sharing, means a more responsive, international network of resources that can come to the aid of artists and culture workers under threat.  Each connection, touch, makes us stronger.

As a growing organization any help means a lot: money, in-kind resources, sharing our mission and work with others.  Please give today. Please plug in and widen the circle.  I am a part of this organization because I want to see all people dream and succeed.  The delicate threads of imagination and creativity are the support beams of a healthy, flourishing society.  Having artists around us, doing their work, reminds us all to live big lives.

Kayhan Irani
Mumbai, December 2012

Oh wait, do I need these? Stocking stuffers?

Whew, all this shopping’s made me tired.

 

 

 

 

Refresh with some juice and off again to market.

Now, how to get these gifts home?

A gorgeous screen and the magical patterns of light. At Humayoun’s Tomb.

What is the experience of time? Sun up to sun down; the phases of the moon; an 8-hour workday; the passing of a birthday; the harvest; the sowing; the completion of a thought?

The time for group remembering, the communal gatherings and the personal, internal time; we live between the two.

Imagery, objects and motifs of a Hindu prayer ceremony.

My time in India so far has been a weaving between the two forms – personal and collective.

The form is slowly taking shape, but right now there is only rhythm and pattern. Like a bird repeatedly dipping its beak into the water, I am reaching down and up, down and up.

Visitors of all types at the Red Fort.

Through everyday interactions (a discussion with a new friend over coffee about spider stories) almost forgotten tales get renewed life; through research into ancient texts my daily thoughts and family sayings take larger meaning.  (Don’t disturb the plants at night, they’re sleeping.)

Modern applications of traditional Parsi-Zoroastrian embroidery.

I can only describe it as experiencing the weave.  Since I am researching textiles and embroidery the metaphor holds true for me.  Seeing my particular cultural lens as part of a distinct world view carved out by a people over centuries.

My mother’s stories, my father’s sayings, their dress, their word play, family sentiments are not just strange and exotic forms that stand out from the overall pattern.  In India they are part of the rich fabric of this place.  Repeated, reinforced, belonging.

Watching the election results in New Delhi on the lawn of the Imperial Hotel.

As part of my research on Parsi and Zoroastrian embroidery traditions, I am  learning a great deal about the multiple ways that craft work sets the stage for ritual observance, cultural remembrance, and identity formation.  In a world which is getting increasingly globalized, craft becomes the material thing we can point to as a link to a distinct history; knowledge passed down and built upon by people who see the world in a particular way.

And women are prime movers.  They are the ones who fill in the shape of ritual and social life.

Red ladies at the Red Fort.

While laws and doctrine might be ruled by men, women give those laws and doctrine a form, a body.  Communal life is full of metaphor and objects because of the work of women’s hands and aesthetic eyes.  Their knowledge of the cultural/religious stories coupled with their understanding of daily life and communal concerns allow them to be interpreters and meaning makers – while often getting overlooks as authors.  History is written in song and image not just in books.

And it is that aesthetic eye which brings us the borrowing and the cross-over of images, materials, techniques from one culture to another.

A women’s only car is lovely to have when you’re packed in like sardines.

Trade may have brought the goods, but it is the women and their artistic sensibilities that sought new and unique things to enrich their surroundings, honor their families, placate their deities.

Listening and looking allows us not just to see the other, but to see where we have landed within the tapestry.  How has our family/community thread taken shape among the others and where can we take it in the future.  I’m so proud to be on this journey and I look forward to the shape of my time to come.

Which way do I go?

Come closer.

An abandoned statue peering out in the most eerie way.

My niece’s birthday party. What will be her connection to this heritage?

The poor little trio was mostly ignored at the election watching event.

Part of Humayoun’s tomb under renovation and conservation. Craftsmen are trained from masters throughout South and Central Asia.

Hindu priest during a Diwali (New Year) ritual prayer ceremony or “puja”.

Yes, he has little LED lights wrapped around his drum!

I’m living in a similar metaphoric spiral right now.  Thoughts shooting straight downward, leading to confusion, leading to pause, leading to insights, leading to growth.

I’m like the little guy at the bottom of the illustration; feeling my way through, tripping over the bumps.

The people I meet, my family and their friends are like the tree – patient and generous.

At my worst, I feel wholly unprepared to spend the next 8 months here.  I feel like everything I brought with me is useless, my miniscule language skills are useless and I stick out no matter where I go.  Though when I get that low, something happens to reassure me that I’m fine. Like the two big men who ended up sitting across from me on my 16 hour train ride from Mumbai to New Delhi.  I was a little nervous about sharing an overnight train berth surrounded by men so I was sitting there trying to look stoic, listening to my headphones.  I soon realized that they weren’t speaking in Hindi and I recognized many of their words.  In fact, it sounded like Farsi.  So I started speaking to them in broken Farsi.  It turns out they are from Kabul, here in India on some business.

What’s with the pole in this cab? I have a hundred questions.

One of the guys had traveled all over Iran.  In New Delhi, they carried my bags off the train, called my driver to tell him where we were standing and waited with me until he came.

It’s been a roller coaster and my knuckles are white from gripping the bars tight.  (On a side note, I was talking to someone and I referred to myself as brown.  She said, “No you’re not, you’re very white”.  This led me to reply, “Trust me, in America I’m not white”.)

Back to me and the banyan tree and feeling rootless amid a forest of roots.  What is the difference between feeling lost and feeling rootless?  Does being rootless lead one to be lost? What does being lost lead to? Liberation or nothingness?  Why such angst after only a week?  I’m not just dislocated, I’m anxious about the fact that I feel dislocated.  This coupled with the energy and pace of Bombay can make someone go mad.

To give you an example, getting to a destination on foot means you have to first negotiate the traffic – cars, scooters, motorbikes, pedestrians, dogs, oxen and men with hand carts loaded with goods.  You then have to negotiate the rivers of people walking on the sidewalk and spilling on to the gully since the sidewalk is covered with hawkers’ stalls and improvised huts.

A relatively mellow street near my aunt’s home. It’s the navrata season where the various aspects of the goddess are honored.

When you get close to the location you have to puzzle over an amazing kaleidoscope of signs, old and new in all colors and shapes, attached to the building in all directions to find the place you are looking for.

But good luck finding a place to stand and read the signs because you’re never out of the traffic, you’re always in it, trying to hold on to your own singular desire like a lifebuoy being steadily shaken and drenched by the waves of all the other human beings who want something too.

And the tension is palpable.  The middle and upper classes demand things now, quickly, to my liking.  The working and poor argue, steal, stall and walk out.

Complexity everywhere.

There is a great tension between obligation and freedom; sacrifice and care.  Dedicated family members denounce one another when things get hard.  Educated women verbally (and physically) abuse servants to get out their resentment.  Selflessness and dedication meet control and sadism in strange ways.

Another gift came in the form of a book by my friend and brilliant author Arshia Sattar.  “Lost Loves – Exploring Rama’s Anguish” is a reading of the Hindu epic, the Ramayana, as a love story.  I’ve read the first few chapters and one thing that stood out was the thought that Rama was a god who oftentimes didn’t remember, didn’t recognize that he was a god.  He was living as a human, but that didn’t negate his divinity.  And so, we are we all in a way.  We can’t recognize our own divine light nor the light of others and so we battle on this earth for a little place to stand.  A footprint in the sand.

I am learning to see what I am looking at and not to make snap judgments.  Just like I learned how to approach an address I will learn how to approach a culture.  To see it as it is, not as I think it should be.  And like the banyan tree, my roots will continue to grow in many directions.

Here’s an image I created after being inspired by “Lost Loves”

Everything’s changing.

How does one relate to a place with epic personal, familial, social and historical significance?  I feel like if I am not immediately capable and comfortable I will have severed a connection to my heritage, never to be allowed to say I am an Indian (even though I carry an Overseas Citizen of India card).  No wonder I’ve been stressed out these past few weeks.  I’ve been feeling a bit frozen, suspended in air, slowly moving towards something.

Yikes! (Image by Luba Lukova)

This is a tremendous change and I am terrified.  But I’m terrified in a most delightful way (Thank you Mary Poppins).

Terrified of leaving my home, my partner, my family, my friendship and support networks, my cat, the local shop clerks, randomly seeing friends on the subway; everything I am familiar with.

Delightful because the worst case scenarios I envision don’t involve me being destitute or having to give up my life’s work – which are the things that terrify me when I am home, living as an artist. Isn’t that interesting?

I’ve just realized that this is the first time I will be have the financial freedom to research and write, just do what an artist does.  I’ve never been been able to only write, imagine, create – without thinking of bills, bills, bills.  And usually that means having to supplement my income from creative work with income from other work.  Now, with the support of the Fulbright award, my worst case scenarios have transformed from inhuman, spirit-crushing nightmares into manageable, not terrible alternatives – ones I can work with.

The imaginary things that might go wrong are:
- I get writer’s block;
- my research forces me to re-write my story entirely;
- I am drawn into a different subject which inspires me to write another work.

All of these will provide me with challenges within my field and will generate more work for me.  Just like any job, as you move ahead you discover things to respond to.  Except in an artist’s world, we have to deal with the things that come up in our work – while we figure out how to earn a living!

I might, only now, learn how an artist can live in a supportive society – without being anxiety ridden to compete, to hyper-monetize everything, to work all the hours of the day.  If artists weren’t constantly marginalized and pushed to the brink what might we be able to come up with?  What could our contribution to society look like?

I suppose very soon, I get to find out.  Even if it’s for a short time, I’m grateful.

Wish me luck!

The garden in my guest house. Sometimes different can be just fine!

This project is different than the rest of my work in Afghanistan.  I am not working directly with a theater group, I am working with media makers; writers, producers, researchers from Equal Access, Afghanistan.  I am training them in methods of participatory storytelling for community engagement and social change.  In some ways, it’s very much like the T.V. show I created at the NYC Mayor’s Office of Adult Education.

It’s different working with highly educated, sophisticated men from the capital city versus men with different levels of education from outlying provinces.  How have I experienced the difference?  There is a warmness and familiarity with the men from the provinces.  A sweetness and a homey-ness that comes through in my interactions.  With the men in the city … there’s a distance some more formality.  I could chalk it up to being busy, being movers and shakers, being pulled in many directions.  I could also say it’s because the city-folk are treading new ground.  Working closely with women on a daily basis means they must be extra careful to avoid criticism of mixed sex workplaces.

Zabiullah and Arman discuss things. Arman (right) has an amazing voice and sang some verses of the Koran as an auspicious opening for our workshop. He also showed me his Afghan pop music video!

Massoumeh, one of the community leaders and advisers involved in our process, offered another thought.  She said in the cities, people are connected only through work.  In the village, people are connected through daily life so they know how to be together easily.  Profound words.

All this considered, we’ve had a lot of fun and made real connections.  An interesting discussion of leadership came up after playing a game called Colombian Hypnosis where one person leads another around the room using only the the palm of their hand.  Most of the participants said that they didn’t like leading because they felt that they didn’t know what their partner was thinking and therefore felt strange about just leading their partner anywhere in the room, they said it felt pointless.  This got us talking about the relationship between leader and follower.   What is the relationship?  How are each responsible to the other?  What do you need to think about in order to lead well?  Where do you have power as the follower?

(L-R) Michael, Bashirat, Arman. Working on the issue of youth oppression.

At the end of the last day of the workshop we went around the room and said what concepts were most interesting and engaging for us personally.  Basharat said that the discussion on leadership was the most useful for him.  He said that when he went home he realized that as a father, he doesn’t have to take a commanding attitude.  He can talk to his children and tell them what’s happening and hear what they’d like to do.

It’s amazing to see how personally this work reaches in such a short period of time.  I think that maybe in our few days together, we’ve figured out how to be together easily.

She never once believed that she was small or that she didn’t matter because she was a girl. She knew from an early age that she had something to contribute to this world and she would not be stopped.  After all, each one of us is inherently powerful and creative.  We just have to step out of our fear and timidity and do those things that demonstrate our true brilliance.

Dina Arjani became a school teacher as did my mother, Teshtar Irani.  I follow in their footsteps by using theater and creative arts for critical thinking and human liberation.

My father’s father and mother: Jehangir and Shera Irani. She’s an amazingly courageous woman, too.

For this next project, I’ll be working with script writers and youth leaders in Afghanistan to build listener engagement and interaction for a radio drama.  I’ll also help create a framework for community listening groups where people can listen together and discuss important issues in an informal setting.

When I get back to the US, I’ll lead a training in Little Rock, Arkansas for community leaders who want to create storytelling and listening groups around race and racism.  Then, I partner with the Afrooz School to create an online introductory course to participatory theater for school teachers in Iran. 

From the very personal seeds my grandmother Dina planted, multiple shoots and roots have grown.  By believing in herself, and acting from that reality (not the reality of those around her) she has created the space for countless other acts of beauty and truth.  So, what are you waiting for?  The fear may not subside, the doubt may never become clear but do it anyway.  The future believes in you!

During the conversation she asks me how long since I’ve been back from Kabul.  I nonchalantly say, “about 10 weeks” and then in a split second I realize it’s only been 10 weeks!  I stop short, my head snaps around and I say, “Girrrl, I can’t believe it.”  She, of course, breaks out laughing as she just watched me think about what I said, change my mind, and surprise myself with my own thought!

Am I in my caterpillar stage?

Until this point, I had been feeling sort of bad, lonely, even lazy. I was feeling like I must not be doing anything useful because I haven’t written a witty Facebook comment or updated my blog.  I was afraid of becoming obsolete!

The moment in the café helped me understand that I’m not a loser, I’m just not very good on quick chatty updates and brief synopses of my life.  I need time.  I need to relate to the listener (or reader).

I can’t write a tweet, but I can write a note.  I love notes.  Notes are wonderful ways of situating yourself in relation to something or someone else. A note is really about the writer and it allows you to get to know someone better. Even when people write more academic or professional notes, it’s a response that has been processed through someone’s mind at a specific moment in time.  And notes can change.  I can write a note about a note.  It’s like the old fashioned version of a status update!

Don’t get me wrong, I love the internet and keeping up with friends through email and such (hello, this is an e-note!). but I hate the way social media has been monetized and turned into a competition.  We feel the need to have more “followers”; the things we share get graded by the number of “likes” or “retweets”.

Is this experience re-tweet-able? … Probably not but I can tell you about it.

I want to share things with folks and stay in touch – hey, I’m writing this now – but not because I’m in a competition, because I want to share what’s on my mind and what’s exciting me.  So now that I have a little more of your attention, here is my most twitter-esque update which succinctly expresses those deeply meaningful ideas rolling around in my head for the last 10 weeks:

• I’ve been creating an exchange program between Afghan and Pakistani arts-for-change practitioners.
• I’ve been creating a curriculum for an online school which teaches critical thinking and anti-oppression methods for teachers in Iran.
• I’ve been preparing for my research in India this fall.
• I’ve been thinking about how to use an arts and culture framework for critical analysis of our society and community engagement.
• I’ve been helping a friend get an Institute for Oral Traditions started in Afghanistan.
• How to see my close friends and family more.

I write this note to stay connected to you.  I’d love to receive a note on this note.  Let me know where your head has been in the last 10 weeks.

Love, K

Shamim in the garden.

It’s a Friday full of sweetness and sadness for me.  I leave in a couple of days and I am spending this lazy Friday visiting friends to say goodbye … until we meet again.

Everything about the city seems magical today.   The mountains are glowing white, circled by grey clouds.

The streets are calm and people are out and about.

Yes, this is Kabul too.

I visited a lovely part of the city today.  Nouria who is the housekeeper invited me to her home and I also had lunch at the home of my colleague – and training assistant – Sepas.

Their neighborhood is green, tranquil and full of old homes made in the traditional style with natural mud called gila.

Nouria walks ahead.

An old door.

Chickens in Nouria's yard.

Sepas and his kind father.

Sepas has worked with me for the last two years and I finally got to meet his lovely and gracious family.  He loves theater and is passionate about Theater of the Oppressed.

Yesterday, the last day of the training, he said that this theater is a theater that people can trust and he thought it could be the strongest form of theater in Afghanistan.  I cried.

The groups from Herat, Khost and Baghlan were amazing during the final performance and I was so proud of their audience facilitation.  They were able to get people talking, sharing ideas and even had a few audience interventions on stage.

Audience member steps in as the daughter to convince "her" uncles to send her to university.

During our evaluation I asked each member to say one new thing they learned – a concept, game, technique.  One actor said previous to this training, he saw the oppressed as the loser; killed, beaten, or otherwise defeated.  Now he sees that the oppressed are always trying; the struggle always continues.

I am sad to leave Kabul but proud that the main concepts of artistic liberation have take root with groups in 6 different provinces.  The groups are strong, creative and dedicated to making society more human despite the inhuman conditions all around them.  I hope that we can continue to teach each other and learn together.

Next big plan: bringing groups from Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan together to share community arts practices and discuss how local culture and arts initiatives can be used to address issues that are common in all three countries.

Any ideas for support, let me know!

Haydari is on the far left. he made me this amazing dress, pants and scarf.

Oh, one more thing … this morning I had a great surprise.  I was visited by my former students from Jalalabad who came up to Kabul with a parting gift for me.  Haydari – who is a tailor as well as an actor – made me a traditional Afghan outfit and I cried.

The kids cheer after seeing their cousin on TV.

Tomorrow is my last day of training.  The actors from Khost, Baghlan and Herat are going to perform two short Forum Theater plays for a limited audience of friends and colleagues.

At the core of both stories is the question of whose decisions are respected?  Who has the power to make a life choice, and who doesn’t.

The eldest uncle shows his displeasure.

The first story is that of a young girl, Faribah, and her widowed mother.  Faribah’s excited that she passed her exams and her mother is unsure but proud that she’ll go to university.

However, there are two uncles standing in the way.  They are afraid that a girl in the world will sully their reputation, besides, this is the first time such a thing would be happening in this family.

In the end, mother and daughter have no say in the matter … or do they?

The second story is one of a young man whose dream it is to be an actor.  His uncle sees him in a drama on TV and threatens to kick him out of the house.  The boy’s father supports him but he has no money nor resources to rely on should they be kicked out of the house.

Will Mirza be forced to abandon his dreams for a roof overhead?  Can a young man choose to be an artist?

Our discussions around the play have been about choice.  Who gets to make the choice, which choices are respected and how long is the distance is between law and customary practice.

When someone is threatening your livelihood – you aren’t cavalier with the outcome.  Especially not in a country like Afghanistan where many family members live under one roof and off of one income.

What is the value of the arts in society?  Other careers are respected, but art is overlooked.  (Seems like Afghanistan isn’t that different from many places in this regard.)

How can we redefine the value of arts in society – not just in terms of money but in terms of how art feeds society and makes it healthy.

In the case of the mother and daughter, how does someone access rights they don’t know they have?

How to bring the culture, values and norms in line with formal law … or create mechanisms of justice that are rooted in culturally respected practice?

Faribah sulks while her mother tries to push for her education.

How to fight oppression and internalized oppression so that people feel worthy of accessing justice?

Our discussions have been robust and I am pleased that the actors are engaging in thinking and rethinking their assumptions.  Often times they start out with the “P.C.” answer, then express a non-P.C. answer, and then have lively discussion about why each side is wrong!

They head out to their provinces on Friday where they will perform these shows and then create a brand new one with their full groups.  I can’t wait to hear what they do, what discussions they have, and how theater is bringing about discussion, debate and self reflection. 

I am off to an Afghan wedding tonight … stay tuned for photos!

Love K