Niam Madlani

Niam નીયમ attempts to reify the Multiplicity of Otherness* in a series of collective readings. Through the lens of diasporic publications, photography and poetics — they question how the othered ‘voice’ has been forcefully funnelled and fractured to fit a false form. How can we use phonics; hesitation, satire and recollection, to disrupt the structures around us? How can the most private feelings or buried memories simultaneously be the most ubiquitously experienced? Can birth be (re)claimed, in the same ways as (dys)fluency?

 

Since 1932, Gujarat Samachar [ગુજરાત સમચાર], has been the leading Gujarati-language newspaper, published in Ahmedabad, India. Millions are distributed weekly alongside its sister publication Asian Voice; an English-language paper — which targets the younger non-Gujarati speaking demographic . The curation of these journals raise a number of incendiary questions — whilst exposing the generational fluctuation of linguistic, racial and queer identity.

 

Their Dādi દાદી [paternal grandmother] receives two copies every week. They are often lying on the kitchen counter, accompanied by the smell of masala chai. These objects provide a medium to access and express duality outside of normative utterance. The use of their voice as well as the participants, act as an entry to activate internal discourses surrounding trans-lingualism and dys-fluency.

 

 

*Term coined by Afaina de Jong, 2021