One of the most essential controversial and hard-hitting book of poems of our times demanded a completely different experimental cover. Ideally the cover should capture the visceral nature of patriarchal violence indicated in the words within the volume as they implode on paper. I instinctively though of "gagged silence" as a motif while reading the work minutely which is ironical considering the fact that the title specifies the word "darbari". The work plays on that idea of dark grave voice of the night-time raga gradually getting entombed within a death-like silence. The repression of strong individual voices in today's overtly masculine India makes us all uncomfortable accomplices. The inability to vent our natural feelings creates a sense of bloated disquiet which tears our interiors apart. The blood of our own guts smear our faces and creates a geometry of guilt. That image of a blood spattered female mouth forms the basis of my work. A mass of algae and mushroom (slightly indicative of phallic symbolism) on the back cover reinforce this violence as being violently patriarchal which violates the female moth (indicative of hymen) to leave it bloodies and bare. The slightly disjunctive structure of the cover imparts the sense of split created by violence.
