I think the world is a floating cloud of different realities, which are sandwiched together with our fear and anxieties. The bonds pulling each other form a gravitational field in its own right. These bonds are streams of our intermingled memories. Within an individual these memories float and give rise to our consciousness. Each memory is a plane of consciousness, which can be pushed in its respective orbits. The space engulfing these memory planes is Time or Kal in Indian mythology. 

In everyday life, it’s the time which pushes the living beings to make the ultimate usage of a given lifespan, to give meaning to the cycle of birth and death. This rush to do, to fulfill once potential, gives rise to many friction of ambitions. When groups of similar ambition get together they generate an ideology. 

When the mass of any such ideology becomes larger then the bearing capability of a geographic region, it causes a tremble, resulting in the collapse of the known societal norms, resulting in calamities like Wars and Famines. The heavier the collapse, the larger the cloud of freed memories.

The present simulation is a visual Prototype of a vast cloud I am carefully putting together in the form of Encyclopedia of Minor Conflicts. The encyclopedia aims to archive different instances of rural unrest and documents the survival strategies societies invent when facing total collapse.

The simulation is a promenade in the digital world powered by a game engine Rather then complicating the event with media and news and symbols and designs and metaphors and signs, I have instead chosen the way to be crude, intuitive, impulsive and ignorance. I don’t seek to claim that I know everything about the subject, how can I or for that matter anyone else? The desperate feelings of three million dead cant be grasped by any known human parameters, one can only wish that such a thing never happens again. 

And that’s the reason I have put together a collection of images and sounds drawn from the famine period and juxtapose it with my personal collection. I hereby invite you to join me in this walk and try to live all the moments of hope, desire, fantasy and despair of these destitute of Bengal.

Navigation:

Mouse to view around

Arrow keys to Moving around

Sound clips are triggered automatically, please take time to listen.

Estimated time of Play: 11 mins

Objective of the game: To  traverse the varied landscapes and soundscapes from rural Bengal to urban Calcutta, uncovering the story of the Bengal Famine of 1943.

Made During: Of Games I, 2013