Thoughts I had while attending Open Sky Slam - Part II

First of all, Part I of this two part series has become my most read blog post. It is my first blog post to reach 200 page views. So, yaay! And thank you. And finally, here is the second line of thought I had while sitting there at Open Sky Slam.

Art has always had an interesting relationship with political engagement. There are artists who believe that it is the responsibility of every artist to have political opinions and to be opinion leaders. Then there are artists who believe that an artist is not obligated to anyone, except to her/his own art. I personally believe that people as individuals need to be socially and politically aware, especially in a democracy. Whether their art engages such issues or not is secondary, and it is the personal choice of every artist on whether to do so or not. However, irrespective of whether a person is an artist or not, I believe people in a democracy should be aware and active in issues that their community faces.

The urban Indian educated in English medium institutions sometimes tends to be isolated from social and political happenings around him/her. This often comes due to a privilege enjoyed by the middle and upper middle class educated Indian, which ensures that local political events and decisions do not inconvenience the said person in a big manner. This is especially so in Bengaluru, which has a culture of political indifference. One indicator of this indifference is that voter turnout in Bengaluru for elections is dismally low when compared to the rest of the state. (I also am culprit to this as I will not be voting in the upcoming Assembly elections, having missed the January 22 deadline to apply for an ID card. As you can imagine, I am very ashamed of this.)

In this context, Open Sky Slam, and similar art platforms are playing a very important role, although maybe unknowingly. These platforms are creating a community that is beginning to engage with political and social realities around it. In the many performances I witnessed on 24th, I saw various issues being spoken about, such as the controversial statement by Goa CM, Manohar Parikkar about girls drinking, the stigma around mental health, the complexities of the narrative around prostitution, and other such issues. There was one performance where a rape victim brought out her narrative, and in doing so, subverted the power structure. There was another performance by Aditya Kedia, where he spoke on the promises of politicians, and the subsequent failures to live up to the promises.

Though, some of the performances were intentionally dealing with political and social issues, such as the commentary on the statement of the Goa CM, and the one by Aditya Kedia, most performances did not do so. However, they are still largely significant. Building a collective of individual narratives builds a collective narrative. And many of the performances that did not deal directly with issues also did so in their personalized narratives. For instance, the poem of the rape victim was highly personalized, and yet offers a strong commentary on the prevailing rape culture of our society. Similarly the poem dealing with prostitution was also a very personal narrative. One of my personal favourites among the performances was the one by Cipun Mishra. I mentioned his piece in my previous post dealing with poetic techniques. However, I also love his piece for how intensely personal it is, and yet offers an incredible layered commentary on the socio-economic context in which he grew up. Having to sell the house to afford education for the children, foregoing lunch and saving ten rupees thereby are images that haunt the listener by opening a window into the lifestyle of middle and lower middle class Indians, and also at the same time offer a commentary on accessibility of higher education in India. Poetry in its most melancholic beauty!

Democracy is governance by the people. It happens when people engage with issues in public spaces. OSS and other such art platforms are creating public spaces where such narratives are being dealt with. They also bring people from different contexts together. I witnessed performances in English, Hindi, Urdu, Hindustani, Tamil, and even French. Each of these people are from different contexts. Bringing together different contexts enables narratives and discussions to be more nuanced, than if all the people were from the same context. That is not all. The public space, in this case, is merged with the historic role of the storyteller bringing about an interesting dynamic. In European history, we see that the court jester (the fool in Shakespearan plays for instance) offered political commentary, even often mocking the King and his subjects. Poets in India often offered social critique. These roles have been brought together in these art spaces and merged with the public space where opinions and ideas are discussed.

This is why I think such art platforms are important. Because they offer a means for political and social engagement for people who might not otherwise engage with such issues. Though there needs to be more of an intentional effort by individuals towards awareness and subsequently towards engagement, this is a start. And for now, I am satisfied with baby steps.

Thoughts I had while attending Open Sky Slam - Part I

First off, Open Sky is amazing, and all you wonderful readers should do yourself a favour and go for their slams. For a year and a half, I'd been wanting to attend one of these slams, and I finally made it. And let me tell you that I regret not having attended sooner. While I was sitting there, various thoughts came into my mind, and having found them interesting, I would like to share them with you. I found that my thoughts followed two distinct trails. And as such, I am organizing them into two posts, of which this is the first.

Spoken word poetry is appreciated often for a number of things. For the issues it brings to light, for the conversations it creates, for the wonderful communities it builds around the art form, for the validation and solidarity offered by the community to each of its members, and so on and so forth. However, I have very rarely found much appreciation for the form and techniques employed by the artist. I do not want to be misunderstood here. I do appreciate it for the other reasons I have mentioned and for many more. However, as I was sitting there at Open Sky Slam, the various techniques employed by many poets made the whole experience a treat. I'm sure all of you know these techniques and have seen them often. But allow me to talk about a few of the poets who really stood out personally to me in terms of technique alone. This does not mean that they were better than others who I've left out. I'm looking at them purely on technique.

The thought first hit me while watching Meghna Prakash perform. Her performance had a musical cadence. And as she performed, she was gently swaying to her own words. Performance poetry is primarily an auditory experience, with a tinge of visual. And the way she used both the auditory as well as visual elements was masterful. Cadence refers to the modulation of the voice that renders a musicality to it. It is linked to rhythm, and many traditional written poets have used it masterfully (e.g. "Once upon a midnight dreary / While I pondered weak and weary....). However, the technique finds its ultimate use when combined with good performance.

Though performance poetry has been present in different forms among various different cultures, its modern avatar as spoken word poetry is still quite young. The lack of established traditions and genres allow artists to experiment heavily. One of the possible ways of experimenting is through borrowing elements from other art forms. Angshuman Sharma did a brilliant job by borrowing a number of elements from stand up comedy. He not only borrowed the performance elements, but his content (or lyrics) was prepared in a way that the entire performance can pass as a decent stand up piece, without losing the quality of spoken word poetry.

Imagery is an all time favourite among poets of all traditions, be it written or spoken word. Imagery engages the senses and thereby makes poetry a wholesome experience. Three performers who used it really well today were Akshay Balan, Cipun Mishra, and Simran Narwani. Akshay used olfactory imagery to great effect with his poem on smell itself. "Burn smell - black herbal coconut oil - old books - coffee breath and smoke": such words and phrases leave a distinct odour among the audience. Cipun Mishra used striking visual imagery which made the experience not unlike watching a video montage or a photo album. The image of the shopping complex where once a house stood is something that will be stuck with me for a long time to come. Simran employed tactile imagery in a simple and powerful manner. We all know how a hug feels, and therein lies the effectiveness of her imagery. We could feel each line as it was performed. While I felt my hands enveloping a friend, Simran asks whether the hand really belonged to me. Brilliant!

A number of poets today performed beautifully in Hindia and Urdu. The advantage of this is that traditionally Hindi, and especially Urdu poetry is meant to be performed. The most popular form of such poetry is the Shayari. Many Hindi and Urdu poets employed this. However, two poets really stood out to me in the way they used this. Aditya Kedia, in a poem where he spoke about colours, juxtaposed Shayari lines within story telling. The strength of the story telling form often lies in imagery, and timely well delivered punch lines (which generate snaps). Aditya did have imagery (a poem on colours will of course have good imagery), but his punch lines were delivered in the form of Sher (couplets) of the Shayari tradition. Similarly, Abhishek (I don't know his full name) juxtaposed dialogue into the Shayari form. Dialogue is a technique primarily of the theatre. And Abhishek's poem consisted of two parts. The first was the poet talking to the shoemaker, and the second was the reply of the shoemaker. Very clever!

To conclude, techniques are like spices. They add flavour, but if not used in the right amount, could make the entire ordeal of sitting through a performance quite painful. The chef is usually precise with his preparation, but the person who eats may not recognize the various spices that make the food delicious. Similarly, precise use of technique may often be unnoticed, but that does not make it unnecessary.

P.S. 1. I'm sorry that the first two techniques I mentioned ended up becoming rather vague. I thoroughly enjoyed experiencing the techniques as an audience, but explaining turned out quite a hard nut to crack. I know I haven't done justice to it, and I apologize.

P.S. 2. I'm planning to do a series of posts commenting on the various elements of spoken word poetry, such as technique, form, structure, performance, and so on. Do look forward to it.

We were meant to live

On January 1, 2017, I wrote a blog post (Take notes: It's 2017!), which is one of my favourite posts. Part of the reason is that the post went on to become one of my highly read posts till then, but also another reason was that it was my first post about something I was truly passionate about.

Today, an Instagram story of one of my friends made me revisit the post. The story was an appeal to the students of Delhi University to support a strike by the Delhi University Teachers' Association organized against recent policies by the Central Government. I hadn't previously given much thought to the Government's decision to grant autonomy to various Universities in the country, and I hadn't thought about what would be the repercussions of the decision. However, the story went on to list out some of the adverse effects, which prompted me to do some further reading into it.

Here's the gist of what it is. The Government of India has decided that it will be granting full autonomy to 62 higher educational institutes in the country. This means that they get to do whatever they want, provided they don't ask for money from the University Grants Commission. Therefore, for the University to sustain itself financially, it would increase the fees paid by the students and/or get private players to fund courses offered by the University.

While there are indeed people in India who can very well afford to pay higher fees, for the vast chunk of India's population, higher education is still barely affordable. Therefore, further increase of fees is going to put higher education out of the reach of many. This is going to be disastrous for India in the long run. India's population is highly young, and in the coming decades it will be crucial for India to build a qualified workforce. By limiting higher education to one segment of the population, we are not doing that. Secondly, for many families aspiring to rise out of poverty, education used to provide that way out. This will no longer be possible for such families, who are going to be stuck in a cycle of poverty.

Getting private players, which would primarily be industries, to support courses would be counter productive to higher education, especially for the science and humanities streams. This is where my blog post of last year seems almost prophetic. The world is moving towards an obsession of productivity. The industry is only going to support courses that would directly benefit them or their industry in the short term. Hence, STEM courses would easily get funds. However, pure sciences and humanities, which advance the learning of humanity in general, and thereby lead to better understanding of ourselves and better functioning of society, would not be appealing to these private players.

You may well argue that humanities and pure sciences are quite useless because they aren't productive. To respond to that would be another blog post, however, in short, to be 'merely productive' is to the role of machines, but we as humans, are meant to live for so much more. At least I'd like to believe so (and Switchfoot would agree with me ;)

Bigot! No, YOU'RE a bigot!

Is the world becoming increasingly intolerant? In fact, quite ironically it seems that the more we talk about tolerance, the more we seem to notice intolerance everywhere. There may certainly be some truth to the fact there was a lot of intolerance always, but with increasing social awareness on these issues, we are identifying them only now, and that gives the impression that intolerance is increasing. However I am of the opinion that intolerance is in fact increasing, though I do not have any research or evidence to quote here.

The Indian liberal calls the conservative a 'bhakt', while getting called a 'libtard' by the conservative in return. On the global internet stage (which is basically the social media) we have the 'social justice warrior snowflakes' fighting the regressive forces of 'fundamentalists,' 'extremists,' and 'bigots.' A popular youtube essayist, CGP Grey explains this internet phenomenon in the form of thought germs travelling through the internet and affecting people in this video. Now, the phenomenon itself is quite interesting and harmless in itself. But activities on the internet often find ways to materialize even in the offline world. So, once again we ask the question, "is the world becoming increasingly intolerant, and if yes, why?"

One of the possible reasons is the nature of internet itself. Internet offers a level of anonymity and detachment that allows people to say things that cannot be said in the offline world. Anonymity can be seen in sites like reddit and youtube, while facebook though not necessarily anonymous still offers a level of detachment, which means that who you are on facebook need not necessarily be who you are in the offline world. And this allows you to get away with saying things. One example for this is the popular manga/anime series Deathnote, where approval of Kira begins in the internet. People want to maintain a level of decency in the offline everyday society, but online they are hailing Kira as the god of the new age under the guise of anonymity.

Another possible reason is the connectivity of the internet as explained by CGP Grey in the above mentioned video. Because of the connectivity, thought germs are not limited by geography, and can spread far and wide. And like his example of the plant and butterfly shows, when thought germs affect individuals, they will inevitably end up joining one or two sides of the existing debate, and the debate itself keeps growing in that manner.

Most communities have their own taboos, not just in terms of topics of conversation but also in terms of behaviour. Accordingly, there is a constant censoring of behaviour and speech by every member of the community. On the internet, however, due to its cosmopolitan nature as well as due to the lack of gatekeeping, there are no clearly defined taboos and subsequently no clearly defined uniform censorship. So, people feel free to speak and behave in manners otherwise unacceptable in their offline communities.

This means, if a particular (offline) community is against the curtailing of the freedom of thought and expression, on the internet, people of the same community will find it easier to express intolerant views, and may find people from across the world who may agree to their intolerant views. This will further validate their own opinions and strengthen their own resolution to their opinion. Moreover, these individuals form their intolerant communities online and may decide to meet offline as well. In this case, we can see how internet in a direct way contributes to increasing intolerance.

However, is this something that can be blamed on the internet? If a person's behaviour is different from due to lack of an anonymity, isn't that behaviour just a performance, akin to wearing a mask? Similarly, isn't who a person is in the lack of censoring and gatekeeping, the person's most honest self? If the answer to these questions is yes, then what does it say about the nature of human beings? Do humanism's ideas of man being inherently good still hold good? These questions need to be discussed.

Do feel free to disagree with me, or even agree with me. In any case, if you wish to discuss these issues, leave a comment. I'd like to know what you guys think. Alright, peace!

The Light Meets the Dark: the gospel in the context of hard questions

Today I had an interesting conversation with a friend. We were talking about the hard questions of life. And I'm guessing that if we are honest, each of us faces moments when we are confronted with hard questions. Questions that makes us uncomfortable. We are confronted with answers that don't feel good. And much too often, the natural tendency is to ignore such questions. Vinoth Ramachandra in his blog post, ""Deconstructing Equality", talks about the question of intrinsic and equal worth of human beings being side stepped or shouted out of view in our contemporary polarized discourse of equality, since it is a hard question.

When I came back home after the conversation, I started listening to an album by Tenth Avenue North, "The Light Meets the Dark." And for the first time, I noticed how the band does not shy away from asking tough questions. I have not been a big fan of contemporary Christian music due to many reasons, out of which one is that CCM often does not deal with hard questions, and just writes feel good inspirational music.

The third song of the album, 'you are more,' is one of the band's highly successful songs both critically as well as on the charts. The song talks about questions of self worth, and in quite unflattering tones claims that self worth cannot be drawn from the choices one has made in life. In a concert, lead singer and frontman, Mike Donehey says about the song, "We preach something like this, 'the choices you make make you who you are.' You know, only proud people say that, only people who've made good choices say that... Well, here's the gospel, you gotta admit you are a bum, and you don't need to prove a thing to anybody because He did it for you."

The first song of the album, 'healing begins,' makes an appeal to let down one's walls. The second verse says, Afraid to let your secrets out / Everything that you hide / Can come crashing through the door now / But too scared to face all your fear / So you hide but you find / That the shame won't disappear. And then the pre-chorus kicks in, So let it fall down / There's freedom waiting in the sound / When you let your walls fall to the ground / We're here now.

The last song of the album, 'Oh my dear', closes out the questions raised by "healing begins," in a very satisfactory manner by telling the story of a person opening up and talking about some of their deepest secrets: You said, 'I just don't think that you'll understand / You'll never look at me that way again / If you knew what I did.' // And so your tears fell and melted the snow / You told me secrets nobody had known / But I never loved you more, even though / Now I knew what you did. // Oh my dear, I'll wait for you / And grace tonight will pull us through / Until the tears have left your eyes / Until the fears can sleep at night / Until the demons that you're scared of disappear inside / Until this guilt begins to crack / And the weight falls from your back / Oh, my dear, I'll keep you in my arms tonight.

Each of the song in the album deals with heavy questions. The band deals with defeat, feelings of inferiority, fear, hurt, and the various challenges one faces while living the Christian faith, in a very succinct manner. And it is only in the context of asking the real tough questions that the hope and appeal of the gospel (the word gospel literally means 'good news') really stands out.

I experienced the album to be quite inspirational. But it does not inspire by ignoring and shying away from the difficult questions, but rather talks about hope in the midst of the ugly reality that we have to live in everyday.

Disclaimer: I am not good at critically analyzing music, and hence this is not so much an album review as much as a closer look at the message of the album from a purely lyrical perspective. I must also admit that I really love Tenth Avenue North and encourage all you readers to check out their music. The Light Meets the Dark is a good place to start, and here's the third song of the album, you are more. Cheers!