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Songs of the earth
Updated On: 12 May, 2020 09:27 AM IST | Mumbai | Prachi Sibal
Inspired by the lockdown, a female percussionist is collecting poems to layer them with rhythm for a healing podcast
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A still from the episode that displays indigenous seed varieties
It was in January this year, at the Seed Festival in Kannur, Kerala, that percussionist Sumana Chandrashekar first heard a Malayalam poem as part of an audio installation. It stayed with her and returned during the lockdown; the words, the rhythm making more sense. Among the very few female percussionists in the country and fewer ghatam players, Chandrashekar has always wanted to use her practice for the purpose of healing and social change.
It led her to create Whispering seeds (translated from Vithukal Manthrikkunu in Malayalam by MP Pratheesh), a single podcast episode where the poem is recited in Malayalam followed by an English translation, and layered with music from her handpan. The visuals are from the Seed Festival, a gathering of agricultural and arts activists, where Chandrashekar was invited to perform. "The lockdown has been spiritually transformative for me. It's made me question, like a lot of others, how much I care about the earth and what really is essential," says Chandrashekar, who is full of new ideas.
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