Chill kinda girl

At the outset let me say I am in love fanlove This is a disclosure meant to draw you closer not a disclaimer because why would anyone want to disclaim love or in rap terms dis the claim of loveThis week I stumbled upon Srushti Tawade a 20year old Bombayborn competitor on the rap contest show MTV Hustle Her now viral rap Chill Kinda Guy is rendered as a phone call from God Pakaoed by fanatics antifans God wants to set the record straight so that ldquoDikhawe ke liye woh bhakti bhi na kar paayeinMandiron se masjidon se apne apne ghar jaayein they quit the pretence of devotion head home from temples and mosques without commotionrdquoTawde nimbly stylishly addresses contemporary politics where people are violently forced to take a certain godrsquos name ldquoGodrdquo raps I know there are people who say ldquomera naam lena din bhar koi jo naam na le jeena mushkil karpar mera koi aisa scene nahin hai chill karrdquo people want people to say my name all day those who donrsquot should have to pay thatrsquos not my scene so chill hey The raprsquos refrain where God describes himself as a chill guy dariyadil compassionate kinda guy with selfesteem thatrsquos hard to kill is both direct and subtle in commenting on the smallhearted insecurities that underlie bigotry Artrsquos superpower is its ability to evoke a truth we all know without having to label it and so join us into a new communityThe showrsquos judge Badshah asks Tawade do you know the difference between mainstream and underground She shrugs No Itrsquos not a naiumlve literal No Rather she does not defer to this divisionIt is a generalisation but in the popular arts straight masculine work often stays within certain scriptsmdash gritty realism political dystopias nihilistic selfpity Spoken word rap poetry comedy filmmdashall carry forward this yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye toh kya hai tradition of masculinity politics and art Srushti Tawade is one of those artists who muddies these gloomy waters with chill optimistic confidenceGender and creativity yaniki art and feminism are intertwined With creativity and feminism art and gender traverse boundaries to reinvent forms scripts ways of being They blur these Lakshman Rekhas by fluidly crossdressing across languages styles and notions of gender transmitting the pleasures of sarcasm skill versatility humour and sexinessTawade skates across languages Hindi English Marathi rhyming nastik with sarcastic Her onpoint zingers reminded me of Arvind Krishna Mehrotrarsquos jazzlike translations of Kabirmdashthe OG with a trademark dis on ostentation and bigotrymdashkarare cuts of Ismat Chugtairsquos women and tez andaz of lavani performers Her reinvention of the story The Thirsty Crow owes much to Hindi film melodrama rooted in class politics but also deep emotion With effervescent intellect she draws from myriad formsmdashpoetry song film storytellingmdashto create an individual style which is very Indian very SRK in this syncretic tendencyNew forms articulate new truths But getting caught up in authenticity can limit truth to convention In ldquoMain nahin toh kaun berdquo Tawde keeps turning conventions of the dis and beef into shoutouts and tareefmdasha selfaware reinvention by an UnlimitedGirl Sometimes forms liberate us Sometimes we liberate the formIt is exhilarating liberating to watch such freedom at play So more Srushti Tawade please And more Srushti Tawades pleaseParomita Vohra is an awardwinning Mumbaibased filmmaker writer and curator working with fiction and nonfiction Reach her at paromitavohramiddaycom