The elusive city of Varanasi has long intrigued us; it unsettled us, more than it has eased. This is our debut production, perhaps merely an ephemeral articulation on one of our several lingering inquiries on the oldest living city - “Why do people come to the city of Varanasi to die?”, we asked. 

We went to Varanasi as mere observers, in search of an answer to our enduring question, with an unbiased eye, refraining from any pre-conceived notions that would stem our perception and imagination. However, within no time, we realized that we have already been assimilated as part of a relentless and a larger cultural performance; we surrendered and let the city act on us. The spectacular multiplicities, dichotomies and vibrant contradictions which we witnessed, lead us to no singular answer.

Instead, it compelled us to seek the city, and its manifesting performance, for what it is. We, the humble observers, had become active co-performers on this urban stage. As artists, amidst this incessant play, where and how do we voice ourselves? Moreover, in the grasp of the ongoing pandemic, is the contemporary society ready for such a cultural expression? Semicolon is a celebration of this trepidation.

Emerging out of an intrepid and experimental urge, Semicolon– positioned at the intersection of architecture, urban studies and psychology - attempts to nudge existing dispositions on Varanasi. We aimed at an agnostic approach to our production, thus exploring the fundamental human condition and pursuit of self-preservation and immortality, which simultaneously also reasons that one can break free from the cycle of life and death and attain Moksha. Blurring our own disciplinary boundaries, and yet leveraging the stark dissimilarities and diversities in our respective opinions, perceptions, biases and visions, continually illuminating spaces of collective epiphanies was at the core of our process. Since its inception, it was clear to us that it is not a documentary, neither is it a work of fiction. In embracing the surreal, the film does not abandon reality, yet eschews conclusive realism. In the pursuit of capturing the city’s performativity and its spatial and temporal transience, the film runs the risk of its non-linear narrational progression. The city of Varanasi ended up unfolding a script in front of us, we only improvised.

As an abstract of the unfabricated account of the performance, Semicolon, tinged with a raw, unprocessed and uninhibited Indian cultural sensitivity and nuance, attempts to activate a site of flux, contestation, conflict, tension, relief and transformation.

- Pravah Khandekar