EDITOR’S NOTE : SILENCES
By Ipsita Deb
What is silence? Is it ‘Death’- as one often says – ‘Dead Silence’? A deafening absence, perhaps? The absence of sound. A lack of expressive vocabulary. How to accentuate something that exists in not existing? — Does silence have any colour? Does it have any sound? Smell? Is it freezing cold or warm as a touch? The March issue of Parcham features the works of photographers that captures silences.
Anisha Ghosh, an avid traveller, shares her keen and meditative reflections of the surroundings. The nocturnal shots hold a silence that is almost palpable, as though the world has settled itself into a retreating hush. As the night descends upon the mountain valley, the moon’s soft glow dissolves into a rhythmic choir of crickets, slowly fading into the distant dark. Sometimes, on a lonely night in the city of Siliguri, the moon hangs low in someone’s window. The world has slowed down. The nocturnal symphony now begins to unfold.
Ashiqur Rahman, based in the city of Dhaka, shares images of his ancestral village. Far from the hustle and bustle of the city, the rural landscapes in Bangladesh mirrors the simple, and traditional way of life. The scenes are mostly early wintry mornings, coated with a thin layer of mist. Slowly, the sun would rise, melting the frost – the anonymous village slowly would come to life from the last night’s death. The foggy silences are disrupted by the distant cowbells, some village-women prattle in the distance as they tend to their daily chores. Life is strange.
Ipsita Deb, college teacher based in Siliguri, revisits some old forgotten places from Koranipara, where she has spent her childhood. The images float in and out of focus, as if they too are caught in a dream. The images are noisy since memories lie – forever.
Oleg Tishkovets, an artist based in Kyiv, Ukraine, keeps his journals through photographs. One is immediately struck by the eerie silence that permeates the desolate landscapes and the empty streets recorded in his photographs. The wintry haze mutes the light, casting everything in a soft glow. One feels a sense of unease as the wind carries the distant sounds of rustling leaves, sometimes the creaking of an abandoned car, or the occasional distant crunching of footsteps in the snow. The sounds of the icy desolation becomes pressing.
Yudhajit Basu, filmaker based in Pune, meditates on the dying, decaying remains of the cityscape. The colours are muted, with a predominance of earthy tones – browns, greens, and grays – all that hint at something more ominous. This may be a crashed ambulance in a scrapyard, overgrown with vegetation, and now a part of the natural landscape. Sometimes, the face of an anonymous lady evokes the memory of a haunting sculpture in some city museum. They appear – reappear. History is a ghost.
Parcham Online 
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