Mawali is one of the co-founders of Swadesi, he released his first protest rap ‘Laaj Watte Kai’ in 2014.

At 25 with hair like the roots of a banyan, a 2Pac tattoo peeking from under a wristband, he says, “People who have spent time in nature have understood life differently. I was born in Kolhapur, a proper village, and I lived there for two years. So, my basic conditioning is of the village. My first step was on a floor made of cow dung, not tiles. So, I have [always had] that connection.” A “Std XII fail” from a school where even the teachers didn’t know English and all his classmates were slum kids, Mawali grew up in different chambers of Andheri East: Rambagh, near Mahakali Caves; Chakala, JB Nagar; and this writer’s hood, Gundavli. A student of devotional music, Carnatic and konnakol, he’s been a poet since Std VI, a time when he “didn’t even know what rap was.” After hanging out with a few b-boys and breakdancers, he discovered the spits of Afrika Bambaataa, KRS-One, Rakim, Tupac Shakur and Guru Gang Starr. “Old school hip-hop.” A country boy in the guise of a gully boy, Mawali has become an active trekker in the last five years and can manage a 6A rock-climbing grade. “My first hike was Prabalgad five years ago, and I was above the clouds. I’d never experienced that disconnection. Until I don’t spend time in nature, I won’t realise I’m a part of it. I didn’t know there’s a pentagram in a flower. There’s a mandala in it, a mathematical [equation] like the Fibonacci sequence. That’s when you understand the difference between artificial intelligence and real intelligence. You see how the sun rises and how it sets. The colour difference between each cloud. How uncertain life is. You get to observe yourself and experience healing sounds: the sound of wind passing through leaves, of early morning birds, the dawn chorus, the sound of water. You see rocks that have been naturally formed, after being shaped by water. So, check your own conditioning: even you’ve been cut from water.”