Review by Amit Shankar Saha
(Kolkata: Chitrangi, 2017, ISBN-13:97893-85782-73-2, Price INR 200, Pp. 80)
http://www.hawakal.com/books/book-from-other-sources/lakshmi-unbound/
Lakshmi
Unbound, the fifth collection of poems by Professor Sanjukta
Dasgupta, comes after a gap of nine years. Her last volume of poems, More Light, was published in 2008. Her
other books of poems are Snapshots (1996), Dilemma (2002), and First
Language (2005), which were all published at a lesser gap of time between
them. So this collection was eagerly awaited for by the readers of her poems.
Her last collection, More Light, had
a series of poems on Hindu deities – “Durga”, “Lakshmi”, “Ganesh”, “Saraswati”,
“Kartik”, “Manasha-Snake Goddess”, “Kali” – and from the list it is Lakshmi on
whom Dasgupta writes again but using the goddess as a metaphor for female
emancipation by evoking Shelley’s “Prometheus Unbound”. This marriage of Hindu
mythology with Greek mythology by giving Lakshmi a Promethean attribute not
only brings pan gender connectivity through intertextuality that destabilizes
the pre-lapsarian equation of “man” as the emancipator. In “Lakshmi Unbound: A
Soliloquy” the image of Lakshmi as an abstract epitome of goodness, without any
human attribute, as determined by patriarchy, is challenged. Even the
association of Lakshmi as the goddess of wealth is seen as confining,
constricting. Dasgupta writes:
I
will sing the freedom song
I
may not be Lakshmi
But I am
I
just can’t be Lakshmi
I
have to break the silence
My
wealth is not jewels
My
wealth is my gipsy spirit (p. 13)
The apparently paradoxical statements of being and not
being Lakshmi can only be understood if the different Indian cultural connotations
of the word “Lakshmi” is taken. She goes on to write “I am Alakshmi” (p. 13) – someone who has been unbound from the
boundedness of gendered cultural denotation of the linguistic signifier. Sanjukta
Dasgupta has the amazing capacity to mix theory and aesthetics in a combination
that is both subtle and deep. Later in another poem “Festival of Lights”,
Lakshmi and Kali come together and become one in a poor human form of a “young
woman in a dirty faded sari/ And an oversized blouse” dancing under the flyover
(p. 36).
Many poems in this volume cry for freedom, be it on
topics of gender, race, class, caste, politics, refugees, displacements,
terrorism, rape, and so on. Poems like “Mrinal’s First Letter”, “Chandalika”,
“Chitrangada”, “Refugees” are all exemplary in this respect. In her poems there
can be found Ibsen’s Nora, Brecht and Gorky’s mothers, Shakespeare’s Caliban,
Shelley’s Ozymandias, and Tagore’s Gora. In the poem “Second Coming”, evoking
Yeats’s poem, she presents a picture of disillusionment and writes wittily
“Windows are not magic casements/ Not just forlorn fairy lands in cyber space”
(p. 29). In “A Tale of a Sleeping
Village” she writes: “A sleeping village/ Drenched in blood and tears/ Grew
three crops- guns, bullets and bombs” (p. 25). In “A New Dawn” she reminds how
Martin Luther King was introduced as a fellow Dalit from USA in a school in
India. Even in times of disappointments she presents a picture of hope. In
“Love Poem” she writes “After all each poem/ Is a love poem” (p. 50) and goes
on to say:
Love
is a storm that rushes through homes and hearts
Opening
barred windows and doors,
Melting
rusty locks with a magic touch
…
So
don’t tease me to write a love poem
What
else can I write? (pp. 50-51)
In “Let’s Go” she crafts each of the three-line
stanzas so meticulously with allusions to T. S. Eliot and Robert Browning and
gives a sonorous picture of Elysium in words. In “Staircase” she describes the
pathos of letting go when she writes:
Stepping
carefully
Down
the broad stately staircase
Will
no longer be watched
By
a pair of beautiful young eyes
Waiting
with a smile
At
the landing (p. 54)
These simple words paint a haunting picture so
poignant in its suggestion that it sucks the reader into the world of the poet.
Each of Sanjukta Dasgupta’s poems is such that it can be quoted and explicated
upon and perhaps all thirty-one poems in the volume can be reviewed
independently. And yet each poem may be connected with the other in the volume.
In “Ode to Silence” if one starts by reading the first few lines “Sounds of
silence/ Trickled like silent teardrops/ On a monsoon midnight” (p. 56), one
can easily make its connection with the closing lines of the poem “Ode to
Sound”, “Perhaps it is just some din/ A vociferous statement/ Bridging life and
oblivion” (p. 58).
First the poet creates the poem, and then the poem
re-creates the poet. This mutual process of creator being defined by one’s own
creations is very true of the poet-academic Sanjukta Dasgupta. Even though
“poiesis” means “making”, Plato denies that the poet is a creator and
attributes only the task of an imitator to the poet. Socrates in his Republic reduces poetry in status by
arguing that it is the third in descent from nature, the first two being ideas
and concrete objects. It was only Aristotle who uplifts poetry through his
theory of mimesis by saying that the poet actually improves on reality because
the poet does not mimics slavishly but artfully. To this it is necessary to add
that poetry too is a creator because each poem improves the art of the poet and
thereby re-creates the poet. With each poem we see the poet in a new light. Sanjukta
Dasgupta’s poems too do the same. Reading each of her poems we see her in a new
light. We appreciate her better as a poet, as a sensitive human being, and as a
Promethean figure who has stolen the “fire” from the spoils of patriarchy and
is bringing words of emancipation and love to humankind. Her poems, “A Poem a
Day Keeps the Psychiatrist Away”, “Bovine Exports”, “Talaq” and “Translation”
present a picture of the world and the self in conjunction, with an enlightened
perspective. Her poems are words that are erupting to come out of her being in
an endless stream. In “Poem Within” she writes:
A
poem within
Needs
to be let out
…
As
long as words survive… (p. 62-63)
The poem ends with ellipsis and that is how everything
ends because nothing ever ends…
Author's bio:
Dr.Sanjukta Dasgupta, Professor and Former Head, Dept of English and Former Dean, Faculty of Arts, Calcutta University is a poet, critic and translator. She is the recipient of numerous national and international grants and fellowships and has given poetry readings in India, Europe and the USA. Apart from her books on literary studies, media and gender studies, translations and Tagore studies, her articles, poems, short stories and translations have been published in journals of distinction in India and abroad. Her published volumes of poems are Snapshots( Writers Workshop), Dilemma (Anustup), First Language (Dasgupta Book Company), More Light ( Dasgupta Book Company) and Lakshmi Unbound ( Chirangi 2017).
Reviewer’s bio:
Dr. Amit Shankar Saha is a faculty member in the Department of English at Seacom Skills University. He is also a researcher, a critic, a short story writer and a poet. His obtained a PhD degree in English from Calcutta University in 2010. His research articles, essays, reviews, stories and poems have appeared in magazines, journals, periodicals and anthologies both nationally and internationally. He has won Wordweavers Prize (Poetry-2011, Short story-2014), Poiesis Award for Excellence in Literature (Short story-2015), The Leaky Pot - Stranger than Fiction Prize (2014), Asian Cha – Void Poetry Prize (2014), Reuel Prize for Poetry (Shortlisted-2016). He is the co-founder and coordinator of Rhythm Divine Poets (http://rhythmdivinepoets.blogspot.in), a Kolkata-based poets group dedicated to the promotion of poetry. His website is http://sites.google.com/site/amitshankarsaha and he blogs at http://amitss6.blogspot.com
