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psychedelic lit

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I need to jot down what I felt while reading this genre of writing. For me, the psychedelic community in literature is more of a felt experience than something that is either theoretical or historical. It is true that there are some books that read differently than others; in these instances, the reader will go through various thoughts and images without a clear beginning or end. Rather, these books are sources of movement or displacement within an abstract mental space in which everything appears to be fluid, and reality is always changing. The first time I started to become aware of this experience through literature was when I was entranced, hypnotised by certain passages, experiencing vividness and intensity beyond the normal bounds of my imagination. The nature of psychedelic literature is such that it creates a different mental space for the reader to inhabit, wherein thoughts, memories, and ideas will start to blend with other thoughts, memories, and ideas. Psychedelic reading e...
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Symbolic Violence

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Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic violence is a very good tool to study Indian society and its working. Bourdieu puts forth that every society creates a set of inborn attitudes and behaviours which makes inequality a matter beyond question. Here issues of caste, gender, class and religious dominance are played out through cultural beliefs instead of by force and that is exactly how symbolic violence works. Unlike physical violence which is very open and evident, symbolic violence is what is accepted by the very people it suppresses. This acceptance is a result of people internalizing the social strata they are born into. Domination is put forward as a cultural value while resistance is seen as a betrayal of family, community or faith. In India, social inequalities persist not only because of economic difference but because of symbolic violence which plays into natural acceptance and self perception. India is a prime example of a society in which symbolic violence is a ‘base structu...
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Kirk is dead!

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                             Illustration: Ellie Foreman, The Newstatesman Charlie Kirk is dead. I remember watching him charging at the ‘woke’ culture, the diversity programs, and the liberal academic institutions through his blunt and confrontational manner and getting people to discuss culture, education, and identity deeply. I also found him as a great ally of Trump, commenting on topics related to gender, politics, abortion.. often receiving criticism. But it appears that Kirk’s story is just one thread of a rather unsettling global trend, where authoritarianism, fascist ideologies, and big businesses are becoming more interlinked and thus, their impact on the political landscape is getting more complicated and often dangerous. Kirk’s allegations against liberal institutions found very sympathetic ears among young conservatives who think they are victims of systemic bias and economic exploitation. His narra...
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SPACES .PARADOXES

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  I want to talk about some spaces that often appear as paradoxes. One crafted by the combination of words. It is vast, chaotic and curious. This world thrives on contradiction, often evoking uncomfortable questions, challenging our assumptions, and sometimes even daring to tear down the very foundations it stands on. Literature encourages us to hear the voices that have been silenced, to rethink our identities, and to explore what it truly means to be free, to love, to rebel, and to belong. Then there's the other space, the one we navigate every day. It's a place where societal norms shape our actions, our silences, and our fears. In this space, the curiosity that literature ignites often collides with the constraints which are settled here. This tension, the push and pull between spaces, what we read, receive, absorb and witness creates something weird. The stories we read bring vibrancy to diversity while the streets we navigate can sometimes stifle it. It’s like being taug...
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EVE'S CLOSET IN KERALA

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Sedgwick's pivotal work in queer theory articulated how sexuality namely, homosexuality had been conceptualized and produced in a culture of secrecy, disclosure, and ignorance. In Sedgwick's understanding, the ‘closet’ was not merely a metaphor for hidden identity, it served as a way of understanding systems of social control: literature, language, and life all produced through and alongside the closet. Using her ideas to interrogate Kerala's culture and literature opens up fascinating, troubling, and rich forms of understanding. Even when the claims of the past, present, and future are those of modernity, and the culture seems progressive, Kerala remains deeply conservative around gender, sexuality, and family honour. Movement towards heteronormative structures of marriage, reproduction, and respectability perpetuates a machinery for inducing silence. This is not to suggest that silence is a passivity, rather the opposite is true, it is a strategic silence, produced collec...
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PRISONS

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  Foucault challenges the idea that prisons exist because we've become more humane. Instead, he argues they're just a more subtle way to control people. He asks if it's surprising that prisons look like factories, schools, or hospitals, since they all resemble prisons. “Schools serve the same social functions as prisons and mental institutions, to define, classify, control, and regulate people”(Foucault).This shows how control spreads throughout society, not just in prisons, but in any place that trains people to work and obey. At the center of this is the idea that discipline makes people, it's a method of power that treats people as objects. In capitalism, workers are turned into objects, shaped to fit into the work process. The prison system does something similar by disciplining those who don't fit in. But the control goes even further. Foucault points out that visibility is a trap and when people are watched, whether by a boss or a camera, they start to watch t...
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SAFFRON WAVE

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  Last year, I went for the Delhi Book Fair, out of curiosity to explore a variety of books from different genres. But what struck me right away was the overwhelming presence of saffron; a sea of books with cover pages inked in different hues of saffron. After that, I found some time to check out a few more book exhibitions and fairs. There too, I encountered rows of books, boldly wrapped in saffron shades and written in multiple languages. Some book covers shouted heroism, featuring words like Veer, Icon, forgotten freedom fighter, and true patriot. While I was doing my academic research, I tried to learn about the histories of major political parties in India. I wanted to understand not only their political ideologies but also how they’ve generated their propaganda through media, and cultural narratives over the years to sway voters, shape public opinion, to influence young minds and selectively highlight parts of history that align with their agendas. I analyzed how they create ...
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