Author Siddhartha Sarma
Toronto-based author Siddhartha Sarma was working on the edits of his book Twilight in a Knotted World when the first lockdown was announced.
“A book is more than the creation of a single mind. Many professionals put their best efforts into it. The pandemic has shown a mirror to this collaborative, fragile system that supports artistic creation.”
The book finally came out in September 2020. His editors continued to work despite the changed and uncertain conditions with “some even having to relocate to other cities for professional or personal reasons,” he says. Their “marvellous support” in the editing process led him to consider publisher credits, an idea Siddhartha had been actively thinking about even earlier.
Siddhartha writes stories that need research and tries to bring historical fictional as close to authentic history as possible. “I have never made storyboards but, for the current novel, I did and it does make things a little more systematic,” says the author who has been housebound since July 2019 when he began work on his book.
The Assamese writer feels “a great deal of disquiet at the way the Indian middle class has chosen to respond to the plight of the working classes affected by the lockdowns and job loss.”
Poet Arjun Rajendran
In April 2020, Pune-based poet Arjun Rajendran began The Quarantine Train, an online platform for poets.
Arjun, the author of three critically-acclaimed poetry anthologies and the current editor of The Bombay Literary Magazine, has been teaching creative writing for the past two years. He explains that this initiative began because he “missed the interaction” with other poets.
He began with appreciation classes that discussed poetry of the masters and then had sessions where poems were critiqued. Then came the Masterclasses led by well-known poets from around the world — Rhys Hughes from Wales and Philip Nikolayev from the US.
Antiquarian bookseller Zubairul Islam from Canada also addressed the group. “We did a variety of experiments, like a session on transgender poetry,” says Arjun, adding that he was surprised at the overwhelming response to the initiative. “People began submitting more poems and I started giving more prompts.”
With 13 members in the core team, the platform has had book launches and introduced the Deepankar Khiwani Memorial prize for poetry. Arjun could write only four poems during the pandemic but generating 70 sessions with 70 poets for The Quarantine Train was the highlight of a time when the world was fighting a raging health crisis.
Arjun’s fourth book was accepted for publication by Westland just before the lockdown.
Artist Latheesh Lakshman
“Artists were badly hit by the pandemic as all art shows, exhibitions and meets were cancelled,” says Lateesh Lakshman who collaborated with Niharika Peri, former editor of Art Illustrated, to curate The Eating Love Project, where food (pizzas from Niharika’s pizzeria) would take art into people’s homes.
“I asked Lateesh to create a pizza box on the connect between food and art,” says Niharika, adding that The Last Supper and The Last Dinner are historical works on this topic.
“The pizza box became a platform for art during this time and the dining table in people’s homes the exhibition wall,” says Latheesh adding “this art project is to support artists. A portion of the sales of the boxes goes to the artist.”
The first experimental boxes had Latheesh’s work. The next set released in November, curated by Latheesh, engages artists Jyothi, Reshidev and Kalap. They will design for 6,000 boxes. “Whoever sees the box will break into a smile. The attention first goes to the art and then the pizza inside,” says Niharika.
The project will be officially launched before the year end. For more information, visit eatinglove.co.in .
Architect Vinu Daniel
“When the wheels of regular human life came to a standstill during COVID-19, it becomes all the more important to question the direction in which we are headed, instead of questions like ‘What should we build?’,” says architect Vinu Daniel, founder of Wallmakers, an alternative building technology company.
Contrary to the idea that the pandemic-related standstill would not generate work, Vinu was busy. He negotiated with his workforce to remain with him during lockdown, managing to keep almost 70% of his workers for three projects that he undertook following strict social protocols.
At Sanctity Ferme, a gated farmland community in Shoolagiri, near Bengaluru, he began work on a hospitality centre atop a 50 ft high debris mountain named Kailasam.
“The mountain had been created by piling waste rock from a nearby quarry that had been worked on for 10 years. The dumped waste became a ‘mountain’ and the quarry an abandoned ‘hole’ in the face of earth,” explains Vinu who plans to use the waste rock for the façade and roof of the building.
His other projects are a concept school in Coimbatore, which encourages students to sit on the floor and a project that uses waste tires.
Vinu found Work from Home distracting and changed his routine to working from 10 pm to 6 am. “The pandemic has shown that people should build and live consciously,” says the architect who has taken rammed earth construction to a new high with several projects that use mud.
Theatre artiste Kapila Venu
“The lockdown was a huge challenge for those of us who live off performance,” says Koodiyattam exponent Kapila Venu. As the reality of the restrictive times sunk in, the Thrissur-based artiste, along with her team of six, restarted work on Sree Krishna Chaitram, a project they had put on hold twice due to the lack of uninterrupted time. “We have been wanting to do this forever. The pandemic gave us long hours to read text together, contemplate and create,” says Kapila. Her team managed to complete the entire series of 35 performances, which was filmed by cinematographer Anandhu Madhu, and streamed on Natankairali YouTube Channel.
Kapila also did a solo performance that opened The Milaap Fest In London for Deepavali.
“The biggest lesson from the pandemic has been to slow down and live more consciously. Two years ago we were all hyperactive,” says Kapila.
In this series, we look back at the various challenges and victories of life in 2020.