Kalki Koechlin, Bollywood actor and slam poetess writes a heady and provocative piece titled 'Noise', that explores, celebrates, berates, rips apart and puts together that word, which forces a listen, and not a hear.
Welcome to the age of noise. From the 'divine cacophony' of loudspeakers piercing the airwaves in the name of religion, to the soul-jarring discordance of peak hour traffic; from the unmusicality of news headlines warring for eye-balls, to the IQ numbing racket we subject our brains to on social media; noise surrounds us. And in this most unmelodious symphony, 'we the people' are the players, the instruments and the audience, incessantly filling up our silences, with more noise. Written in her classic crisp, rhythmic and onomatopoeic style, Kalki's powerful words are a silent plea for individuality to break its opinion shackles, and for a generation to discern between what is 'disturbance' and what is 'true voice'. But most importantly, this poem makes us eerily aware of a very human discomfort we feel with deafening silences, which may be an alarming by-product of this era of distractions.
Kalki and Blush collaborate for the second time after 'The Printing Machine', to bring you another 'Unblushed' that is nothing less than an audio-visual experience. And what better occasion than World Music Day to make an ode to the inherent melody of silence.
Best experienced on earphones.
