Collaboration

This artwork is part of the "Varnamala" series by Nikheel Aphale, who considers the Devanagari script to be his muse. Varnamala means "alphabet". Devanagari is an ancient Indian script in which Sanskrit, Hindi, Nepali, Marathi and some other languages are written. Nikheel draws parallels between the constitution of letters and human beings, through the lens of diversity, co-existence and togetherness. His artworks, inspired by and rooted in the beautiful Devanagari script, celebrate the ideals of unity, diversity, humanity and oneness, using letters as a metaphor. For instance, the Devanagari script allows one to write exactly how a word is spoken, reflecting honesty and purity of expression - values much appreciated in human beings. There is also no concept of upper case and lower case letters in the script. All letters are at the same level - no hierarchy, no discrimination in terms of position - perhaps an ideal to strive towards in human society too?

Titled "Collaboration", this artwork dwells upon the idea that each word is formed with the combination of a vowel and consonant. This association or alliance is inseparable, and such collaboration results in a meaningful and beautiful world where letters form words, words form sentences, sentences form a whole language, and language forms culture - the fabric of society.