Partnership Reviews: The Most Successful Partnership in the History of Successful Partnerships by Anmol Chacko and Athira Jamwal

By -
Which is completely different and totally better than Rakshanda and Vedant's partnership which the Panel has decided to do a feature on. Which doesn't bother us. 

At all.

Before I, Athira, start writing about the details of my first
With Arundhati and Anmol in the
Doll's Museum
partnership I'd like to explain how the both of us ended up as partners. 

Shriya had just organised our first workshop on coinage and provided us with the task of writing a report on the coins we had observed during the workshop. The results were announced and guess what? I had FAILED the task. Yes, FAILED. Not lost the task, FAILED the task. Also, I wasn't the only one FAILING the task, there were others and one amongst them had been her. It was then that the task for the ones who had just FAILED was provided and partners assigned. A tragic start to the beautiful, wonderful, awe-inspiring, totally better than Rakshanda and Vedant's, bond we share now. 

A barch of Dolls from the Museum
The Doll museum task - Entering a doll museum for any girl-young or old, would be similar to entering heaven with angels all around. Something similar yet way more sophisticated could be felt by me and my partner in crime (not literally but for all essences and purposes) Anmol Chacko. The International Doll museum Chandigarh, our destination, was reached with great difficulty, trust me when I say “some things are too obvious to even notice”. We were both nervous as well as excited, and why wouldn't we be, it was the first PARTNERSHIP TASK of Speaking Archaeologically! The city was then new and so was the whole deal about Desk Archaeology, then adding on to a partner task could have turned things utterly ugly if it wasn't for Anmol (THE ULTIMATE DREAM PARTNER!). 

The Museum was filled with hundreds of dolls, depicting various
Wayang Art Dolls from Indonesia
traditions and regions. There were dolls dressed in traditional wedding dresses of different regions of India, dolls from different countries as well. The colours, the elegance, the aura of the museum was rejuvenating. According to the task we were supposed to pick up a single doll from the museum ( Imagine the stress we experienced to pick just ONE doll !), and write an archaeological report about it. We had so many beautiful figurines all around, some even depicting the all time favourite classic fairy tales too. If it were for any normal partnership (re: Everyone else but us) the selection could have been very obvious, a pretty attractive figure. However US being US, roamed all around without any success. All of a sudden, we were pulled back like a magnet to this particular doll, it was a puppet to be very particular. Slim silhouette, a dark face with wild expression, rage filled in eyes, purely devastating it was. That was it, that was the topic. I looked at Anmol, and she nodded, just nodded, there it was, our first task. 

The doll or more accurately the puppet was from Indonesia, and was used in Wayang art i.e the traditional shadow puppetry art form of Indonesia. The job of researching was not done with ease, not much was available to use but the hard work turned out well.


One major problem that we faced was we couldn't meet as often as was needed, thanks to my warden then, who simply wouldn't let me out of the hostel(sighs).To overcome it we used best that we had - video calling. Trust me she looks beautiful even on that small almost blurred screen (OMG Athira, no more). Technology had never been so dear to me. It took us so long to research that we were just left with one day to actually type the whole essay. This is the point where most of us go crazy, lose our calm and do nothing, not the case when you have such great support with you. We drove to Anmol’s house where her Mum prepared some amazing lunch for us while her Dad added some freshly ground spices to it.

It never felt like the first time, it was so comfortable, that's the thing about a really good partner, you can be working for the very first time and yet you can feel free to be yourself. We tried completing the essay and it was so much fun, because honestly we talked about everything except the topic. It never occurred to me as if I was the little nobody in that task, while writing down the essay she asked me before adding anything and everything. Shadow puppetry turned out to be even more exciting than it seemed when we drew its relations to India as well!

 The first task ended in the best way. Winning the task aside, the thing of greater importance was the bond that was formed, the experiences we shared. Personally, it will always be close to my heart because this partnership introduced me to this one person I'll always look upto as my inspiration, this one person who is not just a random senior but a source of constant support, admiration and love. The ending of the task was the beginning of a new phase of life that we would cherish forever and always.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Vav Factor: Sevasi Vav, Vadodra by Ramyani Sengupta

By -
Image
                    The Sevasi Vav, Vadodara           Click here for our Sevasi Vav Video In all of western India, you will be able to find stepwells, from the coasts of Karnataka, to the arid lands of Gujarat and Rajasthan. And then,  are  some in Delhi and Madhya Pradesh, too. They provided travellers with a place to rest, and prevailed as a place to socialize, as well as acted as a medium for storing drinking water (there is no reason to boast about the advent of social networking for you in the 21st century–the wise Yodas from the past did this). More than 200 stepwells are expected to be located in Gujarat alone today–making it very easy to picture their figures in the past. Their water storage effectiveness has helped local residents survive for hundreds of years, in the semi-arid  climate  and  seasonal fluctuations.   From northern Patan region to Baroda in the south-Stepwells  (or the  Vavs ) can be found  almost everywhere in Gujarat. Their walls were decorated j
Read more

Writing Gender History: A Speaking Archaeologically Task that became more difficult than it seemed

By -
Image
It all started with a flyer for a conference and from the sudden uprising of feminism in Archaeology—or rather an unprecedented growth of interest in Women in Archaeology amidst the situation of the global pandemic. "But we have more women archaeology students at Speaking Archaeologically than men," argued Simran Kaur Saini as we discussed this in the Research Wing. "Women are an essential part of history and archaeology. They have been so for quite a while. Where's the debate in that?" I had to concur with the argument wholly. I knew more women than men in Archaeology and what women at that! Some of the fiercest scholars, some serious forces to be reckoned with on the field, not to mention several archaeological entrepreneurs I know and liaise with, all of them are women. This task before us, that stemmed out of a Call for Papers invite, was going to be a cakewalk, right? Wrong!  That's because the problem of writing a history of women, their role in and co
Read more

Understanding Coinage of the Past: Indo Greek Coins by Dr. Osmund Bopearachchi: A Lecture Review by Kajal Bawa

By -
Image
  Make mistakes but make mistakes intelligently. Already in awe of Prof. Bopearachchi from when he spoke to Speaking Archaeologically about the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, we were more than elated when he graciously agreed to give us two more lectures on the coinage of the past. Exploring Indo-Greek Coins in the first lecture , he showed that the reconstruction of the history of the Greeks in Bactria and India as well as their nomadic successors is entirely dependent upon coins and inscriptions. Only a few texts explore their history and these are scattered across Greek, Latin, Indian and Chinese texts.  What was most fascinating about the lecture was the approach Prof. Bopearachchi took towards studying coinage. I always assumed that studying coins would be limited to the coin itself- its shape, material, contents as that is how we had always studied it. This is important but my understanding was taken to the next level as Prof. Bopearachchi provided a context to this study. He highli
Read more