Zariyein >>> East Khasi Hills >>> Meghalaya

Zariyein, in its first phase, was carried out in Khirki Village and was directed towards arriving at a very basic “knowing” of the space, Khirki, using the medium of photographs and conversations to try and create a collective understanding and representation of the space. We would now like to extend the scope of Zariyein by using the same methods in an altogether distinct context – Meghalaya.

We are currently about to commence researching the phenomena of a bus that is very significant for rural populations in the East Khasi Hills of Meghalaya. These buses, called bazaar buses in local parlance, are used to convey people and ferry goods between these areas and Iewduh (Barabazaar), the main trading centre of the region located in Shillong. These particular villages are “remote” not in terms of distance from urban Shillong but in terms of access to health care and education, livelihood options, availability of basic resources like electricity and drinking water and numerous other factors which are very limited. Given this scenario, the bus plays an extremely significant role beyond its most obvious purpose of conveyance. It is the lifeline of these villages. 

However, there are several other intangible dimensions attached to the bus, an exploration of which is crucial to understand the significance of the bus.  The bus is an active space of sociality- an interface between these villages and urban Shillong. It is also one of the few spaces where people from different villages meet, given the relative isolation of these villages from each other. The bus thus becomes a medium of ‘conveying’ and sharing news, information, gossip which travels not only between the villages and Shillong but also between different villages.  Besides being an active space of sociality, the bus becomes a vehicle for the movement of the “idea” of “Shillong” back to these areas. Alternatively, the image of these buses in urban Shillong also creates an imagination of the “rural” for people in urban Shillong. What is the imagination of the urban that travels back to these villages and how does this inflect on the lives of people there? How does the “idea” of “urban Shillong” translate, articulate and have an impact on local imagination or aspirations in these villages, if at all it does? Through Zariyein, we would like to explore these intangible facets of the bus in its journey from these villages to Shillong. We feel that Zariyein, using the medium of the visual and sound, could unravel these ephemeral facets of the bus which may not emerge through conventional research approaches. The steps that were adopted in the doing of Zariyein in Khirki – handing out cameras, selection of images, recording conversations and a mobile installation- may need to be adapted to suit the specificities of the bus, its journey and ideas and people associated with the bus.