Mahanet

Mahanet is at a junction … of graphies and geographies, of gusto and gravitas, of gambits and gestalts.  – Fabula x Film x Food – Mahanet is interconnecting multiple terrains in hybrid narrative ways, exploring movements and moments, configuring infra-narratives with rasa-narratives, as a design lab, as a desi fablab, in dialogue with the planet.

Mahanet has been conceptualized in 1998 and is evolving via multiple narrative avatars. This version is gathering numerous streams, exploring stories between South Asia and the rest of the planet, testing and tasting a palette of tempo, tension, twist and much more, interconnecting Fabula, Film and Food terrains. Design praxis, design research and education inquiries are offering pathways crossing these fields where artefacts meet abstractions.

Mahanet is a term coined by Alok b. Nandi in 1998, proposing initially to explore the relations between narratives of South Asia – a.o. the Maha-[bharata] – with distributed stories, flowing à la [inter]-net.

In the years 2007-2008, the Mahanet focus went into radio chronicles about “Book & India” for the IndeHebdo program in Paris. This series being discontinued, things went into pause mode.

Here is Mahanet back, looking at Movements & Moments. We are in 2026, and stories about South Asia are flowing, from film to food, from tech to travel, from hospitality to everyday experiences. Zillions of stories. At Mahanet, we are exploring the infra-narratives and the rasa-narratives, connecting the relational, the pluriversal, the infrastructural and navigating with and within distributed dimensions of narratives.

Everyone has stories. Here, we wish to focus on some, building on real life connections and conversations. Mahanet is an interactive narrative design lab, active IRL – in real life. The conversations and the sessions are exploring the narrative tension, tempo, twist with diverse approaches, a.o. participative, performative, personal and/or plural – in one word = interactive.

Instantiations are taking form and shape with discussions, meetups, talks, adda, publications with pixel or ink.

••• tempo x tension x twist •••

Maha-works notes – in process:

The Mahanet journey begins circa 1989. Attending concerts by Bhimsem Joshi, Hariparasad Chaurasia, Ravi Shankar, a.o. while also working backstage [student job] for concerts by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillepsie, Astor Piazzola, Nana Vasconcelos, …, allowed to open ears for South Asia and World Music tone, tempo and texture.

The recce for a book on the Architectures of Calcutta opened the streets of the city, walking North and South, exploring multiple bazaars and visiting ex-palaces. The voyage continues with a homage series to Satyajit Ray (book, exhibitions at Cannes Film Festival and several cities with film retrospectives and conferences), with performing arts sessions “Les Voies de Tagore” with Sharmila Roy, with Lille 3000 and Bozar artistic propositions in 2005/06, with radio chronicles on Book & India, with food systems design interventions and much more …

In parallel, the coCreationcamp series set in India will be documented here, as well as the India P-R-E sessions [powered by Cumulus Association and IxDA] exploring the relations between practitioners and researchers and educators.