Wednesday 4 July 2012

Post-Feminist kah-mukri


Kah- mukri, 'suggestion & denial', in medieval Hindvi verse, 'takes the conventional framework of a dialogue between two women, one of whom thinks that the answer to the riddle posed must be 'her lover', only to be confronted by her friend with the anticlimax of an alternative, prosaic answer.'

My guess is that the Purabi element in this takes a poignant dhvani tincture from the Uma/Menaka, mother/daughter Agamani vijaya song cylce.

How transpose this to our own rancorous, mother resenting, woman-beware-woman, Post-Feminist topos?

Dunno, but this is my first stab-

The moon like a scarred and pitted wrecking ball
Took a swing but missed our balcony
 Is the luckless Hun who lives down the hall
Happy now her son has no eyes for me?


I originally put down 'manhoos' for luckless- but girls don't really think the mother of the cute boy-next-door is manhoos. Unlucky, yes, since  they are bound to lose, but not inauspicious.

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