Bengal artist explores language evolution at Kochi Biennale

Even though migration has been a from different communities into Kochi, the port town of Kerala has been a part of life for centuries. Yet Malayalam continues to be the predominant mainland language in this cosmopolitan city. So what happens to the languages of other communities who came and eventually settled here?
Sanchayan Ghosh, an artist academic from Santiniketan, was perplexed by this question and sets to investigate it further through a series of "workshops."
Ghosh, who is participating in the ongoing Kochi-Muziris Art Biennale here through his installation "Incomplete Circles-Invisible Voices" demonstrates how even words that seen alien can be connected through sound.

"As many as 24 communities migrated to Kochi since the coming of the Arabs, the most recent being the Kashmiris. I was curious about their oral traditions and the possibility of a meeting point for different language practices," says 42-year-old Ghosh, Associate Professor at Visva-Bharati University.
For this he developed an inter-language sound game, on which he has been experimenting for the last three years in the north-east region of the country where different communities live together.
"My sound installation indirectly address the notion of travel. This game is like a metaphor for travel. How do words of different culture evolve," Ghosh who stayed in Fort Kochi for close to three months told PTI.

The artist says he interacted with people from different communities such as the Konkani and the Gujrati among others as well as children from schools and colleges by involving them in his sound workshops. A text map of the game as well as an audio system is part of the workshop and participants have to read out a series of words.

Ghosh, who has a workshop background says he is interested in theatre and has been inspired by Badal Sircar who was an exponent of alternative theatre, known as Third Theatre.
"In particular, I am inspired by Badal Sircar's workshops which involved organic participation and interaction through games and were designed for skill development. In his concept, I found a lot of possibilities. I was seized of the idea whether these games could be shared in inter-cultural and multi-cultural situations in Kochi where different cultures and communities co-exist," says Ghosh.

Before he came to Kochi Ghosh says he read Sandeepan Chattapodyay's novel "Swarger Nirjan Upokule" (The Lonely Shores of Heaven) which the author had written about Vypin Island sitting in Bengal. He had written about relationship fo the Portugues and the local Muslim communities here.