Landscape of Boundaries
Aditya Bhoite, Swara Chavan, Unnati Gandhi, Nishadh More, Prarthna Shah
Situated along the island edge of Diwar, Porne Tirth is a village geographically located on a slope tapering towards the Mandovi river. Since the time when settlements began shaping the landscape, the primary occupations on the island were agriculture and fishing which created a certain lifestyle and cultural practices. However, in recent times due to the non functionality of the sluice gate the agricultural practices have disappeared and practises like horticulture and fish cultivation have taken over.
The people originally invested in primary occupations have trained their next generation to opt for secondary and tertiary occupations which take them away from the island. This change in occupational and aspirational realms, along with a strong colonial influence, created a shift in manifestations of concepts such as ownership, the built and unbuilt environment, family relations, and their manifestations in space, degrees of publicness and gendered spaces.
Our encounter with Porne tirth started with an inquiry of the materiality and type of the compound walls that constructed the overall fabric of the place. Here, the factor of vegetation also started contributing to the sense of public and private along with the builtform. Further at the scale of an individual home there is an influence of the modern idea of a curated garden in the front.
This confluence started emerging in the newly built houses and as an extension to the older ones. The degree of publicness started sprouting with elements of walls, house plan, garden, terrain and vegetation along the streets.
Tarpaulin, sootal ropes, bamboo and tall trees (in specific places and arrangements) is all you need to create your new outdoor storage space, parking or shed.
The act of picking flowers and grass in early morning, is one which requires specificity in some cases. As every deity prefers a specific type of flower or grass. Accordingly flowers and grasses of certain species are cultivated around the house.
The practice of tulsi pooja is a prominent ritual, carried in every household. This takes place in the morning around 7-8 am, by the mostly the men and at times by women.
There is a total of 17 houses in this settlement, consisting of 5 major families namely - Chodankars, Sawants, Bhosales, Tares, Phadtes. These 17 houses and their arrangements are a manifestation of familial relations.
Diwar or Dev-wadi was a temple complex, consisting of tantric temples. During the existence of many colonial and feudal powers, these temples were demolished. Most of the idols were moved away from this place and settled in new places. But as the memory of them being here still remains fresh in the minds of the people, the practice of bringing the deities once a year on a journey back to their homeland continues.
The word ‘Rakhandaar’ means a protector which protects the people of a particular settlement up to a certain geographical boundary. The form of a Rakhandaar may not necessarily be a human but it can also be in the form of an animal. Many instances where an inhabitant of the village gets lost or is not able to find their way home, the Rakhandaar comes in to guide them. There is a small temple dedicated to this deity at this location.
The ‘Plinth tree’ is actually a mixture of two trees namely Tamarind and Peepal, the barks of both the trees are intertwined with each other as both the trees are of the species which have large foliages, the space underneath them is shaded adequately. It is located in the aangan of a certain house along with Rakhandar temple.
Farming as a practice is non-existent in this area but its remnants are utilized for other purposes by private landowners such as pisciculture.
One also finds remains or half built abandoned small scale fishing boats lying around and word has it that there was a small-scale ship building activity occurring in the region when traditional fishing in the river was prominent
