#mātangī

[proserpnias]

"Mātangī reels through the jungle, singing loudly, doing as she pleases. Her name translates as 'going willfully' or 'roaming at will', and is a synonym for 'elephant' and 'cloud'. Sara Ahmed discusses the wilful subject: 'The wilful character insists on willing their own way, without reference to reason or command. Wilfulness could be described as a character perversion: to be wilful is to deviate, to will one's own way is to will the wrong way.'

Mātangī deviates, flaunting her talents in the margins of Hindu mythology. Like Sarasvatī, she plays the vīņā (Indian lute); she plucks the strings of a community of her own making, like Sappho. She is stagger and sweat, answering to earth, eroticism and the sixty-four performance arts."

Nisha Ramayya, States of the Body Produced by Love