Here is a riddle, one said.
And who do you think you are? asked another.
Only a servant. He was making films. The answer is unimportant.
Why ask, then?
There is a code in here somewhere. It is the mystery.
Which mystery?
The usual ones: possibilities of transcendence, rebirth, levels of existence. The role of ritual practice.
Such as?
Such as this one. Right now, I am filming a liturgical text. Contemplating the sacred frame by frame, but I am just beginning. He had been at it three decades.
Are you praying, then?
I call it excavation. I am a social worker with a background in archaeology.
But why?
The idea is to resuscitate the present. This is my devotion.
***
Inspired by an interview I read this morning, in BOMB magazine, with the filmmaker Ashish Avikunthak.