The Daughter of Fire and Other Poems

About the Author:
Sukanya Maruthi is a Kannada poet with five collections of poetry to her credit. Besides English, her poems have been translated into Hindi, Marathi, Telugu and Malayalam. English translations of her poems have been brought out in journals like the Journal of Literature and Aesthetics and Pratibha India. She teaches Kannada in a local college in Dharwad and is involved in several social movements, particularly those concerning Dalits and women.

Teaser:

Then and Now

When my husband
Was still my friend and playmate,
I, his wife
Was then only a girl.

Be it in games or in lessons,
I hadn’t fallen behind him
Anytime.
Just once, while running,
My long skirt got stuck to my legs
And I fell.
The dhoti he wore caused no problem to him
And he won.
I, who fell on that day,
Haven’t got up till today.

I was, then,
Grime and dirt all over my body,
Hurt, sad, and defeated,
The ‘playmate’ who had deemed me then ‘untouchable’
And had kept me at a distance,
Now, has become my ‘husband’.

I, who was a ‘girl’
That hadn’t fallen behind him, then,
Am now a ‘wife’ for having fallen.
All that I had learnt in the school
I am using now
To count the number of wooden beams in the kitchen.

I spend my time now
Nourishing what he sows,
And searching for ‘myself’
Lost somewhere within me.

[Translated by Dr. C. N. Ramachandran]

Contents:
Foreword / 9
The Translators / 11
Traveller / 13
Wasn’t It You? / 14
A Parrot / 15
Words Like Pearls / 16
I Become Myself / 17
Ahalye / 18
Equality? / 19
Then and Now / 21
Desire / 23
Aspiration / 25
Time Continues to Slip Away / 26
We Laugh Once / 28
The Song of Tajmahal / 30
A Song / 32
Evenings / 33
Domes / 35
Boat / 37
Ladder / 38
Light / 40
I Am Now Forty / 42
A Dreary Prospect / 45
The Daughter of Fire / 47
Milestones / 49
Soliloquy of a Devadasi’s Daughter / 51
Priority / 54
Void / 56
Seeds of War / 58
To Poetry / 60
Phoenix / 61
Must Go Beyond This World / 62