Experiencing the Goddess: On the Trail of the Yoginis – BOOK LAUNCH
Seema Kohli in conversation with Habiba Insaf, with contributions from Anamika Roy, Stella Dupuis, Janet Chawla, Nilima Chitgopekar
A yogini is an ephemeral being of nature that is universal, a force of energy from where we’ve all gathered and are a part of it, connected to it as a whole. That is what multidisciplinary artist Seema Kohli has to say about yoginis, the subject of the newly launched book, “Experiencing the Goddess: On the Trail of the Yoginis”. Kohli is one of five authors – the other four being Anamika Rao, Stella Dupuis, Janet Chawla and Nilima Chitgopekar – who came together to work on the book. A collection of essays, the book shares research experiences, ideas and knowledge from studies and travels of the authors to ancient sites where divine female energies dwell.
Speaking at the launch of the book at the Jaipur Literature Festival 2021, Kohli, who has studied yoginis for nearly three decades now, refers to them as “a conduit of energy”. As someone whose work is mostly figurative, she sees the yoginis as feminine and that is how she has tried to express the yoginis in her art. For her, “a form for the yoginis is important since I have to express it without any words or any music, so my expression becomes more of a figure and it is a feminine figure,” she says as she speaks about her approach towards the yoginis in her artwork.
Kohli says that her love for the feminine started “probably when I was growing up”. “All the qualities which I didn’t possess, the strength and the confidence and the whole demure was so beautiful when I saw her little sculptures on the banks of the Ganges in Haridwar. I was taken aback. Since that day I was captivated by her and I started to revere her and pray to her,” she continues as she reveals how yoginis became her artistic inspiration and muse.
But how does she bring the yoginis to life on her canvas? Through the whole manifestation of yoginis through various sources, she says. “I don’t rely on just books. Folklore, scriptures, my imagination and reverence towards it, creating my own rituals, understanding the existing rituals… I sometimes feel like a honey gatherer where you are gathering the information through so many sources and what gets on my canvas and in my words is the essence of all that,” she says.
Habiba Insaf, art historian and host of the session, asks if her yoginis ever get angry, and if they ever feel fury. Directing Habiba’s attention, Kohli says, “Of course, we have cyclones, floods, landslides; they are nothing but energy expressing itself. It is very much alive, it is not dormant, it is expressing itself. It is for us to connect with that language and understand what is going on and how it is expressing itself.”
Habiba asks her if she fears being typecast considering that her work may be interpreted in a way different from what she intends, Kohli responds in the affirmative and says, “That’s always there. That’s probably a risk that every artist takes.”
At the same time, Kohli sets apart her work when she talks about universal energy and her work. “My expression is more unified, towards the fact that I’m expressing a very universal energy. Energy is very universal; it is not confined to any specific part of it. Each culture, each religion, has a different expression to it but it is universal, and we can’t deny that,” she says.
And how does she see herself? “As a minuscule, maybe a small atom of that huge form of goddess Kali because that’s what I endeavour the most.”
The session ends with Kohli reciting a poem from the newly launched book:
Earth to earth,
Ashes to ashes,
Dust to dust,
Death is not a full stop
The energy doesn’t stop flowing at that point,
It recoups, reforms and moves on
Its energy changing directions,
Cursing on again as a different form,
in different space.
