Jellyfish Dancing

The Overflow of Excess

“For me, every object is a miracle” - Pier Paolo Pasolini

"The most horrendous crimes against nature are committed in the name of economic growth." - Pier Paolo Pasolini

"I have a nostalgia for the poor, dirty life." - Pier Paolo Pasolini

"In the dust, in the mud, in the human refuse of the world’s outskirts, I found the truth."- Pier Paolo Pasolini

- Appropriation
- Ownership is pollution
- War follows the same logic
- Ownership is never neutral
- There is no “pure” alternative
- Cleanliness is an illusion → What appears “pure” or “orderly” is often just what has been successfully claimed.

The Soul

The Paradox of Abuse

The Symphony of Stain

जेलिफ़िश

The city bleeds into this tank, and I bloom in its excess. A blessing in disguise.

Look how it stains the stones, tattooing them with time. The ashes of the dead, the oil from the streets, the shattered offerings of devotion —this water takes it all.
Pollution seeps through like ink, touching everything—stone, skin, feather, scale. Thirsty crows drink, hands of the devout plunge in, trembling with faith. Naked bodies glisten, exposed in their fragile mortality, leaving behind sweat, oil, sin. I take it all in —the filth, the prayers, the decay. I absorb. I drift. I have no voice, no protest, no resistance. I am neither victor nor victim, only an inheritor of the ruin. I pulse, indifferent and eternal, a floating specter in sacred waters.
Here, where the city folds into itself, where skyscrapers fade into whispers, where the past lingers in ripples of greenish water. It is a place that sings in silence.
It is a theater of contradictions. A silk-clad woman prays while a ragged boy washes his feet in the same water. I know no caste, no class, no sorrow. I sway, absorbing the excess, the waste, the wonder.
I know only this —this water, this moment, this city in its chaos, its filth, its beauty. And when all else is gone, I will still be here, pulsing in the dark.

“Jellyfish are among the few organisms that benefit from pollution.” [1] While others wither , I thrive. The balance of the world shifts, and I remain. “Pollution disrupts ecosystem function, which may leave jellyfish as the ‘last man standing.” [2]

[1] Gershwin, Jellyfish A Natural History
[2] Gershwin, Jellyfish A Natural History

The water bears witness. It carries voices, reflections, the weight of a city dissolving into itself. I drift beyond the tank now, beyond its quiet prayers, into the veins of Mumbai —where excess spills, where nothing remains untouched. The tide pulls me through filth and neon alike, through slums that press against glass towers, through alleyways thick with incense and diesel.

A stain, a mark, a trace. „…The spit soils the soup, the logo the object, the signature the page: property, propriety, or cleanliness.” [1] —illusions, all of them.

A Bollywood star with lips too perfect, a body too clean. Children kick a plastic bottle through the dirt, their laught rising over the honk of a luxury car. The overflow of excess—the sweat on backs bent over sewing machines, the neon glare of advertisements promising more, always more. Both worlds touch, press into each other like bodies, like breath. Both worlds contaminate.

The sea is their showroom. The water laps against the shore, thick with plastic, oil, the carcasses of forgotten things. The rich feast here, their yachts rocking gently in filth, their glasses raised to the skyline. They eat fish that have swallowed the city’s waste, sip water filtered from its refuse. They do not taste it. They do not see it. But it is inside them. They consume the city they try to rise above.

Pasolini would have understood. This is not decay; this is hunger. This is not pollution; this is history dissolving into skin.



[1] Watkin, Michel Serres

Banganga Tank Festival

Ganesh Chaturthi

- Pollution is not just physical → It seeps into perception, thoughts, and emotions.
- noise are tools of ownership → ound asserts dominance (church bells, sirens, helicopters).
- Light pollution - (festival, bollywood …)

The Contaminated Claim

- Pollution is not just physical excess but also fear
- Fear disguises itself as disgust
- Pollution is paradoxical → It is both harmful and necessary; it destroys but also forms the foundation of existence.
- Faith, religion
- Meditation

- Original meaning of pollution → Initially tied to religious and bodily defilement, such as desecrating sacred spaces or "pollution" through masturbation.
- Purity as an obsession → Cleanliness became linked to morality, sexuality, and aesthetics, reinforcing strict societal norms.
- Pasolini’s critique → He saw the hypocrisy in society's treatment of sexuality—both suppressed and commercialized as a tool of control.

Spilling Excess