“Yes! It is very comfortable…”

2009 | Interactive installation with 1 Siachen soldier’s tent, various objects and audio | Tent (width x depth x height): 44 x 68 x 40 in. / 111.7 x 172.7 x 101.6 cm. | Installation dimensions: variable | Audio: 3 min 26 sec | Photos: Project 88, Mumbai

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Yes! It is very comfortable…, is an interactive installation that brings together familiar objects that would otherwise exist in different realities. Luxury items, reminiscent of a comfortable hotel room such as toiletries, bath robe, towels, slippers, etc, have been staged inside an old army tent. A sleeping mattress with a pillow and a bed sheet along with warm lighting and soothing ambient music, completes the intimate interior of the tent. The artwork is interactive in nature and can be also experienced by crawling into it.

The installation questions, if a soldier’s service, is seen as a professional job or a call for duty to protect the state. During the ascending and descending of the Siachen Glacier, the tent becomes a soldier’s temporary home. This is also resonant to business travellers, who check into hotels, which becomes their temporary living spaces.

The artwork confronts the generic perceptions of comfort and contentment, which are relative to our day to day lives. However, for a Siachen soldier the options of well-being and solace are limited, and he must make do with what is available. By staging hotel amenities inside an army tent, we witness two worlds collide. Soothing instrumental, music has replaced the sound of shells and howling glacial winds. Yes! It is very comfortable…, not only questions our notions of comfort, but contrasts it with the reality of what soldiers endure while stationed on the glacier.