Tag Archives: Indian Muslim Poets

FII Interviews: Poet And Essayist Moumita Alam Talks About Identity Politics And Cultural Elitism

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Books (incl.Biographies - w.e.f.01 jan 2018 ), Women/Girls(since May26-2021), , , , , , , , , , ,

WEST BENGAL:

In a conversation with FII, Moumita Alam discusses how she began writing poetry, and what it is like being a Muslim woman in a Hindu majoritarian state and how the voices of certain minorities have been silenced throughout Indian history.

Moumita Alam is a teacher based in West Bengal whose political poetry, over the past few years, has gained incredible popularity in South Asia due to its powerful messages and themes. As a Muslim woman, through her poems, essays and opinion pieces, she attempts to bring out the atrocities faced by the women of her community alongside critiquing the larger issue of rising Islamophobia in India. Her first and only book, The Musings of the Dark was published in 2020.

In a conversation with FII, Moumita Alam discusses how she began writing poetry, what it is like being a Muslim woman in a Hindu majoritarian state and how the voices of certain minorities have been silenced throughout Indian history, particularly in West Bengal ever since the 1947 partition. 

FII: You have, over the past few years, used your poetry to both raise awareness about and protest against the Islamophobia propagated by the ring wing in our country. Would you like to shed some light on what your writing journey has been like? 

Moumita: I began my poetic journey after 2019. In 2019, on the 5th of August, the abrogation of Article 370 happened. I had a friend who lived in Kashmir, so I lost connection with him. He was an aspiring advocate who would regularly speak with me. I, as a teacher and a single mother, would share my life journey with him in return. But in 2019, when I could no longer talk to him, a sense of guilt began haunting me — how could a land become a prison where the people couldn’t even make a phone call to the ones in the outside world?

At some point in time, I thought of writing a letter to him, but receiving a letter from here could land him in trouble. He was much younger than me but was my only friend who would listen to my feelings, my happiness, my sorrows. So, I began writing.

I am against the use of the term “migrant labourers,” because India is our own country, so how can its citizens be called migrants? — to come on the grounds and walk for miles and miles to reach their homes.

Moumita Alam

That same year, in December 2019, the Anti-CAA-NRC movement started and we suddenly became aware of our religious identities. Everyone around me would ask me, “Are you legal? Are you a Bangladeshi?” But, believe me, I was born and raised in West Bengal. I have never even seen or visited Bangladesh. Every Muslim I know — whether practising or non-practising — was being asked this question. So, after my Kashmiri friend, I lost my other friends too because their questions would hurt me. I wrote about those feelings too. 

FII Interviews: Poet And Essayist Moumita Alam Talks About Identity Politics And Cultural Elitism | Feminism in India
Source: Moumita Alam’s FB

And then again in March 2020, we saw how the unplanned lockdown forced the workers of the unorganised sector — I am against the use of the term “migrant labourers,” because India is our own country, so how can its citizens be called migrants? — to come on the grounds and walk for miles and miles to reach their homes. I could not sleep for days because I live in a village and many of my relatives and fellow villagers used to work in Kerala and Delhi as labourers. So, I also started to write poems about their plights and sufferings. 

One of my friends asked me to send my poems for publication, which had never crossed my mind because I stay far away from Delhi and its so-called “English literary circle.” But I still emailed a publisher who agreed to publish and then, my first and only book, The Musings of the Dark came out in August 2020. 

FII: Since your poems usually focus on the theme of gendered Islamophobia or the issues that Muslim women face in our country, what is it like being a Muslim woman in a country governed by the right-wing? 

Moumita: In 2021, I got to know that a few right-wing fanatics had created an app to sell Muslim women and had named it ‘Bulli Bai.’ I was so disturbed after reading the news about this because this is such a heinous thing to do — how can anyone do this in a democratic country like India?

So, I wrote this poem, “I am a Muslim woman and I am not for sale.” This poem was translated into many languages — in Telugu, Assamese, Bengali, Tamil, Kannada, and others — and was also published on various platforms. 

If you follow the news, you would know that in 2022, hijab was banned in schools across the country. Even if I don’t wear hijab, you can’t ban other women who do from getting an education. As women, we are a minority in many ways — first, as Muslims in this country and then, because of our gender. We have to bargain our choices and sometimes, we have to compromise in front of our families by saying, “I will work hard, I will wear a hijab, please let me go to the doors of education.”

When a man is interpreting religious scriptures for you, he will — whether consciously or unconsciously — view religion through a patriarchal lens. They might not allow us to gain an understanding of the equal rights that Islam gives to Muslim women.  

Moumita Alam

After becoming independent, I, as a Muslim woman, can decide for myself whether or not I wish to wear a hijab. But, you can’t put a blanket ban on hijab like that.

While I do write poems on the rising Islamophobia in our country, I also write about the oppression we Muslim women face within our own communities. Look, our society is based on patriarchal notions which means that even a lot of religious preachers are men. When a man is interpreting religious scriptures for you, he will — whether consciously or unconsciously — view religion through a patriarchal lens. They might not allow us to gain an understanding of the equal rights that Islam gives to Muslim women.  

FII: Have you ever faced censorship for having political themes and highlighting the various injustices particularly on the basis of religion, in your work?

Moumita: Thankfully, we still have some platforms that provide a space to people like me where we can raise our voices. I am thankful to the Editor of LiveWire, who recently resigned. She was an immense pillar of support for me because she never censored my work — she either accepted it or denied it from being published, but never censored it. Even the Editor of Outlook is brilliant that way.

FII Interviews: Poet And Essayist Moumita Alam Talks About Identity Politics And Cultural Elitism | Feminism in India
Source: Moumita Alam’s FB

Sometimes, however, my poems get rejected by other platforms because they say my work is too political, but I think we are living in a time during which one can’t be apolitical. If you are, then you are indirectly standing with people who are unleashing injustice towards minorities. 

FII: As a poet who writes in both English and Bengali, you have often talked about how the voices of certain minorities have been neglected even within Bengali literature and poetry — an example of which can be the Marichjhapi massacre in 1979. Is there anything that you would like to discuss about the domination of certain elite classes and castes in Bengal? 

Moumita: You might have noticed that for the non-Bengalis, West Bengal is equal to Kolkata — all of Bengal is just Kolkata for most people who aren’t from Bengal. This suggests a very Kolkata-centric attitude that most people have about Bengal. The literary world is, of course, not an exception — it’s so Kolkata-centric that people like me who are living in the margins find it almost impossible to reach the centre that is Kolkata. 

Also, the Bengali literary world has been dominated by upper-class, upper-caste people for a very long time. So, they write about only those issues that they know about and that suit their narrative. Things are changing, some voices are getting spaces. However, we still have a long way to go. »

FII: When we usually talk about the India-Pakistan partition, the discussion inevitably gets centred around the division of what is present-day Punjab with little being said about how the refugees of Bengal, particularly the oppressed even among the displaced, were impacted. As someone who has written articles on this theme for both English and Bengali publications, can you tell us a little about your understanding of the same? 

Moumita: Yes, I agree with you that the pains and sufferings of the Bengali refugees haven’t found expression in the so-called mainstream literature, particularly English literature. When I’m talking about “Bengali,” I mean both Hindus and Muslims. The plights of the oppressed class like the Namasudra community who were forced to migrate to West Bengal from the then East Pakistan is missing from the literary narrative. Equally, even the traumas and voices of the Muslims who stayed back while the other members migrated to East Pakistan are missing from the literary imagination.

Source: Moumita Alam’s FB

Most importantly, after partition, no political establishment tried to heal the wounds of the refugees. We all understand how the various European governments attempted to heal the wounds of the holocaust survivors after the second world war, but the same did not happen in India, even though the partition is often compared to the Holocaust.

Instead, every political party tried to gain political mileage from the religious fault lines. If I am not mistaken, nothing much has yet been written about internal migration. How many partition museums do we have?

FII: Every time your poems about the Babri Masjid demolition or about Kashmir get published, there are a lot of derogatory things that are often said by right-wing people— such as a lot of Kashmiri Pandits who end up claiming that their own stories need to be heard over yours. Since you have been doing what you believe in for so many years, is there any advice that you’d like to give to the young girls of our country about how they can voice their thoughts fearlessly even when they are intimidated? 

Moumita: We are living in a critical juncture of time. As witnesses of this time, we can’t let the fascists win. How are they winning? They are winning through their narrative — a narrative of hatred towards minorities, towards women. We have to tell our own stories, we have to counter their narrative by our narrative. 

So, here is my message for all women:

I wish you,

Oh women,

A savage fury

To throw all the

Dos and don’ts

Under a ravaging bus.

And begin from the beginning

All-new, all equal.»

FII: You write and publish your creative works and political thoughts as a freelancer, which means there is very little for you to gain from it as a poet. If anything, your poems and articles have mostly just led people to threaten you. What is it that motivates you to continue writing even when things don’t entirely work in your favour? 

Moumita: Silence is not an option. The hatred that engulfed my friends still haunts me. I am a villager and I know how common people are suffering every day. The silence of the intellectual people saddens me. I want to jolt them, wake them up from their hibernation. 

I am a villager and I know how common people are suffering every day. The silence of the intellectual people saddens me. I want to jolt them, wake them up from their hibernation. 

Moumita Alam

You know, potatoes are the only profitable crop in my village. This year, the poor farmers incurred a heavy loss and couldn’t repay the loans they had to take from private microfinance companies at heavy interest rates. I asked a very old farmer how they plan to survive after this loss? And he replied, “Next year we will get some profit.” I was just amazed at his belief and relentlessness. I believe we can bring a change. We have to hope because we don’t have any other option.

The interview has been paraphrased and condensed for clarity.

source: http://www.feminisminindia.com / Feminism In India / Home> Interview / by Upasana Dandano / June 09th, 2023

How the pandemic is depriving lovers of Urdu literature of their environment for enjoyment

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INDIA:

Discussions and debates, critiques and readings, held at haunts of Urdu books and writing around the country have been interrupted rudely.

(From left) Shadab Rashid, Urdu drama writer Aslam Parvez, and Shakeel Rasheed at Kitabdaar | Mahtab Alam

In Malegaon

On the first Saturday of every month, the textile city of Malegaon in northern Maharashtra used to become home for lovers of Urdu literature, who meet to discuss, debate and critique new writings in the language, mostly by local writers. Organised under the aegis of Anjuman Muhibban e Adab (Association of Literature Lovers), the gathering began at around 9 pm, and went on till midnight.

Between 30 and 50 people – both writers and readers – would come together, a number that would at times go up to as many as 100 or even 150. Asif Iqbal Mirza, the secretary of the Anjuman, said the practice began 25 years ago on the suggestion of local journalist and editor Samiullah Ansari, who published new Urdu fiction in his weekly, Hashmi Awaz.

Over the years, the publication had emerged as a popular local magazine for young and budding writers to publish their works. The weekly, now in its 35th year of publication, had a considerable fan following and readership at the time. Ansari then suggested that admirers of the magazine form a group comprising readers as well as writers.

The group was initially named Anjuman Muhibban e Hashmi Awaz (Association of Admirers of Hashmi Awaz), but within a few years, its following grew to encompass more than just the readers of the magazine, and in 1998 it was rechristened Anjuman Muhibban e Adab, Malegaon. “Ansari sahib formed the Anjuman so that writers could get their new works critiqued by readers before getting them published in the weekly,” Mirza ssid.

Back then, Mirza himself wrote for a local children’s newspaper called Khair Andesh. But his association with the Anjuman helped him grow into a prolific Afsana Nigar, a short story writer. He was 17 when the group was formed; in the past 25 years, he has written and published more than 200 short stories in different publications.

Apart from Anjuman Muhibban e Adab, there are two more literary groups in Malegaon that held regular meetings until the lockdown was declared in March. No such meetings have been held since then. “Unlike earlier, we now have enough time to read and write. But the irony is we don’t have the opportunity to discuss and publish them,” said Mirza, who also runs a printing business. Several local publications had to halt their issues, including Hashmi Awaz, owing to the lockdown.

According to Mirza, although social media outlets such as WhatsApp and Facebook have, to some extent, helped to keep in touch with fellow writers and readers, the literary life of Malegaon has come to a standstill, since a large number of local writers and readers came from the working class and worked in local looms. “The year 2020 is the silver jubilee of my literary career. I had plans to publish a collection of my short stories, but thanks to the pandemic, that will not happen this year,” Mirza said with a great sense of despair.

In Mumbai

Both readers and writers have felt a deep loss during the pandemic. His love of books took Shakeel Rasheed, editor of the Urdu daily Mumbai Urdu News, to various bookshops in and around the Mohammad Ali Road area of Bombay. “Visiting bookshops was a part and parcel of my life. I feel a deep loss when I don’t visit them,” he said. For him, bookstores are not just spaces to buy books, but they also served as addas for readers and writers. As soon as some relaxations were in place, he rushed to the stores. “Par ab pahle wali baat nahi rahi,” said Rasheed. “Things are not as they were before.” The pandemic has made it more difficult to meet new people.

Shadab Rashid’s Kitabdaar publications and bookstore in Temkar Street of Nagpada was one such adda for Urdu writers in Mumbai, as was Maktaba Jamia on Sandhurst Road West. Today, Kitabdaar and a few other bookshops have opened their stores for a few hours every few days, while Maktaba Jamia remains closed. “Due to lack of public transport and fear of the pandemic, people cannot come to Kitabdaar,” Shadab said. He also edits the quarterly literary magazine Naya Waraq, founded by his late father and noted journalist and writer Sajid Rasheed.

Shadab Rashid said the lockdown brought significant hardships and losses to Urdu publishers and distributors. “It is not that people don’t want to read Urdu books anymore – the problem is they cannot buy them,” he said. “I have received lots of online orders, but I cannot fulfill them because I rely on postal services as they are the cheapest means of delivery, but the services are not fully functional yet.” His online Urdu bookshop kitabdaar.com is one of the few digital distribution platforms for Urdu books exclusively in India. Another such platform, urdubazaar.in, was recently launched from Delhi.

Owing to the discontinuation of physical interactions between readers and writers, people have lost touch with each other, since not all Urdu writers are active on social media, Shakeel Rasheed told me. “We have lost many good writers during this period and found out about their demise several days later,” he added. “Moreover, we could not participate in their last journeys.”

In Hyderabad

Another writer recounted similar thoughts after the death of noted Urdu satirist Mujtaba Hussain in Hyderabad on May 27. Hussain was awarded the Padma Shri in 2007 for his contributions to Urdu literature, but in December 2019, he announced he was returning the award to protest the enactment of the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act. “[T]he democracy for which I fought is under attack now and the government is doing that,” he had said, “that’s why I don’t want to associate the government with me.”

In Hyderabad, another centre of Urdu writing, literary activities have come to a similar halt due to the pandemic. Publications like Shagoofa, a monthly magazine of satirical writing, have been temporarily discontinued since the lockdown.

In Delhi

In Delhi, too, the pandemic has left an adverse impact on Urdu writing. Khan Rizwan, a poet and a known “addebaaz” from Delhi, loved participating in and organizing adabi addas (literary gatherings). He misses visiting the Nai Kitab book store, located in one of the many bylanes of Jamia Nagar, which is one of the famous addas for Urdu lovers in the city. Run by veteran writer and publisher Shahid Ali Khan, Nai Kitab is a haven for young and old writers alike, Rizwan said, as Shahid sahib treated them alike. “It is not just a bookshop but an institution where one got to meet noted writers and lovers of Urdu literature,” he said.

Rizwan would visit the shop at least twice a week, and meet a new literature enthusiast or writer, or find out about a new book or risala /parcha (journal/magazine). “I miss the black tea and chips that Shahid sahib served us with love and affection,” he recalled. “He is a storehouse of information, and several veteran writers were his friends, so he would tell us stories all the time.”

I couldn’t agree more with Rizwan. I have been visiting Nai Kitab once every few months for more than a decade now, and on each of my visits, after asking khabar-khairyat, Shahid sahib would say, “Achcha aap bahut dino baad aayen hain, ye nayi kitaabein aayi hai dekh lein (Since you’ve come after a long time, here are some new books).” Last year, when I visited the bookshop around this time, he directed me towards dozens of books written by noted Urdu satirist Fikr Taunsvi and Shaukat Thanvi. I immediately bought all of them, as they were usually out of print and seldom available.

As the person in charge of the Maktaba Jamia, the publication division of Jamia Millia Islamia in Bombay, Shahid Sahib befriended writers and poets like Jan Nisar Akhtar, Meena Kumari, Sahir Ludhianvi and Jagan Nath Azad. Some of them were regular visitors to the Maktaba Jamia. Though he moved to Delhi after serving the Maktaba for several decades, he did not stop hosting literature lovers. He then founded Nai Kitab publishers and a quarterly journal by the same name.

It was in 2007 at his bookshop that I first chanced upon Shamsur Rahman Faruqi’s celebrated novel Kai Chand The Sare Aasman, later translated into English as The Mirror of Beauty by the author himself. The novel went on to become a major critical and commercial success.

Faruqi was also associated with the Nai Kitab journal as chairperson of its advisory council and would visit the shop once in a while. The journal eventually stopped publication owing to Shahid sahib’s failing health, but he continued with the bookstore as it was like “oxygen for him”, he had once told me.

Waiting for freedom

Some writers have managed to turn the lockdown into a creatively productive period. “Personally, the pandemic has proved as a blessing in disguise as I read books I wanted to for years and finish other important work, such as recording videos of Urdu literature lectures,” says Khalid Mubashir, a poet and assistant professor of Urdu literature at Jamia. He quickly added, however, this was not common, as most writers and poets were stuck at home, either because of their age or in fear of the pandemic. “Moreover, not all writers have access to technology and books like I do. I am fortunate enough to have friends who helped me with technology to do something substantial during this period.”

Mubashir’s videos, as many as 60 of them, are each about 30 minutes long, and cover the history, evolution and development of Urdu and its literature in the subcontinent. Though the lectures are prepared keeping in mind the need and syllabus of Urdu literature students, ordinary Urdu lovers can also benefit from them. All lectures are available on the YouTube channel Safeer e Adab.

Similarly, although younger poets like Mohammed Anas Faizi from old Delhi have been trying to keep Urdu literature gatherings going by using social media, online addas do not have the feel and impact of offline and in-person gatherings. “Technology and social media can only help to a certain extent. Online gatherings, mushairas and addas cannot substitute for the real ones, no matter how well they are done,” he said.

With apologies to Faiz Ahmad Faiz, what the Urdu writers, poets and addebaaz seem to be telling the pandemic is:

Gulon Mein Rang Bhare Baad e Nau Bahar Chale
Chale Bhi Jao Ki Gulshan Ka Karobar Chale

Mahtab Alam is a multilingual journalist and until recently was the executive editor of The Wire Urdu. His Twitter handle is @MahtabNama.

This series of articles on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on publishing is curated by Kanishka Gupta.

source: http://www.scroll.in / Scroll.in / Home> Publishing and the Pandemic / by Mahtab Alam / July 14th, 2020

“Heemal” — The unsung illiterate poetess of Kashmir

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Srinagar, JAMMU & KASHMIR :

Photo: Ahsaan Ali

Khatija Begum (75) over the past 40 years has written thousands of poems and has compiled hundreds of books. It was not an easy job for her to do so, being illiterate she could not pen it down by herself. Whenever some verse come to her mind she would call somebody to write it. It was through her dedication to poetry that she was able to compile her couplets into books successfully.

The narrow allies of Zaina Kadal area of Srinagar lead to her house. Every day she looks at the pile of her poetry collection placed on a desk in her room with a deep sigh hoping that her books will be published someday.

“While I was into the journey of my poetic life, It was not easy for me to memorize each verse of my poetry so I asked my son to bring a tape recorder for me”. Heemal (pen name) recalls how she used to wake up at night to offer prayers and on the same prayer mat record the verses that would come up to her mind.

When Khatija took bundles of those recorded cassettes to a writer for transcription he asked for 70 ₹ per page which was a huge amount at that time so she start doing hand embroidery to earn some money. And spend all that money to preserve her poetry.

It took her 7 years to get her first book published through J&K State Cultural Academy by the title “Ser e-Asraar” which means “The secret of Mysticism”.

Khatija says that the journey of her poetic life started when she was 35 years old. At that time she was busy with her ill mother spending all her time with her, praying for her recovery. One day when she brought her mother to visit a doctor she encountered something unusual, some verses came up to her mind but she was not able to apprehend what was happening to her. After returning home she told her niece about it who wrote those verses for her.

She believes that poetry came into her life because of the prayers she got from her ill mother during her ailment. She dedicates her poetry to a Sufi saint whom she was very close to and consider like her father.

“When I took my books to show him, he was overwhelmed and he told me to endure a lot of patience so that I can bear all the hurdles that will come to my path in this journey. Moreover, he told me that what I have achieved is priceless” with teary eyes she said.

When she recites her poetry, everything around gets blurred and one gets lost in those mystic verses. She is a poetess who needs love and support so that she will be always remembered among the great poets of Kashmir.

source: http://www.milligazette.com / The Milli Gazette / Home> Community News / by Urvat Il Wuska / The Milli Gazette Online / April 10th, 2022

‘Otta Chora: Kerala Muslim student’s poem celebrating interfaith bond is heartwarming

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Malappuram, KERALA :

Otta Chora (Same Blood) by Shuhaib Alanallur, a student of Madin Academy in Malappuram, is being quoted by speakers in their programmes all across Malabar.

Shuhaib Alanallur

Kozhikode :

A poem that celebrates the warmth of the relationship between Hindu and Muslim families, penned by an upcoming writer, has become an instant hit after it was published in a magazine recently. Otta Chora (Same Blood) by Shuhaib Alanallur, a student of Madin Academy in Malappuram, is being quoted by speakers in their programmes all across Malabar.

In the poem, a Hindu woman, Narayani, finds solace in Nabeesu’s Islamic prayers while enduring the labour pain, and the ‘Mollakka’ (Muslim cleric) recites a verse from Quran to help her husband Velu quit drinking. Finally, Velu refuses to take his usual quota of toddy because the ‘Mollakka’ had donated his blood when he got injured after falling in a gutter. “I will not pollute Mollakka’s blood that runs in my blood by mixing it with toddy,” declares Velu at the end of the poem.

“Such relationships were quite common in our country-sides few decades ago. We are celebrating the bonding because it is fast fading away from our midst,” said the poet.

“The poem was written during the ‘Sahithyolsavam’ conducted by the Sunni Students Federation last year,” he  said. It was the patronage given by Syed Ibrahimul Khaeel Al Bukhari Thangal, chairman of the Madin Academy, that shaped the writer in Shuhaib.

“Muslim Youth League leader Shibu Meeran quoted my poem in an impassioned speech that made it a discussion point on the social media,” Shihaib said. It was the fond memories that he spent with his Hindu friends in Alanallur near Mannarkkad that inspired Shuhaib to write the poem. 

“There are people who argue that such relationships are normal in our midst and they need not be highlighted. But I believe that such voices should be amplified at a time when dark forces are lurking in our society,” said Basheer Faizy Deshamangalam, Islamic scholar and the leader of Samastha Kerala Sunni Students Federation.

“Narayani didn’t refuse to take the Islamic blessing saying that it is from another faith nor did Velu say no to verses from Quran. Such innocent virtues should be underlined when there are deliberate attempts to divide us,” he said.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Good News / by MP Prashantah, Express News Service / June 07th, 2022

Real and unruly: Saikat Majumdar reviews Of Dry Tongues and Brave Hearts

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Agra, UTTAR PRADESH / NEW DELHI :

The women’s writings and paintings collected here pose fundamental questions about the relation between art and marginality

When tongues run dry but hearts remain fearless — can there be a plight direr than this tearing apart of body and mind? The drought on the tongue is the silence of fear, hiding a heart that rails against terror, pledging to shatter the quiet. Reema Ahmad and Semeen Ali have come up with a dream title for their edited collection of poetry, prose and painting by women, many of them newer voices, some unheard before, published by a daring and often-experimental publisher of poetry, Red River.

This jagged collection poses fundamental questions about the relation between art, passion, marginality, and the vagaries of everyday life. With close to 150 contributions combining verse, narrative, reflections and images, the heart of this book is filled with courage, and tongues remain dry no more — they spill rivulets of passion, anger, love, protest, and triumphant celebrations of the quotidian.

Hope is a lie

The sheer range reimagines the relation between creativity and passionate selfhood through a spectrum where the accomplishments of craft are uneven. But the honesty never is, and since in the end, honesty occupies the true heart of artistic craft, it also invites us to broaden our understanding of technical finesse beyond the usual and the expected.

Early in the collection, Debolina Dey confesses that “These poets have taught me/ to be a ruthless hunter of metaphors/ as if your body/ could be something else.” The body returns in its quotidian oppression in Sukla Singha’s story, ‘That ‘90’s Show: Blood, Shit and Other Things’, chronicling the daily humiliation, of body and labour, of a mother, experienced and narrated by a young daughter, but ending with the strange billowing of the heart: “A storm of jet-black hair in the air. A Meitei woman’s boisterous laughter. Nobody had the guts to ruin that magic.”

The vernacular is not only the name of reality here, but also of synergy between languages. Namita Bhatia’s Hindi poem, ‘Cactus’, opening with the eloquent grunt, “Mai cactus hun — cactus”, ends, in Reema Ahmad’s translation, with the “chaste hope” “That if my skin be peeled off/ I may bleed only milk”. But in her engrossing short story, ‘An Obscure Life’, Ketaki Datta reminds us that often hope is a lie — that her friend Swapna who claimed to a hotel singer had died without ever becoming one, after a life of prostitution known only to her mother.

In this dry-tongued world, poetry, as Sneha Roy knows, is a forever transgression: “Like a pillar of ‘shameless poetry’ standing tall/ in Plato’s failed and banished world.” Poetry lies in the humble and the mundane, not in flamboyance, as in Aratrika Das’s dream that her son grows up to cook in a kitchen of daily, soiled labour, not in the TV kitchen with glamorous aprons and hi-tech gadgets.

Haunted by sensation

Bodies are real and unruly in this collection. In her poem, ‘On Carving a Watermelon’, Yashasvi Vachhani voices a woman whose lover tells her: “you have a pretty face, if only you lost some of it/ some of the meat that calls your bones home”. As that “piece of art inedible”, she watches as “you hand me a knife/ and say begin”. Zehra Naqvi, in a poem of visual experimentation, reclaims the female body away from male desire and maternal nourishment: “Because our breasts belong to us. Not to the men who desire us. Not to the children who feed on us.” Dipali Taneja writes about the ageing body haunted by memories of sensation: “You hear that your uterus is senile!/ It may well be, but your skin is not.”

The lines face Teena Gill’s painting, Dancing Woman, and the meditative trance on her face strangely intensifies the bodily sensation in Taneja’s poem. Ikilily of Pink Lips, in Neha Chaturvedi’s ominous fairy tale of that name, nurses a curse — she can have sex, but if “so much as a thought of love entered her mind about the man or the woman she was with, the person would die.”

The myth contrasts sharply with the sculpted realism of Shamayita Sen’s poem, ‘Consent’, which states: “The birdcage in your chest/ will have to ask for consent/ for mine to respond.” Till the very end, the ineluctable violence of desire shapes the paradox of Khushk Zubaan, Bebaak Jigar.

Of Dry Tongues and Brave Hearts; Edited by Reema Ahmad & Semeen Ali, Red River,₹599

The reviewer’s most recent book is The Middle Finger, a campus novel about poetry, performance, and mentorship.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Books> Mixed Collection / by Saikar Majumdar / April 02nd, 2022