amaryllis

bonjour, paris! while here last summer, my internal journey began to move me toward stepping into my own autonomy. many times, in exceedingly harsh ways, which felt as if i was being pulled through a keyhole, as Devipuram's Guruji describes it - harshness which was needed. transformation is, after all, an inherently violent process. walking the same streets i used to walk last year while deeply entrenched in a process of being reconstructed is making me see how autonomy blossomed through the challenges, through the push-pull, and through the beauty. bought myself flowers to celebrate it all - the path within, in all of its glory and ache. 💐

to stand

alone

stripped of concepts

naked of thought

to stand

as emptiness

unearthing the courage

to allow even teachings and mentors

to cease from being

to stand

in energy

to stand

in silence

to stand

through love

to stand

i allow myself

to feel joy,

peeling carrots

with my grandmother,

stroking my nose

against my doe rabbit’s

i allow myself

to feel beauty,

adorning my neck

with rose quartz necklaces,

gazing at the night sky

sliding itself into dawn

i allow myself

to feel stillness,

laying my naked skin

in fresh lavender sheets,

placing hands on my belly,

counting eleven deep breaths

i allow myself

to feel grief,

embellishing my knees

with tears, planting kisses

on the blisters

that bejewel my skin

i allow myself

to twinkle alive,

tulle pressed

to my damp thighs,

dancing with my

hands above my head

i

allow

life

to flow

through

me

I am very excited to be leading a roundtable with Dr. Saad Quasem from SOAS on scriptural research on the 17th of May, 11:30-12:30pm. I will be discussing some of the questions I have been asking myself in my Mahābārata research, such as, how can a canonical character be reimagined and rewritten for different aims and needs? What is the flexibility of canon? Which voices are the ones that are heard?

Thank you, Sambhavi Ganesh, for your initiative in making this roundtable happen. ❤️‍🔥

You can register for the conference here: https://forms.office.com/e/4Y13jv4dbF.

The University of Edinburgh, 50 George Square.

a joy to present my PhD work at the School of Divinity [Edinburgh] yesterday on my first research panel 😊 i talked about the gendered politics inscribed in the body of Draupadī, the Mahābhārata's heroine. i argued that it is significant that a text such as the Mahābhārata, which holds so much religious, cultural and spiritual weight, includes the story of a sexually assaulted woman, and, moreover, one of divine origin, because it offers women subjected to gendered violence the opportunity to unearth psychological comfort in Draupadī's story, and the opportunity to shed shame and fears of impurity rooted in varied internalisations of social or religious messages. through the prism of shared experience, the trauma is voiced and processed, which percolates in the social stratum, where, by claiming and reimagining Draupadī's symbol, women ask for and enact socio-political change. i am exploring this movement in my thesis. ❤️‍🔥

astounding to listen to & learn from the presentations of the colleagues who shared the panel with me, and to engage with the work differently during the q&a portion; openings to approach the work differently, freshly, in ways i wouldn't be prone to without external stimulus.

i have been exploring the algorithm of the Mahāvidyā Kamalātmikā through sound pathway as facilitated by the AshZero offering of "Sounds of Śakti" for which @lensonearth created a series of sounds distilled from bījā mantra. the sounds are not chants nor articulated resonance; instead, they are what we see as a container through which sound is projected as shape. this model of absorption is a near non-linear oral transmutation which aims to follow the siddhānta (algorithm) of ṛṣi darśanāta (to understand more, watch "Vedas: All You Wanted to Know" by Dr. Kesarkar which expounds on how the Vedas originated from sound: https://youtu.be/mK6KdrmyOcg?si=t7vuad5g9kiLXCyF).

after experimenting with various abstract sound combinations for a week, i began continuously looping through one particular waveform.

with the awareness that it is in our humanness to prefer what is amiable and to make choices (such as that of which sound to absorb) based on what resonates with our sense projections, i aimed to renounce any bias and to absorb the sound for 3 weeks without expectations, familiarity or target. i listened to it in the morning and in the evening, 4 times each round.

gradually, the sound became integrated in my system; i became able to access it spontaneously, in the sensory exchanges occurring in my regular days. i noticed change in my perception of the events arising in my life as well as in my actions. as instructed, i aimed to avoid the natural urge to linearly make sense of it or to differentiate positive and negative effects arising of this flow. thus, i will not pinpoint what exactly changed in my life through the means of this sound, nor do i think it would be feasible or fruitful, as it causes validation toward a process - which is not the aim of application-based Tantra.

however, as an exercise, i decided to jot down the unfolding of a sound exploration that transpired in my first night in Rishikesh without any rationale other than an opening to the process possibly unlocking something within without a specific subconscious target.

i'm not sharing this with the intention to construct a mystical halo. mystical / energetic experience is ultimately just an experience - it can greatly help us open or gain clarity, but it's important not to get caught up in it. the experience i am sharing simply demonstrates how sound can be absorbed by the system and nothing more, and has no inherent specialness.

as i sat by the Gaṅgā, the sound i have been imbibing spontaneously rang in my right ear at low volume. after a small dram of whisky taken as sacrament, the sound boomed in both of my ears. my heartbeat increased and various bodyparts, such as navel, feet and hands began pulsing. what i understand as "pleasure pathways" in my system fired. followingly, i directly listened to the sound with headphones, eyes open. after i finished listening, the sound overturned my thoughts and my experience became an immersion in the five senses (sight, touch etc).

in Gangotrī i screamed for the Lord (excerpt) | the Monsoon One and the pilgrim | téa nicolae

(..) my cheeks, full in lilies my mind, anointed by the half-moon bathing the Śivling

i walked and walked and walked hungry for a glimpse of your feet

at crossroads my torturous One of Monsoon devised a game:

i felt his lips hovering on my hair, hands, and eyelids yet when i turned my mouth to claim my longing i could only kiss a devious scent of lotus

the empty air and a devious scent of lotus

after ten, twenty thirty turns and one hundred and eight hot tears the mountain road came to a halt

you, nowhere to be found. only a devious scent of lotus.

a perfume so deceitful that when the milky ocean was churned in the first aeon the asuras did not taste nectar for they chose not the elixir but the conch streaming it instead

last crossroads in sight, i screamed

ENOUGH. MY LORD, IT IS ENOUGH.

TEAR MY CENTER WED MY NAVEL

DO NOT HIDE FROM ME.

Gangā sizzled as your lotus scent filled my nostrils maddened, i looked around for You, when, a whisper:

𝒊𝒕 𝒊𝒔 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒉𝒐 𝒉𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒔.

Draupadī and the Dharma of Women

"Strī" translates from Sanskrit as "woman", while "dharma" is a complex principle with manifold meanings, in this context bearing the significance of "duty"; in simple terms, it refers to an individual conduct that contributes to harmony in a greater framework, be it societal or cosmological.

Draupadī is lauded in the Critical Edition of the Mbh several times as being the epitome of strī-dharma, of the dharma of women. (2.62.20; 2.63.25-30; 2.64). Interestingly, she is most intensely praised as such after she angrily (yet elegantly!) questions the men of the royal court and demands justice, being anything but meek and demure. I would argue that this showcases that in the Mahābhārata voicing oneself and standing up for oneself are considered responsibilities belonging to the dharma of women.

To nuance this even more, Eknath Easwaran, an eminent translator of the Bhagavadgītā, highlights that, etymologically, the term "dharma" can be traced back to the root 'dhri', which means 'to support, hold up, or bear'; "dharma" therefore translates as "that which supports", and Draupadī's conduct therefore supports both society and cosmology.

In the Sanskrit Mbh, Kṛṣṇa does not appear in the sabhā (royal hall) at the time of Draupadī's attempted disrobing, and no direct mention of him is made during this episode. In a conversation with Dr. Brian Black, a Mbh researcher whom I had the honour to have as my MA supervisor, we talked about the implication of this, which is that Draupadī's adherence to strī-dharma appears to be that which shields her. A question that could arise here could be whether there is a contradiction between the Critical Edition and modern renderings of the Mahābhārata, with Draupadī being shielded by her dharma as opposed to by Kṛṣṇa.

For me there is no contradiction.

Kṛṣṇa in the Bhagavadgītā establishes himself as 'the eternal dharma' (14.27); and so, Kṛṣṇa is all dharmas, including strī-dharma. We tend to associate Kṛṣṇa with a fully-fledged incarnation; but he is beyond that. I would maintain that, as the divine principle, he exists in Draupadī's consciousness and in her actions as dharma (and not only!). The latter renditions, for me, in which he is physically there, only bring forth in tangible projections the internal process extending Draupadī's consciousness.

You can find me on IG: @musingsonthemahabharata.

knowledge flows from teacher to student, and from student to teacher.

at the beginning of my academic journey, i was continuously surprised by the way the majority of our professors engaged with me and my colleagues; not only did they genuinely express interest in our opinions, but they also valued our input, ensured the openness of dialogue between us, and consistently encouraged us to become independent in thought and in writing. the learning environment i had been exposed to until then, namely secondary education in my home country, had been completely different: it had been one of strict hierarchy, in which plurality of thought was not existent, and in which the minds and experiences of students were not valued. it took me awhile to become used to – well, being valued, and to valuing my input myself.

i remember one particular exchange i had with a professor of mine, in which i expressed my understanding of one subject and proceeded to reflexively dismiss it by cloaking it in the “i am just a student, and who am i to say anything about this” garb. my professor stopped me and said something along the lines of: “yes, we are just people. but that doesn’t mean our contributions can’t be meaningful.”

the first week of my Ph.D. was similar: professors consistently reminded me and my colleagues that we are more than students, and they see us as valuable members of a research community that works together. they encouraged us to renounce our inhibitions, and to think, write and act as such.

it has become exceedingly important for me in my journey to be in such learning environments in which, past the roles of students and teachers that we play, there is an understanding of the flow of knowledge, which, in my view, would be limiting to think of as flowing rigidly in only one direction. knowledge flows from teacher to student, but also from student to teacher, and from student to student. i believe that to cut oneself off from receiving the flow from any source because of preconceived ideas of how it flows, and who to learn from, is a great loss.

my second Master's Degree is officially COMPLETE!! these past two years at Warwick University were a rich immersion in the art of poetry & in the practice of literary translation. milestones achieved have been:

completing my dissertation, entitled "Rendering Sacred Texts: Ethics and the Question of Untranslatability", in which i explored the practice of translating sacred texts and the intricate issues it presents in the field of translation studies, mainly posed by the dilemma that is the hypothesis of an intrinsically sacred quality to languages such as Sanskrit or Latin. i argued that in the case of non-dual traditions, the subsequent question, of whether translation would defile the text, is incongruent with the philosophy & cosmology the text is rooted in. i used the Lalitāsahasranāma, a central hymn of Śrīvidyā, as a case-study.

conducting my poetic research centred on bhakti or devotional poetry, a genre of Indian poetry which worships the Divine as the Beloved. i worked on two bhakti collections: "odes to the Monsoon One" and "the Monsoon One and the pilgrim", which explore a woman’s mystical journey. written as a response to the lingering legacy of female exclusion from spirituality that is present literature, the poetry rebels against misogynistic religious texts thematically, through female-centred imagery deifying the demonised body, through the subversion of elements of oppression such as motifs of marriage. the Divine is worshipped in my poems as a lover. i argued that for as long as remnants of a religious culture exclusive of women persist in South Asian literature and practice, for so long will bhakti poetry be needed for devotional rebuttal.

more on this soon! i am hoping for these to be published in 2024 or 2025. 

i extend my gratitude to my extraordinary professors: my supervisors Dr. Jodie Kim & Rosalind Harvey; Professor David Morley, as well as Dr. Chantal Wright, who generously & expertly encouraged and guided me, as well as expressed genuine interest in my work - interest which i especially appreciated when my work took unconventional routes!