what does it mean for an artist to engage with ramayana today? is the battle of lanka a paradigm for revenge? are rama & hanuman model action heroes? in this year of nonstop travel, i’ve encountered ramayana iconography everywhere: on the walls of angkor wat, on saffron flags🧵

“Revenge operates in the realm of belief. It becomes an ideology. No amount of force will exterminate a fantastic enemy.” Torsa Ghosal | @torsa.bsky.social examines "Monkey Man." lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-lu…

the new issue of brooklyn review is 🔥. so glad to be part of it

Though admirable in the moments of respite from the conventional revenge plot it subscribes to, "Monkey Man" ultimately “extends the logic of reactionary violence it attempts to refute,” writes Torsa Ghosal | @torsa.bsky.social, on Dev Patel’s ambitious directorial debut. lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-lu…

Patel takes on the task of reclaiming the iconography of Hanuman, the simian Hindu divinity, from the right-wing Indian nationalist propaganda it has been embedded in since the Bharatiya Janata Party (or “Saffron Party”)  co-opted it for their agenda:

“'Monkey Man' strives to reappropriate tropes from both the Rāmāyaṇa and the vaster repertoire of myths involving Hanuman to make a political statement. It falters, however, mainly due to the limitations of structuring a plot intent upon the enactment of revenge.”

Recalling how a monkey appeared to condone the demolition of a 16th-century mosque in favor of a Hindu temple, Ghosal writes, “That’s how the monkey became an icon of Hindutva, a political theology that today threatens to obliterate India’s identity as a secular nation.”

“'Monkey Man' seems unaware that its narrative, far from critiquing Hindutva propaganda, engages in similarly reductive maneuvers: distilling the same affective economy of anger and an ethics of revenge from the much more intricate schema of action presented in the Rāmāyaṇa.”

“Framing revenge within a more complex story structure is one way of addressing the ethical limitations involved in peddling vengeance as justice. It is something that 'Monkey Man' tries, and ultimately fails, to do.”

Despite Ghosal’s qualms with Patel’s use of the overdone revenge plot to address the larger social issues at play, she commends its “beautiful and distinctive take on one of the conventional beats of the revenge plot, where the hero trains to take on the antagonist a final time.

In the final scene, “the cost of revenge is on display, but the movie cuts to a black screen without dwelling on it.” The film falls into its own trap in refusing to examine the ethicality of revenge itself, something the Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaṇa both do.

“Films need not be morally instructive, of course. But one that uses political oppression and corruption to substantiate its aesthetics of violence cannot hope to evade an ethical assessment.” lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-lu…

This issue The Brooklyn Review has 1 of my photos. People in NYC area can swing by release party on 7/18 & get free copy. Work by Stella Wong Martha Schabas Torsa Ghosal | @torsa.bsky.social Interview of R. O. Kwon 권오경 The Brooklyn Review instagram.com/p/C87G21-u937/…

My father Sauransu Roy and I, in a photo accompanying an excerpt from PROVINCIALS in the July issue of Reader's Digest: magzter.com/stories/lifest… Aleph Book Company Yale University Press

🚨 #Paris2024 Opening ceremony Update 🚨 It has stopped raining at Trocadero and media from all over the world are taking their places again. 📷 Trisha Ghosal #Olympics #BlueRev #OpeningCeremony #OlympicGames

Mobility has been out for a year. It's a novel about liberal fecklessness in the neoliberal era (& oil), though my imagination wasn't good enough to predict how awful this year would be. I'm grateful to everyone who has supported it: lydiakiesling.com/press Paperback pubs 9/24!

ABSOLUTELY WILD: my baby poetry manuscript is a finalist for the 2024 Gaudy Boy Poetry Book Prize. Crossing my fingers and toes wishing for the best news, but so honored to be a part of an incredible cohort of poets. Send wishes & good luck ☀️

I wish I could be shouting this news from the rooftops. Instead, from the boring but cozy confines of my sickness bed, I am so freaking thrilled to share that my work of four years, my next book of poems, FIFTY MOTHERS will be published by @riverriverbooks in February 26!

& so it begins again. back from a fun & stimulating sabbatical. excited/worried/jittery?! for the new school year . . . #Fall2024 #Back2School #professors

do i remember how to teach? we’ll find out in an hour 😬