CHENNAI: As the world marks World Refugee Day on June 20, a small room in Teynampet will attempt something most events about distant suffering do not: it will stop talking about the displaced and start talking with them.
Rethinking Freedom, an evening curated by the Chennai-based organisation Rethinking Refugees, unfolds at NOOK on June 20, marking both World Refugee Day and 75 years of the 1951 Refugee Convention, the post war promise that anyone forced to flee danger has the right to seek safety. It is, by the organisers’ reckoning, one of the few artist led refugee solidarity gatherings of its scale in South India this year.
What audiences can expect is an unusually wide sweep of forms in a single sitting. On the music side: indie singer songwriters performing original material, acoustic duos blending vocals with flute and guitar, a solo electric guitar instrumental set, and a six piece cover band bringing together songs of exile, resistance and belonging.
Beyond the music, the evening features a reading by writer Nirmala Govindarajan, theatre monologues built from real refugee testimonies and performed by professional actors, a standup comedy set, and a moderated panel discussion on freedom, selective solidarity and political apathy, featuring senior journalist RK Radhakrishnan among other voices. Its most striking moment comes by screen: a short video followed by a live conversation linking the Chennai audience directly to a contact in Gaza, turning solidarity from something spoken about into something spoken with. “This is not a concert with a cause bolted on. Seventy-five years ago, the world assured that safety would not depend on your nationality, your faith or your bank balance. This evening asks how honestly we’ve kept that promise, in a year when more than 117 million people are displaced and solidarity has become something we ration,” says Dr Sindhuja Sankaran, the social and political psychologist who founded Rethinking Refugees.
All proceeds from the evening will go to Basmeh & Zeitooneh, a grassroots organisation in Beirut, Lebanon, that supports refugees and helps rebuild lives in conflict settings. Tickets are priced at Rs 500 and are available online and at the venue.The event will take place on June 20, 6 pm onwards at Nook, Teynampet.