Book Review: Radha Chakravarty
At a
telling moment in Nadistuti, Lakshmi Kannan’s latest book of poems,
a petulant ocean asks the poet: “But tell
me, it seems you write more about rivers?” (44). This book is a powerful testament to the
primacy of rivers in the Indian imagination, charting a narrative of constant
becoming. The epigraph, from Khalil Gibran’s “The River Cannot Go Back”,
asserts the centrality of this theme, which flows through the entire collection
like a riverine network: “it’s not about disappearing into the ocean, / but of
becoming the ocean.”
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| Radha Chakravarty |
A
reputed bilingual writer who publishes in English and Tamil (as Kaaveri),
Lakshmi Kannan straddles different linguistic and cultural worlds. She is the
author of several books, including The Glass Bead Curtain (Vitasta 2020,
2016), Guilt Trip and Other Stories and Sipping the Jasmine Moon
(2019. The present volume brings together several strands in her work. The
title Nadistuti invokes the sacredness of rivers in Indian culture,
drawing upon the Rig Veda hymn from Nadistuti Sukta. Though the title carries a religious aura, there
is in fact a remarkable versatility in Kannan’s figurative use of rivers to
bridge the gap between spiritual, social, geographical and mythological frames
of reference. Through wry wit, irony, allusion and graphic imagery, the poems
challenge stereotypical ways of thinking. Like Kannan’s other writings, they
express a strong feminist perspective and a concern for the less privileged
members of society.
“Naman”,
the first of five sections, recalls the devastation caused by the Covid
pandemic. The opening poem “On the Slopes of Shanaracharya”, is dedicated to
the memory of the late Dr. H. K. Kaul, much loved former President of the
Poetry Society of India. “Vasundhara’s Last Journey” and “Meditative Mother” use
the figure of woman to recapture the horrors of the pandemic. The theme of the
pandemic recurs in “14 April, 2020
(Tamil New Year)” from the fourth section, “Mandalas”.
“Nadistuti”,
the second section, focuses on the seven rivers sacred to Vedic
topography—Narmade which marks the boundary between North and South India and
must be “invoked first” before a holy dip, Sindhu who “birthed a nation”,
Kaveri “the mighty”, Godavari, where “[t]he waters connect”, Sarasvati “the
invisible river”, Gange, “river of hope”, and Yamuna, associated with “[t]he
blue God”. In Kannan’s poems, rivers
flow across landscapes that are geographical, temporal but also psychological.
The voices of individual rivers come alive. In “Small Beginnings” for instance,
we hear Talkaveri: “Now I must flow out/ to grow into the mighty Kaveri, /
nothing can stop me. Nothing.” The prose-poem “Ponni Looks Back”, an
interesting formal experiment, presents river Kaveri, channelling the flow of
collective memory through changing times: “I am a mother linking all the
peoples of the land that I washed.” The
rivers are women, excepting Brahmaputra, “the only son”. In “Aarti” and
“Visarjan”, the inexorable flow of time arouses a poignant awareness of death
as a change of state. An ironic counterpoint persists, though, in the section’s
title poem “Nadistuti”, where a man chants ritual prayers during his
holy bath while worrying about the erratic water supply in his home.
“Chamundi”,
the third section, foregrounds Kannan’s feminist spirit. “Anger Becomes Her”
questions the stereotype of the angel in the house: “So much anger/ is not
proper for a girl”. The rebellious young woman is seen as “Kali, fury personified”.
“Hemavati” highlights the
“half-hearted welcome” accorded to the newborn girl child, who nevertheless
defiantly “flowed out/in search of their mother, Kaveri”. “Basant
Panchami” asserts women’s right to
education. “Snake Woman” uses dreams and superstition to expose social
prejudice against the girl child. The male child, named Nagaraja or Serpent
King, “hissed at his mother who fed him, / bared his fangs at his father/ and
spewed venom”, while his sister becomes a snake woman, sloughing off dead skin,
evolving and outgrowing herself. “Swivel Stool” uses the images of swing,
swivel stool and rocking chair to celebrate women’s subversion of patriarchal
control at different stages of their lives. “Muniyakka in Maximum City” casts an
ironic eye on the sophistication of the privileged, through the earthy idiom of
the housemaid who carries a bit of her village wherever she goes.
In a more philosophical vein, the section called
“Mandala” explores the intersection of the temporal and the timeless, through
the relationship of Jiva, the individual self, to Isvara or Paramatman, the
divine spirit in every living being. “Kolam” describes the Tamil version of rangoli,
where the patterns: “make, unmake, and re-make/ like a Buddhist mandala”.
“Maximum City” focuses on urban centres, Bangalore and Bengaluru, Madras and
Chennai, where house sparrows keep flying, in search of home. “Being Bilingual”
has autobiographical overtones, while “Pichhai” expresses gratitude for all the
blessings that life has given the poet.
Bio: Radha
Chakravarty is a poet, critic and translator. Her latest books include Subliminal:
Poems, Mahasweta Devi: Writer, Activist, Visionary and Kazi Nazrul Islam: Selected Essays. She has over 20 books to her credit,
including translations of major Bengali writers such as Rabindranath Tagore,
Bankimchandra Chatterjee, Kazi Nazrul Islam and Mahasweta Devi, and critical studies
of Tagore, women’s writing and gender issues. She has edited several anthologies
of South Asian writing, and co-edited the The Essential Tagore,
nominated Book of the Year 2011. She was Professor of Comparative Literature
and Translation Studies at Dr. B. R. Ambedkar University Delhi.
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