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.
(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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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
Lopamudra 29 An address to India 32 Greenhorn 34 Sarojini Naidu and She 35 Joyride 36 Richa 37
Deep Well 41 Hard frost 42 Beachcombers 43 Hiss 44 Catching crayfish 45 The birds 47 The new hotel 48 The space beyond 49
In Gujarat, again 53 On hearing women poets 55 An artiste who is a woman 56 The saloon 58 Closure 60 Iraq war 62
Dialogue-1 67 The gathering of time 73 Flight: In silver, red and black 76
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
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
Balancing act 114 Erode 116 Yashodhara-I 117 Yashodhara-II 119 Picnic at the zoo 121 Family Secrets 122
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
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
Cliff 155 Slow dissolve 156 Old Bones 157 Puri 158 31st December 149 Waiting 160 Labyrinth 161 To my daughter 162 Kite 163
Gulmohar 167 Feasts 169 Kali 171 Gargi's silence 173 Computer 175 Leper girl 176 Making ends meet 177 Assegai, Africa 178
Our Marriage 181 The Dance is over 182 Weaving a fabric 183 Burning question 184 Being woman 185 Present painting 186 The Difference 187
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
Indian Eunuchs 205 Memory kites 207 Purdah 209 Poem 212 The legacy of the fugitive 214 New Testament 215 Digambara 219
The insurgence of color or Anna thinks... 223 Name Anna forgets 225 from Poems for mothers who speak no English 227 bio
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
24 Carat 245 Encounter 246 Reconstruction 247 Poem: Edited and Unedited 249 On turning thirty 250 An Elegy for love 251
Hurt 255 Anger 256 Kanyadanam 257 With Every Wave 258 Saree 259 Stammer 260 Moonstone 261 What became of the fourth poem 262
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