ASHWANI KUMAR

1. Have you ever felt ‘terrorized’ by something? Have you ever told/described it to someone? Has it found an expression in your work?

Yes… my poems revolving around various events and episodes of terror in our recent history.

2. At a psychological / aesthetic / philosophical level, can terror be ‘represented’ in art? Would you like to name certain works (art/writing) in which it has been done effectively?

I think this is a too dilatory question as the history of literature is replete with references with terror; colonial or post colonial. I still find “heart of darkness” a good pointer in this direction. Let me add here that the most sublime form of art is the most terrifying! The power of terror lies in representation.

3. Which would you consider to be the most terrorizing moment / event / ideology you have known?

I still think that perhaps it wont server any purpose in making an inventory list or laundry list of most terrorizing moments or ideologies; it may result in fake monumentalizing of certain events or ideologies at certain fixed point of history; we have not yet seen the most terrorizing event.

4. How do you respond to the rhetoric of terror(ism) in mainstream media and politics?

It is dominated by plain, simple “hyperrealism”; crude, crass and dehumanizing!

5. Have terrorist activities made you felt insecure?

Perhaps yes and certainly NO.