EKALAVYA SPEAKS – A Review
Navamalati Neog Chakraborty reviews “Ekalavya Speaks,” a collection of poems by Sanjukta Dasgupta where she highlights Dasgupta’s powerful narratives on historical and contemporary issues, emphasizing themes of betrayal, justice, and societal reflection.
The joy of an indescribable connect with 21st-century poets lies in reading their unfiltered thoughts and expressions. This is I believe the biggest takeaway from life, when strobe lights are set and the space in relationship with readers gives scope to explore those truths which are with us despite time passing by. Afflictions make us wise, for we may now edit on a blank page to which time has placed no comments or has been indifferent. Poets have thus become the sounding board with their indefatigable persistence. Sanjukta Dasgupta’s collection of poems in EKALAVYA SPEAKS has despite its stasis in being a name from a past memory, become our sounding board to dwell on a reality, that has in the present times gained much shame and much focus. No wonder, Lakshmi Kannan states, ‘Reading her poems is an immersive experience.’
Dwelling on the title of Dasgupta’s ninth collection of poems, and the title poem, one is led back to recall that young tribal lad, a Nishad dweller. He, as EKALAVYA shall, according to me, always speak out even as years and centuries pass by within the memory of a frame where an older Dronacharya with his pretentious face and his out-stretched hand is eager to receive the alms of relief… ’the right-hand thumb’, from Ekalavya. Without the thumb, there shall be no excellence. The boy had un-ditheringly placed his chopped-out right-hand bleeding thumb on that disgusting palm which also had its thumb, to earn his bread and acclaim in life, from the Pandava princes. It will be for him, the Guru not worth the name, who can stoop so low! This Ekalavya whom he had not taught the art, a fine art he taught only his son Ashwatthama, will land him in trouble! He had merely seen and learnt. Dronacharya shall never accept a low-birth student. To seek an untouchable’s thumb now, as gurudakshina, can be the height of his degradation, as well as a proclamation of his hush-hush ways. Hence for posterity, every time Ekalavya’s name crops up, Dronacharya’s name shall shy away. When the name of Dronacharya as a guru arises, the name of Ekalavya shall rise higher and higher in esteem and excellence, in honesty and fortitude! In the realm of archery!
Sanjukta Dasgupta has two poems in this collection, on this theme of Ekalvya and Dronacharya. One is Ekalavya Speaksand the other is Dronacharya: The Teacher of Princes. Both dwell on that betrayal of a Guru of the time, duping a young boy.
Sir, I saw you from afar
Shining like a sword in the sun
Surrounded by the five Princes
The Pandavas the invincible offspring
Of privilege and birthright
Tradition uplifts the Dronacharya’s of the world, but they have to keep up that faith and regard. Thus, in her second poem, Dasgupta writes…
If Ekalavya had rained
A dozen arrows
Into Drona’s heart
The grand Indian epic
Would have celebrated
Meritocracy instead of
The arrogance of Aristocracy.
But what I feel is that it was not about aristocracy as such, but the cowardice and fear of losing his bread and butter, together with his repute. Dasgupta is a very sharp and pointed poet and finds many a chronic malady on the pages of history, that makes our records falter at nearly every step. Yet the poet in her, with her seeming light-hearted vigour makes a doughty search of man’s conscience. Her poems keep aglow our reasonings. She sensed the unease of life with her optimism, highlighting the unease life has to slip into, every now and then. Her poems Shambuka, Kurukshetra, Shikhandi, Hul: The Santhal Rebellion, June 30, 1855, or Chuni Kotal’s Query need to be read. Her poems are not just about the past but dwell on the present too in a reflection as in The Constitution Maker: B. R. Ambedkar
Brand new Parliament
Creative Freedom and Social Justice
The profound message simply told.
All seemingly understated, and yet Dasgupta strikes deep down. That’s what a poet ought to do. A poet’s pen is about responsibility. We no longer have the leisure or liberty to look at nights of starry skies or speak of Lucy Gray. Those were not our times, as our times have us look pointedly at significant issues. We are the modern realistic poets of our time. In Citizen, she says:
Our India, not a tired idea
Our India belongs to us all
All we citizens of India
Hindus, Muslims, Christians
Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs
With Manipur in a turmoil; the devastations foretell that eventually, the womenfolk become the bait, apart from the killings.
Stripped and raped
They still walk on.
Life can really choose to be wild with such devastating truths clinging on to the space and pattern it affords. In India, this is our reality, and thus the poet beseeches Gandhi…
Bapu, come back
We will shield you from
Bullets and ballots.
Dasgupta’s words are relaxed and casually spoken, even as she reconnects with a twinkle in her eye. In her poem Religion and Politics: A Dialogue she says…
Religion:
Making me user-friendly through the centuries
My hymns and mantras chanted and twisted
That’s all about holding on to sanity in a lop-sided world where Chuni Kotal’s suffer and Pietas grace our lives as a reminder once carved with all her pain on a slab of Carrara marble. Even her idea of finding those dead assassinated leaders together in The Coffee Shop creates more pain than lightening moods in a world where the thrust of a knife, or the pull of a trigger creates martyrs. She speaks of patriarchal pressure too, that seems to grip hold of the reins since eternity. Drudgery seems to be a woman’s fate.
EKALAVYA SPEAKS is an assertive bold promise not to swallow our sobs anymore. It’s the pens power to retaliate. Afterall every poet like Sanjukta Dasgupta mortgages themselves on putting pen to paper for the welfare of a nation and her people. Afterall, aren’t we the people! Our pain does matter! And Ekalavya shall speak the loudest by his silence through the dark ages.
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