Ashok Rajamani

AUTHOR + POET + ESSAYIST + ARTIST + ADVOCATE

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ashok's favorites

songs:

"anything, anything"
--dramarama
"black star"
--radiohead
"the perfect drug"
--nine inch nails
"like a prayer"
--madonna
"one"
--metallica
"today"
--smashing pumpkins
"i remember you"
--skid row
"good beat"
--deee-lite
"can i get a..."
--jay-z
"bad romance"
--lady gaga
"peek-a-boo"
--siouxsie and the banshees
"the jump off"
--lil' kim
"the childcatcher"
--lush
"go"
--moby
"most of all"
--jody watley
"channel z"
--b-52's
"grey cell green"
--ned's atomic dustbin

movies:

"metropolis"
"devi"
"johnny got his gun"
"8½"
"freaks"
"women on the verge of a nervous breakdown"
"do the right thing"
"audition"
"rosemary's baby"
"heavenly creatures"
"misery"
"trainspotting"
"umrao jaan" (original)
"damage"
"hiroshima mon amour"
"showgirls"

books:

"geek love"
--katherine dunn
"lolita"
--vladimir nabokov
"sideway stories from wayside school"
--louis sachar
"the persecution and assassination of jean-paul marat as performed by the inmates of charenton under the direction of the marquis de sade: a play"
--Peter Weiss
"the concept of mind"
--gilbert ryle
"bone black: memories of girlhood"
--bell hooks
"maurice"
--e.m. forster
"mahabharata"
--vyasa

revolutionaries:

sri ramakrishna,
saint of bengal
gautama buddha
madonna
malcolm x
stephen hawking
swami vivekananda
jacques lacan
helen keller
frida kahlo
papa smurf

radio and writings

the day my brain exploded
the book
the true story of an indian american redneck underdog, who, tested in all aspects of hia young life from the Bible Belt to the Big Apple, reclaims his world in the face of his biggest challenge yet: the explosion of his brain at the age of 25.

on sluts, jesus, vulgar darlings, and india
poetry
a collection of published poems.

carnival grotesque, phallic goddess
essay
the two forgotten women in the world's greatest epic.
the land of the carnival and the land of the transgendered never looked better.

the damned mother and the unnamed other
essay
a comparative psychoanalytic critique of salman rushdie's "midnight's children" and shyam selvadurai's "funny boy."

horseshoe souvenir
essay
the 3:am piece that started it all.

three romances
flash fiction
three short stories about the greatest affairs of all: the true love between man and beast, the true love between old lady and death, and the true love between man and wall.

how an indian girl became the rightful heir to blond Ambition, or, why an indian woman never quit having blind ambition
fiction
britney spears's mother has nothing on this indian stagemom.

BUCKETRY, OR, ON THE COVER OF A MAGAZINE, OR, YOU SAY DEM-EE I SAY DEE-MI
fiction
a boy finds self-adoration in a bath.

HUckleberry Patel
fiction
a brown american boy who wants to be an all-american star.