Raqs Media Collective

The episode of Bhisma, the patriarch of the Kuru clan, choosing his moment of death is interesting for several reasons. One, it speaks of the 'curse' of having to choose one's death. In Bhisma's case, this choice is bound up with his vow of celibacy. And his spurning, as a young man, consequent to his celibate status, of Amba, the princess of Kashi's desire for him. Amba vows revenge, knows that Bhisma will never engage with anyone born a woman, and appears on the battlefield as the warrior Shikhandi, an early transgendered militant, bent on reaping the fruits of a thwarted desire.

Arjun, places Shikhandi in front of him, knowing that Bhishma will never engage in battle when faced with Shikhandi, and fires a volley of arrows, which forms a kind of bed, and then fires the final volley which makes Bhishma fall. Now, Bhishma, defeated, chooses the moment of his passing, when the sun changes course in heaven.

But before doing so, in grand Mahabharata style, there is the intriguing dialogue between Bhisma and Yudhishtira, on statecraft, on piety (the details of which I have to get) but we know that it ends with the Vishnu Sahasranama. The recitation of the thousand names of Vishnu.

Some possibilities from this episode - the defeated chief executive reciting the thousand names of capital, an exploration of the relationship between death and desire, and desired death. Defeat as an occasion for a dialogue.

Perhaps a reflection on the present, in the manner of Sanguinetti's "Report on the Present Conditions in Italy" - using the device of the thousand names, perhaps of capital.

A bed of steel spikes, in the form of a fallen man, (as in accident or street murder, post mortem outlines drawn in chalk) and some method, textual or speech of rendering the dialogue.

Many openings are possible.