“Explicit Poetry”- Words As A Vehicle Of Resistance
When rich Bandra kids recycle the same aesthetic Bombay reel, it is cute and trendy. But when Dalit poet Namdeo Dhasal calls the same city his “whore," it is somehow inappropriate.
When I think of “poetry,” myriads of different memories come to mind. For as long as I can remember, it was poetry that piqued my interest in writing. I started writing poems in fourth grade, when I was around nine years old, and frankly, I haven’t stopped since. Writing poetry later evolved into writing essays- for non-academic and entirely recreational reasons, which my pre-teen peers thought was insane. Who in their right mind would want to write pages and pages of paragraphs if they are not even going to be graded for it? Me, apparently. I have never seen writing as a chore, a specific word count to be hit that requires immense slaving through sentences and paragraphs. Writing is the most honest way I can express myself in, and it has been so for writers all over the world for time immemorial. But is this “expression” only allowed as far as the writing meets a certain level of “cleanliness”? What if the writing is crude, straightforward and hard-hitting beyond the boundaries of censorship?
I have been venturing into Dalit literature lately. Hours of endlessly scrolling through archives on the Internet led me to Namdeo Dhasal, a prominent radical Dalit figure in Maharashtra as well as one of the founders of the Dalit Panthers movement- a social organisation founded by the marginalised folks of the state to battle casteism, heavily inspired by the Black Panther Party, the significant militant Black organisation. What particularly intrigued me about Dhasal’s work was his unapologetic use of expletives in his poetry. I came across his peculiar write-up about the city of Mumbai, interestingly titled Mumbai Mazhya Priya Rande (Mumbai, My Beloved Whore). This was the first of many. Almost every mainstream literary work about the island city romanticises it to no limit, strictly viewing it through rose-coloured glasses all the time- but what Dhasal aims to do, by calling the city his “whore” is eyebrow-raising, and obviously not easily accepted by the masses. Dhasal isn’t around anymore, but even posthumously, his fiercely anti-caste work continues to catch ignorant Savarna flack. I managed to read the entire version of his poem on a Facebook1 post, under which was a ceaseless line of his critics, almost all of them calling out the relentless use of explicit language in the poem. One of them even compared Dhasal to his namesake, Sant Namdeo, saying something along the lines of how one Namdeo writes divine verses, while the other resorts to using “vulgar” language.
What I think is strange is how overwhelmingly out of touch these onlookers are. Dhasal was born into a Dalit family- a caste, which in the Indian sociological context, is subjected to the lowest rung of society. Dalits face immense discrimination from the Savarnas- the so-called “upper classes”- on a daily basis. They are targeted by extensive prejudice in every walk of life. Their dejected fate is sealed from the minute they are born- they are restricted to the left-over “menial” jobs like manual scavenging, toilet cleaning, tannery and such. They are considered as outcasts throughout their lives. They revolt for justice, to abolish the stringent claustrophobic caste system, but a lot of them run out of life before justice can even reach their doorstep.
I don’t think it’s hard to see why Dhasal refuses to revel in flowery language in his poetry. He does not write about Mumbai, the land of dreams. He writes about Mumbai, the ugly underbelly filled with scum, the hellhole which will easily give the green light to killing humanity if it gives the upper class a new toy to mess around with. He does not write about the aesthetic street shopping causeways or the romantic rains serenading into the Arabian Sea as you swoon on to your ladylove on the Marine Drive. He does not write about how awesome the city is through a rich Bandra kid’s point-of-view. He writes about the hard-hitting reality that people like him have to live every single day, where their chances of survival are bleak, and their situation, hopeless and desolate. He channels his unbridled rage into his poetry- he does not use his writing to impress the upper class. He uses it as a means to enable the marginalised masses into a collective fight against this normalised oppression.
"This is a world where the night is reversed into the day, where stomachs are empty or half-empty, of desperation against death, of the next day's anxieties, of bodies left over after being consumed by shame and sensibility, of insufferably flowing sewages, of diseased young bodies lying by the gutters braving the cold by folding up their knees to their bellies, of the jobless, of beggars, of pickpockets, of holy mendicants, of neighbourhood tough guys and pimps... "
Another reason why it does not make sense as to why so many people are appalled by the use of profanity in poetry, is because one can hear such words almost everywhere they go. No one- I repeat, no one, regardless of where they come from or how much privilege they have in life- is entirely alien to these words. I hear the most extreme curses, slang and slurs, not simply sexual innuendos, but also words rooted in classism, casteism, communalism, racism and sexism, everyday while commuting by the Mumbai Local. If the very lifeline of the city is laden with such colourful language, why is such criticism directed towards a poet, who simply replicates what he hears into his poetry?
Life will become much easier once you pull yourself out the illusion that poetry is supposed to be the ornamental quotes on the top of your Tumblr page or Instagram reel, and start seeing it as the vehicle of resistance that it truly is.
I also feel that poetry has been unfairly elevated to the status of an “elite hobby,” instead of the medium of mass expression that it started out as. From jazz music to thrifting, almost everything that the poor and marginalised folks did for themselves has been appropriated by the ruling class. So when you look up “poetry” on Google, there is a high chance that the first results that pop up may be the poetry of the rich- the romantic, the carefree, the sugarcoated poetry, and not necessarily, the poetry of survival.
It’s fascinating how poetry has been so attached to its romantic connotations, that any other kind of poem that is rooted in reality is considered inferior or obsolete. Guru Dutt’s 1957 film Pyaasa is a personal favourite for this reason. Vijay, an impoverished Urdu poet played by Dutt, fails to find success because of the dark and grim subject matter of his works. In an early scene, a publisher brutally rejects his poetry collection, reasoning with him that poems about “serious” topics like poverty, social issues and the hardships of the marginalised won’t sell. He asks Vijay to write about “happier” topics- like love or flowers- because that’s the kind of stuff that garners commercial success. But Vijay does not want to write about those things, for he has never experienced them in his life- why would he fake a happy life just to make his art sell? Does art that comes from a genuine place, and is inspired by lived experiences, have no place in this capitalistic world?
At one point in the film, Vijay ends up at his college reunion, where he recites one of his sorrowful poems in front of an audience. One of the listeners yells at him for “ruining the vibe” of the celebration, but he simply replies with, “Hum gamzada hai, laaye kahaan se khushi ke geet?” I am ridden with sadness, where do I bring songs of happiness from? Later on, we see Vijay working at his employer’s house party, which includes respected poet laureates as guests, who spout romantic Urdu verses to show off their caliber, while Vijay timidly meshes into the background sobbing away one of his own tragic pieces. Why is it that someone who writes “romantic poetry” given such a high seat of honour, whereas someone who writes about the real issues around him, only reduced to a background character?
Pyaasa has many themes to unfold, out of which I have only handpicked a couple, but one thing that is worth noting is that perhaps the only person who genuinely appreciates his art for what it is, is Gulab, a prostitute (Waheeda Rehman), an outcast herself, a member of the lowest tier of society herself. I know art is subjective and all, but you can tell a piece of art or literature is genuinely good, when it hits you the hardest where it hurts. When it resonates with you on a personal level, when it reminds you of the experiences you have wordlessly internalised, and tells you that you are not alone in the fight. Art is meant to disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed, and filtering out expletives from your work sounds like a hindrance to that idea.
“There are few words that are obscene per se. It is usage which can make the chastest of words obscene. I don’t think anything is inherently obscene. However, even a chair or a cooking pot can become obscene if presented in such a way – things can be deliberately made obscene to serve a particular purpose”
Poetry does not have to be “clean” to be respected. Art does not have to be “censored” to be acceptable. I would go as far to argue that “clean” media propagating harmful ideals is way more detrimental for your kids, than the ones littered with expletives, but manage to show the unfiltered, unadulterated truth. Screw censorship. Why do the powers that be want to hide the artist’s initial motives by showing us the filtered out perspective of things? Why can’t we as consumers get to consume media freely, for what it is?
Back in 2016, a video of a White woman having a meltdown over her 11 year old daughter listening to Norf Norf by Vince Staples on the radio was widely circulated around the Internet.2 Donald Glover’s popular TV show, Atlanta, later recreated it in the intro of the third episode of Season Two, Money Bag Shawty. In the video, the woman is seen reciting the lyrics to the song and crying on camera, as she thinks that explicit rap songs like these tend to have a “negative effect” on children. What the woman- who is, emphasising once again, White, and evidently privileged enough to live a comfortable life- does not realise that Staples is not so much “glorifying” the street gangster lifestyle, as he is attempting to express his crude upbringing in the suburbs of Long Beach, through his art. And well, unfortunately for the woman, the video only ended up adding to the song’s popularity, so who is really at fault here?
Hip-Hop is possibly my favourite genre of music, mostly because it was born out of Black resistance against racism, White supremacy, and police brutality. The n-word, which was used as a weapon against the African-Americans, by their White colonisers, was reclaimed to attach a sense of solidarity to it. Why should White people have a problem with that? Why should Savarnas have a problem with Dalit poets using “abusive language” in their poetry, which talks about how unjust the system has been to them?
Or let me rephrase it- why should dominant classes care so much about what kind of language a troubled minority uses to express their resistance against the system that has enslaved them for centuries? Why should linguistic prestige even be a thing?
Why should a literary form as expressive and earnest as poetry be reserved only for the ruling class?
Well thought, analysed, and written. Thank you for introducing me to Dhasal 💞