Life on a farm is not idyllic and has never been. Farmers’ lives are governed by a cruel god. We live in a world where development is seen as antithetical to the farmer. Yet it is their labour or love that sustains us. This dichotomy is the reaper’s melody. Discordant and abrasive, yet soothing. It forms the core of artist Shambhavi’s relationship with the world that she expresses here. Her ode to the reaper is abstract, like the tiny hills that divide farm plots, yet literal, in the raw iron sickles of the blacksmith. For the artist Shambhavi, her work is a warning of our times, where the sickle is taken away from the farmer. The sickles standing together, touching each other signify farming as a group activity, central to our existence. As food arrives on our tables in dazzling plastic packages, all of us, including the artist have forgotten the tactile nature of creation. The sickles force us back to our centre.
Gallery label from "Reaper's Melody" Cutni Geet. Essay: Mati Maa, 2018 Writer Sanjog Sharan Edited by Revati Laul
