The installation explores the periodic eruptions of communal riots that seem to happen with uncanny regularity in India since the Partition of 1947. It is comprised of ritual copper vessels like Dharapatras and Havans, used in Hindu temples.
17 dharapatras have been etched with details of communal riots. They are presented as a durational installation with water dripping out of the bottom of the vessels into 17 havans each of which contains partially burnt books written in Urdu.
Viewers are invited to participate by pouring water into the dharapatras to continuously animate these memory leaks. Dharapatras and havans are appropriated as objects loaded with ritual significance and reinscribing them as containers of history that tenaciously hold and incessantly leak the memories of this communal strife into the present day.
