Indira Gandhi International Airport.
“In his use of diction, Kolatkar saw himself very much in the blues-bhakti tradition.”
A Woman’s Place Is In The Poem
Don’t look her in the eyes. Only the night could ever come between the moth and the flame, and the sun still crinkles the edges of evening. There is time for loss. There is time for prayer, for lips to understand the rubbed language of sighs. Till then, we sip our broken promises. Slowly.
At your service then, madam, the hands we hid behind our backs. Please watch them carefully as they unfurl. Note the blood under fingernails. Note the monsoons embedded in the seams. Note the weight of assumption.
It’s a 4 letter word when it’s heard, it control/
your body to dance (you got it) soul.
Electric Moon, directed by Pradip Krishen and written by Arundhati Roy.
The internet has failed me, oh the horror.
das racist rooftop session @ subbacultcha!
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
From Om-Dar-Ba-Dar (Kamal Swaroop, 1988)
Dil toot raha hai! Jaan jal rahi hai!
Dil toot raha hai! Jaan jal rahi hai!
I say to baby,
I say to baby,
O my bride!
O my flower! Pup pow papapapow
It’s like a sea baby, it’s like a market lady
It’s like a sea baby, it’s like a market lady
Mithya hai sansar maya hai sansar
Mithya hai sansar, maya hai sansar
It’s like a sea baby, it’s like a market lady
It’s like a sea baby, it’s like a market lady
Muh pe lagaya powder, baalon mein scent dala,
Hotel mein raat kaati, theater mein din guzara
Muh pe lagaya powder, baalon mein scent dala,
Hotel mein raat kaati, theater mein din guzara
Naye fashion se (haan haan), nayi position se (o ho)
Naye fashion se (haan haan), nayi position se (o ho)
Bolo haseen, dil mein kya pha’see
Bolo haseen, dil mein kya pha’see
Phir bhi mainnn…When the brass band version of Emosonal Attyachar came on while I was watching Dev.D, Anurag Kashyap seriously became one of my favorite directors, if not people. Seriously, to pay homage to Kamal Swaroop’s so overlooked Om-Dar-Ba-Dar while still ensuring you made a great song (props to Amit Trivedi srsly) is pretty awesome. You can watch the original here though, and then maybe go watch Om-Dar-Ba-Dar too.
Demand
It was the usual protest at Jantar Mantar.
The monkeys and the beggar-women
sat arrayed in concentric circles.
The langurs demanded government jobs
in return for biting off the city’s sin every dusk
(primary targets included jilted lovers and the nouveau riche);
work they had been performing for the past seven generations.
The women − some immortal, some
balanced precariously on caste lines −
complained bitterly of the bad crop this winter.
Each of them had given birth to exactly two
tall, dark and handsome men
who had at once applied to British universities.
I was seated in the center of this colosseum,
this postcolonial tamasha.
The sundial refracted our tired ghosts
into tea and lentils.
Nodded at the gurdwara in the distance,
began to chide the natives for their
petty narratives in my taut English –
but it was missing.
One of the little chootiyas must have
stolen it. Why?
Hanuman, sitting cross-legged beside me,
leaned in for a conspiratorial whisper.
“Ah, but how else
can the subaltern speak?”
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