(OUT)spoken Word Artist (OUT)spoken Word Artist

The different ways in which the theme of Inside v. Outside show up in my life. Right now, it is quarantine...as I am isolated indoors due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Before that it was my culture, what am I allowed to wear and say in the house versus in the public? My poetry exists to bring the private (inside) to the public (outside), but even there I use discretion on what I write and when I share it for how it will be received.

not all opportunities, no matter the pay or prestige, are worth it for me as an artist. why? because at the core of why I am an artist, a poet, in the first place is because I have a story to tell. I need time, emotional reserves, intention to tell my story. Taking on any opportunity sometimes has the effect of diluting or delaying that emotional reserve and intensity. Also, there is no price to be out on one’s story. It is invaluable.

i think about things backwards. and it’s not always a bad thing. but maybe sometimes, it does keep me from a good thing.

art connects us to one another, allows us to step into something greater, something outside of ourselves, often something in the realm of the “universal” and yet, so much of the actual process of producing art and creation is lonely, is dependent upon feeling something so unique and specific that it feels like “I must be the only one or first one to have felt this the way I feel this...let me try to make sense of it through words/music/paint...”

setbacks suck, but all they do is set you back, they don’t necessarily veer you off course. crises, however, have the potential, to derail us, but maybe also, turn us into something, someone more evolved.

so much of why we need to express ourselves as South Asian women stems from the fact that we have been suppressed, or told not to express ourselves...and yet when we do...we are judged for why our art looks “dark and depressing” and not “happy and joyful” like we see in mainstream Bollywood.