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Coalesce Magazine Coalesce is an online literary & art magazine which believes in content that is unapologetically passionate.

We at Coalesce Mag believe in writing that vocalises the writer’s or artists’s thoughts, be it personal or impersonal.

//Beat// San Francisco became the hub of the Beat Movement of the 1950s. The disillusionment after the Second World War ...
10/11/2018

//Beat//

San Francisco became the hub of the Beat Movement of the 1950s. The disillusionment after the Second World War made the Beat Poets examine the conventional culture, politics, and defy the established modes of writing. Their writings were chiefly characterised by surrealism and spirituality. The term ‘beat’ appeared when Kerouac said, “Ah, this is nothing but a beat generation!” John Clellon Holmes explained, “more than mere weariness, it implies the feeling of having been used, of being raw. It invokes a sort of nakedness of mind, and ultimately of soul; a feeling of being reduced to the bedrock of consciousness. In short, it means being undramatically pushed up against the wall of oneself.” Kerouac himself associated the word with “twentieth century hipness”, “beatific” and to “the Second Religiousness prophesied by Spengler”. He also added that “beat means beatitude, not beat up.”

Beat poetry was experimental in nature and politically defiant. It emphasised on love and sexual liberation, and was inspired by Eastern religion (mainly Buddhism), the metaphysicals, Haiku and Zen poetry.

Beat Poets include Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Gregory Corso, Diane di Prima, Neal Cassady, Anne Waldman, and Michael McClure. (📷: EichlerNetwork)


In his 'Specimen Days', Walt Whitman ponders about music’s ability to bewitch us body and soul. He was particularly mesm...
17/12/2017

In his 'Specimen Days', Walt Whitman ponders about music’s ability to bewitch us body and soul. He was particularly mesmerised by a Beethoven septet.

“Very early I decided to become a hero.”Niki de Saint Phalle, a French-American sculptor, painter and filmmaker transfor...
16/12/2017

“Very early I decided to become a hero.”

Niki de Saint Phalle, a French-American sculptor, painter and filmmaker transformed her childhood sufferings into exceptional works of art – colourful, exuberant and sensual, driven by love, and partly rage. Her works are similar to contemporary American feminist artists of the 70s and 80s – symbols of incredible power and confidence. Sexually abused by her father from the age of 11, and trapped in the traditional roles of a wife and mother, she suffered a nervous breakdown at 23. These details help us gain a new perspective when we view her works: the guns, the fat ‘Nanas’ and the morose wives and mothers become bold symbols, open to interpretations.

Video credits: Adam Montmartre, Youtube.

Today, we celebrate the 104th birthday of Homai Vyarawalla, India's first female photojournalist. Vyarawalla rose to fam...
09/12/2017

Today, we celebrate the 104th birthday of Homai Vyarawalla, India's first female photojournalist.
Vyarawalla rose to fame as she chronicled the post-independence period of the country. Her work was characterized by her ability to take candid shots of high profile personalities like Jacqueline Kennedy or Queen Elizabeth the Second.
She learnt the art from her boyfriend, Maneckshaw Vyarawalla. Her early portraits of everyday life, during her days at the J. J school of Arts was published in the Illustrated Weekly and Bombay Chronicle. But since Vyarawalla was unknown and a woman, they were published under Maneckshaw's name.
Her work was initially overshadowed by her Western contemporaries, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Margaret Bourke-White.
But, Vyarawalla's important photographs which chronicled the last of the British Empire in India and the country after independence were soon discovered and hailed as groundbreaking work.

Compiled and directed by Om Bhutkar, Sukhan is a Pune-based mehfil (performances of music and poetry), brilliantly delig...
07/12/2017

Compiled and directed by Om Bhutkar, Sukhan is a Pune-based mehfil (performances of music and poetry), brilliantly delighting their audiences with Urdu ghazals, coupled with stories and letters. Along with this, they apply the traditional ‘attar’, a scented perfume on your hands before entering the theatre, which is just the start of a lovely evening.

The performances are interactive, offering the audiences Urdu sher-shayaris, ghazals, and qawaalis corresponding to Hindustani classical music or Sufi music. Initially, it was largely performed in front of Marathi-speaking audiences, but nonetheless, it was extremely well-received and appreciated. It now enjoys a much diverse audience.

The rich content of Urdu Literature includes breathtaking works of Mirza Ghalib, Hafiz Jalandhari, Nida Fazli, Saahir Ludhiyanavi, Ameer Khusrow, Joan Eliya, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Meer Taqi Meer, and the like.

The group includes Jaydeep Vaidya, Nachiket Devasthali, Abhijeet Dhere, Devendra Bhome, and Om Bhutkar among many others.

'It was pitch dark and Begum Jaan's quilt was shaking vigorously as though an elephant was struggling inside. "Begum Jaa...
07/12/2017

'It was pitch dark and Begum Jaan's quilt was shaking vigorously as though an elephant was struggling inside. "Begum Jaan...," I could barely form the words out of fear. The elephant stopped shaking and the quilt came down.'

Ismat Chughtai's most famous and controversial short stories, 'Lihaaf' or 'The Quilt' tells the story of a woman, Begum Jaan, tucked away into a house after marriage, as an object or something to collect. She is brought back from her miserable state by her housemaid, Rabbu and her oil massages. Her story is told through the eyes of a young girl.

"Lihaaf" serves as a motif for hiding beneath it the homosexual relationship between Rabbu and Begum Jaan. It's also a metaphor for the secrecy and hypocrisy in the 20th century related to homosexuality.

I remember listening to a dramatic rendition of "Lihaaf" back when I was 16. Confused by the imagery of the elephant and at the same time shocked by the boldness of the story and it's narrative, I was thoroughly impressed. Later, I understood the elephant being the symbol of the young girls confusion regarding the whole situation and also the complexity of same-sex desire.

Chughtai was taken to Court for charges pertaining to "obscenity" along with Manto, for his story "Bu" or "Odour". When the case of Manto was taken up first, the witness said that the word "chest" was obscene. Manto's lawyer immediately retaliated by saying that the word isn't obscene, but the witness said that here, it refers to a woman's breasts. Manto blurted out, "A woman's chest must be called breasts and not groundnuts."

"Everything that surrounds me directly influences the topics of my works, however, the most important source of inspirat...
02/12/2017

"Everything that surrounds me directly influences the topics of my works, however, the most important source of inspiration is always the theatre, I don’t mean only the space itself but human being existing in it with the peculiar nature.
I do not try to reconstruct reality nor comment on it. I rather consider my painting as studies of emotions and sensual experiences and treat it as an intimate diary of complexity and diversity of human nature."

A Polish artist, most of Anna Bocek's paintings feature vibrant and expressive women, each with a distinctive energy.

Image source: Anna Bocek website.

02/12/2017

OuLiPo

"The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees oneself of the chains that shackle the spirit... the arbitrariness of the constraint only serves to obtain precision of ex*****on."
-Igor Stravinsky.

OuLiPo, an acronym for Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle (Workshop for Potential Literature), consists of a group of writers and mathematicians formed in France (1960) by poet Raymond Queneau and mathematician François Le Lionnais. Spontaneity and the subconscious as the foundations of creative inspiration are discarded by OuLiPo. Prominence is given to methodical, self-constraining means of writing texts.

The n + 7 constraint, invented by Jean Lescure, replaces every noun in an existing text with the noun that follows seven entries after it in the dictionary. Significant members of this group include novelists Georges Perec and Italo Calvino, poet Oskar Pastior, and poet/mathematician Jacques Roubaud.

Georges Perec's novel 'La Disparition', which is translated in English by Gilbert Adair titled 'A Void', is written without the letter "e," - the most used letter in the French language. It is an example of lipogram. The novel is outstanding not only for the absence of "e," but also because it is a mystery in which the absence of this letter is a principal theme.

"मृत्यूचे पंख मला मिळणार, सुंदर मी होणार". 'सुंदर मी होणार', a play written by P.L Deshpande, was more or less inspired ...
30/11/2017

"मृत्यूचे पंख मला मिळणार, सुंदर मी होणार".

'सुंदर मी होणार', a play written by P.L Deshpande, was more or less inspired by 'Flush' (a novel by Virginia Woolf based on Elizabeth Barrett's cocker spaniel), and the love between Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning- 'The Barretts of Wimpole Street' (1930), a play by Rudolf Besier based on their romance. Generally known for his humorous plays, P.L Deshpande turns to a more profound theme with this play, dealing with issues like euthanasia and mental conflicts. Nonetheless, he charms us with his impeccable dialogue writing skills.

From the preface of this play:
रॉबर्ट आणि एलिझबेथ ब्राउनिंग-
तुमच्या काव्यांतून जीवनाविषयक नाट्य आणि चरित्र-ग्रंथांतून मला जी प्रेरणा मिळाली ती घेऊन मी हे नाटक लिहिले आहे़. ते तुमच्या नित्य स्फूर्तिदायक स्मृतींना अर्पण करतो. ह्यतल्या अपूर्णत्वाबद्दल मला क्षमा करून ह्या नाट्य कृतिचा स्वीकार करा.
-पु. ल. देशपांडे

"How can one feel the beauty of a form, the intensity of subtlety of a colour, the quality of a line unless she is a sen...
30/11/2017

"How can one feel the beauty of a form, the intensity of subtlety of a colour, the quality of a line unless she is a sensualist of the eyes?"


A young Hungarian-Indian art prodigy, Amrita Sher-Gill's intense physicality fed into her creations. When she returned to India after her schooling in Europe in 1937, she embarked upon a three month journey in the south of India, where she wanted to find a country that had such a stark contrast to the upper class atmosphere that she had been exposed to all her life. This style was to become her painting's defining characteristic and the people, her main subject.

Today, we want to commend the fierce dancer and lover, Lucia Joyce. Not only was she the daughter of James Joyce (author...
29/11/2017

Today, we want to commend the fierce dancer and lover, Lucia Joyce. Not only was she the daughter of James Joyce (author of Ulysses), but also his muse.

Her life account is moving and intriguing: how did a talented dancer, the daughter of an acclaimed father, end up as Carl Jung’s patient diagnosed with schizophrenia? This “unknown” child who was apparently ignored by her mother was a creative talent and had a budding career, which was languished at a very young age.

Ardently in love with Samuel Beckett, who was then working as her father’s assistant, she bravely went up to him and confessed her love – only to be rejected by him. It is believed that he selfishly used her to get close to her father to boost his career.

All we know about her is through different tales told by everyone but herself – her letters, poems, a novel she wrote, as well as her medical records were all cruelly burnt by the James Joyce Foundation. The unreliability of facts is what makes her life so very fascinating and mysterious.

This artistic soul who had tremendous talent and a tender little heart was largely unacknowledged and unappreciated.

Her life story was the subject of a 2004 play named ‘Calico’, written by Michael Hastings.

"Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake ...
29/11/2017

"Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing of one were not driven by some demon whole one can neither resist nor understand."
•
Orwell's '1984' remains an enduring classic and one of the most significant novels of the 20th century. Orwell wrote this book while he was in the throes of tuberculosis, feverish and desperate to finish it as soon as his health would allow him. '1984' was finally published on 8th June, 1949 in the UK and five days later, in the United States.
Somehow, Orwell entered into the year 1950, having married Sonia Brownwell in October 1949.
On 21st January 1950, Orwell died from a massive brain haemorrhage at the University College Hospital, alone.

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