Artist and writer Emma Sporton shares her experience and reflections on Mathroo Basha by Hetain Patel, which took place on Saturday 1 November at Lakeside Arts.

The carpet was thick and cozy, and the pattern of it was colourful; beautiful reds, creams, yellows, browns… The spotlight settled on it, and it thrummed with life. It seemed like the main character of the story that was soon to be told. Our respect for it increased when Hetain Patel took his shoes off before he very carefully stepped onto it for the first time.

Each step was silent, so throughout the work the only sounds were important ones; the voices of his family members; Hetain’s voice bridging the gap between himself and his family, and the audience; the music that intertwined itself with the layers of movement and voice. It created a symphony of the languages he has at his disposal.

The use of voice in this piece ignited it. Hetain’s body became a conduit from which his family spoke. His hands, arms and feet, powered by a combination of music and voice, carved the air articulately. The lighting made the shadows of his improvisation seem like his family were reaching out of the carpet to say their piece. Multiple generations of women from his British-Gujarati family spoke of their relationships with their language and heritage, and to the idea of a Mathroo Basha (mother-tongue). The carpet he was using as a stage began to represent his family, his ancestry. Its colours and patterns took the shape of their collective voices and perspectives, a tapestry of culture, and the values of individuals within a whole.

How else do you cement the importance of something other than to keep it and make it tangible so that it doesn’t get lost? By sitting on the carpet and singing the words of his mother, and speaking in unison to her, it gave attention and power to her words that was reminiscent of prayer. Through his movement, he actively listened to her and explored the cadences and musicality of her speech. The patterns that live in Hetain are ingrained pathways that he has visited and revisited. Some of his arm movements were derived from martial arts, and his hand gestures from Kathak, building blocks of himself that he values. His mother, speaking in both English and Gujarati about the things that are learnt and lost as cultures become blended, became an essential piece of himself as soon as he entwined his movement and voice, with her.

Towards the end of the piece, Hetain shed his jacket and socks, and tied the carpet around his waist as a skirt. The stage became lit more fully, and he spun, as if testing the fabric. The weight of it as it lifted and fell was symbolic of the ways the things you inherit can uplift you, and restrict or weigh you down. By wearing the carpet, he stepped into the role of accepting the duality of the responsibility it comes with. Like a saree, wearing the carpet skirt was Hetain making a choice to wear his history.