assonance

“The assonance of it, the rhyme of it feels really good. So maybe having an emphasis more on the sound of the words than the meaning is actually part of what makes this genre compelling.”

As the book’s translator notes, Shree writes in English fluently but chooses to pen her novel in Hindi to preserve the language’s dhwani: its unique vibration and resonance, often through wordplay, alliteration and assonance.

“That’s part of what makes hip-hop so much fun, are the internal assonances of it, and they did an incredible job of maintaining that.”

The poetry seems to perform hypnosis, the found rhymes and assonance and anaphora enacting an enchantment, a bewitchery; it seems to be giving subconscious advice.

The sprightly meter of the text abounds with exact rhymes and slant rhymes, as well as playful consonance, assonance and alliteration, carrying along the play’s stream-of-consciousness-styled progression of ideas.