STORY OF SUCCESFUL LOVE MARRIAGE IN THE LAND OF JANKI-PANOI

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Janki-Panoi house


    The legend of ‘Janki-Panoi’ has been immortalized by Assamese folk-lore. Much like Romeo & Juliet, Laila & Majnum or Heer-Ranjha, their tragic saga of love and death has survived through generations of Assamese people. Even today at many places in India, love marriages are treated as a social crime. Tales of ‘Honour Killing’ and various other atrocities towards lovers, make headlines of dailies. In Assam, the present social scenario has changed over the years with families accepting the affairs of the young. In my own family, love marriages have been a trend for long which is normally rare in traditional Assamese society. My parents fell in love early in their age and got married. My eldest brother (among five of us) tied the knot on 26th November, 2013. This nuptial event again bore testimony to a successful love affair in the land of Janki-Panoi.
   The occasion of my brother’s marriage was special for us, thus I decided to choose this social affair to revisit and interrogate our socio-cultural past through the tale of Janki-Panoi. This work was homage to all the lovers who probably could not live together. The space for this particular work was a makeshift bamboo architecture modeled after traditional Assamese house and erected in order to arrange a feast for the young bride and groom. The entire project was designed and conceived by me and was materialized with the help of some local villagers and school children. The entrance to the main hall was preceded by a long passageway where I arranged thousands of colourful origami birds. The entire passageway was lit through UV lights where the birds stood out in the dark. Small speakers were arranged in the passage way which constantly played the conversation of Janki-Panoi. The proposal of love has many interesting dialogues to recount. The tale of these love legends has survived in a lyrical form thus I choose to work on the sounds by recording the voices of two theatre actors. Within the main hall where nearly three thousand guests feasted, I chose the central wall for the light installations. The changing images showcased a young couple proposing each other around a tree and an Assamese family on a scooter. Scooter in India has evolved as a socio-cultural icon of the middle class. On the other wall, images from popular Bollywood romantic cinema were pasted at intervals. In India, over decades Bollywood has played a major role in the imagination of ideal lovers. Most of the Bollywood movies celebrate the ultimate triumph of love over adversities. The idea was to celebrate the idea of love publicly in a space where lovers were doomed once.

 Writer by:montu das

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