Dubai Kathu Pattu (Dubai Letter Song), S. A. Jameel (1977)
EMPIRE LINES26 Elo 2021

Dubai Kathu Pattu (Dubai Letter Song), S. A. Jameel (1977)

Dr. Mohamed Shafeeq Karinkurayil sounds out stories of migration between post-colonial Kerala and the Arab Gulf from the 1960s, through S. A. Jameel's Dubai Kathu Pattu (Dubai Letter Song).

'For the perusal of my most respected dear husband, your wife says with much love, assalaam'. Dubai Kathu Pattu is a letter song to a migrant labourer in the Arab Gulf, from his wife at home in India. By the late 1970s, 200,000 such migrants had left behind the post-colonial scarcities in Kerala, seeking cash from the crude oil industries of the Gulf. Jameel's ode obeys the strict formula of the Mappila tradition. Yet it speaks to Asia's 'cassette revolution', a time of transformation where tapes, telephones, and informal migrant networks challenged state-dominated cultural and gendered norms.

PRESENTER: Dr. Mohamed Shafeeq Karinkurayil, assistant professor at the Manipal Centre for Humanities, India.

ART: Dubai Kathu Pattu (Dubai Letter Song), S. A. Jameel (1977).

IMAGE: ‘Keralan Migrant Listening to Tapes, 1980s'.

SOUNDS: S. Ambili.

PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic.


Follow EMPIRE LINES at: twitter.com/jelsofron/status/1306563558063271936

Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelines

Jaksot(162)

The Trembling Museum, Manthia Diawara and Terri Geis (2023-2024) (EMPIRE LINES Live at PEACE FREQUENCIES, The Hunterian)

The Trembling Museum, Manthia Diawara and Terri Geis (2023-2024) (EMPIRE LINES Live at PEACE FREQUENCIES, The Hunterian)

In this special episode, filmmaker, cultural theorist, and curator Manthia Diawara joins EMPIRE LINES live, to discuss Édouard Glissant’s relations with natural environmental disasters, connecting the...

23 Loka 202519min

Burial, Emilija Škarnulytė (2022) (EMPIRE LINES x Folkestone Triennial 2025, Tate St Ives)

Burial, Emilija Škarnulytė (2022) (EMPIRE LINES x Folkestone Triennial 2025, Tate St Ives)

Contemporary artist Emilija Škarnulytė snakes from the decaying control rooms of the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant in Lithuania, to Dungeness on the English Channel, exploring time and geology through ...

2 Loka 202516min

If They Survive, They are Refugees, Duong Thuy Nguyen (2024) (EMPIRE LINES Live at SLQS Gallery)

If They Survive, They are Refugees, Duong Thuy Nguyen (2024) (EMPIRE LINES Live at SLQS Gallery)

In this special episode, contemporary artists Hoa Dung Clerget and Duong Thuy Nguyen, and gallerist Sarah Le Quang Sang, join EMPIRE LINES live, exploring the legacies of French and British colonialis...

18 Syys 202543min

Introducing: BUZZWORDS: Care with Jasmina Cibic

Introducing: BUZZWORDS: Care with Jasmina Cibic

BUZZWORDS is a new pilot podcast from Open City, produced in collaboration with the arts and culture podcast EMPIRE LINES. The podcast unpacks words and phrases often overused in the fields of art and...

4 Syys 202529min

It Should Not Be Forgotten, Elsa James (2025) (EMPIRE LINES Live at Firstsite Colchester)

It Should Not Be Forgotten, Elsa James (2025) (EMPIRE LINES Live at Firstsite Colchester)

In this special episode, contemporary artist Elsa James joins EMPIRE LINES live, navigating how the slave ship marks and haunts Black lives in Britain today, in their interdisciplinary exhibition, It ...

21 Elo 20251h 2min

Love (Warbler Remix), Hanna Tuulikki (2025) (EMPIRE LINES x Folkestone Triennial 2025)

Love (Warbler Remix), Hanna Tuulikki (2025) (EMPIRE LINES x Folkestone Triennial 2025)

Artist Hanna Tuulikki traces the migration route of the Marsh Warbler, a bird that mimics and remixes the songs of European and Afrotropical species it meets, across the English Channel to Kent.Throug...

7 Elo 202516min

The Dhaba, Alia Syed (2025) (EMPIRE LINES Live at CCA Glasgow)

The Dhaba, Alia Syed (2025) (EMPIRE LINES Live at CCA Glasgow)

In this special episode, filmmaker and contemporary artist Alia Syed joins EMPIRE LINES live, to weave together their works in moving image, photography, and oral history, and reflect on personal expe...

24 Heinä 202558min

A Cutting: Stone Portals, Leo Robinson (Ongoing) (EMPIRE LINES Live at SEEDLINGS, The Hunterian)

A Cutting: Stone Portals, Leo Robinson (Ongoing) (EMPIRE LINES Live at SEEDLINGS, The Hunterian)

Find out more about Leo Robinson’s relations to African and Caribbean cosmologies, and worldbuilding through play, with Stone Portals (Ongoing), now part of ⁠⁠SEEDLINGS: Diasporic Imaginaries⁠⁠, curat...

17 Heinä 20254min

Suosittua kategoriassa Yhteiskunta

olipa-kerran-otsikko
siita-on-vaikea-puhua
kaksi-aitia
gogin-ja-janin-maailmanhistoria
i-dont-like-mondays
poks
kolme-kaannekohtaa
antin-palautepalvelu
sita
mamma-mia
yopuolen-tarinoita-2
aikalisa
rss-murhan-anatomia
lahko
loukussa
rss-palmujen-varjoissa
meidan-pitais-puhua
rss-nikotellen
terapeuttiville-qa
mystista