Notes on The Edges

It is important to know what is meant by an edge before we start writing notes from it. So the edge is a space of the liminal. It’s a space where the margins come in to define society or our mindscapes. It’s a space where all the beings feel vulnerable and a transaction takes place with the world or with what we know as society through an exchange. This exchange within the individual, the community on the margins of psycho-social spaces brings about a script depending on who the population is and what do the population need and transact in order to cope on to live on the edge; If children who have run away and lived in the juvenile homes, street shelters they would form the script of the street. The transgendered population would be having scripts of Risqué comedy–tragedy. The sad clowns that martyr themselves on their fragmented reality in order to be simply be accepted. The communities that live on the edge of a country, or the sea where war , ethnic clashes or typhoons devastate their life’s and they have to live on that edge and a script of life emerges from these life positions.

The post conflict states like Punjab in India are often infested with drugs, alcoholism and crimes. The people who live in such Desolated psychological spaces have their own scripts . The journey of trauma in our nervous system is almost unforgiving when it comes to children who have gone through physical abuse and sexual abuse. This is how the edge gets created and like any borders its not fixed as communities and groups however much they desire to be fixed are nebulous . A state like Kashmir where there are thousands of soldiers posted and are armed give a constant feeling of terror.

The dark small towns of Manipur ridden with underground groups where extortion is always going on, drug infested landscapes blooms among the youth . From the borders of Pakistan and Burma and from the tamil plantation workers in Sri Lanka. From the sex workers children in Bombay and Calcutta, to the children with learning disability in a posh school. I have worked with all of them using the creative arts.

I have worked with their scripts and life positions. The blog notes on the edges is about this engagement and the work on the borders , for it is on the borders can transformation takes places , it’s here where the borders can shrink or expand . It like this, the forest is on the edge of the village or city, when the city expands through transformation the forest shrinks, and when the forest expands the city would shrink. It’s the displacement of the psychological and social boundaries that lends itself to social suffering. The artist reflects this changing landscape and the social worker serves in these spaces and the artist worker like me does both serves and mirrors , facilitates the communities both nebulous and fixed to reflect, act and serve each other through creative tools.