Sonikka Loganathan

Music, dance and other odd jobs: how one artist got through Covid

Deepan, a Paraitthatam artist, says he is immune to job instability. His bigger lockdown worry was the survival of this and other ancient Tamil artforms.

On a day where only the stirring of the Bay of Bengal’s waves could help you find the demarcation between the slate-blue water and sky, a posse of men, dressed in neon, stood out. Clad in fluorescent pink button-down shirts and royal blue dhotis, the men, holding large tambourine-like instruments, were chattering away. Unable to divert my attention from them, I approached the group. Before I could even introduce myself, they began calling out “Deepan!” A tall, brawny man, with a thin moustache, emerged from the back, pulling his faded navy-blue face mask down. His instrument was slung over his shoulder and he held two drumsticks in his hands.

Deepan N. is the leader of the Friends Folk cultural team, a group of artisans who perform Paraiatthatam, a musical performance that uses the parai, a circular, shallow, wooden drum covered in cowhide on one side. Although only five other members accompanied him, he leads a 15-member troupe, who perform “mostly in Chennai. But [we have] also performed at other places in Tamil Nadu, Odisha, UP, other places,” he says, his voice trailing off, giving the impression that the list is much longer. The 27-year-old, who graduated with a Master’s in Commerce, joined the group 12 years ago when he was still a student. “Everyone here is a graduate,” he says, motioning towards the other members. “He has an MA,” he says, pointing to a man with tousled hair and a wide grin, who adds, “in public administration.” Others completed their diplomas or are still in school. “I do this full time,” he says, “but this has never been a stable job. That’s why the corona[virus] time was manageable.”

The group was at Elliot’s Beach to perform for a protest. When it comes to the kinds of events they are hired for, Deepan says almost anything goes. “[Parai artists] usually [perform] for death ceremonies but we don't. We play mostly at marriages, for demonstrations or strikes, for political gatherings and for festivals like Diwali.”

But when the pandemic hit, all of these programmes came to a halt. But Deepan said he knew this job was not dependable from the get-go. Besides Deepan, only one other person works as a performer full time. “Everyone else participates in their spare time. It’s sort of out of their own interest.”

During lulls in demand before the pandemic, Deepan picked up shifts as an auto-driver and a delivery man. During the lockdown, he and his colleagues took up a government census job, going door-to-door tallying COVID-19 cases. “Corona actually gave us jobs,” he laughed, before solemnly adding that “there were no jobs during the first month of lockdown. It was quite difficult.”

To cope with the sudden economic loss, Deepan, who lives with his wife Kalaivani, said they tried to stretch whatever savings they had. “We had to sell our jewellery to pawn shops. Though we struggled a bit, most of our band members are youngsters, so they got some support.” Although the group is not affiliated with the government, they received Rs. 1000 from the Parai Isai Kalainyargal government scheme, and some funds from charitable trusts.

But Deepan says it’s the traditional Tamil folk art forms that faced a greater loss. “When people join this group, we tell them they have to be passionate, they have to keep this art form alive.” He explained that ancient art forms like Therukoothu, wherein people depict mythological stories using song and dance, are practically extinct. “Growing up, it used to be a lot more common. Now, even Paraiatthatam is not as popular. You have to love the art form to enjoy being in this group,” he says, his bandmates nodding enthusiastically in agreement. As I ventured to ask Deepan more about traditional Tamil song and dance, his smartphone rang loudly.

“Hello? Yes, okay,” he said, hastily ushering the others to stand up. He shoved his phone into his pocket and said, “I’m so sorry, but it’s time for us to perform. Connect with me on Facebook if you want to talk more!” he cried, before jogging towards the protest, happy to see a crowd, and happy to carry on Paraitthatam’s legacy.

DIGITAL HEALINE: Salman Rushdie talks politics at launch of latest book, Quichotte

He discussed racism, the opioid epidemic and who the next U.S. president will be, at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

PRINT HEADLINE: Finding love (and yourself) in 21^st-century America

Salman Rushdie talked racism, the opioid epidemic and humour at the launch of his latest book, Quichotte, at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

“It’s quite a weird book,” said author Salman Rushdie about his latest book, Quichotte. Speaking at the book’s launch event with journalist James Naughtie at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019, Rushdie said he was concerned about whether the book read as “good weird or bad weird.” He sent the first 50 pages to his literary agent, Andrew Wylie, who told Rushdie “it’s the funniest thing of yours I’ve ever read.”

Quichotte takes inspiration from Miguel de Cervantes’s classic novel Don Quixote. At Naughtie’s request, he read out the first few paragraphs of his book. The run-on, stream-of-thought writing is meta, as Rushdie listed out the various forms of “mindless television” that the protagonist “devours,” alluding to cult favourites like The Real Housewives and The Bachelor reality TV franchises.

Rushdie’s version is from the point of view of Sam DuChamp, an Indian-American author, who writes a book about an Indian man, Ismail Smile, who is infatuated with a Bollywood star turned American daytime talk show host. Smile writes letters to her under the pen name “Quichotte” and, in his determination to be with her, travels across the American mainland. In the process, the book’s protagonists face some of the issues that plague modern-day America, like racism and the opioid epidemic.

Rushdie, who has lived in New York City for the past 20 years, doesn’t shy away from addressing these issues. “The original sin of America is twofold. One is the eradication of the original population. The other is slavery. And its consequence, which is racism.” Rushdie is reluctant to name the looming presence behind the recent spike in social injustice. The “45^th president,” he says, “…was the effect, not the cause” of injustice, in a society where, as Quichotte puts it, “Anything-Can-Happen.” Rushdie spoke with a certain skilfulness, as he smoothly moved between calling out the absence of reparations for the Black community, to a quip that he doesn’t live in the United States—he lives in New York.

He proved to the audience that he can keep a cool head even in divisive situations, when he recounted a lecture he gave at Vero Beach, Florida, “which is absolutely Trump country.” Rushdie described the attendees as “white-collar”, “college-educated” and, “cultured”, unlike the stereotypical Trump voter, yet they asked him questions like whether he really believed The New York Times reported the truth, or if climate change was actually real. His responses were laced with humour. “If you believe the world is flat, the Earth doesn’t need you to believe that it’s round, to be round,” he chuckled. “It just is round, even if you don’t believe it, because there’s this thing called evidence.”

But, as strange as the Floridians were, Rushdie found some solace in the fact that “they listened. The form of conversation was courteous. And, you know, nobody threw things or walked out. And I thought okay, at least we’re having the conversation, which, you know, in America, it’s getting harder and harder to do.”

Doja Cat: An artist in her own, galactic realm

From “Say So” to “Kiss Me More,” Doja Cat has found a way to dominate social media, break the charts and swerve cancel culture.

If you scroll through practically any Instagram feed, it’s nearly a guarantee that you will hear a snippet of a song by Amalaratna Dlamini, better known by her stage name Doja Cat. Her latest album, Planet Her, which was released this past June, transported listeners to a world where aliens don neon and metallic accessories that complement the pastels in their otherworldly makeup. Her music is a fusion of pop and rap that doesn’t just break the internet—it sows itself into the fibre of online culture, taking shape in trends like the #SilhouetteChallenge, inspired by her “Streets” music video. Still, Doja Cat, who has come a long way since her 2013 SoundCloud days, is not done. “often i realize i listen to so much beautiful music that there’s no way at any time in the future that i could ever fully love my own,” she tweeted, shortly after her album’s release. “I want to feel the way I feel about other’s music about my music. I’m gonna keep trying. It’s not for yall. I’m looking for it for myself.” Before people take the opportunity to attack, she tweets, “This doesn’t mean I think my music is bad.”

The California native grew up around artists—her mother and grandmother were painters, and her aunt was a singer, making them big influences in her artistry, she said in a video for Billboard. The performer’s first foray into dance began around the age of five, when she took Bharatanatyam classes. “I feel like it taught me how to kind of be emotive, and control my body in a special way.”

“I knew I wanted to sing. I just never thought I would,” she said. She wrote her first song, a “mushy” song for her mother, at eight years old. At school, all she cared about was “dance, English and lunch.” After school, she spent her time looking up new beats and undiscovered music, over which she started adding her voice. A few years later, Doja started streaming her music online.

To rule cyberspace, you have to go through the trials and tribulations first. And Doja Cat is no stranger to that. She shot to fame in 2018, after her homemade music video for her song “Mooo!” went viral. Against backdrops of cows, a Minecraft-esque farm, and burgers, a pixelated Doja sings, “b*tch I’m a cow, I go mooo.” Days after the meme-like video took off, tweets from 2015, where she uses the F-slur, resurfaced. As controversy built, Doja responded sloppily, without apologising. “Do I hate gay people? I don’t think I hate gay people. Gay is ok,” she tweeted. This brought on even more anger, after which she issued a formal apology for using “derogatory terms.”

In 2019, Doja became the pop star, with the release of her second studio album Hot Pink. The tracklist included bangers like “Cyber Sex”, “Like That”, and TikTok dance sensation and Billboard Hot-100 chart-topper, “Say So.” She is the 6^thtop artist on Spotify and is omnipresent on the platform’s many pop music playlists. At the peak of the Black Lives Matter movement last year, Doja was “cancelled” over allegations that she was visiting racist online chatrooms. As the hashtag #DojaCatIsOverParty trended on Twitter, the artist took to Instagram live to apologise and address the issue. “The idea that this chatroom is a white supremacists chatroom is, I don’t understand it in any way.” Doja doesn’t shy away from being her unfiltered self when she goes live. Sometimes it’s to give an honest apology. At other times, she’s just cooking, doing her makeup, or smoking weed, while responding to her fans’ questions and comments.

She is an artist who is unafraid to be herself, and happy to do so on the most judgemental place of all—the internet. It’s Doja Cat’s planet, we’re all just living on it.

Mylapore’s Kapaleeshwar Temple: A sublime escape to the land of the gods

A close look at one of Chennai’s most captivating sights.

Like the North Star, the Kapaleeshwar Temple’s 40-metre gopuram towers over Mylapore, pulling in worshippers and the curious alike with an unspoken, ancient might. Approaching the temple’s entrance, I’m caught in morning rush-hour traffic, as cars, bikes, cows and people all manage to squeeze themselves against each other in the narrow road across which lies the heavy wooden doors. While I wait, I hear a hoarse voice, scolding someone. “Fifteen rupees or leave it,” said a plump woman with jet-black hair, laying long and free behind her back as wet strands whipped across her face with every gust of wind or motorcycle exhaust. Her face is tinted a sickly greenish-yellow hue thanks to the layer of turmeric, and her forehead was lined with a thick line of light-grey vibhuti. She is rather nonchalantly arguing with a young man in a bright yellow shirt, who insists on paying Rs. 10 for a bag of roses, the heap of which are selflessly covering the ubiquitous stench of sewage and cow dung.

As the two chatter on, a clearing emerges on the road and I shuffle across, till I am hopping over the lifted steps, making my way to the cement and stone village where gods and mortals roam. Looking up at the gopuram, I see a medley of colour, people, animals, and those in-between, with the trapezoid-structures tops lined with golden orbs, making it an overwhelming and magnetic feast for your eyes.

Walking to the first deity, Ganesha, a woman in a neon pink sari and lipstick of the same colour chirps, “See you da,” to someone out of the frame, smiling to everyone in her surroundings as she hitches her sari up and walks towards the exit. A group of people stand huddle together in front of Ganesha, most with their eyes closed, all muttering their own chants under their breath, creating hypnotic reverberations, as the priest rattle a bell and deposits a heavy serving of sindoor and vibhuti into each other their eager, outstretched hands.

Turning around the corner, I find myself stumbling into the wrong frame, as an awkwardly bent man, holding a large camera, flaps his hand aggressively, motioning me to move. Scurrying to the left, I see a young woman clad in a lustrous green and amber sari, dipped in gold as ornate jewellery clings to her head, ears, throat, arms and waist, like armour. With powdered eyes and heavy eyelashes, she flashes a dazzling smile at the camera, making her appear almost like a chameleon resisting the urge to camouflage. Her fiancé, in a cream and gold dhoti and voluminous hair set back in a sweep, yawns, presumably waiting for his turn.

As one of Chennai’s main historic and religious sites, the Kapaleeshwar temple attracts people from all over India and the world. The temple, devoted to Lord Shiva, was built in the seventh century and is a magnanimous example of Dravidian architecture. Unsurprisingly, it makes for a great backdrop, but not just for wedding photos.

Across the photo studio, a hodgepodge of people roam the pavilion: a group of teenage girls in pastel pattu pavadais with ribbons of jasmine flowing from their hair move into choreographed positions, taking selfies; make-up artists, with palettes of rosy powder and dozens of tubes of lipstick strewn on the ground, try to corral their belongings together; photographers and photo editors fit new lenses onto their cameras and upload images on their laptops so the bride can see for herself if they got the shot; children slap their feet against the faded tiles, letting out sudden, sharp squeals; priests slouch against each other, chuckling at each other’s jokes; a young man rolls a boulder-like chunk of sandalwood against a slab of stone.

I turn into the sunken, cave-like chamber where the lingam resides. At the entrance, a manmade sign, in stark contrast to the carved stone structure, reads: Photography strictly prohibited. Inside, worshippers throng to save their place against the railing, fishing into their purses to pull out change, ready to deposit it onto the priest’s brass plate. Although the curtain is drawn, they crane their necks to get a closer look, with one large man in a baby-pink shirt scooping his daughter up and placing her on his shoulders. Suddenly, in a swift motion, the priest throws the curtain back, revealing the lingam glowing like magma, as diyas shine around it in a circle, the ethereal flames reflecting off the brass Vāsuki. Behind me, a man begins chanting “Om Nama Shiva,” in an off-beat staccato, as the crowd jump up to their tip-toes, fighting the limits of their height to get a peek of the mighty God. Woken by the abrupt commotion, a white cat, with dirty tufts of ginger, sits up, balancing between figurines of two busty court dancers, only to glance at the scene and resume a relaxed position, mindlessly licking itself.

I turn to the end of the temple’s circuit, greeted by the smell of grass and methane. Behind a smaller idol is an open barn, filled with massive cows, with glistening, Pantene ad-like black, brown and white hair. The black one, with a Mohawk of white, locks its googly eyes at me and sticks its tongue out, making a low “moo” sound. I turn around, giving it a longing look. As I near the gopuram, I see people dotted across the foyer, meditating, praying, basking in the morning sun. I admire their focus; there is more than enough to keep you distracted here. The sound of traffic is a little louder now, but still feels distant, like the gopuram is a shield from the outside world. Stepping through the wooden doors, I give the premises a sweeping look and turn to face the flower seller again. “I’ll take a bag of roses.”