“I am going to the sea, clear the path”

Digitally Printed Canvas Banners*
1 nos. 151cm x 215 cm: 2 nos. 70cm x 215 cm

Surround sound**

Sound design by Padmanabhan J. (Beatnyk : https://bento.me/beatnyk)

Verse from Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, # 1823

 درشکنید کوزه را پاره کنید مشک را
جانب بحر می روم پاک کنید راه من

چند شود زمین وحل از قطرات اشک من
چند شود فلک سیه از غم و دود آه من

Break the vase, tear the musk
I am going to the sea, clear the path
The earth is caving in from my tears
The sky is turning dark from my sorrow.

 

Note: The Indus and Ganges River freshwater dolphins have been swimming sightless, in the dark muddy waters of rivers emerging from the icy Himalayas, which have flown through three major channels of South Asia, for millions of years. The Indus, Ganges and the Brahmaputra. The mammals which evolved from the South Asian Dolphin, over 25 million years ago, in the murky, sediment-filled waters of the shallow Tethys Sea, as the Sub-Continental plate was colliding with the Eurasian plate, long precede their human counterparts and nation-state histories. The waters which had been free flowing for millennia, are however now politically controlled by bilateral river water treaties between these relatively new nation states.

Today the Indus dolphin (Bhulan, Platanista gangetica minor) is largely found in the Indus in Pakistan, while its Gangetic counterpart (Susu/Shushak, Platanista gangetica) exists in some stretches of the Ganges and Brahmaputra and tributaries. These genetically diverse but visually similar  toothed whales, evolved into two separate species, only about 550,000 years ago- as has been very recently confirmed (2021). Both these brethren beings are today endangered.

They struggle to traverse the rivers which are now riddled by borders, barrages, and dams besides threats of pollution, fishing nets and poaching. Their unique echolocation navigation through high frequency clicks has been severely hampered by anthropogenic sounds of machines and motors.  Though sightless, yet all-seeing deep time planetary beings, original South – Asians, nudge us to reflect on our very recent violent histories causing their extinctions, and urge us to listen to their more-than-human echoes across borders, and desire to return to long lost pasts.

 

Credits *

Spectrogram image- Dey, M., Krishnaswamy, J., Morisaka, T., & Kelkar, N. Interacting effects of vessel noise and shallow river depth elevate metabolic stress in Ganges river dolphins. Scientific Reports 9, 15426 (2019)

Other images – internet

 

Sound**

Persian Narration and Translation – Siena Fakhroddin Ghaffari
 Echolocation recordings of Gangetic River Dolphin-

Internet, extracted from Gangetic River Dolphin communication through ultrasound clicks (YouTube)

Rumi verse sourcing acknowledgment – Elyas Alavi 

“I am going to the sea, clear the path”

by Ravi Agarwal

Ravi Agarwal