A Sonnet in Jazz

If one gets to see Jeet Thayil,it’s usually in one of the two avatars — as an author or as a musician. But when he made an appearance on Tuesday evening at Oxford Bookstore,Thayil converged the two. He was on the DSC Prize Winner’s Tour as Thayil had won the prize for his debut novel Narcopolis (Faber & Faber) earlier this year. He recreated the idea of “book reading” with Still Dirty,a band he created along with Delhi-based musicians Nikhil Vasudevan (drums) and Tony Guniard (bass),who are also members of indie outfit Ska Vengers. With jazz performance and beat poetry,the evening was their first public performance.

“I’ve been doing readings for about a year and a half and it’s always interesting when you mix music in a literary situation. There’s a lot of improvisation that happens at the time of the performances and this is how I keep such an event interesting,” says Thayil. The Oxford Bookstore performance included three pieces — jazz,a poem,Sonnet for the mouth from Thayil’s 2004 collection of poems,These Errors are Correct,and the reading of the seven-page prologue from Narcopolis. “I’ve always written with performances in mind,” says Thayil.

Tours in Mumbai and Bangalore will follow suit. At Mumbai’s Kala Ghoda Fort,to be held today,Thayil will be performing with the better half of their band Sridhar/Thayil,Suman Sridhar. “It’s always an adventure with her. I think we’ll be doing some rap,” says Thayil. In Bangalore,on August 2,he will collaborate with musician Abhijeet Tambe and artist Archana Prasad.

Thayil,who travels extensively and collaborates with different musicians,believes the Tuesday performance holds some future and promises we’ll be seeing more of Still Dirty. After the tour,he will head to Goa for a three-month teaching programme.

Pallavi Pundir