'Crossing Thresholds': Radical Notes in Women's Writings ... - JPCS

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Journal of Postcolonial Cultures and SocietiesISSN No. 1948-1845 (Print); 1948-1853 (Electronic)Woman who seeks love. In him . . . the hungry hasteOf rivers, in me . . . the oceans‘ tirelessWaiting. Who are you, I ask each and everyone,The answer is, it is I. Anywhere and,Everywhere, I see the one who calls himself IIn this world, he is tightly packed like theSword in its sheath.Going against the social imagination of a woman as sexually passive, gentle, selfsacrificing, monogamous and as the repository of the honour of the family, the poetnarratornarrates in a tone that is unambiguous, forthright, assertive yet somewhat tingedwith despair:It is I who drink lonelyDrinks at twelve, midnight, in hotels of strange towns,It is I who laugh, it is I who make loveAnd then, feel shame, it is I who lie dyingWith a rattle in my throat. I am sinner,I am saint. I am the beloved and theBetrayed. I have no joys that are not yours, noAches which are not yours. I too call myself I.Kamala Das‗s poetry, thus, pulsates with an urgent and compelling need to breakthrough the conventional barriers and establish a new tradition. Helene Cixous oncewrote:Women must write through their bodies, they must invent the impregnablelanguage that will wreck partitions, classes, and rhetorics, regulations and codes,they must submerge, cut through, get beyond the ultimate reserve discourse.(Cixous, 256)In the light of the above statement, it may be argued that Kamala Das‘s non conformistpoetry is a befitting example of feminist discourse on woman‘s body.‘Crossing thresholds: Radical notes in women’s writings from contemporary South Asia,’Madhu SinghJPCS Vol 2 No 4, December 201188
Journal of Postcolonial Cultures and SocietiesISSN No. 1948-1845 (Print); 1948-1853 (Electronic)A prolific fiction-writer, journalist, and activist Mahasweta Devi‘s story ‗The Hunt‘maps the experiences of the 'tribals'( a tribal woman, to be precise) and tribal life underdecolonization. The central female subaltern of the narrative Mary Oraon is a half-Anglo,half-tribal woman who finds some measure of independence in her outcast status. She isharassed and stalked by a male logging contractor named Tehsildar Singh who earliercame to her village to buy logging rights. ‗Wow! What a dish in these woods!‘ TahsildarSingh comments when he first set his eyes on Mary Oraon. Despite her resistance to hissexual advances, he cannot forget her. Finally, tired by his ‗tireless single-mindedpursuit‘, she invites him on a rendezvous at a secluded place deep into the forest duringthe annual spring festival, Janiparab or the ‗festival of justice‘. According to this tribalcustom, gender roles are reversed once every twelve years. Women become hunters whilemen dress up like clowns amidst drinking and a festive merrymaking. ‗This year is thetwelfth year. Mary will become a hunter in this year‘s ritual hunt‘. Rejoiced at theprospect of having a long desired tryst with her, Tehsildar Singh lies in wait as shereaches the deeply wooded area near the ravine. ‗Today a small thing cannot pleaseMary. She wants to hunt the big beast! A man, tehsildar. She is approaching a ravine.Nobody knows how deep the ravine is. Bottomless, cold darkness‘.At the appointedrendezvous, as Mary drinks ‗imported liquor‘ offered by him, thetehsildar is flushed and excited with the urgent expectancy of the moment of union. Marycaresses Tehsildar‘s face, gives him love bites on his lips. There is fire of lust and passionin his eyes. Mary watches him and she notices his face change into an animal. She hasmade up her mind:--Now take me?Mary laughed and held him, laid him on the ground. Tehsildar is laughing. Marylifts the machete, lowers it, lifts, lowers‘.A few million moons pass. Mary stands up. Blood? On her clothes? She‘ll washin the cut. With great deftness she takes the wallet from Tehsildar‘s pocket. A lotof money. A lot of money. She undoes the fold in the cloth at her waist and putsthe money with her own savings .‘Crossing thresholds: Radical notes in women’s writings from contemporary South Asia,’Madhu SinghJPCS Vol 2 No 4, December 201189
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'Crossing Thresholds': Radical Notes in Women's Writings ... - JPCS

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