Rao, Mani: A Sonic Indian Woman Poet
Mani Rao is one of my favourite Indian women poets. Mani Rao is an Indian woman poet who uses sounds to great effect in her poems. It is as if a waterfall of words gushes on the page. I first met her work at the Pune International Literary Festival. I loved the way her words tripped off her tongue. I can’t write like that, but she was an inspiration. I bought her Bhagavad Gita translation in verse. Here’s an extract –
1.1 dhrtrashtra to sanjaya:
& when it came to that
might right face‐off
what happened who did what
1.2 duryodhana took in the enemy line up
& said to dronacharya:
1.3 no thanks to you prof.
trained by you dhrstadyumna
chief of the other side
has put it together
1.4‐1.6 a who’s who of heroes
The line alignment is off, WordPress is showing me correctly when I write, and on posting it’s going out of whack. Here’s the extract with the correct alignment (Pg 6.) I admire the way she has modernized the poem and kept it in verse. I used it to write a summary of the Gita, with Arjuna’s perspective in poetry, which was well received. Here’s another poem of hers –
Writing on the Wall
On the heels of the siren
A hissing undertow
Back-bending sea-oats
Palm fronds frisked
Static in the aquarium
White knuckles on the horizon surely
higher than our roof
Horseshoes hung down on the beach
Will cavalry recede
Between magnet shore and magnet moon
Won’t ocean float
Sorry fish so sorry garden
A fist mounted the ocean and scrawled on the promenade:
Equality
I love the thought in these lines –
“Between magnet shore and magnet moon
Won’t ocean float”
Here’s another powerful Mani Rao poem –
My mother came home one day
without her uterus.
The doctor took it out.
Like someone heard me say
Let’s act it out
act it out physically.
I was the baby who never cried
The snake on your breast
who stung you dry
The vicious pet
and yet you held
I shot past her knees past her hips past her breasts past
her shoulders, way past her wisps of hair, those rays
of grey light radiating from her shrunken head.
She had to look up to speak to me
She had to have wide eyes.
Life begins when the children are out of the house
and the dog is dead, I said.
She laughed
Dyed her hair black
Made me stay.
TIME BRINGS CHILDREN
THEY BURN HOLES IN OUR STOMACHS
POP OUR BELLY BUTTONS.
DEATH MAKES SENSE.
Weightless in your sticky fluids
too long you kept me in.
These lines on being born are so full of energy –
“I shot past her knees past her hips past her breasts past
her shoulders, way past her wisps of hair, those rays
of grey light radiating from her shrunken head.”
This post is a part of #BlogchatterA2Z Challenge 2023.
