Mallika Sengupta

Rating: 4.33
Rating: 4.33

Mallika Sengupta Poems

She who spun rhymes, wove blankets
The Dravidian woman who sowed wheat
In the Aryan man’s fields, reared his kids
If she isn’t worker, then what is work?
...

The moment she tucks in the mosquito net and goes
to bed, her husband's black hands fumble after
...

The drumroll of centuries —
our hearts beat
with hopes and fears.
...

As the shadows of Minto Park shifted
They too moved away from the sun's heat,
The two creatures who had left the dreadful house
Two storm-tossed birds - daughter and mother.
...

Listen o listen:
Hark this tale of Khanaa
In Bengal in the Middle Ages
...

Gujarat was a land of violet, red and green
But colors deceived like lizards
...

Man, I've never raised my arms against you

Slitting the hair-parting the day you drew the insignia of blood
I felt pain, I didn't tell you
...

Today, on our Computer Day
Come let's place our hand on the women.com button
This very own history of women
From illiteracy to women.com.

Once upon a time from this woman
You snatched the chance of reading the Vedas
All of you said women were just housewives
Men had the right to Sanskrit
Women's language, the language of the Sudras was different.

After a thousand years when the girl
Prepared herself for a girls' school
Bethune and Vidyasagar stood by her
All of you said
Women who read and write
Are bound to become widows.

Then when the woman entered the office space
Mother-in-law's sullen face, and the husband was suspicious
All of you said
What's the use of a family run with a wife's money?
The woman had to fight the storms and tempests.

Inch by inch in the thousand years the woman
Has earned knowledge and power
Inside a fiery heart, tranquil outwardly
Today half the sky is in the woman's palm

The world is an amlaki held in the woman's fist
Just a touch of a button
One day you who had denied her knowledge of alphabets
In her hand today is the computer world.
...

Man, I've never raised my arms against you

Slitting the hair-parting the day you drew the insignia of blood
I felt pain, I didn't tell you

On dry soil no rose blooms, no peacock dances
Yet digging the sandy terrain we drew water
With son on the lap have watched glow-worms, pointed out Orion.

We know earth is woman, the sky primal man
Then why have you chained my arms?
Why didn't you let me see the sun for a thousand years?

Don't insult the earth that holds you
Man, I've never raised my arms against you.
...

In man's body an extra limb
Invested with eternal power, earth's ownership
According to Mr Freud for lack of it woman is inferior
As an underling she envies man's virility

Nature is uncaring
Man is uncaring
Children are uncaring
Only Freud cares for women!

Who cares for compassion! Chitrangada? Joan of Arc?
Simone de Beauvoir or dark Draupadi!

"Penis-envy" is a term
Introduced by Mr. Freud
That extra which only man possesses
That's what diminishes woman
So she is uncertain in childhood
Decorates the Shivalinga with flowers at girlhood
Her playroom is full of dolls and utensils
For it's said that she is her mother's replica.

Whereas Rohit rehearses for war
American soldiers in fatigues in his room
Machineguns fusillade tra-ra-ra
As man's aggressiveness grows in him
If he claws cheeks with sharp nails
Man-child's extra prowess makes grandmothers beam
That extra bit in his body, that's the licence
Which will make him the world's owner.

Rohit will be the owner of which world?
Where Rohita is his partner! Inferior sex!
On galloping horseback with drawn sword
Emperor Rohit will set out to conquer the world
And he will be decked for war by mother, sister, wife
This is just what you wanted, Mr Freud!
If a woman warrior arrives from the opposite side
Will he abandon arms like Bhishma -
"I will not take up arms against women"
Implying woman won't be allowed to acquire arms -

This is primal man's sexual politics
Freud, because you belong to the extra-limb group
You assume women are inferior and hence envious!

During my childhood I felt no penis-envy
My identity was complete
Even today I'm a confident, complete woman,
A sensitive dark girl of the Third World
Shall stand against you from today
Who is inferior, who superior, which is more or less -
Who has given you the duty of solving
Such a political debate Mr Freud!!
...

She spun rhymes, wove blankets
The Dravidian woman who sowed wheat
In the Aryan man's fields, reared his kids
If she isn't a worker, then what is work?

Tell us Marx, who is a worker, who isn't
New industrial workers with monthly wages
Are they the only ones who work?
Slum life is the Industrial Age's gift
To the worker's housewife
She draws water, mops floors, cooks food
After the daily grind, at night
She beats her son and weeps
She too is not a worker!
Then tell us Marx, what is work?

Since housework is unpaid labour, will women simply
Sit at home and cook for the revolutionary
And comrade is he alone who upholds hammer and sickle?
Such injustice does not become You

If ever there's a revolution
There'll be heaven on earth
Classless, stateless, in that enlightened world
Will women then become the handmaidens of revolution?
...

Mallika Sengupta Biography

Mallika Sengupta was a Bengali poet, feminist, and reader of Sociology from Kolkata, known for her "unapologetically political poetry". Biography Mallika was born in Krishnanagar, a village in Nadia district, West Bengal, India. Sengupta is a proponent of an unapologetically political poetry and an important voice in contemporary Bengali literature. She began writing in 1981 and has since published eleven books of poetry, two novels and several essays, and edited an anthology of women’s poetry from Bengal. She works as a lecturer of sociology in a Kolkata college where she is currently the head of her department. She is also the Poetry Editor of Sananda, the Bengali women’s fortnightly (edited by Aparna Sen). Sengupta has won numerous awards, including the Sukanto Puraskar (1998) from the Government of West Bengal, and a Junior Fellowship for Literature (1997 – 99) from the Department of Culture, Government of India. She has travelled to several poetry festivals, conferences and seminars in India, Sweden, Austria, USA and Bangladesh. English translations of her work have appeared in various anthologies. In addition to teaching, editing and writing, she has been actively involved with the cause of gender justice and other social issues. Along with other poets and artists, she has initiated Aloprithivi, a forum committed to raising consciousness among marginalized women and children through poetry, music and drama. Sengupta has consistently refused to be squeamish about mixing her activism with her art. As she tells poet, critic and translator Sanjukta Dasgupta in the interview included in this edition, “Ideology ruins poetry, but not always. Rather every poet has to face this challenge at some period of her life… I think a good poet can always insert ideology into poetry without destroying aesthetic conditions.” Dasgupta describes her as ‘an admirably alert, ardent and articulate person’ for whom feminism ‘is not just an academic issue’ but ‘a conviction and a challenge’. ‘In her poetry, womanhood does not remain an interiorised awareness,’ writes Dasgupta. ‘It becomes an energetic protest against marginalisation, interrogating women’s position in society as the oppressed other.’ In the poems included in this edition we hear the strong, unhesitant, unambiguous voice of a writer with a message. One begins to understand why Dasgupta describes the poet as the Taslima Nasrin of West Bengal. The polemics here are quite clearly the poetics. It would be easy to dismiss this poetry as strident, shrill and ‘soapboxy’, particularly if one values an aesthetic paradigm of obliquity and subtext. However, it is useful to remind oneself of the perennially fraught but vital presence of protest poetry in the literatures of the world. And on reading this extract from Kathamanabi, a long poem by Sengupta (translated by Vaijayanti Gupta), one begins to see yet again why the raised voice must sometimes replace the genteel murmur: “I am "her" voice, recounting her tales, from the Vedic age to the 21st century. The fire that has remained stifled in the ashes of history, smothered by time and age, I am that woman - I speak of her. I read tears, I write fire, I live in infamy and consume its ashes. I endure violence, and still breathe fire. I live as long as this fire burns within me. Activism and Literary Themes Sengupta is also active in a number of protest and gender activism groups. Her fiery, combative tone, can be seen in many poems, e.g. "While teaching my son history": "Man alone was both God and Goddess Man was both father and mother Both tune and flute Both penis and vagina As we have learnt from history." often dealing with women's marginalized role in history: "after the battle said chenghis khan the greatest pleasure of life, is in front of the vanquished enemy to sleep with his favourite wife." Particularly evocative is her feminist rendition of the legend of khanA, a medieval female poet whose tongue was allegedly cut off by her jealous husband: "In Bengal in the Middle ages Lived a woman Khanaa, I sing her life The first Bengali woman poet Her tongue they severed with a knife Her speechless voice, "Khanaar Bachan" Still resonates in the hills and skies Only the poet by the name of Khanaa Bleeding she dies." Death A breast cancer survivor, she was under treatment since Oct. 2005. and passed away on 28th may, 2011 leaving her partner and college-age son behind.)

The Best Poem Of Mallika Sengupta

Tell Us Marx

She who spun rhymes, wove blankets
The Dravidian woman who sowed wheat
In the Aryan man’s fields, reared his kids
If she isn’t worker, then what is work?



Tell us, Marx, who is a worker who isn’t
New industrial workers with monthly wages
Are they the only ones who work?
Slum life is the Industrial Age’s gift
To the worker’s housewife

She draws water, mops floors, cooks food
After daily grind at night
She beats her son and weeps
She too isn’t worker?

Then tell us, Marx, what is work!
Since housework is unpaid labour, will women simply
Sit at home and cook for the revolutionary
And comrade he is alone who wields hammer and sickle!
Such injustice does not become You



If ever there is a revolution
There will be heaven on earth
Classless, stateless, in that enlightened world
Tell us, Marx

Will women then become the handmaidens of revolution?


[Translated by Sanjukta Dasgupta]

Mallika Sengupta Comments

Malay Ghosh 17 October 2020

I wan t to print the poem Amar Durga

0 0 Reply
Madan Chandra Ghorai 27 November 2019

I want to print the Kanyaslok/Aamar Durga in bengali version.

1 0 Reply
Shyamal Mukherjee 10 July 2019

Draupadi Janmo poem in print form

0 0 Reply

Mallika Sengupta Popularity

Mallika Sengupta Popularity

Close
Error Success