zeropowercut (India) “bujhat naikhe can’t understand”

Written as a reflection on masculinity, the song is about a person scouring for themself in a straw hut they have built. The song, in Bhojpuri language, explores Nirgun: a form of thinking and singing (an art form and a philosophy). Briefly put, Nirgun is to recognize the world and things as ungraspable, and thus, to practice intelligence (and intelligibility) via materiality and experience. This original song is part of a theatre production, a musical titled Lattar [vine] which explores the lives of Naach or Launda Naach artists, infamous in this patriarchal and castefeudal world for their practice of men becoming women. The song is performed (vocals and music) by Sunaina, a retired Launda Naach artist, and written by Raju Ranjan, a theatre professional and singer-performer, in collaboration with Piyush Kashyap, an independent researcher and artist. Lattar was commissioned by Maraa: a Media and Art Collective based in Bangalore, India for their 2024 October Jam titled “Stone Flowers”. zeropowercut also thanks Sipahi, a Naach artist and co-member of Lattar team, and Puneet, who generously provided shelter and food during the making of Lattar. * zeropowercut makes art to locate how oppression hides in the mundane. They talk about selfabjection and dissociation, focussing on the aspects of caste-based oppression {sudra-fication} that erases, from immediate to historical and civilization fields, working people’s capacity for experience and knowledge. Living and working from hegemonically marginalized and deprived worlds-of-our-origin, zeropowercut makes works individually as well as collectively, often transforming sites of production as intersections of otherwise segregated socialities and cultures. zeropowercut works with everyday objects, sayings, language, sound, and atmospheres to make installations, interactions, songs, theatre and research-presentations, using mostly modes of speech, documentary, and essay.