"Kali" is a popular award winning poem by the eminent Indian writer, linguist and literary critic Rukmini Bhaya Nair. The poem won First Prize in the Second All India Poetry Competition conducted by The Poetry Society (India) in 1990. The poem has been widely cited and anthologised in reputed journals and scholalry volumes on contemporary Indian poetry.
Contents
Excerpts from the poem
A goddess chews on mythAs other women might on paanRed juices stain her mouth.Bored by her own powersImmense and spectral, Kali broodsAbout Shiva, she is perverse.She will not plead with himNor reveal Ganesha’s birthShe will not ask him home.Shiva loves her, but absencesAnd apsaras are natural to himNo god is hampered by his sins.Loneliness drives this goddess madShe is vagrant, her limbs askewShe begs a mate, her hair unmade.Fickle as Shiva, memory deserts herChandi or Durga or Parvati, whichIs she, which of her selves weeps here?Even Ganesha, for whom she feelsOnly tenderness, excludes her, even heSeems impatient with her flaws.Both gift Kali a companion eagle, hurtBy no arrow, fed on nothing, it returnsEach night to its eyrie in her heart.Comments and criticism
The poem has received rave reviews since its first publication in 1990 in the anthology on Indian Poetry Emerging Voices. The poem has been frequently quoted in scholarly analysis of contemporary Indian English Poetry. The poem is regarded by critics as a jewel in contemporary Indian poetry.
Although outwardly the poem describes the Hindu Goddess Kali, her tantrums and her equation with her son Ganesha and consort Shiva, the poem has a clear existentialist message for the Indian woman and her many socio-psychological trappings. In her writings, Rukmini brings about this interplay between the esoteric and the mundane in systematic subjugation of Indian woman over the centuries. The poem has been widely discussed at various literary festivals.