Poetry
We are two boys in our early twenties
who can read touch like that, who have broken into
a 200-year-old mansion, without permission,
to see from above where people like them go
after 377 has been read down only for those
who can stay behind closed doors — in the custody
of cheap hotels, or houses that welcome nights
with the sound of latches closing.
“Large will not fit you.” / She is scoping me, up and down, eyes / Flicking fast and darting away…“Try extra-large instead.”
The film has all the makings and trimmings of a commercial thriller – a dynamic story, song and dance, an action-packed climax – and at the same time, it is a cinephile’s film.
In the video section, watch Tishani Doshi perform one of her most haunting and popular poems ‘Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods’. Using the movements of/in body, music and language, it is a powerful expression of Tishani’s expansive vision of resistance, freedom and solidarity in the face of violence.
A kiss for the side of your neck One for the last of your back For a year that we…
Sharp and evocative, Kalki Koechlin’s spoken-word poem The Printing Machine lays bare the cycle of ceaseless and desensitised consumption engendered by the media. Kalki’s short and hard-hitting sentences, keys tap-tap-tapping, and the chrrs and grrs of printing machines bring out the urgency and sensationalism media narratives embody, turning incidents of violence into a stream of headlines that make us gasp and forget, gasp and forget.
1. A Certain Type of Life since the age of 16 I idealised a certain type of life involving certain…
You held my hand, we hugged each other / I was lost in your love, wanting to go further
घर के काम-काज से
निपट कर
औरतें
दोपहर में
शायद यही बातें करती होंगी
In an e-mail conversation with TARSHI, Alok Vaid-Menon talks about both performativity and poetic performance.
Amrita Pritam’s legacy for women and subsequent generations is to intentionally challenge status quo, trying to use art to challenge accepted taboos and redefine them. Be fearless, unabashed and courageous in the face of crude censorship and charges of obscenity, of raising and using your voice to speak as you see the world – not in the manner that the world expects you to speak.
I began to see Marriage / in Appa’s weathered hands, / smell Marriage / in the tea he brewed…
“Large will not fit you.” / She is scoping me, up and down, eyes / Flicking fast and darting away / From the roundness of my breasts / To the happy jiggle of my thighs.
There it was the road I was looking for, / Where I walked in my night dress / under the morning sun, / with no sleeves and no legs / with no bra and no shame.