I know a lady B living in our neighbourhood. Every morning I see her walking across the street for work. B’s job involves doing dishes, washing clothes, putting them up to dry and cleaning the house. She will have been done in at least five houses by the time I see her in my house by 9 in the morning. Her work will continue throughout the day with the intermittent breaks for her own household chores. We see women, like B, working all day. I think of B also for her mesmerising skill of singing. She would always keep singing and, when not, humming while doing all kinds of work. Every day, she would find a background score for her humming in doing plates covered in crumbs, bowls with layers of all kinds of sticky things, and knives and spoons caught up in the bits of this and that and the stinking smell of mouldy food in the sink. At the end of a long day of work from house to house, she would be seen again cleaning and washing in her own house, buying groceries for her family and negotiating with her children. In her home, B would be heard singing aloud. Her family members would scream at her for singing all the time. But, for her, it is a solace.  

Life is not easy for B. Every day she has to cross several barriers. But humming and singing to herself makes life easy for her.

One such singing that most of the Marathi readers would know was that of the hard-working farmer and mother Bahinabai Choudhury. Her work was discovered by her son Sopandev Choudhury in the mid-20th century. Since her work appeared in book form as Bahinabai’s Songs, it has become immortalised in Modern poetry. Her poems such as: “Oh this married life, just like a pan on the hearth/ First it burns the hand, only then one gets the bread” have been melodiously hummed in several houses. While writing about Bahinabai Choudhury, her poet-son, Sopandev Choudhury reveals the connection between Bahinabai’s hard life and how he grew up listening to her grind mill songs at home that were published later. He provides evidence of how his illiterate mother became a source for documenting response to everyday reality full of hurdles. While expressing her incredibly simple and beautifully composed poetry in Ahirani dialect, Bahinabai rendered the practice of reflecting on difficulties within the broader understanding of human life. 

There could be several such Bahinabais or Bs around us. We all come from different backgrounds, cultures and languages combined. It is glorious to see the diversity. But Bs face hardships, unforeseen circumstances, family issues, homelessness, lawlessness, abuse, and so much more that are impediments. Some of us strive to give our ears to them and provide the support that we can – yet often, we fail. Our efforts are not adequate. Many times, circumstances of natural calamities, pandemics or class and caste hierarchies make their lives intolerable. 

Life stories are the sites of investigation. 

Delhi based researcher Akashleena Basu in Hakara’s Barrier edition investigates how the pandemic has crumpled the everyday rhythm in the life of a door-to-door cobbler, Ramacharan Das, in Kolkata. As Akashleena writes in her essay, “Ramcharan’s voice has faded out and has disappeared into thin air. Like all the muffled voices, his too has been muted by the ongoing presence of the pandemic. The misery unleashed by the COVID 19 pandemic has silenced the ones unheard all the more.” However, Akashleena’s attempt in the essay is not to provide the ‘overtly romanticised accounts’ in Ramacharan Das’ life but to “churn out deep insights…about the wider society and the social segments” of which Ramacharan is a part. 

Across societies, the communities and individuals vulnerable to the different forms of hierarchies and political vendetta have been facing barriers. Someone like Ramacharan Das doesn’t have a voice within the power dynamic of established individuals and societies. Their histories are not documented and whatever voices they have are being silenced throughout history. The silencing of voices has become graver during one of the biggest barriers in modern times- Covid 19. On top of facing the raging battle between humankind and virus, the failure of health systems combined with the economic crisis has forced us to face new challenges for democratic as well as social and cultural practices. While settling down in the ‘new normal’ situation within the ongoing processes of digital transformation, as you will see, our contributors have responded to many forms of barriers in inner and outer worlds, personal and public spaces. 

A barrier is a pause and not a permanent stop. Therefore, physical or conceptual barrier is meant to be challenged, crossed or broken for free-flowing thoughts and movements. An artistic practice enables affirmative actions – directly and subtly and motivates some of us to overcome it. A character in Tanzanian writer Neema Komba’s English story “I Am Not my Skin” translated by Supriya Shelar says: “Though the sun is my enemy, dawn always holds a promise of better things to come.” Thus, through art we seek, in the words of the albino young man in “I am Not My Skin”, ‘a promise of better things’ even when there is ‘the silence from…God’.

In fact, Harshitha Bathwal in her essay on Nasreen Mohamedi’s visual work, questions the understanding of barriers as an obstacle that has to be overcome. Instead, she proposes the reconstruction of the barrier as a threshold and an active delay in time. This proposition would allow us to reimagine the barrier as a contemplative practice in reconstructing different world order. Such world order would dissolve blocks that create exclusive categories of two or more separate entities or prevent access to an idea or a space. 

We are happy that Hakara has been able to engage in the conversation at the critical juncture to re-imagine the barrier as a threshold moment towards exploring newer possibilities of viewing and experiencing the world.