By Malashri Lal
Nandini Sahu, Medusa (A Collection of
Poems), Black Eagle Books: Dublin, USA,
and Bhubaneswar, India, 2025. Pages 123, Rs. 300.
The name ‘Medusa’ evokes the terrible image of a woman who has snakes for her hair and a dreaded capacity for turning her opponent into stone. The word ‘petrified’ etymologically means ‘turned to stone’, and that is precisely what Medusa does in actual and metaphorical terms in the mythological tale and its adaptations. Nandini Sahu in her collection of poems, Medusa, generates a thought-provoking alternative image, that of a woman wronged in the story from Greek mythology and who deserves a sympathetic look. Sahu recalls that Medusa was a beautiful priestess in Athena’s temple. Pursued by Poseidon, she took refuge in the temple but was sexually assaulted there. Goddess Athena, angry that her sanctuary had been desecrated, cursed Medusa into becoming the dreaded figure that we know her as—ugly and destructive. Poseidon was never punished for misusing his power. Nandini Sahu revisits the original story and unravels the suppressions imposed on Medusa: her unspoken desires, choices, identity and freedom. This trope of the violated woman is not unknown in the narratives repeated over generations and Nandini Sahu, an eminent scholar of Comparative Literature brings her knowledge to bear upon the forgotten histories of the women who were silenced. Examples I can cite would be Philomela whose tongue was cut off so she could never reveal details of her rape. There is also Ahalya who is tricked by Indra who appeared in the guise of Ahalya’s husband and seduced her. The woman is the victim, yet she is punished, not the man. Why should there be such injustice, and that too perpetuated over time?
In this context, Nandini Sahu’s Medusa
is a path breaking collection because she uses the idea of Medusa, and not
necessarily the details of the story, to assert that women cherish their dreams
and aspirations, but are caught in the bind of patriarchal power structures and
often exploited by men. Many forego all thoughts of fulfilling their goals.
Coming to the poems themselves, I am particularly struck by the confident
feminine voice that articulates its needs, fearlessly, and claims its
independence. Comparative Studies would be encouraged by such a book as Medusa
from Greek legends metamorphoses into contemporary figures in India and
elsewhere. Examples of specific poems
may be cited. ‘An Ode to Every Woman’ has the lines ‘She bends to none, she is
indomitable/ that is the paradox of strength in her soft hands’ (26). In ‘Mago’
the poet admits ‘My worst battle is between/ what I know, and what I feel’ (54).
Another poem has the lines ‘Synaesthesia, the neutral condition/ causes me a
consolidation of the senses’ (101). These quotations have in common the self-questioning
of an intellectual woman who has understood the social constructions and is discovering
her strategies for overcoming the obstacles. This, to my mind, is a universal paradigm, and
therefore, even when Nandini Sahu uses specifically Indian material, the
stories serve as emblems of the suppression imposed on women, and the legacy of
such silencing that continues even today.
Embedded within the book’s theme of woman’s
objectification is the long poem titled ‘Dushyant and Shakuntala’. It takes us
through the story that is well known of a secret marriage, a token of
remembrance, the forgetfulness, the final discovery of the truth and the union
of lovers. The poem, however, questions the values attached to the court and
the pastoral village. Shakuntala muses in the final section about the relative
merits in words such as these:
bound to earth, yet free, forlorn.
But love in a palace is chiselled stone,
a thing of the heart yet carved alone. (79)
Sahu tends to focus on the interiority of the woman’s mind, thereby broadening the horizons of traditional narratives. For example, she uses generic subheadings in the Dushyant-Shakuntala poem such as the ‘Recognition and Reunion’, and ‘A Woman in Waiting’. The reader understands the nucleus of the story in a modern context of abandonment, helplessness, dislocation—these are today’s experiences though far from the ashram environment of the original tale.
Turning to regional folklore is the story of
Tapoi from Odissa sources (89) It recounts how a woman prayed to Goddess
Mangala to get her brothers back, and she finally triumphs as a figure of
celebration. Tracking mainstream myths, the poem ‘Manthan’ revisits the famous churning
of the ocean as the gods and Demons fight over Amrit or the elixir of life. But the
modern message is more personal and positive as the woman discovers for herself
that Manthan also throws up love which is ‘ember’ and ‘granite’ but also ‘a
prayer from the heart’ (21). The diversity in the volume, and the intertextual
connections with global literature in Medusa builds a rich archive echoing
material from the English syllabus that many of us have studied. Yet Sahu’s post-modernist
twist excites a contemporary energy that
is feminist without being hostile.
I end my review with the author’s Preface which
forcefully states her idea of Medusa, ‘She is the regular, here and now, normal
woman with all the strengths and weaknesses in her multi layered, multifaceted
character, like us modern, post- modern and post- post- modern women, hence
this title of my book; (11). Appropriately, the opening poem begins with the
words ‘I am Medusa, I merge with you’. Later
follow my favourite lines,
In other
words, there is a Medusa lurking in each woman who has tried to protect herself
against the forces of oppression. She has been assaulted and punished and reviled.
It takes a scholar of Nandini Sahu’s stature to revisit such a figure and
restore to her the dignity that is due and to also pull her into our
contemporary discourse, so that women under threat are inspired to express
their rebellion and seek the collaboration of sisterhood. The book finally
leaves a message of courage and self-growth for today’s women, not just in
India or in Greece, but women as a whole as a gendered ‘second sex’.
Bio: Malashri Lal, with twenty-four books, retired as Professor, English Department, University of Delhi. Publications include Tagore and the Feminine, and The Law of the Threshold. Co-edited with Namita Gokhale is the ‘goddess trilogy’ and also Betrayed by Hope: A Play on the Life of Michael Madhusudan Dutt which received the Kalinga Fiction Award. Lal’s poems Mandalas of Time received global acclaim. Honours include the prestigious ‘Maharani Gayatri Devi Award for Women’s Excellence’ and the international SETU award of Excellence.
