CHENNAI: In their Instagram account, with the background of artistic mehendi designs, Marudaanimummy pens down a poem. They ask, “Dear Savarna woman, Why isn’t your concern with oppression rooted in examining how you are oppressive? Why is your feminism rooted in saving us by studying our violences occurring due to the institutional powers that let you have an education in the first place?” This 23-year-old with her roots in Tamil Nadu has been penning down poetry and using marudaani (mehendi) as a tool to express their political views for almost four years now.
First started as an Instagram account to spread the benefits of veganism, it is now a profile that questions Brahmanical patriarchy and oppressive forces. As an Indian immigrant who grew up in the USA, they also speak against the imposition of American culture and the risk of diluting their Tamil Bahujan background. A multi-disciplinary artist , who wishes to be identified as Marudaanimummy in this story, talks to CE about using art as a political tool in their daily life.
Memories of mehendi
A teacher, performer, poet, dancer, scholar and mehendi artist — they explain that their relationship with marudaani lies in distinct phases of their life. “It has to do a lot with movement, topics of displacement and emergence. My earliest memories of wearing mehendi were the natural ones from the trees from my grandparents’ home in Tamil Nadu. When I moved to California at the age of four, I lost touch with the practice. I was also internalising a lot of prejudices and gave into people’s comments on how it smelled weird or my skin wasn’t bright enough for marudaani to show up.”
Their perception of marudaani changed when they went to undergraduate school in Los Angeles. “I was introduced to white hippies who commodify Hinduism and for them mehendi became a cute aesthetic thing that people could wear to some indie music concert. There was so much obsession over yoga, chakras and coconut oil.
This kind of enraged me as that was around my early sort of radicalisation towards being aware of caste,” they say. They also found that a lot of colourism was coming from the Indians living in the USA. “When you are young, you don’t really understand where the discrimination is coming from and you choose to take the blame on yourself. During my under graduation, I had access to a lot of languages that were coming mostly from Black communities, Black revolutionaries, Afro pessimists — who deeply observed the significance of colourism, how that became a tool for colonialism and maintaining white supremacy,” they say. All these frameworks helped them feel confident in expressing themselves through their body art and sharing images of their hands and legs.
Art against oppressive forces
Marudaanimummy refrains from making mehendi art a commercial business but has recently opened their explorations to performing and applying designs for artistic collaborations. For Alt+Art festival in Chennai and Bengaluru, the artist exhibited their talent as the festival enabled artists to present their artworks in an unfiltered way. They affirm that their Instagram account has recorded their transitions. “I think that the switch from a food account to Marudaanimummy is very representative of my unlearning and disruptions, and principles I want to live by. When I came back to India a few years ago, I understood what it meant to be a vegan in India and have unlearned all my learnings. So I haven’t deleted the posts where I propagated the message of veganism as I think it is important to acknowledge that part of me,” they share.
Humour as an artistic practice of resistance has been so powerful because it’s the one that got censored the most, comments Marudaanimummy. “I have been fortunate enough to be able to contextualise myself to deeper histories of Bahujan culture, academia and scholarship. Often through my write-ups or other artworks, I use humour to explain hypocrisy,” they say.
Though that has led to censorship on Instagram, that has never stopped them. They write, “My pen has written about the sufferings of women under white supremacy, capitalism, imperialism, colonialism, and Brahminical patriarchy. And since this pen was handed to you to colonize these spaces with no room for dissenting voices of backgrounds and last names different from yours, I see no merit or hard work in your contributions to feminism.”
Marudaanimummy continues to pen poetry, create intricate designs on their body and collaborate with artistes. Through their works, they aspire to network with more people and be a part of a healing and unlearning journey.