After my father passed away, the idea of a lingering dialogue between us slowly took shape. Growing from a series of reflective moments strung together, it became a cathartic exercise. It gave me space to examine our difficult relationship and the negotiations contained within it that shaped me. This in turn led to clarity and allowed me to come to terms with his passing and absence. The process of contemplation yielded several insights and the book evolved as a series of dialogues between him and me. Some of the statements he had said directly to me at various points; others were unsaid, but suggested. Through it all, larger ideas of a 'parental script' and my ways of resisting it are also operating in the background.
After his passing, I came across his diary in which he had recorded his views about me in Kannada. It spanned almost my entire life – from my school days and my intense desire to join art school to how he struggled to support me and how proud he was of my achievements. These lines formed the perfect foil to my thoughts and perceptions, so I scanned them from the original and inserted them in between my own textual narratives.
When it finally came together, the book became a juxtaposition of two viewpoints: mine and his. The book alternates between English and Kannada text, like two parallel narratives unfolding through the book, converging and diverging at various points. It textually represented my perception of what he said verbally and non-verbally, and how I responded to them - all of which is in English.
In this iteration of the work, I have presented it along with his typewriter, table, and other paraphernalia. The typewriter font used in this work and the typewriter machine sounds are a tribute to him, who spent several decades as a typist.