In the front of a quiet dark room, there is an image of smoke ? the smoke of bombs, of the pyre, the hearth. On either side there are larger than life black and white images of women, in the act of folding a saree, in slow motion. They seem to come together to fold the edges of the garment – but cannot really meet – separated by the passage that is the room itself. They move apart and try to come together again in synchronous rhythm. Then they are rolling towards and away from each other, again unable to touch. The floor is strewn with debris – T?shirts, sarees, baseball bats, shoes, books. Tin trunks, the very cheap ones used by the poor people to keep their possessions in and for travelling, are lined up on the floor. Inside the tin trunks, there are moving images – the partition of India, thoUSAnds arriving on the roofs of trains, on foot, in bullock carts; refugee camps; a present day newsreader who supposedly represents the global village – the oriental with a clipped British accent and western style clothing; the Home Minister of India – in his mouth the words about the horror, the mushroom cloud; sepia toned images of a family from another part of the world; clouds across the sky; blood, oozing wounds.

As we continue to listen to the recording, we hear that such absurdities exist between nations the world over, on matters of borders, on race, on the weapons of deterrence – a word that implies one thing and actually means another – and a whole world is constructed of absurdities and lies. In-between are stories, a very detached and objective news reader begins to quote and state the news, as if none of it has to do with him/her. One of the stories is 'Toba Tek Singh': A couple of years after the Partition of the country, it occurred to the respective governments of India and Pakistan that inmates of lunatic asylums, like prisoners, should be exchanged. Muslim lunatics in India should be transferred to Pakistan, and Hindu and Sikh lunatics in Pakistani asylums should be sent to India. Whether this was a reasonable or an unreasonable idea is difficult to say. One thing, however is clear. It took many conferences of important officials from the two sides to come to this decision. Final details, like the date of the actual exchange, were carefully worked out. As to where Pakistan was actually located, the inmates knew nothing. That was why the mad and the partially mad were unable to decide whether they were now in India or in Pakistan. If they were in India, where on earth was Pakistan? And if they were in Pakistan, then how come that until only the other day it was India? One inmate had got so badly caught up in this India?Pakistan/Pakistan?India rigmarole that one day while sweeping the floor, he dropped everything, climbed the nearest tree and installed himself on a branch, from which vantage point he spoke for two hours on the delicate problem of India and Pakistan. The guards asked him to get down; instead he went a branch higher, and when threatened with punishment, declared: “I wish to live neither in India nor in Pakistan. I wish to live in this tree.”

– Johan Pijnappel