BENGALURU: A human experiment with a difference, Rohini Kejriwal’s new project aims to be a tangible exercise. So instead of surveys and questions, Kejriwal is looking at memories or personal histories of the current tough times. “Think of it like a time capsule -- where we bury something that we hold dear at this moment, only to unearth it later,” says Kejriwal, the founder of The Alipore Post, a platform that curates poetry, art and music, and has over 29,000 followers on Instagram (@TheAliporePost).
The Alipore Post Memory Box, she explains is where people can anonymously submit a memory in any form -- photograph, text, artwork, music -- that they could leave behind as their legacy for the future. “All of this will be collected in a Google document that will only be opened once the World Health Organization declares the world to be COVID-19 free,” says Kejriwal, who in just three days of announcing this project, has received over 60 submissions.
“It will be like a new world then, whenever we reach it. And we can have so many memories to look at, or relate to,” adds Kejriwal, who suspects it won’t be until 2021 before the box can be opened. Until then, she aims to keep the project going, in hopes that it may help people reflect on what is important to them. “Looking back, we can all see who we were during this time, what mattered to us or comforted us.
And it will also be a reminder that we got through it all,” she says, adding that she is still deciding upon what to put in as her own memory. Options include her collection of 30 poems, which she is currently writing for National Poetry Writing Month, or a letter of 10 things she would tell herself. “It will be revelatory to see what all the memories will have to say about human nature. Who knows, maybe I will even throw a virtual party for a collective unboxing of it,” says Kejriwal.