by Rabindranath Tagore Have you not heard his silent steps?He comes, comes, ever comes.Every moment and every age, every day and every night he comes, comes, ever comes.Many a song […]
On Resistance, Shame, and the Politics of the Female Body in “Draupadi” Most stories about sexual violence end with the woman diminished — broken, silent, or dead. The violence is […]
On Power, Knowledge, and the Limits of the Liberal Mind in “Draupadi” Here is a thought experiment. Imagine a professor who spends twenty years studying poverty — reading every book, […]
On Mythology, Memory, and Rewriting in Mahasveta Devi’s “Draupadi” Names carry weight. When a parent names a child, they are usually doing two things at once — marking identity and […]
A Reading Guide to Mahasveta Devi’s “Draupadi” There is a certain kind of story that does not let you put it down after the last page. Not because it is […]
There is a phrase near the centre of Mamang Dai’s poem that rewards the kind of slow, repeated reading that most poems ask for but few receive: “I am the […]
Before this poem was a poem, it was something older. That is not quite a figure of speech. When Mamang Dai writes about a mountain speaking, about a shaman laying […]
Nature poems are supposed to be peaceful. That is part of their appeal — you enter them the way you enter a garden, leaving the noise of the world behind. […]
Here is the first puzzle Mamang Dai sets for her reader: who, exactly, is talking? The title says the mountain. But read a few lines further and the speaker is […]
There’s a story most of us tell ourselves right before we walk onto a stage. It goes something like this: Everyone is watching me. Everyone can see how nervous I […]
