January 23, 2011, 3:09 PM IST
A Female Dalit Poet Fights Back in Verse
By Margherita Stancati
The categories into which Meena Kandasamy falls—Dalit and female—have
put her among those Indian society has historically tended to oppress
and marginalize the most.
Repeated humiliation pushed the 26-year-old to fight back—through her
social activism and her inflammatory writing, in verse and prose.
In a recent interview at the Jaipur Literature Festival, Ms.
Kandasamy, who is from Tamil Nadu in south India, said the aim of her
poetry is to send a social message.
Margherita Stancati for The Wall Street Journal
Meena Kandasamy takes on Hindu myths in her politically-charged poetry.
In her poems she addresses issues of caste and
untouchability—something that stems from her being a Dalit, considered
the lowest and most oppressed of India's castes and formerly known as
"untouchables".
She said she embraced her identity as a Dalit partly because there was
no way of escaping it. "People will force that label on you so you
might as well make the most of it," said Ms. Kandasamy.
For Dalit women, oppression often means sexual subjugation too. Ms.
Kandasamy's poems are informed by a sense of gender relations that
suggest being a woman in a largely patriarchal society is another form
of being lower caste.
"You don't have to be a Dalit—by being a woman the caste is in you," she said.
In her poems, it's her identity as a woman that she engages most
explicitly. Ms. Kandasamy's woman, like female figures in a lot of
feminist literature, makes unbridled sexuality the main weapon of her
social militancy.
One of Ms. Kandesamy's top targets is Hindu society and in her poems
she repeatedly goes back to Hindu and Tamil myths—which she seeks to
debunk.
"So, my 'Mahabharat' moves to Las Vegas; my Ramayan is retold in three
different ways…telling my story another way lets me forgive you," she
wrote in the preface to her collection of poems "Ms. Militancy,"
published in 2006.
Here is a poem from that collection:
One-eyed
the pot sees just another noisy child
the glass sees an eager and clumsy hand
the water sees a parched throat slaking thirst
but the teacher sees a girl breaking the rule
the doctor sees a medical emergency
the school sees a potential embarrassment
the press sees a headline and a photofeature
dhanam sees a world torn in half.
her left eye, lid open but light slapped away,
the price for a taste of that touchable water.
------------------------------------
----
INFORMATION OVERLOAD?
Get all ZESTCaste mails sent out in a span of 24 hours in a single mail. Subscribe to the daily digest version by sending a blank mail to ZESTMedia-digest@yahoogroups.com, OR, if you have a Yahoo! Id, change your settings at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTMedia/join/
PARTICIPATE:-
On this list you can share caste news, discuss caste issues and network with like-minded anti-caste people from across India and the world. Just write to zestcaste@yahoogroups.com
TELL FRIENDS TO SIGN UP:-
If you got this mail as a forward, subscribe to ZESTCaste by sending a blank mail to ZESTCaste-subscribe@yahoogroups.com OR, if you have a Yahoo! ID, by visiting http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/join/
Also have a look at our sister list, ZESTMedia: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTMedia/Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
ZESTCaste-digest@yahoogroups.com
ZESTCaste-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
ZESTCaste-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
No comments:
Post a Comment