The Execution of a Tiger Woman
Shred her eyebrows and they will grow back like wildflowers as black as soot.
Twist her nose and shatter her nose ring and gold liquid will bleed from her nostrils.
Cut her breasts and her nipples will spill buckets of coconut milk to nourish baby cows.
Find her lungs beneath her chest and cut off her airway and salt water will flood the street and drown elephants and cats.
Bleed her wrists and her veins will swell with rivers of rasam and tears.
Punch her spine and her back will vibrate, sending a shock wave like a smoke signal strengthening her armour.
Break her bones and they will grow back corals.
Gouge her eyes and pools of typewriter ink will spell broken English and recipe letters passed from Madras to Boston.
Snap her legs like tree branches and her bark will grow rifles.
Stamp on her toenails and her feet will shoot bullets from her gun legs.
Burn her lips and they will alight, growing into flames that could burn entire battalions and buildings made of hard stone.
Take her voice and her yell with echo back, breaking sound waves.
Shave her head and it will never grow back.
Take a knife and draw a line in her scalp and her head will ooze soft warm cha.
Open up her scalp and brush the layer of chickpea flour from her head until her brain is revealed.
Then slice her brain in three and she will never remember any of this.
Her brain will rot and get eaten by rats and wolves in the night.
She will forget all of it.
But her sisters won’t.
“To read these poets is to reclaim their rightful historical space” - Meena Kandasamy
To document these poets is to physically root our histories in the land.
This exploration sits within a wider historical documentation of Tiger Women and by extension Tamil artists and academics. What I mean ‘by extension’ is that I see Tiger Women as the political and artistic ancestors of many radical Tamil thinkers. Tiger Women or the Tamil Tigresses were the female branch of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a militant group based in northeast Sri Lanka from 1976 to 2009. We are situated in parallel, contradiction and conversation with Tiger Women, especially if we are interested in work around liberation, healing and homeland. I am interweaving the works of three core academics and artists throughout these chapters: Saidiya Hartman, Meena Kandasamy, and Nimmi Gowrinathan.
Saidiya Hartman is a Black Feminist writer and academic. I am directly drawing from her methodology of documentation as displayed in her book Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments. Although her work is not about Tamil Feminism, her perspective on recording past, present, future and imagined histories of Black queerness and feminisms opens possibilities for me to follow. I am especially inspired by Hartman’s use of text and imagery which are situated in dialogue, parallel or contradiction. Hartman has opened a new form for documentation which I aim to highlight in this dissertation. I will use Hartman’s methodology and create my methodology of documentation while drawing on her expertise. Quotes and moments from Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments are used as methodology throughout this dissertation, as a clear feminist theory to inform my analysis of Tamil homeland.
Meena Kandasamy is a Tamil writer and translator. Her books the orders were to rape you and Translating Feminisms: Desires Become Demons have fully inspired my work as a Tamil academic. Kandasamy has exposed me to the deep violences and histories that Tamil people have experienced for centuries. Her perspective as a person from Chennai, Tamil Nadu has allowed me to understand her position first-hand, as it is intrinsically linked to mine. I will be using the orders were to rape you to understand where my documentation is situated in a wider history of eradication. I will be using Translating Feminisms: Desires Become Demons, a book of poems by Tamil women translated by Kandasamy, to further understand how Tamil poets have articulated their longing for homeland amidst violence.
Nimmi Gowrinathan is a Tamil-American writer, activist and scholar. Her book Radicalising Her: Why Women Choose Violence has allowed me to expand outwards. It explores the perspectives of women across the world by drawing parallels between movements from 2001 to 2020 in Sri Lanka, Kashmir, Kurdistan, Mexico, Syria and Colombia. Gowrinathan’s perspective on global sisterhood and cross-movement solidarity has influenced my practice and writing. Further, her viewpoints on violence have allowed me to explore the deepest points of generational trauma and permitted me to embrace rage through my art.
My position within this documentation is rooted in the land. I am a live artist and land-based sculptor. I physically immerse myself in substances to understand them. I work with objects before words. I am using instinctual materials which arose from reading Tiger Women poetry, being raised by my Paati, my childhood in Chennai, and my somatic experience growing into a queer Tamil adult. In this text, salt, ash and clay are my call to arms.
As I reflect on this exploration, I embody the tiger. I wonder what the tiger would think about what I have written. Maybe she would feel heard. Maybe it wouldn’t resonate with her. All I know is what I feel right now. All I know is that she documented her words. And you document to protect what you have left. You document so that others can pass the torch. So that others know your story and the story of your people. You document so you never get forgotten. As Captain Vaanathi says in her Unwritten Poem, “My gun is standing at the border. I am unable to come away so, write, write my unwritten poem.” I know that Vaani needs me to write.
Moving forwards, I am conscious of censorship. Censorship I have already experienced and that I am likely to experience in the future when making work about Tiger Women. Tiger Women are seen as terrorists by fascist and liberal governments alike, and this is similar to other resistance groups fighting for homeland. After being censored at Artsadmin while on placement as part of my Theatre and Social Change degree, my mindset about art has shifted. There is too much at stake. Arts organisations are afraid of their superiors; of their governments. If we talk about Palestine, we have to confront the systems which surround us and which we are a part of. It is impossible to avoid colonial structures, especially when documenting in the UK. We must constantly be aware of who we are centering and ignoring, even subconsciously. As a mixed Tamil person, I am constantly aware of my position and proximity to violence compared to my dark skinned sisters. I do not have the power to dismantle all the structures that weigh me down, but I have the power to bring the Tiger Women with me as political ancestors. Only when we bring everyone with us, specifically those who have capacity to join the struggle, will we begin to build cross-movement solidarity. I will always centre Tamil people and all oppressed people in my struggle for liberation. I will always reach my hand out to my Arab comrades. We are all connected because when one of us is eradicated, there is someone across the salt water who hears the scream.
To reiterate, this dissertation is a resource.
Read it. Annotate it. Read it again. Read all the texts I have documented and the ones I haven’t. Read queer feminist theory. Start a resistance movement. Start an encampment. Find your political ancestors. Document your language. Document the words you could never say out loud and the words you would never want your future sisters to forget. Read poetry. Write poetry. Share resources.
Never let them make you silent.
அவர்கள் உங்களை அமைதியாக இருக்க விடாதீர்கள்
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“Poetry as a call to arms, and poetry as a call to poetry.”
- the order were to rape you by Meena Kandasamy
Santhosam by Priya Ragu //