Body on The Barricades Life, Art and Resistance in Contemporary India

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It was April 2021. A ghastly month for India. The second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic ravaged the nation like a tsunami, moving so fast that before people could grasp its reality, they were in its grip, yearning for life and gasping for breath.

While working on this book of essays, I, too, caught the virus.

The moment came for me too. Breathlessness suddenly became raw and real for me. Like a live wire, it entered my nerves. With an oximeter attached to my fingers and a thermometer on my tongue,I felt the urgency of life.

Moments turn into events when you start counting every breath. You count the heartbeat. You count your pulsating veins. You count blood vessels and bones. You become a vigilante of your own body. You never know when lungs and bones can turn white or black, when blood will turn into water, and disappear from the body like vapour. You keep checking if the skin is changing its colour. Devoured by the virus, you check that your eyes aren't turning black. You still see. You still think. You still register. You still resist.

Before I proceed and you preside, let me clarify that this is not a book on the pandemic. The references to the pandemic repeat, only to surface a symptomatic condition of the curtailment of life. The book is about a pandemic-like situation. The urgency of life and the barricading of freedom. The dilapidated socio-political and health condition that Naren Bedide stated, 'India is the pandemic. 2 His insistence on the statement also shows how seriously are we taking these issues. The book is about earnest hope in the face of extreme curtailment.

In the urgency of life, the body takes all the attention. It takes all the forms; it takes all the shapes; it takes all the toll. You writhe like a fish out of water. You crawl like a worm, making all kinds of shapes. You move slowly, like a Japanese butoh dancer on a bed. You feel blockages you have never felt. You feel the openings you have never thought. You see the thoughts you have never seen. Out of fear of the virus, you check everything. You clean the broom and sanitize the sanitizer. You bathe the water before you take a bath. When fear enters our psyche, we become suspicious of everything. We suspect everyone.

**Contents and Sample Pages**