Arun Kolatkar’s Bhijakī Vahī: Sacrifice and residues

Abstract

ABSTRACT Arun Kolatkar (1932–2004), the bilingual Indian poet, deploys a series of female figures – some from mythology and folktales, others from contemporary history – in his collection Bhijakī Vahī (Sodden Notebook), first published in 2003 a few months before his death. The poems, each devoted to a different woman and sometimes narrated from their point of view, articulate tales of suffering, grief, and loss. The subjects include mythological figures such as the Egyptian goddess Isis, and Helen of Troy, but also real women such as the “napalm girl” Kim Phuc, photographed by Nick Ut during the Vietnam War. The symbolic apparatus of sacrifice, with its notions of residues, substitution, victims, and apotheosis, is consistently deployed around these figures as a way of approaching modern conflicts, and especially projects of mass extermination. These questions gain particular salience in the contemporary political conjuncture in India, defined by the rise of violent, majoritarian ideologies.