DeSouza, Eunice (ed.);
Nine Indian women poets: an anthology
Oxford University Press, 1997, 95 pages
ISBN 0195640772, 9780195640779
topics: | poetry | india | english | anthology
Who cares for you, Papa? Who cares for your clean thoughts, clean words, clean teeth? Who wants to be an angel like you? Who wants it? You are an unsuccessful man, Papa. Couldn’t wangle a cosy place in the world. You have always lived a life of limited dreams. I wish you had guts Papa To smuggle eighty thousand watches at a stroke, And I'd proudly say, "My father's in import-export business, you know." I'd be proud of you then. But you've always wanted to be a model man, A sort of an ideal. When you can't think of doing anything, You start praying, SPending useless hours at the temple. You want me to be like you, Papa, Or like Rani Lakshmibai. You're not sure what greatness is, But you want me to be great. I give two donkey-claps for greatness. And three for Rani Lakshmibai. These days I am seriously thinking of disowning you, Papa, You and your sacredness. What if I start calling you Mr. Kapur, Lower Division Clerk, Accounts Section? Everything about you clashes with nearly everything about me You suspected I am having a love affair these days But you're too shy to have it confirmed What if my tummy starts showing gradually And I refuse to have it curetted But I’ll be careful, Papa, Or I know you’ll at once think of suicide.
After eight years of marriage The first time I visited my parents, They asked, “Are you happy, tell us”. It was an absurd question And I should have laughed at it Instead, I cried, And in between sobs, nodded yes. I wanted to tell them That I was happy on Tuesday I was unhappy on Wednesday. I was happy one day at 8 o'clock I was most unhappy by 8.15. I wanted to tell them how one day We all ate a watermelon and laughed. I wanted to tell them how I wept in bed all night once And struggled hard from hurting myself. That it wasn't easy to be happy in a family of twelve, But they were looking at my two sons, Hopping around like young goats. Their wrinkled hands, beaten faces and grey eyelashes Were all too much too real. SO I swallowed everything, And smiled a smile of great content.
His loud sharp call seems to come from nowhere. Then, a flash of turquoise in the pipal tree The slender neck arched away from you as he descends, and as he darts away, a glimpse of the very end of his tail. I was told that you have to sit in the veranda And read a book, preferably one of your favourites with great concentration.. The moment you begin to live inside the book A blue shadow will fall over you. The wind will change direction, The steady hum of bees In the bushes nearby will stop. The cat will awaken and stretch. Something has broken your attention; And if you look up in time You might see the peacock turning away as he gathers his tail To shut those dark glowing eyes, Violet fringed with golden amber. It is the tail that has to blink For eyes that are always open.
At sunset, on the river bank, Krishna Loved her for the last time and left... That night in her husband's arms, Radha felt So dead that he asked, What is wrong, Do you mind my kisses, love? And she said, No, not at all, but thought, What is It to the corpse if the maggots nip?
Fond husband, ancient settler in the mind, Old fat spider, weaving webs of bewilderment, Be kind. You turn me into a bird of stone, a granite Dove, you build round me a shabby room, And stroke my pitted face absent-mindedly while You read. With loud talk you bruise my pre-morning sleep, You stick a finger into my dreaming eye. And Yet, on daydreams, strong men cast their shadows, they sink Like white suns in the swell of my Dravidian blood, Secretly flow the drains beneath sacred cities. When you leave, I drive my blue battered car Along the bluer sea. I run up the forty Noisy steps to knock at another's door. Though peep-holes, the neighbours watch, they watch me come And go like rain. Ask me, everybody, ask me What he sees in me, ask me why he is called a lion, A libertine, ask me why his hand sways like a hooded snake Before it clasps my pubis. Ask me why like A great tree, felled, he slumps against my breasts, And sleeps. Ask me why life is short and love is Shorter still, ask me what is bliss and what its price....
INTRODUCTION 1 KAMALA DAS 7 From Summers in Calcutta An Introduction 10 From The Descendants The Descendants 11 Luminol 12 The Doubt 12 The Maggots 13 Three P. M. 13 The Joss-sticks at Cadell Road 14 The Looking Glass 15 From The Old Playhouse and Other Poems The Old Playhouse 15 The Stone Age 16 MAMTA KALIA 18 From Tribute to Papa and Other Poems Tribute to Papa 20 Sheer Good Luck 21 Compulsions 21 Made for Each Other 22 Sunday Song 22 Brat 24 Dubious Lovers 24 Positive Thinking 25 From Poems After Eight Years of Marriage 25 From Hers Anonymous 26 MELANIE SILGARDO 27 From Three Poets 1956-1976 A Poem 29 Stationary Stop 29 Child 30 For Father on the Shelf 31 The Earthworm's Story 33 From Skies of Design Do Not Tell the children 33 Skies of Design 34 Doris 34 Cat 35 Bird Broken 36 EUNICE DE SOUZA 37 From Fix Catholic Mother 39 Miss Louise 39 For a Child, Not Clever 40 Autobiographical 41 From Women in Dutch Painting Pilgrim 42 The Road 43 From Ways of Belonging Bequest 43 From Selected and New Poems Landscape 44 Outside Jaisalmer 46 It's Time to Find a Place 47 IMTIAZ DHARKER 48 From Purdah Purdah I 50 Battle-line 51 From Postcards from god Words Find Mouths 53 Living Space 54 Eggplant 55 Namesake 55 8 January 1993 56 The List 57 Minority 58 SMITA AGARWAL 60 From 'Glitch' The Lie of the Land: A Letter to Chatwin 62 The Salesman 63 The Planetoid 63 Daywatch in the Scriptorium 64 The Word-worker 65 A Grass Widow's Prayer 65 Mediatrix 66 'Our foster-nurse of nature is repose' 67 Discord 67 SUJATA BHATT 69 From Brunizem The Peacock 73 For Paula Modersohn-Becker 1876-1907 74 The Women of Leh are such- 75 A Different History 75 Something for Plato 76 Iris 77 From Monkey Shadows White Asparagus 78 Kankaria Lake 79 CHARMAYNE D'SOUZA 82 From A Spelling Guide to Woman When God First Made a Whore 84 The White Line Down the Road to Minnesota 85 I Would Like to Have a Movie Cowboy for a Husband 86 Strange Bedfellows 86 God's Will? 87 Judith 88 TARA PATEL 89 From Single Woman Woman 90 Request 90 Calangute Beach, Goa II 91 In Bombay 92 In a Working Women's Hostel 93 Index of First Line 95 --- blurb: This anthology covers nine Indian women poets writing in English. Edited by the poet and academic Eunice de Souza, it brings together poems which are witty, ironic, poignant and technically assured. The book includes a general introduction and critical appraisals of each poet. This collection of witty, ironic, poignant, and technically assured poems is an example of some of the best contemporary Indian poetry today. The intention in bringing together these poems was to represent the growing maturity evident in the themes and styles of the poetry of Indian women. While it acquaints the reader with the variety in each poet's work, the prime consideration of Nine Indian Women Poets is the intrinsic quality of the poems themselves-their subject, their language, and craftsmanship. The anthology covers nine Indian women poets writing in English, representing two generations of post-Independence poets. Included here, with brief biographical introductions, are Kamala Das, Mamta Kalia, Melanie Silgardo, Eunice de Souza, Imtiaz Dharker, Smita Agarwal, Sujata Bhatt, Charmayne D'Souza, and Tara Patel. This book contains a general introduction which provides an overview of the work of Indian women poets since 1000 BC, and of relevant anthologies and other critical works. It is a must for those interested in contemporary poetry, especially by Indian women writing in English.