Over and Under Ground in Paris & Mumbai

It all began, perhaps inevitably, at Kala Ghoda. Poets Sampurna Chattarji and Karthika Naïr met in February 2016 during the annual arts festival, and decided to test the possibilities of a dialogue in verse across latitudes. With one based in Mumbai and the other in Paris, they first sought a common denominator. And the link they chose was an integral part of their respective megalopolises: the local rail networks -– the Paris Métro and the Mumbai Suburban Railway. The poets drew inspiration from the train networks to blueprint their modus operandi: just as each train may stop at a station, and be joined by another train, their poems too are linked to each other. In the first section of the book, the last line of Karthika’s poem is reprised in the first line of Sampurna’s response, and vice-versa. In the second section, it is the first line of Sampurna’s poem that becomes the last line of Karthika’s subsequent poem, with that pattern then repeated in reverse. Brilliantly visualised by the renowned French illustrator Joëlle Jolivet and the fantastically talented young Gond artist, Roshni Vyam, Over and Under Ground in Mumbai and Paris is an attempt to celebrate the multiplicity of gazes – through word and image, language and shape and colour.