Word Count: 374 | Reading Time: 2 min

Weft of the Earth

This is one of those few pieces that I could visualise very clearly in my head before I pinned it down on paper. As with most of my illustrations, it has a story to it.

In the distant future, there is a city called Khandarstaan, a hi-tech port city located close to where the river Indus now flows. This city is powered and run by an Information Network called the Ana.Hita which is, in actuality, supplied by energy generated by the labour of incarcerated Loom Weavers, who weave history and memory into patterns for the network to run on. The main character, Manzil, is one of these Weavers; she manages to escape Khandarstaan and comes across a mysterious floating island that only she is able to see in the Old Gawat quay, an island where she finds thousands of names — and thousands of stories — carved into the earth. The spectres and spirits to each of these names spin and dance before her, The illustration centres Manzil and depicts her weaving these memories into reality with her hair, in an effort to unearth the truth on which Khandarstaan is built; as she does so, the cityscape in the background falls apart, quite literally.

Manzil forced herself to take a deep, shaky breath. Swiftly, she slipped a loop of hair around her fingertips, forming an intricate array of knots that looked impossible to manoeuvre. Yet she did, tugging at them until they flowed as fluidly as the Indus between her fingers. She hummed, reaching for a set of double doors in her memory. Brilliant, beautiful, terrible images cascaded through the doorframe, accompanied by scents and smells and sounds of a deserted past: the twang of the benju, the whistle and coo of the sorud, red-tinted cotton rallis scattering in the wind, interlaced with the thick, sweet scent of desert dew. Tones of cinnamon and saffron threaded with the soft hum of voices, of numinous daastaan gushing and flooding through cracked lips, from within the narrow doors of abandoned shrines and dried-up lakes.

Manzil asks us to bear witness to what state violence makes us forget. I think that is an important reminder to carry with us, all the time.