Rhythm: Ordering Time

 

Every now and again, it seems as if the grand orchestra of our life dissolves into total discordance, each instrument playing at its own pace. We all dance out of step at times, then pick up the beat again.  Because rhythm is inherent.

Rhythm wakes us: it sets our feet tapping, our heads shaking, our bodies moving. The steady beat of the bass sends tremors through our sleeping bones; the ticking of the clock keeps us alert, aware of the fleeting nature of time; the pounding of shoes on a pavement in the clear morning air foreshadows a day of routine.

Rhythm calms us: from the gentle rocking of the cradle, to the reassurance of our own heartbeat. We find peace in the eternal crashing of the waves, the somnambulant churning of the train, the familiar beat of a favourite song. In repetition, we find resolution.

But above all, it is rhythm that keeps us in harmony, allowing us to tick in time with the rest of the world. Through this issue, we place our fingers on the pulse of various wild and wonderful people, places and ideas, allowing ourselves, for however brief a time, to reverberate in time with them.

The alternating beat of the warp and weft set the tempo. Mayank Mansingh Kaul weaves a wondrous patchwork of narrative set to the music of Briana Blasko’s photography. The strumming of threads stretched across the handloom gives new meaning to myths that mold and shape us, shadows that lengthen and shrink, the journeywork of the stars.

We travel through the echoes of ancient Buddhist caves, as Anica Mann explores the power of the rhythm of a single syllable. She traces the vibration of the mantra through India, Tibet, Japan and China, as well as through the body and the mind sky. At the close, we find ourselves, like the audience at a Noh performance, awakening.

Himali Singh Soin shows us the poetry of it all through a carefully selected collection from ‘The Harper Collins Book of English Poetry’. Daffodils and museums and the cool granite of tubs rise and fall, as the meter of each poem measures the music of its creator’s tools as they chiseled it into being.

Finally, while the rest of the world is shifting gears to move into the fast lane, Vidha Saumya talks to Sourav Roy about the wisdom of slowing down. Her treasured Cello Gripper pens follow their own pattern as they trace forms that defy convention, domestication and gravity, floating through the air in time to their own tune.

Thus, having heard the calling crescendo, we take our place at the drum circle, each to their own beat, each in perfect harmony with the whole.

Rhythmically,

Simone.