Absent
presence

Karachi

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Transcript

Sejal

4min 59s single channel audio of compiled whatsapp voice notes.

Translated by Yaminay Nasir Chaudhri

I’m a mother of two, I don’t look it–because of my age. I just turned 25–uhm just turned 26! Yes how we forget our ages too, we get so busy with our kids…we forget our age. So I have two kids. I was 20 when I got married and I had my first daughter very soon after. Managing is so hard, maybe because of my age–what have I seen of the world yet? I hadn’t even graduated then, left halfway through–studies etc. I got married, and had to leave everything behind. My career, everything behind. I always have this recurring thought that I didn’t do anything for myself. I wish life gives me the opportunity to do something for myself someday.

Sorry Yaminay, my kids have been unwell for a few days so I haven’t been able to give you guys any time. I even received a message from Ammara and I said that as soon as I have time I will contact you guys myself, but I just don't find any time. You know my kid, he is young right now, very little. He is only a year and a half. He hasn’t been feeling well. Neither eating or drinking. I am stressed out these days. I don’t even get time to use my cell phone. I don’t even get time to speak to anyone. Yaar, if you can delay for a few days. Then as soon as he is better I will contact you myself. Thank you.

I don’t know, I think he is teething, maybe that’s why he is neither eating or drinking. I mean, “only mama- I want mama’s lap”, he follows me around crying all day. He doesn’t eat. Before he used to throw up his food, but now since he is on a pill for the vomit, he is not throwing up…but…arh

Sorry yaar, I totally forgot about the American timezone. Yes, ok, then. Let’s talk after I am free at night, after around midnight, 1 am. It’s Saturday. No, it’s Friday night. Yes sorry, it’s Friday night, and tomorrow is Saturday, so I stay awake late, till about 1 or 2 am. Kids fall asleep and then after midnight I am awake for an hour. Then let’s cover this tonight.

I am having such a good time imagining all this.

For me then there should be a queen sized bed. A small bed is good enough. After that there should be a wardrobe. Actually I want a big room haha. Because I want to have a separate wardrobe over there like a closet. I dream about this. You know how one has a collection? Of my shoes, clothes, of my caps, of my bags–I want that entire collection to be on one side of an area turned into a closet. Like you have closets these days. That’s my dream. I would put a big mirror in there and I would get dressed in there. That’s where my dresser would be and I would get dressed here. My jewelry collection would be here too. And in my room there should only be a bed besides this. In front of the bed there should be a window with space to sit nearby. I mean the window should be big enough for me to sit beside it. Maybe some cushions or something like a sofa under it. And from there I would like to enjoy nature with sips of my tea. This was my dream. Is. is. As it is, when I have time on some days, I go to the balcony in my home, I have a small balcony. I sit on that balcony and look at nature. Even though there isn’t much nature to look at there, because people have houses, there are buildings in front. There isn’t much nature, but I stare at the sky standing in that balcony…I really want there to be nature. In front of my house. Either a park, or a sea, or a nice view that I can enjoy. And early in the morning I know there are bird songs. Sounds…all these things early in the morning–I like them so much. I would love to drink my morning tea there, looking at nature, put my mobile aside, my newspaper aside and just look at Allah's gifts.

That’s what I want, that is my dream so far. So far, that’s all I have imagined.

If we had rooms of our own

Yaminay Nasir Chaudhri

If we had rooms of our own draws imaginaries of personal space by six Hindu mothers who live in Karachi, a predominantly Muslim, Pakistani metropolis. I asked these women to describe a desired room inside their homes that was designed only for them. The project gathers longings for that ‘room of one’s own’ by Hindu mothers who live in a place that pushes them into the shadows as members of a minority community, as women, and as mothers. My project is sited in the homes of these mothers, where home, assumed to belong to women and often described as ‘women’s domain’, paradoxically leaves little room for them.

The audio and drawings shared here were made in a slow and intimate process of connection facilitated by WhatsApp, between Pakistani women living in Karachi and Guilford, CT (Hindu in Karachi, Muslim, me, in Guilford). My role as an artist was to listen, edit together, draw and redraw the minutiae of rooms described by these mothers in multiple voice notes until they were happy with my final iterations of pencil on paper. The drawings were then shipped and hand delivered to the mothers in Karachi by Ammara and Suman.

Compiled on our website, you will find the edited voice notes, the final drawings, and the documentation of those drawings in their intended homes photographed by the mothers in Karachi.

Listening to and drawing these imaginary rooms defined a process of making space for the distinct desires of caregiving women. It was an opportunity to build solidarity with marginal figures who disappear both behind the many facades of Karachi, and beneath the endless labors of homemaking. It was also a reflection on Virginia Woolf’s well known 1929 essay, that seems valid 96 years later, pointing to the absences and inequities, even within domestic space, which persist to this day. To draw the minutiae of a room of one’s own then is an exercise in solidarity; as we seek traces of ourselves in our imaginary rooms, we also find them in the desires and longings of others.