190

CHAPTER-IV

4.1 Introduction
Poetry in Jayanta Mahapatra finds a true observer, a skilled narrator, a
critic holding all ends of insight and rationality to talk about his local cosmos;
shaped within the triangle of ‘Religion’, ‘Socio-Cultural Heritage’ and ‘Present
Day Realities’. He portrays his Indian experiences which revolve around his
childhood memories, myths and landscape of Orissa as well as problems which
are mushrooming over the damp load of rotten beliefs and selfish motifs. His
poems catch rays of realities within its concave aperture to form real images of
India and Indian society. These images hang in beautiful display over the giant
verbal canvas of his poems.
He allows his private pain and personal heritage to germinate with
common sufferings and paradoxes of this land. He chooses a foreign language but
only to describe his locale and interior cortex. He Indianizes English, and altars it
deliberately; allowing his craft to get accumulated within the periphery of his
home. He carries India within his poems, he talks about its Past, Present and
Future. He researches and reinvestigates mythology; he dares to question social
malice and present naked realities of time. He deals with social issues without
sensationalizing and over running it. He mocks at paradoxes, satirizes without
being harsh and over sensitive. His scientific background neutralizes his
prejudices and makes him much more valid and reliable on the terms equilibrium
of emotions and language of his poems.
 191

His earlier alienation locked him in close sky but he finds few doors
within doors to reach a window of a time in his solitude and watches his familiar
world through it. He buries his head in the currents of Social life flowing through
without disturbing its scheme a bit. He pens down those currents with his
Romantic Passion and Surrealistic Vision. As persona himself says, “he should
be aware of what’s going on around him: the poverty, the greed, the
unnecessary violence, the cruelty, the injustice, the sexuality.”1 The
Romanticism allows him to co-relate shades of moods to landscape specially with
Rain, Rivers and Stones bearing load of past and heritage. His humanism gets
manifested in his concern for the one and all, for living and non-living for the
whole land and for natural resources. The true Socialist in him feels every uneven
ground, he peeps deep inside in each fissure and fracture of our social set up to
voice, voiceless. He talks about youthful desires, and concern of middle age and
hopelessness of old age. Socialism appears like a rock in chasm of his poems, and
currents of water run over it drenching it with reality. He himself asserts about his
socialism as,
the socialism and the love,
until we remain awkwardly swung to the great north of
honour,
what humility is that which will not let me reveal the real?
What shameful secret lies hidden in the shadows of my moon?
(“The Moon Moment”, FS)
Poems of Jayanta Mahapatra provide an easy access for an outsider but
one must have to have knowledge of socio religious milieu of the Orissa and India
at large to understand his poems. His poems put together beautiful romance with
words and ground reality side by side. His Images and Sociological awareness
empowers his poetry and take it to another level. As the poet in him asserts the
reality of our land when he writes hopelessly,

The land some love to call holy

is not the one I want to live in.
 192

Today the land of shrines and temples

offers its troubled tombs of blood,
when I don’t want to write my poem,
while a mob watches, cheering in delight
at sight of Fara’s rape
and mutilation limb by limb.
(“The Land That is Not”, RD)

4.2 Nameless, Faceless and Voiceless Existence of Women

Even
when she is
Even
when she is not
(“Women”, CS)
One can easily found clusters of various images of Women like Wives,
Daughter, Mother, Beloved, Young Girl and Whores at the very nucleus of his
poetic atom. His earlier claustrophobic experiences made him aware of the silence
and alienation of Indian women. His childhood experiences of watching his
cousin coming with scars on face after taking beatings from her husband, his
mother waiting for his father most of the time made his sensible heart even more
reactive to the mist like existence of women in Indian society. Patriarchal set up
of society hardly leaves any scope for the women to broom up. And heights of
hypocrisy lies in the very fact that, we can only worship her or insult her, or we
can rape her, treat her as toy etc. In his very first collection, ‘Close to sky ten by
ten’ he presents myth of Lakshaman Rekha in the poem entitled, ‘Circle’. This
Lakshaman Rekha exists as a symbol of imposed bondages over women just for
being women. They are not supposed to cross this circle, the circle of their family,
kitchen and responsibility. Only a male can go out of this circle and this circle is
supposed to be made to safe guard her existence.
 193

Drawing a circle he places the women inside.

The forest drags down the clamour of birds.
She looks down too, circumscribed by a pact,
Smelling of winds and root and forest heat.
(“The Circle”, CS)
This myth stands for the mindset of Indian Society which keeps on
believing that Male is the one who runs the world and safe guard the existence of
the women, and a woman is just a subordinate, an accessory at his disposal. In
another poem of this collection entitled, ‘How High Your Smile’ he again talks
about the male dominance over the existence of woman. He presents, how in
relation between a man and woman, it is woman alone who has to sacrifice and
adjust. He projects an image of her inert role in the so called love making. The
women exists her as the ‘nameless, faceless and voiceless atom.’
my life moves through you
an hour between chastity
and the craven ritual behavior
I watch the evening wear your smile
as you and I
journey into each other
swapping rhythms
inventing the need for a reason
(“How High Your Smile”, CS)
The very first line here announces ironically about male dominance as she
finds her life moving through him. Love making becomes a ritual between man
and woman, she holds her silence and male holds his smile and the reason. They
journey into each other but male can’t understand her voiceless pain. Persona
portrays a husband and wife in his poem entitled, ‘The Anniversary’ who are
searching for their love getting lost in to nothingness. Here he portrays how the
marital life comes to a stagnant point where only exists a silence, a painful
nothingness and physical need.
Nothing happens. It only seems pity
 194

we have the need to tell each other

of this painful nothingness, our often
pities standing in the door ready to leave
(“The Anniversary”, CS)
He talks about so called fast life which is engulfing relations under the
heap of desires to move ahead and ahead. In this desire many hands get slipped
off and one moves without being aware of that. He presents another perspective of
man woman relationship in poem entitled ‘ The Performance’. He presents here
how love becomes a needless thing in the heat of hope and race. Women are
cornered in her loneliness, to wait for the moment of ritual called love.
Darling
tell me a lie
that would
be love
(“The Performance”, CS)
In the poem entitled ‘Inertia’ he talks about the inert relationship dying
and decaying in a dusty corner of married life. He uses various images to describe
how petty issues hit the very existence of the relations. Strong bond of faith and
love is not there in marital life which becomes just a need that one has to fulfill
for other.
I know your obvious vulgar tactics
yet knowing, lead my fleshy wish
to make eager flame of ordinary evenings,
dulled of wear. You do not smile
except when your committed feathers
have broken away
from your foundered thoughts
among my ribs.
(“Inertia”, CS)
Images of whore are very frequent in the poems of Jayanta Mahapatra.
Whores have remained part of Indian society since ancient period of time though
 195

always unwelcomed. They are thought as evil, a black mark over the so called
well cultured society but fact lies in their inhuman consumption in our society.
Whores are treated as inhuman just as a piece of meat thrown in front of beast;
they are consumed, toyed around and thrown in those forbidden streets after
consumption. They are just a means o quench thirst of lust and hunger of sex. In
the poem entitled, ‘Absence’ he talks how a man searches his completeness in
paid out love. He seeks prostitute as a means to release his frustration. As he
writes
When the windows shut down on your thighs
my hands quiver with the glances of my thousand eyes
as your long eyes tough my paid-out pain
and I revenge the presence from your presence
(“Absence”, CS)
In his long poem entitled, ‘The Twentyfifth Anniversary of the Republic:
1975’ he talks about the Indian society after twenty five years independence. He
presents a surrealistic image of Indian Society. He talks about the degrading
values and about Kamala-the three rupee whore who lives in her mother’s remote
village.
In my dreams when I fondle Kamala’s brazen breasts
my hands encounter the blind flowers at desecrated tomb.
(The Twentyfifth Anniversary of a Republic: 1975” Sec-XV, FH)
In the same poem he has described state of our society in word dipped in
ironical tone. He shows his concern for the fading morality of our society and
prostitution growing like algae over the dampness of our decaying society.
The prostitutes are younger this year:
at the police station they are careless to give reasons
for being what they are.
And the older women careful enough not to show their years
(The Twentyfifth Anniversary of a Republic: 1975”, FH)
He mocks at the celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of our
Republic when he can still see young girls being led in to the inhuman trade of
 196

prostitution. He presents a very close observation of ageing prostitutes who heed

to hide their years in order to be eligible for the trade of their own flesh. He
presents very autobiographical treatment of whores in some of the poem. He
depicts their claustrophobic life and project visual image of the whole business
between her and her momentary lover. ‘Hurry, will you? Let me go,’ these words
puts a picture before the eyes of the reader that how the prostitute asks her
customer to finish the things in haste so that she can assist another thirst and can
earn more while the man wants to make maximum use for what he is paying for.
Mahapatra also talks about the morality which arrives in male only after
quenching her thirst and frustration over her body, a ‘disobeying toy’. This phrase
stands both for the lust of the male and also for the prostitute. In ‘The Whore
House in a Calcutta Street’ he describes how man visits her place, in a desire to
learn something more about women. He also describes how she does all what she
is supposed to do to please her customer.
You fall back against her in the dumb light,
trying to learn something more about women-
while she does what she thinks proper to please you,
the sweet, the little things, the imagined;
until the statue of man within
you’ve believed in throughout the years
comes back to you, a disobeying toy-
and the walls you wanted to pull down
(“The Whore House in a Calcutta Street”, RR)
In the poem entitled ‘Dusk’ he puts an image of young girls who just
turned whore. He portrays her innocence; she does not even know what she is
doing. He presents it as her wanton laugh which suddenly shatters her silence and
she lifts her arm to let her companion smell her armpits to know about the
perfume that man has used. In his poem Called ‘Slum’ he tries to explore the
reason for the whore for being what she is. He presents a picture of poverty, of a
slum life which runs dreadfully over women and their existence. He presents how
morality and chastity are sacrificed when hunger and poverty tramples all the
 197

social values and what it leaves behind is shattered ground reality as women lying
on some dark street to consume another hunger to quench the one burning inside
her belly.
The familiar old whore on the road
splits open in the sugary dusk,
her tired breasts trailing me everywhere:
where the jackals find the rotting carcass
and I turn around
to avoid my fiery eyes in the glass; there stands
only a girl; beaten in battle, all mine,
suddenly licking the blood from my crazed smile
(“Slum”, FS)
Mahapatra presents the union of dirty politics and prostitution in the
opening stanza of the poem entitled, ‘The Lost Children of America’. He puts
corrupt politicians and whores side by side. He presents a contrast between their
trades. He presents the irony between hunger of belly which leads women to
degrade herself such a trivial level and the power hunger of the politician who
sells the whole nation in his lust. As written by Madhusudan Prasad, “ By
equating ‘whores’ with ‘corrupt politicians’ and by making them use
common place for their respective trades, Mahapatra renders both the
images ironically eloquent.”2
in crowded market square among rotting tomatoes
fish-scales and the moist warm odour of bananas and piss
passing by the big breasted, hard eyes young whores
who frequent the empty silent space behind the local cinema
by the Town Hall where corrupt politicians still
go on delivering their pre-election speeches.
(“The Lost Children of America”, LS)
Beside presenting images of whore he has also talked about women as
wife in particular. He has presented their silence and the pain which comes again
and again every night, the pain of being treated as merely an object of pleasure. In
 198

number of poems he presents the typical male custom of eyeing every woman
with utmost lust. He presents silence which grows like moss over the walls all
through the day. Husband recalls his wife only at night when carnality arises in
there, and lust leads him towards her. Persona uses many images to portray her
silence which stands as her inaction and voiceless denial in this whole business
which goes on every night. In the poem entitled, ‘Idyll’ he presents this very
plainly yet beautifully.
In dim light
a man looks at the girl he had once married.
The last cart winds down by the hillock beyond.
Earth-grass is tipped with silver in the rain.
…………………………………………………………………
And something in a woman’s eyes
tempts confessions from her husband as they stretch out
to sleep. A time never lost, rising as mist,
that floats upon the consciousness;
(“Idyll”, RR)
He presents Indian images of women in his most of the poems in the form
of Wives, Mothers, Grandmothers, Goddess and Daughters and all these images
have recurrent pain, crushed voices and existence in common. In many of his
poems he shows his disbelief towards our social institute of marriage, In his most
the poems carrying images of the domestic women, they are presented as toy for
their husbands. As he writes in his poem entitled ‘Village Mythology’

Firewood on their heads, a file of women

stagger along the last rain- wet road.
Suna, the faithful village wife, crawls through darkness
as she moves beyond birth and death
from one night of rape to another.
(“Village Mythology”, LD)
 199

This image carries a hall mark of Indian village women and her day
routine. Her work starts before sunset, cooking, cleaning and even her role in
agricultural work with husband, looking after cattle and of course pleasing
husband at night. In another poem entitled, ‘Afternoons’ he presents very nakedly
the lust which lingers in every male’s eye for every women, known and unknown.
Women have been objectified to the extent that our mind now sees them only as a
toy. He employs here image of two big arsed women who enter in the shop for
buying four kilos of flour and shopkeeper eye them in lethargy of his dreams.

The fat shopkeeper follows with the look

of nude hunger in his eyes the two big arsed
Srikakulam women who have entered in his store
for four kilos of rice,
and fans himself in the lethargy of his dream.
(“Afternoon”, WT)
He projects image of young girls in his poems like, ‘Sunburst’, ‘Girl
Shopping in A Department Store’, ‘ The Stranger, My Daughter’. In these poems
he manifests the fact that even small girls are aware of those burning looks of
stranger which crawls on their body inch by inch in their own naked fancy. They
are made to turn their faces, need to be absorbed in their silence and ignore. In
‘Girl Shopping in A Department Store’ he presents how the girl has to be very
cautious of her action and delimit her periphery of talks, laughs and gestures to
avoid any unnecessary attention which may harm her. Another image of a teenage
girl appears when persona talks about his concern as father for his own daughter.
Daughter’s growing body arises a new concern in persona’s mind. He feels praise
for his girl’s beauty due to his love but at the same time also feels a tinge of worry
while thinking to protect her ‘juices’ from the ‘bees’ typical male world around.
As he writes,
My precious golden daughter
looks out through the glass
 200

I nail two damp eyes to the door

And all the while
the waiting draws me down
………………………………………
Juices from my daughter’s body
are filling the noisy hives
(“Stranger, My Daughter”, RR)
In ‘Sunburst’ he presents surreal image of school going girls turning their
faces while watching a bull riding on a cow by road side. They are made to learn
to hold their pride and turn their faces staring road while their own hushed bodies
amaze them.
Possible, rigid, two shy twelve years olds
glance surreptitiously, then turn their heads away.
It is only human mirrors which shape
an embarrassed scene. Their own hushed bodies
amaze them. Lost in respectability’s ruse,
they stare at the road, learning to close their eyes,
to hold their keen pride.
(“Sunbursts”, RR)
In the same poem he uses image of Cow and Bull, which are considered as
Gods and Goddesses in Hindu Religion. He presents a scene of Bull riding on
Cow at the road side, this image talks about the male dominancy over woman. He
ironically presents here that how in Indian society even the Goddesses have to
suffer at the hands of Gods.
Huddled close, the friendly crowd watches,
half the street dissolved to speechless breeze.
A black humped bull rides the cow:
two gods copulating on the warm tar,
the morning closed,
the grass throbbing, cruelly ablaze.
 201

The great body of the cow gropes for breath,

a little dribble breaks; taut on her tethered rope
her deep eyes wait in her puzzled knowing
for the rhythm to die; as the man holding on
to the rope coaxes her softly
by name: half woman, half goddess…
(Ibid)
Mahapatra in his poem called, ‘Palmistry’ talks how fate of young girl is
never in her control, her fate lines are not in her own hands, but they are in the
hands of her husband, father and brother. Her life becomes a heavy pawn in this
male world; she is kicked into different goal posts from father to husband and
from husband to children. As he writes,
Neither daughter of wind nor cloud, the girl’s
mind is wrapped in a haze of husband and Children.
(“Palmistry”, RD)
Mahapatra employs altogether a new parameter to eye at old myths of the
nation. He dares to question the male ego, which lies in godly actions towards the
women. He employs myths from Ramayana, Mahabharata and from Shiva
Purana. His sensible heart feels the tinge, a thin fiber of bamboo pierced in to
hearts of those ladies which are presented before common women as an ideal
example. He presents solitude of Sita deserted by her lord Shri Rama, to maintain
his maryada and to prove humself purushottma and Parvati wrapped in alienation
in the cave of Shiva for the solitude. The sorrow of Sita and Parvati is symbol of
the women class. In his long poem ‘Temple’ he asks,
O solemn Ayodhya skies!
O savage den of Siva!
let me not awaken
the meaningless tears of rage and hate
when you fumble at the catch of my consciousness
before you cut the heart out of my body
and nights scour my womb
 202

with ashes of solitude.

(TP)
Moving ahead he talks about the predicament of the young girl, who is lost
in her green mango dreams unaware of married reality of the Indian society. He
also talks about the Indian belief where a girl is considered a guest in the house
who lives in her father’s house till her marriage. She is brought up as a mere
responsibility and parents are eager to get her rid off. She lives in the house which
never can be hers. As he writes in the poem entitled, ‘Summer’
A ten year-old girl
combs her mother’s hair,
where crows of rivalries
are quietly nesting.
The home
will never be hers.
(“Summer”, RR)

Father brought up her daughter till the age of marriage then bids her
farewell for forever. Girl has to enter in to a new family, with new challenges and
expectations from her. She can’t afford to expect anything. Her in-laws hope for
dowry from her parents. Mahapatra talks about the dowry system, and presents
how brides are burnt even today in our so called cultured society for color dowry.
As he writes about this in the poem entitled, ‘In the Autumn Valleys of the
Mahanadi’
…….The house
on the main street looks insignificant, although
its mouth is slack with the piteous screams
of the girl burnt to death last August
(“In the Autumn Valley of Mahanadi”, WB)

Mahapatra is a very close observer of the Society and an honest narrator.

In his poem called, ‘Walls’ he describes the pain and agony of the young girls,
 203

who are asked to parade before, their would be bridegrooms and in-laws a number
of times. Many times they are treated like an object, they asked to walk, sing and
even dance. They are interviewed too. And after all this no one even feel a little
shame to reject the girl for her skin color, he height, for her features, or for higher
demand of dowry.
Then the slow cold ache
of parading themselves before their prospective grooms
came into them again;
they were in their teens, the three sisters,
innocently flirtatious,
as the ground swelled up so fast
they could not cry out –
the pain of dying did not seem to matter any more.
(“Walls”, SS)
His sensible ears can here those screams echoing in to those valleys of
autumn. Those screams he had heard in 1992, while writing his collection called,
A whiteness of Bone still keeps on repeating itself in 2005 while he was writing
Random Descent, only the shouting mouth is different, reasons are same. He
presents a real incident of domestic violence and bride put to fire just for the sake
of a colour television.

The silent sob from the dying girl

set on fire simply for colour television
she did not bring as part of her dowry
goes around the vow of faithfulness,
a vow played
by our game of reward and punishment.
(“The Uncertainty of Colour”, RD)
He mocks at the very custom during our routine Hindu marriages where
Bridegroom takes seven vows before sacred fire to protect, care, support and love
her wife in all conditions. He calls this ‘a game of reward and punishment’. In
 204

some of his poems he also talks about another custom related with marriage, the
custom of the first night. A night when a girl, who is totally stranger to a person;
is asked, to have intimacy with that stranger. Mahapatra ridicules this very
concept of the first night between husband and wife. Here he finds it as if bride is
being told to act as a whore, as he writes,
for this moment when the bedecked bride,
as stone at touch and belled,
dreads the thunder and lets
the fierce lighting race
wave after wave through her
sun-inflamed flesh.
(“Bride”, TP)
He also talks about the mental state of new bride, who suddenly bears the
care of stranger, which ends after the intercourse. These incidents of bride burning
are equally cruel as Sati Pratha- an age old tradition of India according to which a
women has to enter alive in the burning pyre of her husband. A woman who goes
through this cruel ritual is considered goddess and worshipped as Devi Sati. This
tradition was banned a long ago by the efforts of Raja Ram Mohan Ray. But even
today in some remote areas of India, we still can have such news at least once in a
while. He projects how the superstitions of different kinds have get hold of our
society. He recalls it in his poem entitled, ‘A Summer Poem’.
The good wife
lies in my bed
through the long afternoon;
dreaming still, unexhausted
by the deep roar of funeral pyres.
(“A Summer Poem”, RR)
Sati Partha has stopped up to a large extent now, but predicament of
women is same. He also projects many images of women clad in white-the
widows in Indian Society. He portrays their life full of self exploitations. They are
made to wear white colour only, spiced food is forbidden for them. In many cases
 205

they have to cut off their hairs, and give up their all ornaments. They are supposed
to eat only boiled food and spent a life of self denial. They are considered
Ashubha in our society and are kept away from any religious and social rituals.
They are left alone in society to die every day with slow poison of hate and
embarrassments. In the poem entitled, ‘Dawn at Puri’ he presents a visual image
of widows
White-clad widowed women
past the centre of their lives
are waiting to enter the Great Temple
Their austere eyes
Stare like those caught in a net,
Hanging by the dawn’s shining strands of faith
(“Dawn at Puri”, RR)

Persona against portrays the images of these luckless widows, who are
gradually tamed for being individualistic, to be a voiceless and nameless entity of
our society. These women turn stony by such atrocities of our traditions.
Mahapatra visualizes them in ‘Ceremonies’ in a large group in front of shrine in
superstitions like dry, drab weeds. Persona shows his concern for women in
Indian society, their existence is as Madhusudan Prasad says, ‘like a pawn’.
Mahapatra explores Hindu beliefs and finds many traps made for the Indian
women. He also recalls his own mother who dreams for to be cremated at Puri so
that she can reach heaven. In poem called ‘Assassins’ he again depicts the
predicament of Indian Widows. Indian myths and age old traditions don’t allow
widows to have any scope of happiness in their lives; they are forced to live like
dead and dry souls. Here we find women walking in their own dark streets with
their own terrible fear and pain. Persona compares them with weary leaves, which
can’t feel any longer.
sore widows moving barefoot in sunless streets,
and marigolds flowering the wrong way,
towards the way of the terrible fear,
 206

of leaves that are weary and can feel no more.

(“Assassins”, FH)

In the poem entitled ‘The Lost Children of America’ he talks how women
are being raped, in front of those stony eyes of god by Priest’s way ward son. And
victim is victimized again by those who are supposed to protect her and fight
beside her for justice.

In the Hanuman Temple last night

the priest’s pomaded jean-clad son
raped the squint-eyed fourteen-year fisher girl
on the cracked stone platform behind the shrine
and this morning
her farther found her at the police station
assaulted over and over again by four policemen
dripping of darkness and of scarlet death
(“The Lost Children of America”, LS)

He recalls another incident of a girl being raped, in the city and news
paper bringing news about her. Poet has no hope for such society as he writes in
‘Morning Signs’
Before the morning paper comes I know
that Lata’s rapist and killers
have been set free, for that is how
it has always been.
(“Morning Signs”, LS)
Persona expresses his hopelessness when he watches that how we are
loosing our sensibility and the very humanity. He thinks this land is not what it
needs to be. He recalls the incident of rape of a girl called Fara who has been
raped publically inform of a mob, which kept on cheering. In his collection called,
‘The Dispossessed Nest’ that is why he announces,
 207

Now a man knows only two ways

for dealing with a stray woman,
he rapes her
and he kills her
(DN)
In his poem entitled, ‘Madhuri Dixit’ he uses Madhuri Dixit- one of the
greatest Indian Bollywood Heroine of her time, as symbol of women. All through
the poem he talks about the stark reality of our society. He announces very bluntly
that what a common men watches in her, when she appears on screen. People
have their own dreams and fancy riding on their own lust. He again finds a
woman in Madhuri getting objectified as a toy of amusement and lust for eyes. He
thus writes,
the world keeps on moving, as it has before
perhaps Radha, perhaps Menaka, determining
the limits of India’s prodigal imagination;
your womb is happiness, shame and pain
is a truth we will not understand.
(“Madhuri Dixit”, RD)
He compares Radha, the lover of Lord Krishna who loved her but could
not marry her, he also compares her to Menaka a beautiful dancer sent from
heaven to distract the sage Vishwamitra. He creates this union between them to
portray the prodigal imagination of this land. In Indian cinema, women are up to
the very large extent remain a object added to the film as masala or glamour. She
is presented in short clothing, as a glamour doll to arouse male senses. And it is
also a fact that Indian viewers don’t like married woman or a mother as heroine.
Mahapatra also visualizes how Indian hero never gets old but women get old as
early as she gets married and be a mother. As he writes,
With our hidden cruelties, we will wait Madhuri
until your pain assumes a brazen shape we can see,
until the day before yesterday is the day after tomorrow
until your ageing womanhood becomes pregnant with youth,
 208

leaving behind a body that had lost its horse

and riders, breasts humbled, in total silence.
(Ibid)
Thus the true observer in Jayanta Mahapatra depicts pain and pathos of
Indian women through his verbal expressions. His poems becomes the mouth
piece of crushed voices, the voices which echoes all the time but fail to get any
reply and reverberate in cruel valleys of our society.

4.3 Hunger and Poverty in the Poems of Jayanta Mahapatra

India, like the decapitated old temple by the river,

its mouth open, and staring,
all its bewildering hunger born into sorrow
(“A Dark Wind”, WB)
Orissa has always remained a victim of the cruel plays of Nature. Every
now and then Epidemics, Floods, Cyclones and Draughts have got hold of this
part of India rather very frequently then other parts of India. Most of the folk of
this land are either Farmers or Fishermen and both categories still depend broadly
on the blessings of Nature. More over hunger has bruised the heart of the Persona;
memories of his grandfather are carved in yellow pages of his diary. His sensible
spirit can feel the very pain of being deprived. His eyes are open to cruelty
whether man made or natural, passing beggars, blind singer in train, poor
rickshaw drivers, and orphan children wondering in streets and outside temple
always caught hold of his attention and lines of his many elaborated poems voice
his concern. His poems raise issues like casteism, superstitions, communalism,
poverty and hunger. More than fifty years have passed but these problems still
remain unsolved. He finds no social justice in our mother land. In his poem
entitled, ‘Winter in the City’ he presents a surreal image of Indian urbanization
process, which is creating uneven grounds in our society. Persona is not against
urbanization but he wants equal opportunities and chances for one and all.
The paraplegic boy stands like a cross,
 209

shivering in the cold seeping through his fingers.

Tireless corporate offices
keep thundering with a sense of wholeness of life.
Siberian geese are already skimming the lake
between the reeds, not taking more than what they need.
(“Winter in the City”, RD)
Here he raises many issues beautifully; he takes in to account new
corporate culture and image of paralyzed boy side by side to voice his concern.
He also talks about Gandhian ideal of conserving things. One can find these days
that our expectations are becoming greater day by day; we are never satisfied by
our means. We are over using our all natural resources; image of ‘Siberian geese
not taking more than what they need’ says a lot in this case. In ‘A Growing
Ground’ he talks about the harshness of the poverty. He describes how a labor
needs to work each day equaling his sweat and blood to earn his bread. He
presents image of a labor, who has lost his face working in the harsh sun rays
each day for hours. He recalls British rule over India and misery of those days. He
finds all wounds of poverty and hunger going needless and nameless in present
situation where human is loosing his humanity. He finds those wounds as
nameless black tide leaving no trace on the sand or the sparkling diamond in
Elizabeth’s necklace. He finds empty smoke coming out of small huts of Orissa;
fighting starvation, wrapped in twilight.
in the harsh sun
the man working at his daily grind
has lost the face he had.
Does the wound in my side have its place?
Like the nameless black tide
that leaves no trace on the sands,
or the diamonds sparkling in Elizabeth’s necklace,
and the slow spirals of kitchen smoke
in Orissa’s starvation-twilight?
(“A Growing Ground”, RD)
 210

He again refers to British rule over India I one of his longer poems called
‘Requiem’. He recalls those days of our exploitation when every Indian was a
victim of colonization and slavery. He visualizes hunger and nakedness of people.
In ‘Freedom’ poet questions the very celebration of our freedom. This is one of
the very few poems in which tone of language is blunt and directed straight to the
root of the problem. Poet finds freedom is being lost somewhere in our
malfunctioning social set up. He raises question, why should we celebrate
freedom if millions of our fellow countrymen are dying of starvation and
injustice. There is no one in that high pillared parliament house.
In order for me not to lose face,
it is necessary for me to be alone.
Not to meet the woman and her child
in that remote village in the hills
who never had even a little rice
for their one daily meal these fifty years
(“Freedom”, RD)
In his poem ‘Grandfather’ he talks about his grandfather Chinatamani
Mahapatra, who embraced Christianity as a means to save his life and get some
food during the year 1866 when a terrible famine struck Orissa. He came to know
all this through yellow pages of his grandfather’s diary. That diary is a whole new
chapter of history for the persona. He came to know how people were desperate
for food. People had started eating leaves of plants some unknown roots and fall
victim of epidemics. Scores of people die everyday, dead bodies were thrown in
to the river. Animals like Jackal used search river bed and eat dead bodies to
quench their hunger. This pain of his grandfather seeps through his following
lines,
Did you hear the young tamarind leaves rustle
in the cold mean nights of your belly? Did you see
your own death? Watch it tear at your cries,
break them into fits of hard unnatural laughter?
(“Grandfather”, LS)
 211

In the poem titled ‘A Walk of Wild Feet’ he recalls his grandfather’s

experiences recorded in his diary. He recalls the agony which made him and many
fellow sufferers like him to eat unknown tubers, powder of mango seeds and few
unknown flower buds.

Powdered dry mango seeds,

wild roots picked from the forest
the pods of strange flowers;
let these overcome your own failure,
(“A Walk of Wild Feet”, RD)
He presents deaths due to hunger in his poem titled, ‘Three Poems of A
City’, he describes how each morning people carry their dead one after passing
yet another night in measuring their hunger. As he writes,
Nights, measuring out
hunger by the howl
of amplified guitars,
when the sun shines again
they will hurriedly burn their dead
(“A Three Poem of City”, CS)
He finds slums all around where human is forced to live like a beast;
hidden somewhere beneath rotten air and polluted water. He can hear voices
getting lost in sound coughing. Our hospitals are failing again and again to
provide treatment for recurrent epidemics.
It’s a country under the moon we failed to propitiate
where strange beasts called people
lie hidden in poor, unhealthy clumps of darkness.
(“The Room Light”, RD)
Persona finds ‘rain’ as heartless as leaders of the nation. Rain keeps on
cheating the land again and again like our elected emperors called leaders. The
rain which has always remained a symbol of hope now brings new fears with it.
As he writes,
 212

I see them nod to each other,

suddenly in fear of the rain,
of the heart left behind.
(“Unreal Country”, WB)
His sensible heart, his grandfather’s diary and Orissa keep him conscious
of the hunger. Hunger comes as metaphor of agony and sufferings in many of his
poems. As he answers questions of Kazuco Shiraishi- a scientist from Tokyo in
his letter. He finds India getting weak and fragile in growing hunger all the time.
He finds nothing but seven hundred millions hungry bellies in this land. As he
writes
It’s rain gain. Going on and all day.
Like hunger. You would think this country
has nothing but seven hundred million bellies
(“Washington”, BW)
Persona has remained a witness of this growing pain. He has seen this
great transitional phase of the plight of the nation. Rain creates havoc each year in
many areas of the country but leaders never plan to take remedial steps like
building a dam or joining rivers with semi arid and arid areas of the land. As he
writes,
I am one of them, listening to the radio each day
and learning more about fertilizers and democracy
(Ibid)
In one of his most famous poems, ‘Hunger’ he talks about dilemmas of a
father, who is forced to throw her own daughter in to prostitution and protagonist
who is fighting with his physical hunger. Ultimately both of them lose, father his
conscience and protagonist his morality. All through the poem persona
demonstrates very minutely the concern and pain of that fisherman father. He is
inviting the person to consume his daughter but he is also aware of her tender age.
He asks that person to be gentle and also cautions him to leave early.
I heard him say: My daughter, she’s just turned fifteen…
Feel her. I’ll e back soon; your bus leaves at nine.
 213

The sky fell on me, and a father’s exhausted wile.

Long and lean, her years were cold as rubber.
She opened her wormy legs wide. I felt the hunger there,
the other one, the fish slithering, turning inside.
(“Hunger”, RR)
This poem says it all; it presents weakness of humanity when it comes to
hunger, the first one or the other one. In the poem entitled, ‘Village Evening’ he
takes us in to a dark hut where lies a mother holding a rupee which her seven year
old son has brought after labor of whole day. The woman whisper “father I am so
relieved, you aren’t any more. Or else this little money would see us nowhere.
Ahalya, the mother, sinking in her own guilt of telling lie to her child. She has
promised her hungry son for milk-curds.
what has happened is still not over-
because it is made up of a woman’s sacrifices,
as Ahalya goes back to bed,
a guilty look on her face,
her promise to feed her son
morning milk-curds another faraway dream.
(“Village Evening”, SS)
Yes it seems like a faraway dream to think about better future in the land
wrapped in old wounds. In another poem called, ‘A Summer Afternoon’ he
presents image of five children crying for watermelon. These five children
suggest problem of over population in our country. Here persona tries to present
the cause of the poverty; he presents how a big family makes problems like
illiteracy and food supply in a poor family. Growing Population adding to our
problems, people who are bound in religious superstitions are not ready to
understand. At the same time persona talks about foolish policy of government
which has legalized abortion to control population. On the other hands our
hospitals are not equipped properly for such treatments; young women frequently
die of septicemia and miscarriage etc. In one of the poems persona talks about the
death of a thirteen year old servant girl,
 214

Our thirteen-year- old servant-girl died last week

of tetanus and I just kept waiting, even after
the end waited without reason for the world’s people
to dream of that girl’s future.
(“Washington”, BW)
In some of his poems he raises issue of child labor, he provides many
surreal images of children working and loosing their childhood in some burning
furnace and sweat biting their skin in some dark and secluded corner of an illegal
factory where he can loose his life or limbs forever. In the poem tilted, ‘Defeat’
he recalls his childhood experience of watching a boy working in blacksmith
shop,
As a child, on my way to school,
I watched the fire crackle in blacksmith shop.
a boy sat, smiling, fanning the flames.
I didn’t notice his eyes then, misty with pain,
or his hands as he worked with the bellows,
a finger broken, sores on his thin wrists.
(“Defeat”, SS)
He is also aware of human trafficking and slavery, he points out to those
nameless streets of big Indian cities like Bombay and Calcutta where children are
sold as slave and as toy for the market of lust. As he writes,
Everything is called sacred
in my land. Even poems. And children
who are sold and bought everyday
in the streets of Bombay and Calcutta.
(“The Stories in Poetry”, SS)
Another poem titled ‘When You Need to Act Play’ again a picture of
parent’s helplessness is depicted. A disease girl lying in the market place, half
naked and her helpless parents waits for her death.
And the passer by to throng the diseased girl
who sits still and unmoving in the market-place,
 215

one full breast peering through

her ragged blouse, while her kind hearted parents
on whom she had turned her back
found it easier for them to meet their death?
(“When You need to Act Play”, WB)
Persona here ridicules child labor and also superstitions; in many parts of
our nation people contact so called sorcerers for treatment of disease. In another
poem called, ‘Bazaar Scene’ persona gains talks about the poverty ridden land. He
presents a surreal image of a girl stealing mango from the vendor and giving it to
her crippled brother. It hurts his eyes when he finds such crippled children
wandering in streets. Disease like Polio consuming the future of our nation,
illiterate people fail to understand the vaccination and many of them are unaware
of such disease. People go on practicing different superstitious rituals for the
treatment of such diseases.
Indifferently I watched the little pig-tailed girl
running down the road with solitary mango
she had stolen from the fruit vendor’s basket,
and given to her crippled brother slumped
on the roadside. The child looked so undernourished
his large eyes seemed ready to weep.
(“Bazar Scene”, SS)
He finds the whole country limping and tottering breathlessly. He finds we
are legged behind due to our own limitations like our illiteracy, superstitions, mal-
nutrition, and poverty. He finds no hopes in the eyes of children of this land. He
finds hunger consuming all the hope like rust slowly and steadily. In poem called,
‘Defeat’ he manifests this hopelessness,
childhood sits in shadow
like an eye in a face that is dead.
So the door was opened to hunger and suffering.
Outside, the tick and strange movement
of human life.
 216

(“Defeat”, SS)
Persona feels the same pain for the whole humanity. He shows his concern
for the people dying in Somalia because of hunger in his poem titled, ‘The Stories
in Poetry’. Same kind of world view and general concern for this hunger stricken
world is manifested in his poem tiled, ‘The Lines of My Poem
It has not been able
to find its way out,
stumbling over the hunger
of another starving child.
Perhaps the lines of my poem
will be lame for a long time,
the pain of the creaming, frightened girl
in Kosovo, or kicking vainly
at the anger of a boy on the West Bank.
Or because they have been unable
to bear the weight
of years of poverty in this land.
(“The Lines of my Poem”, BF)
Images and mention of beggars is quite frequent in the poems of Jayanta
Mahapatra. His poems sings his locality, he observes and describes his
surrounding using surreal imagery. Begging has a multilayered aspect and
existence in the Indian society. In all the major religions observed in India; charity
or giving alms is considered a religious practice. In the ancient times Brahmins
used to spend their life in learning and spreading knowledge, going for Bhiksha is
one of the duties for them. Students or Batukas who came to Gurukulas had to go
for begging for themselves and for their teachers. As per ancient scriptures, Holy
Books, Epics and Vedas of this land even the lord Krishna had gone for Bhiksha
while studying in ashram. Lord Shiva had to bear it as a punishment for plucking
one of the heads of Brahma. Besides these facts even Islam believes in paying
alms to Fakirs, these Sufi Saints also spent their lives in praying. Persona also
puts a very honest attempt to describe begging in multifaceted context of our
 217

country as well as he also gives it a new meaning. Today India has highest
numbers of beggars in the land; and these beggars are generally the secluded
persons of our society. Most of the beggars are crippled, blind or suffering from
skin diseases. These images of beggars arouse feelings like pity, pain and fear
together. They have invaded temple streets, steps of Ghats and temples as well as
railway stations, trains and cross roads of big cities. In one of his poems he
presents image of homeless beggar sitting on the steps of mosque and staring
every passer by and those passersby are careful enough to not to even look at him.
On the stone steps of the old mosque
the homeless beggars drift in the sixth sense they have
about one another, ‘So we have to act still.’
Look at the world’s beautiful people, there beyond,
dying so beautiful humility can’t touch them!
There, they’re trying hard not to stare at you at all.
Is it because your humbleness has also gone like them?
(“The Twentyfifth Anniversary of a Republic: 1975”, FH)
In his poem called, ‘ Indian Eye’ he presents begging as mutual process,
he mocks at Indian belief of giving some alms and securing heaven for your
charity. He also presents how a beggar attains mastery after many days of
experience, how he showers his blessings on receiving alms and treating rich men
as gods. Mahapatra presents it in a surreal way very sharply and bluntly when he
says it is like parting a rupee and then reaping a million in return in forms of
blessings.
….The Indian Eye
is large, wild, covered with hungry decomposition.
Years and years lay claim to safe paralytic tradition.
Turning sharply as if to avoid a muddy puddle,
while their begging hands are at you. Sacred god like you.
Now if you part with a coin, you’d reap a solid million.
You are god, they cry; tear your eyes from you.
And if you are not you turn to the wall and cry.
 218

(“The Indian Eye”, CS)

He presents the world through eyes of beggar in his poem tilted, ‘Beggar
takes it As Solace’. He paints a verbal picture of beggar’s desire of getting coins
from passer by.
He watches the coin in his palm
floating
as if it has wings
he turns weak
like rain ridding
the earth of his body
(“Beggar takes it As Solace”, WT)

Similarly he describes the change after getting the coin, which is thrown
from the window of an automobile,
as he watches the hand
like an orange sun
reach out
from an automobile window
and drop one
of his quaking days
(Ibid)
Persona wants to portray how this begging becomes a business and
tradition in the land and a paralytic one as one can find many people who can
easily work but they decide to do on begging. In another poem called, ‘The Blind
Beggar’ persona presents the other side of the story. He presents how a blind man
survives through his eternal night which is never going to be end.

Light wanders around him the whole day

where he stands. This is the main street
pounding hugely like a leaning heart.
This is the right corner for his quiet feat.
 219

(“The Blind Beggar”, CS)

In another poem he uses a familiar image of a blind singer in poem titled,
‘Blind Singer in Train’ he describes how blind singer lies in life long entrapment
of fortune and at the same time he also describes usual indifference which lies in
the eyes of learned people in the train. Their education doesn’t allow them to go
down to the earth and see the reality of the blind man. Their ears are not ready to
listen his song. Poet also describes how he moves about in train even after his
disability as he calls him ‘bamboo-stabled man’. This poem sounds persona’s
personal experience and his sensibility and awareness to all around him.
Between successive halts of the guzzling train,
this bamboo-stabled man, rooted
to his night, flutters stone wings as he faces
the clash of silver, the prim dawn-light
rushing past his pox-hollowed eyes
(“Blind Beggar in Train”, SW)
Orissa the land of temples, which remain always crowded with people.
But these temples are also the permanent place of finding poverty and pain that is
very evident in the land. During visits to temples one can easily notice scores of
beggars begging outside, orphan children wandering aimlessly in their nakedness,
many poor people lying on the steps fighting with some disease and hunger.
Persona accepts all this to be permanent part of his land as he writes,
Each year, in the spring,
the same things drifts by:
clouds of silk cotton seeds, more
naked children, the virus of pox.
(“Somewhere My Man”, RR)
Again in the poem called, ‘Main Temple Street, Puri’ he describes about
orphan children outside temple, laughing at cripple and world running away from
them in hurry without any bothering. In poem called, ‘A Country Festival’, he
describes inaction of all towards naked children lying on streets,
 220

…the inaction dancing in a circle

like naked children trying the instant
round their sheer fingers
(“A Country Festival”, WT)
In one of his popular poems called, ‘The Lost Children of America’ he
describes about hunger and poverty of woman. He describe eyes those recognize
her humiliation and hunger, when she was trying to dry herself in her only wet
sari after her bath and nameless solitude. Thousands of such women wonder over
the streets in this land and many times becomes victim of calamities.
and they recognize states of humiliation and hunger
and the well-being of a woman
drying herself with her only wet sari
after her bath, and the nameless solitude
that has nothing to hide behind
(“The Lost Children of America”, LS)
The very familiar hypocrisy that lies in learned and well settled class of
the society hurts persona again and gain and he describes this hypocrisy in many
poems like ‘Events’. It is different thing to discuss about poverty in some
conference halls and present papers and help those deprived people in real sense.
Poor strata of society always attracted persona, and he responded by depicting it
in surreal way with its pain and pathos. His poems hold their crushed voices. As
he writes,

On the street of allegiances

and hard labour,
a rickshaw puller picks
the fallen, littered footsteps
at his feet.
 221

(“Events”, SP)
The same image of rickshaw puller appears in the poem titled,
‘Somewhere my Man’ when he describes the routine of rickshaw puller and his
care towards his vehicle and his wait for the fares in a pictorial image.
An idle rickshaw puller gets up,
polishes the thin chromium trappings
with a rag,
spits on the ground
and sits down again,
patiently waiting for fares
(“Somewhere My Man”, RR)

4.4 Materialism, Communalism and Terrorism

Things are only going their way.

The down appears headless gain.
The child has already come to know,
from who knows whom,
that peace has gone, never to return.
(“Dawn”, WB)
In most of his poems Jayanta Mahapatra has talked about lost Heritage,
Myths and History but he has kept his eyes opened to present and contemporary
realities of his time. He is a modern poet who is also aware of his roots. His
poems are completely successful to connect reader with present realities. In his
poems dealing with contemporary life he has talked about growing materialism in
lives and in hearts too. Ancient values which used to bind our society are thrown
away somewhere in corner like scrap. His poems hold mirror to stark realities of
our time and clearly depicts his sociological concern as a humanist standing
among complex problems. As he writes
What is wrong with my country?
The jungles have become gentle, the women restless.
 222

And history reposes between the college girl’s breasts:

the exploits of warrior-queens, the pride pieced together
from a god’ tainted amours. Is this where advantage lay?
Mina, my neighbour, flashes round and round the gilded stage,
hiding jungles in her purse, holding on to her divorce,
and a lonely Ph.D.
( “A Twentyfifth Anniversary of a Republic: 1975”, FH)
He talks miserably about the friendship and relation between neighbors in
our society, which are changing very swiftly with sifting selfish motifs.
Neighbours don’t want to reveal their selfish faces to one another and if they
appear; they appear with masks over their real faces. Poet finds his good
neighbors living like thieves, hiding their faces in darkness. They come like a new
character each time. Persona is aware of this play and these new characters, which
come on scene with well rehearsed acts, as he writes,
as I watch the play change,
new characters come on the stage,
and while so surely they go about
their well-rehearsed acts,
I wait
in the shabby penumbra of modest hopes
not knowing what face to put on,
awkward in despair and inadequacy;
(“Performance”, FH)
In his poem titled, ‘still Life’ he describes stillness of hearts wrapped in
materialism; even a death in neighboring house doesn’t make any difference to
them. This poem is an ironical truth of callous society that we are living in. Life
goes on as it is nothing can make us wait and bother till it comes to personal loss.
As he writes,
The morning after one more killing
in my neighborhood,
nothing is being planned.
 223

At least for now.

So, may be we will start thinking
about the weather. Or talk of God.
(“Still Life”, SS)
People has sunk themselves so much in their selfish motifs that sharing
trust and mutual understanding are things of past which can only be found in
some history books and in stories. The situation has made persona so much
hopeless that even a wave of greeting from neighbor is a gift for him. As he writes
satirically,
Just another morning, and my neighbour’s wave of greeting
is a gift entering
my body without reason or belief.
(“Light”, WB)
He is aware of that mental line of control that lies like barbed wire around
neighbouring houses declaring materialistic richness that lies inside. In one of the
poems persona talks about one such neighbouring house where his rich neighbour
lives. Trust has gone like peace for ever without any hint of return. He thinks even
a mother and son doubts one other of betrayal.
…..The sound
of the six thirty siren hangs crookedly
like a door ajar into a room of silence.
The barbed wire fence that surrounds
my rich neighbour’s house
wets with tears of dew.
(“December”, WB)
Parents who sacrifice their whole life in well being of their children are
deserted by their sweet hearts only like old furniture. We are living in a society
which has a lot of space for age old homes, every now and then we hear of parents
being betrayed by their own children when it comes to money matters. Persona
puts it in his poem in a very interesting and ironical tone. He uses image of his
 224

own mother looking vacantly into her tea-cup and thinking that she has been
betrayed.
The old woman
with grey hair and coarse wrinkled hands
whom I call mother looks vacantly into her
tea cup, thinking she has been betrayed.
(Ibid)
He shows his concern for the old people and he also preaches youth of the
nation. Today many of our youngsters have very materialistic dreams of going in
some foreign land in search of better life leaving behind this nation and soil. He
wants the youth of the nation to keep itself attach to the roots of the land and try
to bring a new change in this society, to start a new struggle, a self purification
process to build a new social order. Persona uses image of his own son, he
generalizes his pain and expresses,
This morning I faced my son and said:
I don’t want you to die alone
in some strange country.
The space of our blood is in,
giving witness to our lives,
a street running endlessly people ward.
(“Levels”, FH)
He appeals all those who see overseas dream and snatching away their
roots from this land. Persona can see a huge gap stretching itself between him and
his son. He gives up at the last ad asks, himself to reject his own son instead of
dying in grief. Here he projects in a satirical tone how materialistic wealth has
become the only concern of the youth of the nation.

When we are alone, it’s matter of things between us.

We dream of new house by the sea (You said Goa once!),
the upper-class freshness of the water’s edge,
the disciplined cool sun.
 225

We take precautions not to grow apart. Yet we are alone.

Before we die of grief, we must reject our son
( “A Twentyfifth Anniversary of a Republic: 1975”, FH)
Persona at lasts portrays his pain when he finds his son withdrawing
himself just like a bird who is living the nest after learning to fly. He says in a
tone full of emotion,
You’ll leave your parents; you’ll travel to the ends of the earth,
And in your dim bedroom I’ll hear your mother’s dream:
the sick sweet drag of a mishappen, plastered foot.
(Ibid)
He picture the pain of parents left behind to suffer in their closing days.
He presents the pain of mother and her shattered dreams which are heavy and
painful like plastered foot. He manifests the doubt growing in between generation
as a gap. Here he also talks about the urbanization process. He is not against the
development, empowered education and improved medicine. But he feels a tinge
of pain for that insufferable, vain village that won’t let him sleep. The images of
that small village and its manageable and neater perimeter of life keep coming in
his mind. Our cities are growing but at the rate of breaking our old village
traditions, which are the very basis of our closely knitted society in past. As he
writes,

Now the insufferable, vain village won’t let me sleep.

I watch the play of ruthless cities on the past.
It is not that I do not like to their lot improved:
that which has taken years of doing, of education, of medicine.
(Ibid)
In the fourteenth section of his one of the long poems titled, ‘The
Twentyfifth Anniversary of a Republic: 1975’ he talks about complete social
degradation of our nation. He presents surreal images of his locality to express
this bitter reality. He refers to his newly rich neighbour silver smith, another
neighbours like ‘pasty faced school teacher’ and Kamala, ‘the three rupee whore’
 226

and finds a new dirty trick of the physicality that makes a god; virile, yet so poor.
He recalls our old heritage and thinks contemporary life is like café’s chair turned
over with their legs in air. He thinks past life has surrendered to this materialism
and what remains behind is only a silence; and that is also a meaningless entity.
He presents it through a satire using image of servant girl dying of tuberculosis
and an old hypocritical social worker. As he writes,
Like café’s chairs turned over with their legs in the air
perhaps our past lives are raised in surrender to sky.
Has silence lost its importance? What is the order of life?
The tubercular servant-girl trips over the edge of present.
And Rama Devi, the fifty six year old social worker,
raises her head like a triumphant snake which has just
shed its skin:
(Ibid)
He finds even the youth of the nation is corrupt. The youth no longer
believes in patriotism and change their values like rolling stones. Morality,
honesty and self esteem have gone under the layers of modernism. Indian ways
and values are considered a symbol of backwardness in youth. Past heritage and
culture is fading in colors of westernization. Sexuality, lust, making love in public
are considered modernity. Persona presents a surreal image in his one of the
poems entitled ‘A Sullen Balance.’
my young niece is shyly kissing
her friend in a deserted corridor.
I tell myself to shut my eyes,
go over and over those secrets
I have told no one before
(“A Sullen Balance”, WB)
He feels this tinge of hopelessness in laymen of the land. He finds every
shoulder is dropping under the weight of yet another despair which comes through
news papers everyday. Everyday arrives with a new scam and political
propaganda. Feelings, Warmth and Companionship are washed off by the
 227

materialistic rain of the time. He finds an unknown pain in every eye; he finds
each girl of this land is living under the burden of her own life, expectations,
gender discriminations and fear of rape. As he writes,
Again fields of man are rugged with fear.
And the breasts of young girls
do not rise and fall with their own breathing.
(“Landscape”, SS)
He further talks about the violence which has become the order of the day
in this land. Every life is under threat. He shows his concern for the increasing
graph of the crime in country. Newspaper headlines always hurt every sensible
human when it brings news of killings, robbery, of senior citizen deserted alone
by their children, women being burnt or paraded naked in streets, or yet another
rape. He feels sometime it’s nothing new for many of us who have learnt to live
with this. As he writes,
This violence is nothing new,
Even spring or sight of an old man,
his head between knees.
Or the nakedness of a woman,
stripped and paraded in the street.
(“Season”, SS)
His poems always speak for the equality of gender. In his poems he shows
his concern over domestic violence, of women being beaten every night by their
in-laws and husbands. He has haunting memories of childhood days, of watching
his cousin running back to his house after being beaten by her drunkard husband.
He feels for those women die everyday by the hands of their own relatives.
Our mouth cannot change the noises of our
memory
Of the night before
where a woman felt that her death by fire
was definitely easier
than death through constant beating and torture.
 228

(“Still Life”, SS)

Since the days of his childhood Persona has felt the burning stares and
itching questions about his dual existence in caste based Indian society. During
ancient times learned sages of the nation divided the nation in to four castes as per
their work. These four castes are called Varna in ancient scriptures; they are 1)
Brahmin- the one who studies and teaches, 2) Kshatriya- warriors or the saviors
of the land, 3) Vaishya – the business community and 4) Shudra- the class which
support above mentioned three classes by providing them various services. But
later on this system got replaced as per birth. This caste system and its
consequences are very deep rooted in this land. Even today in 21st century, many
people in our country have to face the atrocities just for belonging to so called
lower caste. Persona has felt these atrocities all through his life as he grandfather
accepted Christianity to save his from cruel famine of 1866. Even after so much
of advance in studies and technologies, and living in so called space age these
things still exists very strongly in our society. As persona writes,

Weary steel plants keep on going through the night.

Even computers begin to understand our castes and prejudices.
(“Quest”, SS)
In his poem titled ‘The Morning-1’ he describes how people show
indifference towards lower castes. Rotten and age old stupid ideas like
untouchability exist even today. These ignored and exploited section of society
works all through their lives for our society still our society gives them no equal
place. In the present poem describes an image of a sweeper girl walking with
human excrement in hand,
The sweeper-girl walking by,
the can of human excrement
cradled
in her frail arm.
(“The Morning-1”, WT)
 229

Persona has also seen the fire of communal clash and religious fanaticism
very closely. Communal rites are gifted to this land by Britishers before living this
land and dividing it in two parts. Even today after sixty years of Independence we
are not able to build that mutual trust between people belonging to different
religions and caste. Rites in Bombay, Gujarat, West Bengal, Karnataka, Madhya
Pradesh or Anti Shikh rites in Punjab and many more are enough to prove that
even today a huge gulf of distrust lies between Hindus and Muslims. And this is
not only story of India such problems exists in most of the nations like Russia,
Shrilanka, Jerusalem and Pakistan. As he writes,
And streets
go on enjoying their dead-
either in Jerusalem
or in Delhi or distant Nicaragua.
I can easily tell sound
of someone being hit with an iron bar,
the sound of a body falling
or being burnt after being doused in oil
(“The Waiting”, SS)
He finds humanity engulfed and suffocated between hatred and communal
fanaticism. People do not hesitate even a bit to kill and burn others just for being
of another faith. This blind fire engulfs small children and women. Many faceless
mobs loot, rape and burn people alive. Life gets lost somewhere in long hours of
curfew and shoot at sight orders. People sleep no longer in their houses, rumours
spread like fire and those war cries and swearing names of god before killing
people of other faith. Such incidents can ruin any sensible heart so is the case with
persona and this hopelessness makes him write,
There was nothing to remind me of the other earth,
seven hundred miles away, frightfully unfamiliar,
of six of a family screaming loud in a flaming shack,
as they slowly burn to death, simply because
they had another faith. and of that thing called God
 230

they could wall up in marble and gold leaf

but never own in the million-windowed city.
(“About My Favourite Things”, SS)
In one of his poems he describes the situation after rioting in India. He
describes how a known familiar and dear face of neighbour, turn evil, an inhuman
burning fellows alive. He also feels the shame of belonging to such a society. Air
is so heavy with the smell of burning human flesh and ears can’t hear anything
except screams. As he writes,
Even this narrow street of blaring radios
can not hide the shame of my native land
where a man easily kills his neighbour
in the poem of God
while he moves about calmly
with a false face and a song.
(“Waiting for the Summer of 1994”, SS)

Even in the usual days of momentary peace persona is full of fear.

Whenever he watches a truck full of goats taken to slaughter house he recalls
cruelty that lies behind the faces which look quite common and familiar at time.
His sensible heart can also feel the pain of dumb animals sacrificed in the name of
traditions and gods. He also uses such animal imagery to describe the violence
and cruelty that lies in our society. He compares the killing of a dumb cow with
rape and murder of a girl. As he writes,
Last year her murder and dismemberment
made us understand somewhat
the trembling
in the eyes of cows we see
being led meekly to the town’s slaughter house.
(“Learning for Ourselves”, WB)
 231

He find humanity divided everywhere he find every chopped down head

and beheaded body saying something when he watches slaughtered goat as he
writes,
Sadder like the bleat
the slaughtered goat gives out
from the dinner plate.
(“Sometimes”, BF)
In his one of the collections called Dispossessed Nest he has talked about
the crisis of humanity. This collection talks of Terrorism in our country and
Industrial tragedy that took place in Bhopal in 1984. Poems in this collection
show dispossession of humanity by beast of terrorism and by those callous
industrialists and paralyzed government which let death dance over the thousands
of life in Bhopal. Persona’s anger against unnecessary violence manifested
through his poems. He depicts how terrorists are killing humanity everyday and
Gandhian ideal of Truth and Non-Violence are on death bed surviving on glucose
bottles. He also depicts the clash between poor innocent people and police who
are victims of rich people and corrupted politicians. He describes how we are
fighting against our own brothers taking name of religion. This inferno of hate
engulfing our brotherhood and trust in one another. As he writes,
The dry riverbed
wrapped up in a shroud of moonlight.
A death lasts.
This night of the decaying bodies
of those whom I love,
reverberates
with ruined light of stars.
(DN)
He questions Gandhiji about fate of this nation. He finds old man crying
somewhere in the unknown part of another world seeing the condition of this
nation. Where curfews are common now, where bomb blasts and plane hijacks are
 232

the order of the day, a place where ambulance fight whole day, a land where you
can blow cheap lives taking names of religion. As he writes,
Gandhiji, only an act you put on for posterity?
With India, our India, barely worth raping?
(Ibid)
This all makes him hopeless so persona finds this land dying each moment
and turning in to a dead land. A land dying under its own weight, a house which is
getting looted by own family members. He believes such country will be left
alone to die and sink.
At times, as I watch,
it seems as though my country’s body
floats down somewhere on the river.
Left alone, I grow into
a half-disembodied bamboo,
its lower part sunk
into itself on the bank.
(“Freedom”, BF)

4.5 Politics and the Promised Land

Time has played a very great role in the making of Jayanta Mahapatra, he
has seen the greatest transitional period of this nation. He was born in undivided
India; he has seen the world wars, freedom struggle of the nation, partition of the
country and above all the changing phase of politics of this nation. Jayanta
Mahapatra is one of the very few poets of the present time who are fearsome to
response towards dirty politics, hypocrisy and corruption of present society. As he
himself said in one of his interviews while answering a questions regarding
political stand of the poet in our society,

“By this I did not mean that a poet has to be a “Political Poet” just as one can
become a “love poet” or a “historical poet” or an “economical poet”. What is
needed is that poetry should have the freedom to express, in any way
 233

appropriate to it, the diversity of human experience. A poet is a poet by

virtue of what he sees. We may take this further to say that a poet is
responsible to his conscience, to his sense of what is right or wrong, that
comes from both knowledge and judgment. It comes from the poet’s
justification to think. To locate the relation of poetry to social action is
difficult. Frankly it would be more satisfying for me as human being to work
with the Missionaries of Charity, for example, than to sit and write a sorry
poem at midnight about what ails the country and my neighbor”3

Persona uses Mahatma Gandhi as the symbol of a true leader, he believes

in his principles of truth and non-violence. He believes in simple living and high
thinking. But it pains him when he finds leaders of present India just playing their
political games. Politicians are consuming this nation like mite. He can see
vultures in them ready to devour over innocent lives. News paper brings new
scams new political settings among the leaders to play yet another game of
corruption. It all seems an unending drama of our so called democracy; with each
election we are given a new dose of promises only to be broken after scoring yet
another win. Persona has observed it as,
Any time my government
breaks its promises, a line of the poem
is dragged along the wide streets
of New Delhi….
(“The Lines of My Poem”, BF)
In his poem entitled ‘Freedom’ he tries to search freedom. We have won
our freedom from the British rule in 1947, a long back but that freedom has gone
somewhere and wee are not even aware of that. It has been snatched up from our
lives deliberately and systematically. Persona feels at time that this country is just
a dead body now floating over a river. As he writes to express his views
regarding, image of India presented in the book of Ronald Segal titled; The
Anguish of India, “ Today as we near the end of eighties, the same anguish
and indignation that plagued Segal’s social conscience eat into the heart of
 234

every sensitive individual concerned with finding solution for the country’s
persistent ills. The strong government which Segal hoped for has not come
into existence even forty years after India gained her Independence. It is
indeed tragic that we have not been able to produce such a government, one
which would help to control all significant aspect of human life. The
indifference of human suffering is evident everywhere, even today, and it
becomes difficult to close one’s eye to this continuing trait of the Indian
upper classes.”4 Freedom has gone in to the pockets of politicians and those
priests who make humanity bleed every now and then. He presents a surreal
image of a family which hasn’t eaten a single piece of rice from fifty years. He
finds the darkness of our lives come from the high and big pillared Parliament
House. Politicians growing like saprophytes consuming roots of this nation. They
are driven about in Mercedes and flying over our little skies in their choppers. As
he writes in the poem entitled, ‘The Return.’
Now the stunted rice around it
rustled from passing of Minister’s Mercedes.
The sky grown murky
with promises of leaders unfulfilled.
And I asked myself: What could embarrass
our Ministers more than people’s prayers?
(“Return”, BF)
He finds this nation is being legged behind by this dirty politics and
corruption. He compares it with a roughly running clock which jerks every now
and then but always thirty minutes slower than others. Persona requests the youth
to not to leave this homeland, he wants our roots should be kept in our own soil.
He is against overseas dreams of youth but at the same time he sighs over the
condition of this land.
Rain grates in the silence. My son
walks in through the dim walls,
a strange map drawn by life.
(“Learning for Ourselves”, WB)
 235

He can see this nation is changing in to a strange map. He finds youth

hopeless and without any direction so he finds future blur. Youth has lost its face
and staring their own feet for solution.
His lost face, white enamel,
looks down at his feet.
(Ibid)
Orissa has remained just like the other parts of India a battle ground of
politician which take a safe exist and make laymen fight in the name of religion.
Many times priests and so called Dhrmachryas are also involved in such plots
with these politicians. Every riot that took place is an example of this. In one of
his poem titled ‘1992’ he recalls riots after Babri Mosque’s demolition by few
politicians to reach desired seats.
the giant cut outs of politicians
adept at catching their own smiles,
the world’s future in World Bank loans
and in the enormous eye of Somalia’s children,
this neighbouring temple with blood on its hands,
(“1992”, SS)
He refers to this close association between politicians and religious
leaders, which works for their own selfish motifs. He is aware how this union
plants hatred and communalism in to the hearts of innocent people who fail to
understand their hidden agendas. He finds humanity turn puppet in the hands of
such leaders and politicians. If religion is there only to divide and make us kill us
one another on the name of temples and mosques, what’s the use of it? So he
writes,
Is it the vedic India you carry in your bones?
In those words you allow to turn into puppets,
which dance at the doors of indifferent temples?
(“Trying to Keep Still”, SS)
Many of us know such things exist in our country, and we do realize it
again and again but without taking any lessons from it. After every new scam,
 236

naked dance of crime and injustice, what we do? We just take black flags and
march in streets until some lathe charges towards us, or water cannon wash off
our anger. Persona has seen such protests and knows nothing can be achieved
through it so he believes heroism exists only in films but not in real life any
longer. He is aware most of such protests are just a political stunt of other
politicians only who want to snatch the chair and have same dreams. He writes in
his poem titled, ‘Heroism’
All our thousands of hands
that reached out to the sky
sulk in small strips of black cloth
of futile protest on our chests.
(“Heroism”, SS)
What he finds all around him, is just another slum wrapped in poverty,
disease and struggle for basic amenities like water, drainage and electricity. And
nature has decided to play its part when it comes to his homeland, floods and
draught shatter dreams of farmer turn by turn each year and sometimes it is
cyclone or epidemics that ruin dreams. Every politician reach chair with fake
promises, promises which are given only to be broken. He finds we have no
choice actually to make, we have to decide just a one thing and that is to select a
bad leader out of worse and the worst. This country has become a private
possession of such politicians so he writes,
Tonight, the politician will turn
on the country with his power.
His face will be well under control.
And tomorrow, sixty thousand children
will go hungry again.
(“Possessions”, SS)
He questions himself about the justice. How to expect justice in a land
where over three million cases are waiting for verdict form years? He is worried
about the fate of this nation, a nation where police works by money, where bribe
makes government officer sign papers. He also refers to the law which
 237

government, laid during mid eighties to control our population; abortions were
legalized in our country at that time. Many young women lost their lives during
abortion and many died of septicemia and other infections. At times he becomes
introvert and wonders why to ponder over lost cause. Such pondering becomes
Cleary visible in his poem tilted, ‘June Rain’
In my country of unenforced laws,
I write my futile poem, eat fish
I buy from the local market, listen intelligently
to the discussion on parliament elections,
and look at the lost bit of land in my old, soiled atlas.
(“June Rain”, SS)
During his stay at Patna while he was doing his M.sc from there he had
got the chance to see Gandhi. Gandhi has always a great impact on him. He truly
believes and is a true follower of Gandhian ideals like Non-Violence, Truth and
Social justice. But what he finds today, people who keep Gandhi’s photo handing
over their heads, on the walls of their offices and house have forgotten his ideals
completely. Wearing khaddar has become a status not a service to the nation;
people insult his ideal and question his sacrifice. Leaders only know the language
of violence and what they have to give us is only tons of lies. He describes this
hypocrisy in ironical style when he writes,
when you are safely distant from living,
you can worship the murdered Gandhi.
You can speak about
the world you were born in,
about the sounds of your wife in labour
or even of the infinites of the Pieta.
(“Waiting”, SS)
He then puts Poets and Politicians side by side in the lines of his poem
entitled, ‘Earth’ this poem shows persona’s concern for preserving this earth for
future generations. He presents a contrast between Poetic imaginations and
Political actions.
 238

At times poets would say:

Do not take away
Anything from this earth
Water or richness
Or lightness of the heart.
And country’s leaders:
Dig out the iron ore,
The manganese and bauxite,
From the warm depths of its tears
Its ancient god.
(“Earth”, LD)
He furthers describes it through recalling a new stamp released by
government on the occasion of twenty-fifth anniversary of our republic. He
questions the needless of such act when we don’t believe and follow his ideals.
He finds colors of hopelessness in that stamp, he thinks we have turned in to a
news paper lying under the door and waiting a wind to make it stir. We have
learnt to live without any body’s knowledge. We have made a cocoon for
ourselves and forgotten the nation some where. He presents it more satirically
presenting surreal image which is quite familiar here in out country. Every year;
we find some new statues on the cross roads. There are some unknown leaders,
and some well known for their scams and corruptions enjoying their place at the
middle of the road after death. Mahapatra mocks at such occasions when our
leaders inaugurate such statues,
There are new statues on the crossroads, newer dead,
that are visible from far and wide.
The wind continues to search dead boughs,
soot and litter and dust, the ruins of dead skies.
The coarse crows perch upon the shoulders of bronze and stone.
(“The Twentyfifth Anniversary of a Republic: 1975”, FH)
All this make us him wonder like every sensible heart which loves this
nation. And he plays his part to depict all this through his poems before everyone.
 239

Many can think that they are already aware of this, but even after this fact his
poems play a great role to arouse sense of patriotism and sense of worry in our
heart for this homeland.

4.6 Conclusion
Thus one can easily sum up that Poems of Jayanta Mahapatra hold mirror
to our society and put before us an honest picture stuffed with surreal imagery and
metaphors exported from the tapestry of our land. Rivers, Tress, Forests, Wind,
Temples, Streets and Stones all come turn in turn to provide him a door of
freedom to explore new possibilities, new ways to connote his meanings. His
poems presents anatomy of our society, presents different layers to let the truth
come before us nakedly, however bitter and painful. His poems hold his recurrent
pleas put forward before every reader, before every fellow country mate to realize
our existence in this society. His romanticism does not make him forget the
ground reality, rivers, mountains, wind, birds and seasons take him to fields where
exists hunger, stretching over parched land. Every temple streets brings him to
God, and its stony existence, his silence over our condition. His imaginations sits
at window and wander in those malarial streets of the town, he peeps in to those
hospitals waiting for other deaths, his eyes try to ignore headlines which each
morning brings. He hears echoes of those unheard screams of women being
beaten in her, own house, and watch how the sacred fire of marriage turns in to
dowry fire consuming a life full of hopes and desire. Every night sinks him in to
in his surrounding so deep, he searches truth, a cure for social healing of this land
but he finds? May be his poems that he writes one after another? His eyes still
stare white sheet of paper through his insomniac eyes and aesthetic breath sigh
over it to present yet another side of our society. One can say persona writes more
through his conscience and less through his imagination as it is limited to find a
better medium. Themes of his poems manifest clarity of his conscience. As he
himself, writes about the importance of conscience and memory, “Conscience
matter because what else is the poet responsible to? Nothing else is as
consequential as this inner thing to him, this secret root of his being, and
 240

which acts as the hidden code behind his writing. A poet is, perhaps, only
right when he says in his poem what he has actually known. This appears as
the only relevant truth; that one’s experience is the raw material form which
the poem is made.”5 All this make him to find our freedom meaningless. Some
say we have achieved freedom but where it is? May be it is locked in to a big
bungalow of a politician? His poems show his deep concern for our society, he
demands equality and justice. He dreams of Ramrajya
 241

REFERENCES
1
Paranjape, Markand., ed. Interview, “Jayanta Mahapatra Talks to Markand Paranjape.”
M. Sivramkrishna March 1992.13.
2
Prasad, Madhusudan, The Poetry of Jayanta Mahapatra: Some Critical , “Echoes of
Bruised Presence: Images of Women in the Poetry of Jayanta Mahapatra. Delhi: B.R.
Publications, 2000.P. 225
3
Jayanta Mahapatra Interviewed By Rabindra K. Swain, Fantasy, October-November
1995.
4
Mahapatra, Jaynata. Door of Paper: Essays and Memoirs. New Delhi: Authors Press,
2007. p.125-126
5
Mahapatra, Jaynata. Door of Paper: Essays and Memoirs, Face to Face with
Contemporary Poems. New Delhi: Authors Press, 2007. p.83