We speak in changing languages: Indian women poets 1990-2007
E. V. Ramakrishnan and Anju Makhija
Ramakrishnan, E. V.; Anju Makhija;
We speak in changing languages: Indian women poets 1990-2007
Sahitya Akademi, 2009, 278 pages
ISBN 8126026731, 9788126026739
topics: | poetry | india | english | gender | translation | anthology
The poets in this collection are very uneven; one wishes the editors would have used a more discriminating brush - i would say that at least half the poems in this large collection are rather pedestrian. I started with the opening poet - shanta acharya, whom i had not read much of. The giddy mannequin opens invitingly: A giddy mannequin discreetly naked I pose for you in a glass cage
but at the edge of the world is a straightforward narrative of a visit to a art gallery - i fail to find the obliqueness of poetry. thoughts don't jump far enough, the observations do not sparkle, and the language is leaden with redundancies (e.g. could "upside-down, inside out" been tighter?) In the next poem Arranged Marriage - a traditional muslim marriage for a british woman - has a lot of potential, but it fails to come off. some metaphor - (thoughts as "vagrant butterflies") seem rather trite. the ending though, is powerful - in the "union with a stranger, / Love will rise like a phoenix, they said / friendship will follow with the children of god/ But first one has to be turned inside out."
Flipping through the book, I liked many of the voices. Mamang Dai contributes the title of this volume, we speak in changing languages, in her poem voice of the mountain, which has some powerful juxtapositions:
Because he could not speak he brought a gift of fish. Sampurna Chattarji is one of the most powerful poets of this generation - irrespective of gender, and her poetry retains its freshness, like an ancient five-year old trembling to be older. of course, no review of an anthology is complete without a crib about missing voices. The absence of Anjum Hassan is quite inexplicable, hers is one of the most powerful voices at the turn of the millenium. On the whole, an introduction to some fresh voices, but a rather poor "where-the-page-falls-open" index score.
Excerpts
Shanta Acharya: At the edge of the world p.7
(After Anish Kapoor’s ‘Creations’ at the Hayward Gallery)The queue outside stretches like an alley cat, waiting to enter the crowded gallery explore the plugged-holes at the centre of walls and ceilings. Not enough time, space for all to experience ways of defining It, of lending shape, colour, sound, meaning. Once inside, the world is turned upside down, inside out, disoriented through double mirrors, emptied of space funnelling into arupa, untitled, leaving us newly-born, fearful of oblivion. In the beginning (or is it the end?) securing myself a discrete position, I get sucked into my mother’s womb, peering at deep, dark shrines of my body, her body; our bodies moving in rhythm to creation at the vortex, doubly-inverted images, when I become pregnant, making the world many. We exchange according to our measure the open-endedness of things; configuring a nose, a breast, a man posing in his briefs? Or something new waiting to be seen. Imagination turns earth and stone into sky. In the dark, polished hollow of a marble mummy, a fleeting spirit appears. A twisting column of light, I flicker before giving up the ghost.
Shanta Acharya: Arranged Marriage p.8
The bridegroom’s profile refracted through her purdah of tears unused to the violence of iconoclasm dressed as tradition. That moment’s reappraisal warned her to faithlessness; discard old ways for new, worship new gods and shoes. She was the arrow then that darted forth from the taut bow of culture into the flaming pyre proclaiming Impossible union with a stranger.
Love will rise like a phoenix, they said;
friendship will follow with the children of god.
But first one has to be turned inside out.
Deepa Agarwal: Thoughts on a Ritual p.17
Tracing yellow lines on broad banyan leaves winding the fragile thread round and round... My thoughts vagrant butterflies take flight. Savitri constant wife faithful lover woman of power, you conquered death yet... your womb was too narrow. It could only hold a hundred sons not a single daughter.
Deepa agarwal: Once there was a princess p.19
Once there was a princess who wept pearls and once there was a princess who laughed flowers. Both died, I am told, one of weeping and the other of laughter. But not because one's eyes went dry or the other forgot how to laugh. One died of suffocation entombed in pearls. THe other choked on a sureit of flowers. The pearls were sold for a fortune, I am told. But the wilted flowers brought no gain at all. SInce then, I have heard a woman's tears have become more precious than her laughter.
Sampurna Chattarji: As a son, my daughter
I brought you up as a son, my daughter fierce and strong and free. But now, now that you are, you have become, all that i am not, you are too fierce, too strong, too free. Your hair is too short. Your absences too long. You fear nothing. You frighten me. ... --Sampurna Chattarji: Pleasure, forbidden-- Night ruled in the place blazing with lights left on long past bedtime. Trapped in the filigree bottle, the musk that meant forbidden. A whiff at the wrist and I saw the high red heels, wicked and comforting, the beaten filigree earrings with the shyest drop of pearl, the white hanky with the perfect pink rose too delicate to bear thinking about, too real for the crush of a perfumed faintly sweaty hand, the fur purse savage beyond desire, the golden clasp snapping its purring jaws tight in the crush of a golden night. Always the same pieces of an ancient five-year old trembling to be older. And always, sharpest, the troubled image of denial, all dressed up, refusing to go and leave the children alone, no matter that a neighbour will look in later, no matter that he has done it all for her, no matter that he begs, she will not go out tonight, and for the first time the five-year old senses there is more to the forbidden than pleasure. --Sampurna Chattarji: Conversation-- You carry his curse in those clouded eyes, Dhritarashtra. Your mother flinched from him that night. His breath smelt of roots and his chest was white. More demon than lover he seemed. So your mother did it blind and shut the darkness in on you. You woke seeing nothing, regret eternal in your howl. But you? What made you, Gandhari, put out the light that was given you, freely? He could have seen through you, the pale green of the thin-veined leaf, the shadow trembling on the palace wall. He did not ask for this companionship, harsh as the cloth around your eyes, grim as your unkissed lips. Instead of this implacable love, you should have given him sight. sampurna chattarji links: http://openspaceindia.org/item/sampurna-chattarji.html
Mamang Dai: The voice of the mountain p.104
From where I sit on the high platform I can see the ferry lights crossing criss-crossing the big river. I know the towns, the estuary mouth. There, beyond the last bank where the colour drains from heaven I can outline the chapters of the world. The other day a young man arrived from the village. Because he could not speak he brought a gift of fish from the land of rivers. It seems such acts are repeated: We live in territories forever ancient and new, and as we speak in changing languages. I, also, leave my spear leaning by the tree and try to make a sign. I am an old man sipping the breeze that is forever young. In my life I have lived many lives. My voice is sea waves and mountain peaks, In the transfer of symbols I am the chance syllable that orders the world Instructed with history and miracles. I am the desert and the rain. The wild bird that sits in the west. The past that recreates itself and particles of life that clutch and cling For thousands of years – I know, I know these things as rocks know, burning in the sun’s embrace, about clouds, and sudden rain; as I know a cloud is a cloud is a cloud, A cloud is this uncertain pulse that sits over my heart. In the end the universe yields nothing except a dream of permanence. Peace is a falsity. A moment of rest comes after long combat: From the east the warrior returns with the blood of peonies. I am the child who died at the edge of the world, the distance between end and hope. The star diagram that fell from the sky, The summer that makes men weep. I am the woman lost in translation who survives, with happiness to carry on. I am the breath that opens the mouth of the canyon, the sunlight on the tips of trees; There, where the narrow gorge hastens the wind I am the place where memory escapes the myth of time, I am the sleep in the mind of the mountain.
Arundhathi Subramaniam 5.46 Andheri local 267
In the women’s compartment of a Bombay local we search for no personal epiphanies. Like metal licked by relentless acetylene we are welded – dreams, disasters, germs, destinies, flesh and organza, odours and ovaries. A thousand-limbed million-tongued, multi-spoused Kali on wheels. When I descend I could choose to dice carrots or dice a lover. I postpone the latter.
Contents
Shanta Acharya
A Giddy Mannequin 3
The wishing tree 4
Shunya 6
At the edge of the world 7
% Arranged marriage 8
Xochipilli 9
Prescription for glasses 10
Mrs. Kafka's dilemma 12
Deepa Agarwal
Thoughts on a Ritual 17
Anarkali 18
Once there was a princess 19
Woman on the road to Lhasa 20
Do not weep, lonely mirror 21
Quiet Spaces 23
Forgotten kaleidoscope 24
Smita Agarwal
Lopamudra 29
An address to India 32
Greenhorn 34
Sarojini Naidu and She 35
Joyride 36
Richa 37
Jane Bhandari
Deep Well 41
Hard frost 42
Beachcombers 43
Hiss 44
Catching crayfish 45
The birds 47
The new hotel 48
The space beyond 49
Sagari Chhabra
In Gujarat, again 53
On hearing women poets 55
An artiste who is a woman 56
The saloon 58
Closure 60
Iraq war 62
Priya Sarukkai Chabria
Dialogue-1 67
The gathering of time 73
Flight: In silver, red and black 76
Sampurna Chattarji
As a son, my daughter 81
Going against the grain 83
Pleasure, forbidden 84
Hidden 86
Obscene 87
Conversation 88
To Surya the SunGod 90
Object lesson: ten 91
Object lesson: eleven 92
Mamang Dai
The missing link 95
Man and Brother 97
Small towns and the river 99
The beginning of the world 101
Water and sand 102
Green in the Time of Flood 103
The voice of the mountain 104
Tapu 106
Remembrance 108
Revathy Gopal
Balancing act 114
Erode 116
Yashodhara-I 117
Yashodhara-II 119
Picnic at the zoo 121
Family Secrets 122
Anjum Hasan
June night in a middle class home 127
Coming of Age In a Convent School 128
Ordinary days 129
Where I now live 130
Kitchen 131
A place like water 132
My Folks 133
The pregnant woman 134
Afternoon in the beauty parlour 136
Learnt 138
Rachna Joshi
Jageshwar 141
Writing poetry 143
The Death of my Grandmother 145
Periplum 147
Groping for love 148
Rock garden 149
Durga in Alberta 150
Jade Earrings 151
Anjum Katyal
Cliff 155
Slow dissolve 156
Old Bones 157
Puri 158
31st December 149
Waiting 160
Labyrinth 161
To my daughter 162
Kite 163
Rukmini Bhaya Nair
Gulmohar 167
Feasts 169
Kali 171
Gargi's silence 173
Computer 175
Leper girl 176
Making ends meet 177
Assegai, Africa 178
Marlyn Naronha
Our Marriage 181
The Dance is over 182
Weaving a fabric 183
Burning question 184
Being woman 185
Present painting 186
The Difference 187
Seeme Qasim
Being an Indian 193
Escape 194
The friend who crossed over 195
Indian Musli 196
Fighting in the Middle East 198
Beyond October 199
Fidelity 201
Restless days 202
Rizio Raj
Indian Eunuchs 205
Memory kites 207
Purdah 209
Poem 212
The legacy of the fugitive 214
New Testament 215
Digambara 219
Mukta Sambrani
The insurgence of color or Anna thinks... 223
Name Anna forgets 225
from Poems for mothers who speak no English 227
bio
Menka Shivdasani
Schoolgirl no more 231
Spring-Cleaning 232
Beyond the Doorway 233
Why rabbits never sleep 234
Stet 235
Schizoid 236
Hinges 238
At Po Lin Hong Kong 239
Epitaph 240
bio
Vijaya Singh
24 Carat 245
Encounter 246
Reconstruction 247
Poem: Edited and Unedited 249
On turning thirty 250
An Elegy for love 251
K. Srilata
Hurt 255
Anger 256
Kanyadanam 257
With Every Wave 258
Saree 259
Stammer 260
Moonstone 261
What became of the fourth poem 262
Arundhathi Subramaniam
Heirloom 265
5.46 Andheri Local 267
Madras 268
Stains 270
To the Welsh Critic Who Doesnt Find Me Identifiably Indian 271
Sari 273
For a Poem, Still Unborn 274
Home 275
Nocturne in January 276
Gap 277
Return 278
amitabha mukerjee (mukerjee [at-symbol] gmail) 2012 May 27