Three from Carapace 68
Carapace 68 – “The Indian Issue”, guest-edited by Arundhathi Subramaniam. Her editor’s letter, and three poems from the issue:
*
Guest editor’s letter
Many of the books on my bookshelves are volumes of poetry. Many of these happen to be by women. And many by Indian women writing in English.
It is a category that occupies more shelf-space than it used to. What’s more, it’s privileged space, edging its way insidiously right up to the frontlines. Which means it’s poetry I intend to revisit and often.
That’s the criterion – and to my mind, a fair one – behind this selection of poems. This is not – and cannot – be representative in any way of the women’s poetry scene in India today. But it does indicate some of the variety of voices at work.
My choice of poems is unapologetically eclectic. In some cases, I’ve featured one of my favourite poems by a particular poet, as in the case of Shivdasani, Nair, Majumdar, Noronha, Dai, Acharya, Rao, Chabria and Bhandari. In the case of others like Gopal, Hasan, Chattarji, Zote, Kandasamy and Jiwani, I’ve opted to include more recent and/or unpublished work.
There are seasoned voices here, and newer ones. Much published poets, recently ‘out’ poets and still-to-be-published ones. And there is a diversity of themes: from trees, caste, love and language to the politics of faith, rickshaws, aunts and asafoetida. It’s the kind of haphazard mix of subject, and tone, that I relish.
It inspired me to abandon my initial plan of focusing on a theme or direction. I realized that such an enterprise ran the risk of turning a cheerful polyphony into an expedient anthologist’s genre (Twenty-first Century Women Writing of India, for instance). I decided to renounce grand blueprints and celebrate what I know and trust in poetry – unobtrusive technical guile and a messy potage of the unruly, the quiet and the unexpected.
Here are a bunch of poems I’ve enjoyed. I hope you will too.
Arundhathi Subramaniam
*
Contributors
Shanta Acharya, Jane Bhandari, Priya Sarukkai Chabria, Sampurna Chattarji, Mamang Dai, Imtiaz Dharker, Revathy Gopal, Anjum Hasan, Subuhi Jiwani, Meena Kandasamy, Gayatri Majumdar, Rukmini Bhaya Nair, Marilyn Noronha, Mani Rao, Menka Shivdasani, Arundhathi Subramaniam, Mona Zote
*
Three from Carapace 68
Wearing High Heels
It was those heels
that I wore
to the Class Eight jam session.
They left red weals on my feet
as I stumbled
across the dusty JB Petit school hall.
But that night
the weedy boys
from the school next door
turned into something else –
lithe warriors, medieval,
almost epic,
dark, deccan, their bodies
supple as bowstrings,
gait honed by a wisdom as old
as Patanjali
(with just a frisson
of Travolta),
their conversations bright
as streams that burble
by motionless sages
in forest hermitages,
their senses alert
to junglebreath
and portents of sky
and recondite shifts
of womanweather.
I have grown
too tall for heels.
The boys have grown
into bankers
and soft-bellied intellectuals.
But when lights dim
and city drawing-rooms
turn vertiginous,
I see them all over again,
dark, feral,
lean-haunched,
shadowy,
shape whittled down
to what really counts –
men.
– Arundhathi Subramaniam
*
Jambul Tree
No one knows who planted her
inside the church compound.
She grew and every year
the schoolboys waited
for the fruit that never came.
One young priest-in-charge said
‘Cut it down!’ but luckily,
he left before the idea spread.
The birds and boys soon found that she had other uses,
there was constant rivalry
between the two –
when birds built higher,
boys climbed higher
and the jambul tree grew.
Until last week …
there was a storm one night
that pulled her roots up,
threw her right across the road.
Traffic stops.
Birds perch grieving
on the grotto railings,
everybody comes to see
what they can get …
Boys retrieve
their hidden treasures,
poor people gather twigs,
and finally, they chop her
into bits for fuel,
load them into lorries. Look!
That one has the carving
of initials in a heart,
with an arrow through it.
The road is clear again.
The grass begins to cover up
all traces of the jambul tree
that bore no fruit.
I had an aunt, once, like that.
– Marilyn Noronha
*
Dear Customer
Be realistic and not too critical; bear in mind
that Boyfriend 5.0 was an entertainment package
but Husband 1.0 is an operating system.
A whole new concept, they cannot be compared.
Try to enter the command C: I THOUGHT YOU LOVED ME
when you switch Husband 1.0 on next, then install Tears 6.6.
Husband 1.0 should automatically run the following applications:
Guilt 7.0, Flowers 5.0, Dinner-at-your-favourite-restaurant 3.0.
But remember, overuse of this application can cause Husband 1.0
to default to Grumpy Silence 2.0 or Happy Hour 4.0.
Note that Drinking Beer 6.0 is a disruptive programme,
generating Snoring Loudly files. DO NOT install
Mother-in-Law or another Boyfriend programme.
These are not supported applications and will crash Husband 1.0.
No amount of rebooting or repair can then restore the system.
It could also trigger Husband 1.0 to default to programme
Girlfriend 10.0 that runs dormant in the background.
It has been known to introduce potentially serious viruses
into the operating system. Husband 1.0 is a great programme,
but comes with limited memory; and has been known
to be rather slow in learning new applications.
You might consider buying additional software to enhance
system performance. Personally, I recommend Hot Food 4.0,
Single-Malt Scotch 5.0 supported by Black Satin Lingerie 6.0,
which have been credited with improved hardware performance.
– Shanta Acharya
