The following events are scheduled for the next three months (event dates are subject to change):

On July 11, we organised a day-long symposium in association with TAKE on Art magazine to discuss and debate the pedagogy of arts residencies in India and their significance for nurturing a vibrant culture of arts practice. Discussions were led by over 20 artists, curators, scholars, funding professionals, and arts collectives from Bangalore, Bombay and Delhi, who shared their critical and personal reflections on the role of residencies, including their challenges and future directions. The panelists who shared their views at the event were Archana Prasad, Ayisha Abraham, Chandrika Grover, Christine Rogers, Christoph Bertram, Diana Campbell, Feroze Gujral, Geetha Narayanan, Jayachandran Palazhy, Krishnaraj Chonat, Lina Vincent Sunish, N Pushpamala, Nancy Adajania, Ranjit Hoskote, Roshini Vadehra, Suman Gopinath, Sumesh Sharma, Suresh Jayaram, Tara Kelton and Zasha Colah. To view the complete programme of the event, please visit the IFA website here.

Jyoti Dogra performing Notes on Chai

We organised eleven grant showcases. Emphasis was placed on showcasing the work of our Archival Fellows, leading up to the announcement of the Request for Proposals under the Fellowship, which was done in the first half of July.

In Bangalore, Archival Fellows (2011-12) Ekta Mittal and Yashaswini R screened two films they had made as a result of their engagement with the Archives of Indian Labour and actor Jyoti Dogra staged Notes on Chai, a devised performance piece. We screened two more grantee films in Bangalore—I, Dance by Rajiv Rao and Sonya Fatah, which tells the difficult story of classical dance in Pakistan and Films Division India's Rangbhoomi by Kamal Swaroop, broadly based on the semi-autobiographical play of the same name by Dadasaheb Phalke.

Poster for Films Division India's Rangbhoomi by Kamal Swaroopi

In Mumbai, artist Vasudha Thozhur launched an exhibition of drawings, paintings, posters, prints, books and videos realised during a decade-long project, part-supported by IFA, that she undertook with six young girls who lost several members of their families in the Gujarat riots of 2002. Our next event in the city was a talk by Archival Fellows (2012-13) Shumona Goel and Neha Choksi, about their interest in archives, and their fellowship projects that engage with the ISRO archive and various astrophysics and Jain religious archives, respectively. Next we organised two presentations of the work done by Epsita Halder and Ashavari Majumdar. Epsita is studying the narrative of the Battle of Karbala across different districts of West Bengal and Ashavari experimented with Kathak through a performance based on the story of Surpanakha. Our final event in Mumbai was a screening of the film Wall Stories by Shashwati Talukdar through which she has studied the syncretic culture of the Garhwal region of India as depicted in the murals adorning the walls of various religious shrines and homes in the region.

In Delhi, Archival Fellows (2011-12) Samina Mishra and Nandini Chandra spoke about their research at the archives of the Children's Film Society, India (CFSI). Their interest in this specific archive was driven by a desire to explore how the State, as embodied by the CFSI, imagined and represented the child from its inception in 1955 until the early 1980s.

We organised a three-day IFA film festival, The Bigger Picture, in Leh, Ladakh between August 27 and 29, 2013 in collaboration with the Ladakh Arts and Media Organisation (LAMO). We screened six films at this event—City of Photos, Family Album, The Other Song, The Listener's Tale, Kumar Talkies and Pala. The festival also gave us a chance to reach out to artists and researchers in Ladakh and to talk to them about the projects we support under our various programmes. We are happy to report that this event was a big success.

In November, we organised a two-day showcase of IFA's work at The Arts House in Singapore. The event featured screenings of films by Saba Dewan, Nishtha Jain, Merajur Rahman Baruah, and Shabani Hassanwalia and Samreen Farooqui; presentations by M V Bhaskar, P Madhavan and Sunil Shanbag; and a performance piece by theatre artist Jyoti Dogra. It gave audiences in Singapore a window into the multi-disciplinary and diverse nature of the work we support.

MaathuKathe: A full house for the U-ra-mi-li film screening at the IFA office

We also organised six MaathuKathes at the IFA office. The first was a special discussion on one of the world's most celebrated performance artists, Marina Abramović, and the second showcased a performance of mentalisms by perceptionist Kaushik Bhaduri. The third saw the screening of a work-in-progress film by Iswar Srikumar and Anushka Meenakshi based on their travels across the Indian subcontinent for a project they have titled U-ra-mi-li or the songs of our people. U-ra-mi-li documents the movements, rhythms and music in the everyday lives of the people Anushka and Iswar have met along the way. One part of their journey, to Phek village in Nagaland, has been supported by IFA. For our next MaathuKathe we invited four German artists, working in various Bangalore-based arts and culture institutions, to our office. They were in the city as part of an initiative by the Goethe-Institut/ Max Mueller Bhavan, titled bangaloREsidents 2013. Our fifth Maathukathe was an evening of blues and rock and roll by Bangalore's own Sarjapur Blues Band. Finally, in December, we organised the screening of the film Bottle Masala in Moile by Vaidehi Chitre, a film about the indigenous populations of Mumbai from the East Indian community and their daily struggle to continue their livelihoods and keep their ancestral land.

Poster for IFA's fundraiser Dear Liar starring Naseeruddin Shah & Ratna Pathak Shah

The Embassy Group in support of IFA brought the play, Dear Liar, featuring Naseeruddin Shah and Ratna Pathak Shah, as a fundraiser to Bangalore after a gap of over ten years. We are glad to report that this show was a big success. We thank The Embassy Group and The Park for coming on board to support this event and Bangalore audiences for braving the rains to make it to the show.

Our second fundraiser was the play Between the Lines featuring Nandita Das and Subodh Maskara on December 19, 2013. The play explores the dynamics of marriage through the story of a wealthy lawyer couple brought to the brink of separation as a result of a case they are fighting on opposing sides. We thank The Park yet again, for lending their support to this event and our Co-sponsor Godrej Properties.

Shashwati Talukdar: I am from Dehradun so the Guru Ram Rai Durbar was a familiar sight growing up. When I saw its' murals later in life, I was intrigued by how unusual they were; how they so closely reflected the life of people in the town. I have wanted to make a film on them for the longest time. In 2010, I worked on a project for Tasveer Ghar—a digital archive of South Asian popular visual culture—for which I studied the aesthetic of picture postcards of hill stations from the colonial era. These postcards are part of the Priya Paul collection of popular art, which have been digitised and archived at Tasveer Ghar. Working on this project further fueled my deep fascination with the history of this part of the country (the Garhwal district, now Uttarakhand).

IFA: Why do you find the murals in the Guru Ram Rai Durbar unusual?

Shashwati Talukdar: To begin with, they cover a very interesting period in our history—from the end of the 17th century to the beginning of the 20th century. This region witnessed a lot of change and continuously evolved during this period and as a result, layers and layers of its social and cultural history got deposited in this location, and what's more, they have been preserved. While in most cases, each subsequent change would have destroyed all evidence of anything that came before it, murals in the Durbar Sahib seem to have captured layer upon layer of the social and cultural life of the valley, through its many changes. Thus you find Hindu deities sharing wall space with rich merchants, peons, chaprasis, munshis and guards as well as Mughal emperors and British lords and ladies.

IFA: Why did Dehradun witness such an incredible proliferation of wall art? Is there a common thread tying all the murals in the region together?

Shashwati Talukdar: The proliferation of wall art in the region was largely influenced by the nature of the population that settled in the hills. The hills have been a popular destination for immigrants not only now, but for centuries; communities from Bengal, Rajasthan, Punjab, Gujarat, among other regions have settled here. A lot of the mural traditions come from Rajasthan and Punjab.

In addition to this, the geographical location of Dehradun—in a valley between the rivers Ganga and Yamuna—made it an important stopover for pilgrims traveling through the region. The religious imagination of the country found a canvas in the mountains, and therefore Dehradun.

Finally, Dehradun experienced colonial rule differently from the rest of the nation. The damage done here was more ecological than social. The British colonial government needed wood in massive quantities for the new railway network it was constructing and it relied on local contractors to provide it with this resource. Thus, the British rule did not disrupt the native elite of the region as much as create one. It was also not as feudal as other regions in India. Land distribution and taxation did not work in the same way as it did in other parts of the country, which was again a feature of the terrain and ecology of the Garhwal region.

Mural of a cherub at the Guru Ram Rai Darbar in Dehradun Photo courtesy: Shashwati Talukdar

IFA: In some of your earlier conversations with us you have spoken about how the historical narrative of these murals is quite different from established narratives of history taught in the classroom. In what way are they different?

Shashwati Talukdar: These murals provide evidence that contradict the effects of historical revisionism. Take the emperor Aurangzeb for instance; Amar Chitra Katha comics and classroom syllabuses in several states would have you believe that he was an evil, rigid, religious ideologue who despised the arts and culture. But if you look at the history of the shrine you realise that the land on which it was built was granted to Guru Ram Rai through Emperor Aurangzeb's intervention. He also supported the construction of the inner shrine. In addition to this, if you look at the murals adorning the walls of the Durbar Sahib, particularly those that feature the emperor in conversation with Guru Ram Rai, who was an Udasi saint, a very different portrait begins to emerge.

If you look at the conventions of Mughal painting, the way the characters are seated speaks volumes about their social relationship with each other. In the murals, Guru Ram Rai and Aurangzeb are shown to share a close friendship. This contradicts normative narratives of popular history which indicate that the only relationship Aurangzeb was capable of conducting was one of domination. But here they are seen conversing with each other in a perfectly Mughal gentlemanly manner.

Murals of lords and ladies on the gate of the Guru Ram Rai Darbar in Dehradun Photo courtesy: Shashwati Talukdar

IFA: Could you tell us a little about the Udasi religion? Would it be correct to describe it as a sect of Sikhism or Hinduism?

Shashwati Talukdar: The story of the Udasis is interesting. The short version is that they revere the same Gurus as the Sikhs, but also incorporate religious figures like Gorakhnath and other adepts and saints, something that would be unacceptable in modern Sikhism. Their status as being either a part or out of Sikhism has changed over time, depending on theological disputes and institutional changes within the religion. Today, you find both Hindus and Sikhs visiting the shrine. So people might formally declare themselves as Sikhs or Hindus, but they also incorporate Guru Ram Rai in their religious practice. Most of the non-local visitors I encountered at the shrine, were from Punjab and formally Sikhs. Their families have visited the Durbar Sahib for generations and it has become part of the tradition of the region to do so. While the local people who came to the shrine were all Hindus, and the Durbar was a part of their religious practice or the place they came for social and leisure reasons. It's interesting how the independent status of the Durbar makes it accessible to all and one of the most welcoming places in the city.

IFA: One part of your film deals with questions of preservation and the paucity of scholarly reflection on the murals of the Garhwal region. Could you briefly dwell upon these very serious concerns? Do you hope that your film will address them in some way?

Shashwati Talukdar: I believe that my film has only scratched the surface of the issue. Looking at the state of preservation of these paintings, the situation is quite dire. Other than the paintings in the Durbar Sahib, the others are deteriorating very quickly. The problem seems to be two-fold. Private owners of structures that have these paintings lack the resources to take care of them, while the buildings owned by religious trusts and institutions, may have the resources but lack the necessary information and cultural capital to have the paintings restored. I was also very surprised to find that there is very little quality writing on the region. While there is some good work on its ecology, like Ramchandra Guha's book on the history of the region vis a vis the changing relationship of the population with the forest, and there is some good work in Anthropology, the region seems to have escaped the attention of modern art historians. There is not that much literature about the social and historical meaning and implications of these paintings.

That said, some effort has been made to catalogue the murals. In this regard, Jagriti Dobhal's work is quite important. I interviewed her for my film Wall Stories. She completed her PhD from the local university in Art History. Years ago, she undertook the task of cataloguing the murals in Dehradun. Some of the buildings that contained the work she chronicled were demolished many years ago, and many are falling into ruin as we speak, only to be replaced by shopping complexes and car parks.

I hope my film will be a catalyst to scholars to give this region the attention it deserves, and also increase the appreciation for this living heritage before it vanishes.