A hollow and once-stable mannequin balances precariously on the
roof of an old fashioned pathashala,
while an innocent little boy dreams on – happily unaware of the invisible
systems of control shaping his future. Histories are being rewritten, stories
are censored, dissent silenced, and cultural platforms get flooded with sacred
symbols fast losing their spiritual moorings. Fiery, passion-fuelled colours
and riotous acts of violence drench the world – forensic markings of the tensions
between personal faiths and aggressive, orchestrated
spectacles. What is disturbing is to see how enforced ideologies
have steadily crawled under the carpets in our homes, how institutionalised
demands of obeisance have turned once-sacred images into emblems of
authoritarianism, and transformed humans into hollow, unseeing bodies with
souls lost to systems of relentless, insidious coercion.