My dear Pier-Paolo,

My stay in Mumbai is overwhelming! I still can’t fully grasp
everything happening around me. But I found this lovely postcard :)
On the card, you can see Lakshmi, the goddess of fertility, love,
and happiness, enjoying a sailing trip with her husband, Vishnu,
aboard his favorite pirate ship, Sheshanaga. I immediately thought
of Captain Jack Sparrow’s words about Sheshanaga: "It's not just the keel, a hole in the
deck, and [snakeskin]. That’s what a ship needs, not what a ship is. For [Sheshanaga] truly is …
is [...]." Someone told me there is no better ship to sail the ocean of sperm than Sheshanaga.
But I still haven’t figured out where they’re heading or what their mission is… What a bummer.

Your beloved, Maria Callas

P.S. I even found an idol of Sheshanaga inside the Walkeshwar Temple, near the famous pirate lookout at Malabar Hill. How cool is that? :)

Pasolini: "Divine miscreants, reveal to me the measures of this scandalous elixir. I crave a cocktail that fuses the carnal with the celestial, an artful blend of our profane desires and sacred mysteries!"
Indra: "Then let the ritual commence with the water of the Banganga Tank—one part, as pure yet paradoxical as the sacred streams themselves. This water shall serve as the base upon which our divine libation is built."
Lakshmi: "Follow with half the blood that in your veins flows, a measure that binds mortal fragility with eternal promise. For as it is said, 'the half of blood what in your veins flow' becomes the bridge between your being and the divine."
Vishnu: "Next, pour in the milk of the sea, a measure as boundless as 'the milk of the sea.' This offering, where Lakshmi and I ride upon Shesha Naga, encapsulates an ocean of creation—a vast, living testament to life itself. Remember, 'in India it is valued almost as highly as spice plants; and with good reason' (Alberti)."
Hanuman (laughing roguishly): "Spice it up with a dash of pirates’ rum—a flick of rebellious delight, as if 'suppose it were offered by a pirate, or a brigand, or a king of the temper of a pirate or brigand' (Seneca). This unruly spirit shall provoke chaos and add that necessary scandal!"
Parvati: "Now, blend in one single tear, pure and poignant, the very kind that 'is something nobler than innocence; it is the delicacy of reflection, and not the coyness of ignorance' (Wollstonecraft). This tear is none other than the cool, joyful tear of Sage Atri—whose weeping gave birth to his son Soma—emblematic of both sorrow and transcendence."
Indra: "To intensify the ritual, measure out 'a piece of iron heated in the fire' (Calasso) and mix it with two drams of waterlily syrup. The metallic coolness shall echo the primordial fervor of our ancient origins."
Lakshmi: "And let the sacred chalice—a vessel carved from an ancient stone—absorb all these essences as if 'the stones surround the soma with their mouths gaping' (Calasso). Such a chalice must be worthy to hold both the defilement and the purity of our concoction."
Vishnu: "Now, for the final spark of creation, add our divine sperm mixture—a blessed blend distilled from our own sacred essences. This is not the first ingredient, but the culminating force that ignites life itself. In our union of fluids, there lies the power to transmute pollution into divine potency."
Hanuman: "And remember, 'in becoming cleverer, lust, melancholy, and brutality are scarcely separable' (Sloterdijk). Stir vigorously, for the act must be as audacious as it is transformative!"
Pasolini (with a provocative smirk): "Then I shall mix these defiant drops, letting scandal and sanctity converge. I will drink not only the libation but the very essence of your divine rebellion, becoming art incarnate—a living manifesto of transgression and truth!"
Indra: "Indeed, Pasolini, for 'if this is purification, what is pollution?' (Augustine). Embrace the forbidden, and let every drop be a rebirth of the gods within you."
Vishnu: "Drink deeply, for in the merging of these elements lies the sacred alchemy of creation—a cocktail to defy both pollution and the mundane, a testament to the divine chaos that births new worlds."
Pasolini: "Then let the ritual begin, and may my transgressions blend with your divine nectar to create a legacy that scorches the boundaries between the profane and the holy!"

Purification of the Madonna. The sperm as a sacrifice.

“This purification occurs through sacrifice; is this bloodshed used to clean, or to soil? The victim to be bled is led around the object to be cleansed, surrounds it and confines it as it passes by; and so the oxen turned around the altar before dying. With this ritual and sacrifice, lustration becomes both spatial and bloody. […] This is another appropriation, another tenancy. […] Those of the owner, a tenant, a passing visitor? […] Since immemorial times, the male seeks the ownership of a space. […] By ejaculating sperm, he thinks he is appropriating the place where his desire is acted out.” (Serres, Malfeasance)

CAFE SOMA

"Welcome to thee, O my mother!" (The Book of the Thousand and One Nights)
You, who became a new Heaven (Hirn, The Sacred Shrine),
You, the Virgin "associated... with Wisdom and with the Church [transforms you] into the nursing mother of many penitents, visionaries, and saints." (Warner, Alone of All Her Sex)

I return to you, broken by sweetness that dulls the senses, harmony that quiets the mind.
"Who will save my soul, which is blackened, soiled, spoiled, appropriated, like a dog possessed by the master's endlessly farcing voice in the loudspeaker?" (Michel Serres, Malfeasance)
This voice resounds in every object, in every repetition without origin.
"As a slave floating in space, I am losing the Cogito: I while retaining only the identical."
(Michel Serres, Malfeasance)

My “I” dissolves into sameness.
And now, "what is at stake here are our intentions, decisions, and conventions. In short, our cultures."
(Michel Serres, Malfeasance)
I beg you, let me escape.
Let me go elsewhere—
for "the uniqueness of culture means that by identifying with it I shall not distinguish myself from other cultures,
and will therefore never again feel the terrible regret at not being somewhere else."
(Pier Paolo Pasolini, Other Materials)

"After his death the holy women could not find his corpse in the tomb, which was empty." (Michel Serres, Malfeasance)
"A God without place, a God of the no-place." (Michel Serres, Malfeasance)
"To be sure He was born of a mother, but without leaving any trace." (Michel Serres, Malfeasance)
I too am vanishing.
"Humans no longer belong to themselves either. Just as we can no longer live in the space of a hard and revolting carnage,
so our souls become sewage sanitation fields of images and sounds, soft ones, emanating from appropriation's combatants." (Michel Serres, Malfeasance)

"Let [me] liberate space, let [me] liberate our souls, and let [me] liberate at least one site." (Michel Serres, Malfeasance)
If not here, Madonna, then in your shadow,
in the hush of a distant land.
"So in the future I shall have no more tabernacles.
All the rites of my mass culture
will thus be deprived of unity (or so it seems, if unity is sacred)." (Pier Paolo Pasolini, Introduzione)

But I remember:
"In the presence of my mother (who shared, consciously, my unhappiness), beside a great table,
I felt again the bliss I’d known as a newborn when for the first time I slept and ate." (Pier Paolo Pasolini, Materials for the Introduction)
Amen.

To Madonna, without Cogito

"Sharon! Sharon, wait—please just listen! This isn’t what it looks like!" (He points frantically at a frozen porn video.) "This is not just some disgusting accident. This is culture. This is ritual. This is—pollution."

"Pollution—‘mid-14c., pollucioun, discharge of semen other than during sex’—you see? That’s the original meaning! Not trash. Not smog. But this."
"I'm not just jerking off, Sharon—I'm exiting the bourgeois hellscape of lawn maintenance and PTA meetings! This—this is the primal scream of meaning!"

"Serres says it perfectly: 'Pollution lost the vital and religious sense given to masturbation and the ejection of sperm and is now assigned to the ever increasing industrial waste' (Serres, Malfeasance). But I—I am reclaiming that vital act, Sharon!"

"'After urine, blood, and sign, now sperm. This is another appropriation, another tenancy' (Serres, Malfeasance). I am inhabiting this space, staking my claim—not on land, but on experience!"
"'By ejaculating sperm, [I] think [I am] appropriating the place where [my] desire is acted out' (Serres, Malfeasance). This desk, Sharon... it's not just IKEA. It's my territory."

"And look—'Only after contamination [do I] understand that [I was] existing in an atmosphere not only of air, but also of waves and rays' (Sloterdijk, Foams). That moment of climax? It's when I really feel alive, when I realize I'm not just breathing oxygen—I'm pulsing with signal."

"'All the various authors do not give the same explanation for this preciousness of the sperm' (Foucault, The History of Sexuality). But they know it’s precious. Sperm, Sharon—sperm is sacred."
"'The animal spirit naturally inheres in the sperm' (Agamben, Stanzas). 'The soul makes sperm—potentially a human being—into an actual human being' (Aquinas). You see?! This isn’t shameful—it’s creative!"

"'They commit the act of lust... then consume the fruit of their shame' (Sloterdijk, Cynical Reason). I’m owning my shame, Sharon. I’m transforming it into freedom."
"'The uniqueness of culture means... I will never again feel the terrible regret at not being somewhere else' (Pasolini). Don’t you get it? This is why I do it. Because here, in this moment—I'm finally not missing out."
"This isn’t perversion. It’s what Serres calls culture: 'our intentions, decisions, and conventions' (Serres, Malfeasance)."

"And you know what? 'Since immemorial times, the male seeks the ownership of a space' (Serres). Well—I’ve found mine. Right here, between Google Chrome and the lotion bottle."

"...I’m a better man now, Sharon."

Dr. phil. Randy Marsh

Kali shows Shiva the track "Aafat Waapas" by Mumbai Street Rapper Naezy. Shiva is hooked! Chaos is back! He is thinking of getting into Mumbai's HipHop scene... maybe throwing some Graffiti pieces on the citie's walls...



आया आफ़त वापस

साथ में लाया क्या?

वापस आफ़त

बचके रहना बेटा!

आफ़त वापस

एक बार फ़िर से बोले

वापस आफ़त

मेरा भाई तू बंद है!

Pasolini feels drawn to Kali, the divine mother. Her chthonic force overwhelms him. Kali is the goddess of death and destruction. Pasolini knows, that Kali's violence is not senseless, but a profound rebellion against order, a destruction that births something new. He loves that!

Soma Speciale

"This suggests that the erotic interaction with rent boys in Pasolini's mythopoetic universe takes on the character of a nature-religious ritual – a cultic service for the Earth Goddess."

- Dietmar Voss

Pirati Aghori Buttafuori

Pasolini is suffering from the rise of consumerist, petit-bourgeois culture. He sees the problem in the loss of the Cogito, the “I,” and through this, the loss of culture itself. He searches for a way to overcome this suffering through a new film, set in another culture. He turns with his prayers to the Madonna for help. She introduces him to Mumbai and to Hinduism. In the Vedas, he finds the foundation for his film script.

The Soma drink described in the Vedas becomes a ritual tool for him—a way to connect with the intimacy of the gods and, through this, to regain the Cogito. His film set will be located at the Walkeshwar Temple, which will be transformed into a bar where gods and humans can meet and consume a new version of Soma. This act of “polluting” oneself becomes fruitful—a sacred contamination from which the Cogito can grow.

In this space, the “Café Soma,” different cocktails will be offered, each containing ingredients drawn from different deities—emerging from the intimate relationships between the gods. The main ingredient, however, will be sperm: the original and most intimate form of pollution.

SCRIPT

I wake up. What happened? I can’t remember. I am bleeding.
I am looking down the stairs.
“The reflection gazes back at the face in the same act as [my] face gazes at it;
as it is made by gazing, so is it preserved by gazing back.” [1]
I look closer and— “Amidst a faint stench of butchery, I see an image of my body:
half-naked, forgotten, near death. Such was how I wished to be crucified.” [2]

This is the “Mirror of the sky! In you the clouds, the walls, the trees fall motionless.” [2]
“Inside the voiceless mirror I’m a blue fish surrounded by ice, darting tail froze.” [2]
“I now live inside the mirror, I am my own image immersed in the life of the blind light.” [2]
“It’s the city, bathed in a festive light.” [2]
“The pure light veiling everything in shades of fine dust: it’s havoc, it’s butchery.” [2]
“[This] bright light […] where there appears nothing but darkness to be reflected.” [3]

I lay here on these hard stone stairs “In the pastoral silence of the mirror white as the dawn of birth.” [2]
“A mirror, showing us two [cities], the real one and its reflection.” [4]
I am “Sliding over the water as in a dream.” [2]
I am “Agonised by the reflection, as it floated by, so near and yet so infinitely remote, […]
an intrinsic and unalterable beauty.” [5]


[1] Ficino, Platonic Theology Volume 4 Books XII–XIV
[2] Pier Paolo Pasolini, Collected Works
[3] Ruskin, The Stones of Venice
[4] Gothein, A History of Garden Art
[5] Proust, In Search of Lost Time Vol I: Swann’s Way

Banganga: Kannadi Bombay

Manifesto of the Eternal Honor
Lord Rama

I have returned to this modern world—a realm where the sacred, honorable essence is fading into oblivion. Today, I see a society that has lost its way, where true devotion is forsaken in favor of fleeting, material pursuits. Yet, I stand firm in the belief that “Herein, the culture of devotion is the first means” (Sivananda 1957,82). It is time to revive what has been lost.

I declare that “Therefore honor is something spiritual” (Aquinas, Summa Theologica) and “Therefore happiness consists in honor” (Aquinas, Summa Theologica). Our communities have been built on values that are “something nobler than innocence; it is the delicacy of reflection, and not the coyness of ignorance” (Wollstonecraft, Complete Works). We must reclaim these ideals and restore the sacred balance.

Yet I witness cruelty masquerading as strength—where people rage with such ferocity that one might ask, “Whether cruelty differs from savagery or brutality?” (Aquinas, Summa Theologica). In our midst, there are those who “speak and rave with wrath; his cheeks burn [with ferocious fire], and his eyes scarcely hold themselves in their place; his face is full of reckless daring and mad savagery, as of one in boundless rage; with groans and dreadful cries, he thrusts his hands into his eyes” (Seneca, Complete Works). In becoming cleverer, “lust, melancholy, and brutality are scarcely separable” (Sloterdijk, Critique of Cynical Reason), yet in this brutality, “the other, master form of reflection begins to stir” (Sloterdijk, Critique of Cynical Reason).

No longer can we abide by the barbarism of those who believe that “they think it easier and in fact more honorable to get riches by pillage than by work” (Marx, Collected Works). I call upon every soul who cherishes truth and community: Let us restore the sacred honor that defines us. Let us rebuild our world on the firm foundations of devotion, reflection, and unwavering integrity.

The time has come for us to embrace our destiny and reawaken the spirit of the honorable. Join me, for our collective future depends on it.