'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)dilemma of shared responsibility and commitment of the intellectual and the articulateclass towards the well being of civic society. Writing against the ‗conspiracy of silence‘,she chooses to ‗retrieve‘ her pen and write ‗without mincing (her) words‘. The poettranscreates the violence torn city in the opening lines of the poem:In a momentthe city turns to pebble, stone, dagger, razorruin, spark, flame, ashIn a moment,mobs with hammer, pickaxe, shovel and hand grenadepulverise the city.The present brings back remembrance of the fractured subcontinental history whenpartition was followed by riots and blood shed. Past creeps into the present, old memoriesare raked up by the present violence:My pen collides with the skeletons of historyWinds howl, like the death rattle of corpses waking from their slumberWhirling winds of death shake the very pillars of civilisationHurling dust into an ebbing faith in lifeSinking claws, vomiting blood everywhere.In a moment, vision is blinded and directions obscured,The skin of humanity flayed offA poet cannot merely remain as a mute spectator or an observer. Despite belonging to themajority community, she writes in a tone that is anti-establishment in tone and tenor.With this frame of mind she tries to salvage a writer‘s ethical commitment to the society.She has the courage and the determination to speak against atrocities committed againsthumanity in clear unequivocal terms‘Crossing thresholds: Radical notes in women’s writings from contemporary South Asia,’Madhu SinghJPCS Vol 2 No 4, December 201192
I: a poetI cannot exist as a mere reporter.Nor as a court bard.Journal of Postcolonial Cultures and SocietiesISSN No. 1948-1845 (Print); 1948-1853 (Electronic)I want to grit my teeth and speak without mincing my wordsabout this conspiracy.But for thatI must retrieve my penfrom a deep dark well —my father‘s well,my ancestral well,the well that is the final refuge of womenwho dive to their own shameful death.I have to throw in a fishing hook, and pull outmy pen, a brand new penwith my hands alone.Women‘s writing in Pakistan is inseparable from the country‘s politics, and from thebeginning their writings have been characterized by certain toughness. ‗The winds offeminism and the zeitgeist of postmodern times gave rise to a group of poets in India andPakistan who speak in a remarkably intelligent and confident voice. They may or may nothave studies western feminism, but they did share dissatisfaction with the status quo, notconcerned so much with the academic or theoretical aspect of gender bias as with itsblatant manifestation in the everyday life of a woman in the subcontinent. Long years offeudalism coupled with repression by regime fanned and fuelled the smoldering spark ofsuppressed anger.‘Crossing thresholds: Radical notes in women’s writings from contemporary South Asia,’Madhu SinghJPCS Vol 2 No 4, December 201193
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'Crossing Thresholds': Radical Notes in Women's Writings ... - JPCS

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