MY GROUND ZERO HOMES

by Raminder Kaur

directed by Mukul Ahmed

What if your home slowly sinks into the

shifting sands as water levels rise around you?

Or, what if your home is devastated due to cyclones and floods,

and there is no help to rebuild it?

What do you do?

Where do you go?

This is what life is like for people who live on the edges of the Sundarbans islands,

a littoral delta region between India and Bangladesh.

MY GROUND ZERO HOMES refers to the multiple moves that people must make in the Sundarbans borderlands as their homes collapse due to riverbank erosion, floods, sea level rise and tropical storms. A mangrove forest region and the ‘Land of the Royal Bengal Tiger’, people contend with the effects of climate change while trying to live in harmony with nature – its wonders and dangers alike.

The theatre play focuses on the life of Sundari and her husband, Deban, a tiger-charmer, fisherman and honey collector. It highlights their daily challenges yet hearty resilience while dramatising the destructive lifestyles of middle-class Indians who visit the Sundarbans on ‘safari expeditions’.

As land erodes and abruptly disappears, Deban must go deeper into the forests to collect honey. He becomes more vulnerable to tiger attacks, who too are feeling the pressure of land loss. Among them is Nantu, the king of Royal Bengal tigers. Floating around them is a mystical boatman, Majhu, who sings ballads of ancient pasts, satirical presents, and futures unknown.

The 2021 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report notes an increase of 4.5 degrees will lead to sea level rise by 60 cm by end of this century. This along with warm sea surface temperature will result in more severe storms and ‘super cyclones’ with extremes of high-water surges and ground salination in Sundarbans.

Millions of people will be affected - fertile agricultural land could be destroyed; farming and fishing livelihoods could be seriously compromised; tangible heritage damaged or destroyed; and wildlife and the fragile mangrove forest with its unique biodiversity is at risk of disappearing. For these reasons the Sundarbans has been called a ‘ground zero of climate change’.

The theatre project integrates the arts, songs and poems of marginalised Sundarbans artists. Through words, sounds, imagery, lights and projections, the aim is to create an immersive experience – entangled in depleting verdancy and almost drowning in rising saltwater - so as audiences can feel the fragile lives of both people and planet living on the edge

SUNDARBANS CREATIVES

There are many people who live in the Sundarbans who excel in creativity. As they rarely make an income from such talents, they must work in other occupations for their daily livelihoods, which might include fishing, woodcutting, honey collecting, agricultural work, driving an autorickshaw, and/or running other small entrepreneurial activities to cater for local residents and tourists alike.

Here are a few examples of local creativity.

The theatre project integrates the arts, songs and poems of marginalised Sundarbans artists. Through words, sounds, imagery, lights and projections, the aim is to create an immersive experience – entangled in depleting verdancy and almost drowning in rising saltwater - so as audiences can feel the fragile lives of both people and planet living on the edge

Manurani

I used to be a housewife, and now I run a restaurant, cooking and managing customers. My husband works in the fields and also drives a tuktuk (autorickshaw). I now have 2 children - teenagers who are still at school.

I do my stitching whenever I get a moment. It’s cotton threads on gunny bags – bags in which things like rice comes. The designs are taken from traditional designs, such as these in cobweb design.