Brief of Pathor -Tila Village

Pathor -Tila, is situated at Cachar District of Assam State which is located 12 km towards South from District headquarter Silchar, it is one of the nearby villages to Silcoorie which earlier was itself a part of Silcoorie village. Silcoorie is a village in Barjalenga Tehsil in Cachar. This is surrounded by Narsingpur Tehsil Towards the south, Sonai Tehsil towards East, Silchar Tehsil towards the north. 

In the discussion with local village people and the workers of the bricks factory, one of the oldest villagers Md.Mustar Ali shared about Pathor Tila that the entire area which is covered with small streams and paddy fields was earlier under Silcoorie Tea Estate where the Tea workers used to grow rice crops, later some of the fields were sold to industrialists who had established bricks factories. In the beginning, the owners had to relocate workers from Bihar, Orissa, UP as they required trained brickmakers, gradually a  group of the villagers started working with them and learned the skills. The rest of the villagers are involved in fishing, growing crops, etc. As it is a flood-prone area, which is covered with floodwater during the rainy reason, the villagers frequently need to relocate themselves to nearby hill areas. They are able to earn their bread & butter only for six months working in the factories and the remaining six months they live on agriculture and fishing. Due to poverty and lack of infrastructure, they are able to bear the children's educational expenditure hardly up to 9th or 10th, hence, unemployment, education are their main concerns.

These all words come from their words, Yes, the language of the phrase was Assamese Bengali and Hindi too, it's translated in English and some of them as it is Bengali also.

This bricks craving I am going too put inside the Goethe Institut also making possibilities to the public and visitors for writing and interacting with the word in their views. 

                                                                             

Its a 'Lakhya' ( Target ), this word for them, hope in everyday life. Female, they have to carry eight bricks on their head and male they take 12 cubes by bicycle. So each round they earn a small amount of money. So in their job hrs every day their target to increase the series to get more money for sustaining.  

Conversation with Mostar Ali & Azim Ahmed 

Friction

wooden sandal using for fire roof area, Inside the soil fool of bricks bed and fire continuously burning the bricks. Labor has to see every time condition of brick and there is a pothole to check the fire and bricks condition.     

Labourers are working, there is two way to carry the bricks Bicycle head carry, they are not permanent employ each round counted wit money 

This is the raw bricks prepare with sticky clay and sand, put in the wooden block and take the shape& reproduction of the bricks. 

Pathoremanush

Project Proposal : Pathoremanush: The Narrative of the Bricks Brickman (Pathoremanush) is a process-based collective work. This site-specific project is intended to take place at Pathartila in Silchar, Assam. Pathartila is a place where soil mining is the primary source of livelihood. The area is littered with such mines and brick building factories. The majority of the inhabitants depend on these factories as temporary labours. The presence of these factories not only have altered the landscape it has also subtly changed the environment as the high heating underground oven increases the soil temperature of this area to a comparatively more senior level. Why Bricks? The question about choosing brick, as an object of our work was a necessary argument of this performance. Brick is one of the essential units of sky rise urbanity. The urban space dematerializes the singular character of the brick by unifying them into a human-made structure of the world. Interestingly the brick builders are also shaped in a monolithic structure of labour, as they all are proposed to make bricks in the same size, same shape and with the same logotype. Here, we have chosen brick as a metaphor, and our intention is to project 'brick' – mass-produced by machines in factories – as a unique piece of art. We intend to emphasize the sense of the commonness, not upon the so-called common sense. We will try to deconstruct the values of the unifying structure of the bricks by marking them as a singular and unique piece of creation. This will also help us to separate the identity of the brick as well as of the people who are involved in making them. There are two completely different narrations related to bricks. One is how they have created an uncomfortable hyper atmosphere and how they relate to the struggle of a particular class of people. The second is how those are being used in a most comfortable urban space for another level of people. Both these narrations are commoditized and delicately handled by the famous market. In this site-specific activity, we want to explore the peripherals of the working community of Pathartila. We will try to identify the relations among the people, their soil and the bricks as the remedy of their hunger. Here we will perform as a group or an individual in accordance with the preferences of the artists and the situation of the work. The work process will be completely interactive with a critical understanding of the given time and space. These are the one-year process-based, site-specific project involving discussions among the artists about their thoughts and ideas. The works of the groups or specific job will not be pre-planned and would rather be instantaneous. The basic idea, which has been cited above, is our inspiration for spontaneous growth of words, documentation, discussion and texts that will continue for a year archive leading to an archiving process of such performances. Process of Engagement: The area of the brick factory is highly sensitive, where the whole process may pose some risks. I have already interacted with both the owner and the labourers of the factory. The early stage of the entire process I am focusing on is interaction-based. In the initial stage, I would prefer to have days spent in meetings and regular visits to the site to create a comfort zone, where the people can easily interact. I feel that this interaction is essential to the work process to study the idea from multiple contexts. The method of clay preparation type of clay for the bricks, this also a necessary part of work documentation. The project is focused on documentation through video interviews of the labourers; It's a collaborative engagement both the artists and labourers, creating the textual objects out the bricks process, Sound documentation also part of the project. Another part of this project is to involve the labours directly in this process. The people who work for hours in a pretty harsh environment have minds of their own, and they never have the opportunity to explore. I intend to publish a monthly/quarterly unedited article by them which can continue later of the project if they want. Participants of the project? The idea of the project is to involve more significant community aspects. Two different communities are an essential part of the activity. This project-based in Silchar, In the project, students are involved engage with the project.
____________________________________________________________________

Pathoremanush is realized within the framework of Five Million Incidents, 2019-2020 supported by Goethe-Insitut / Max Mueller Bhavan in collaboration with Raqs Media Collective’