The word "Human" is thrown about quite frequently, yet it carries with it implications and traces of our assumptions. Are the bacteria in our gut part of the Human entity? How about the water in our veins? Who counts as Human, and who counts the Humans?
We are a Creative Collective of South Asian poets that ask these questions. We write primarily about Spirituality, the More-than-Human world, South and Southeast Asia, Marginality, and the Anthropocene from the lens of the Global South.
We are from diverse backgrounds, scattered across the Indian Ocean. We are multiple threads in space, time, and the Supernatural realm, knotted only by our alma mater in the coastal Indian state of Odisha, rich in its tribal heritage and biodiversity, but also the frontier of conflict, marginality, and the devastation of the familar new normal of brutal cyclones. Our goal is to queer the known, discover unknown ecologies in the everyday dystopia of the Anthropocene, and explore the ghaib (transcendent unseen) that offers a More-Than-Human mooring to all our fractured lives.
"Kalan" means "mushroom" in the Tamil language. The mushroom represents the resilience of life amidst death. Mushrooms grow in Chernobyl, turning lethal radiation into food. Mushrooms are lethal, mushrooms are hallucinogenic, mushrooms are delicacy, mushrooms are interconnected with Life. Like the mushroom, we emerge from the conflicted soil of South Asia and stand resilient, our roots drawing life from fragmented and flooded soil battered by cyclones, standing tall with our offerings to the Natural and Supernatural More-Than-Human.
Yes we are inspired by the Wu-Tang Clan.