The world today faces many crises – and perhaps at the very heart of the troubles we face, lies a ‘dismemberment’, a sort of a cutting-off from the connections that make us human… connections with earth… connections with people… connections with memories.
We hope that through the songs of Sharif-ajja we will be able to remember, and perhaps, ‘re-member’ the connections that lie broken and scattered within us.
Intentions
Anish
To be able to look at each other with less fear.
Mridula
To learn how to co-exist and ‘mix’ openly towards trust.
Mritunjay
To learn your story and share my own.
Veeresh
To create a world without violence.
These are some of the intentions that drive this endeavour.
The Work
The wisdom of the collective, born out the interdependence that we all partake in. We think it is necessary to remember and strive for that wisdom, which Sharif-ajja shared with people during his lifetime and well beyond his passing on.
The work is a celebration of poetry, language, music, spirituality, and humanism. It is also a resistance to the anxiety and unhappiness being spread by current religious and political leaders.
Join us as we take this journey into ourselves through the songs of Sharif-ajja. As he said…
ನಾ ಅಳಿಯದೆ ನಾ ತಿಳಿಯಲು ಬಾರದು
Naa aliyade na thiliyalu baaradu
Without erasing the I, I cannot know the I. Or, Without erasing myself, I will not know myself.
Or…
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you.
How he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
~ Naomi Shihab Nye
Iha. Here. 