JAC : A Journal Of Composition Theory ISSN : 0731-6755

Pen, Pain and Poem: Feminist-Humanist works of Sarup Dhruv Dr.Khevana Desai Assistant professor, Department of Sociology, Mithibai College of Arts, Mumbai, Maharashtra, Email: [email protected]

Abstract

Sarup Dhruv, a voice from was born in an independent nation (born a year after India attained freedom) and ultimately became the voice of the ones who never tasted freedom. She is not just the voice of the neglected but a voice most neglected in the mainstream and standardized . She is the one who experienced marginalization in the literary world and yet never ceased to worry, write or work for every single strata of the marginalized society. Her poems are an emblem of passion with which she has moved in the world of Gujarati literature like wings on fire. Her works are a reflection of her activism filled with social compassion, social work and ideas of empowerment of women, dalit and other marginalised sections that reshaped her vocabulary, insight and perception. For her poetries of protest could not and should not be confined to rigid „forms‟ with stereotyped content. It should be the voice of the voiceless and not a song for applauses and appraisal. Her poems and other writings are denoted as fearless, „free‟ and fiery or rather for the mainstream literary world „a deviance from the established‟. The paper attempts to highlight and analyse the path breaking and unconventional contribution of Sarup Dhruv not just in Gujarati literature in particular but in Indian women‟s writings at large.

Key words: Feminism, humanitarianism, Gujarati literature, women‟s writings.

No more poems of flowers from me/ they say seasons change with flowers but flowers that bloom naturally can’t even usher a word when they are picked or plucked, rumpled and crumpled, rubbed and crushed, brutally smashed and destroyed to death and yet taken to convert them for perfumes and vase, garland to graves or to the stoned lifeless temples and tombs, mosques and churches. - Sarup Dhruv (Hastkeshp, 2003)

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For anyone who loves feminist-humanitarian Gujarati literature Sarup Dhruv is not a name but an Institution. A powerful septuagenarian poet-writer, playwright, activist and a human right crusader.Sarup Dhruv, a voice born in an independent nation (born a year after India attained freedom) became the voice of the ones who never tasted freedom. Alas, she is not just the voice of the neglected but a voice most neglected in the mainstream and standardized Gujarati literature. She is the one who experienced marginalization in the literary world and yet never ceased to worry, write or work for every single strata of the marginalized society. Her poems are an emblem of passion with which she has moved in the world of Gujarati literature like wings on fire. Her entire work and vision can be summarised in her statement “I always said the truth, not to establish myself but to express, to express the pain in its all honesty and universality”.

Born in an upper caste, educated community of VadnagraNagars, she remained alien to words like atrocities or scarcity in her nascent years. Both her highly educated parents were at the forefront of socio-cultural milieu in the city and had close affiliations with the progressive and intellectual elites including Sarabhai family. Dhruv, in her early days witnessed the glory of literary activities of the elite by the elite and in most cases for the elite of Gujarat. She believes that the seeds of poetry were sown during that period.

A progressive and secular mind expanded its horizons in the diverse and multicultural environment at St.Xaviers College. Inter- dinning and mingling became a natural act. Neither surrounded by activists in the family nor a product of any direct student union activities, Dhruv was an ardent reader and a follower of utopian literary world in her early college and University days. And it was here where her love for Gujarati literature turned into a passion, madness. Reading, writing and teaching literature had become her sole purpose. She aimed to have a distinct identity by doing so, by breathing and living literature and making a living out of it. Establishing oneself in that world and making a mark as a literary figure was what she dreamt of. Away from the politics in society, of society, indifferent to the world full of inequality and injustice she had confined herself in a cosy tranquillity of words and dreams.

Poems of ‘personal is political’

Late sixties and early seventies was a time when she began to enter the world of existentialism, modernism, surrealism prevailing in hitherto world literature. Here enormous readings of classics and contemporaries of Indian and world literature including the subaltern voices only remained an ideology to be pondered upon and not write about. It was then that her euphoria with words got a point of contact. She joined and became an active member of hotel poets group spearheaded by Chinu Modi, a modern voice in Gujarati poetry. She was also associated with „Re math’, poetry group of experimental writers in modern and postmodern Gujarati literature in 1970s and 80s. She came in close contact with LabhshankarThaker, Madhu Rye, and Manhar Modi. Dhruv, with all her overarching influence of her ancestors, kept herself away from realistic or reality oriented literature. She wrote, wrote a lot during those poet‟s group meets, discussed and imbibed new forms, new methods of critical

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appreciation of literature and protested against the feel-good factor of literature from Gandhian era. Later she published her first collection of poetry MeraHathni Vat (1982), which won an award from the Gujarati SahityaParishad. It had expressions of her world and personal struggles of an urban educated woman.

But soon that euphoria vanished. The initial need to identify with the „in-group‟ had withered away and so had the pleasure of being called a „poet‟ and „establishing‟ one‟s self amongst that reference group. Infact, even for „Mara haathnivaat‟ that was published post this bubble burst, she felt like “accepting the illegal child publicly”. She couldn‟t identify with most of the expressions of the collection. She realized the hollowness behind those ideologies. Vague and ambiguous thought processes about „change‟. It was all shallow and aimed towards replacing the pre-existing authoritarian voices with one‟s own. It lacked social concerns, all pervasive injustice and life oriented vision. It‟s when she realized that she never wanted to write what she did so far. Her heart revolted against all that and all those whom she thought were her guiding forces. The flowery language of her contemporaries began to hurt her like a thorn. The romanticism and surrealism of „Mara Hathni Vat (1982)‟ transformed into flames of fire in „Salgatihavaao’ (1995). The utopian castle of poetry had demolished by now and a new terrain of reality was being cultivated and continued to flourish in her latest collection poems „Hastakshep‟ and SahiyaraSurajniShdohma (2003). Post 1982 her personal pains and anger were expanding its horizons and took path that was less travelled. She began to question the very essence of hitherto written poetries.

A path less travelled

Late eighties and early nineties, made her personal pain, political. That taught her the poem of protest. That gave her the power to persist. Beginning with being an educator at Jesuit society, where she could witness or observe her own literature and culture from outside and then slowly entering into the world of social compassion, social work, empowerment of women, dalits and other marginalised. Her vocabulary was changing and so was her perceptions and insight.

In 1984, She along with her co-traveler Hiren Gandhi established „SamvedanSanskritikManch’ and crossed the threshold of the burgeoiselietraray world for the first time. With no support from the elite cultural groups or rather amidst great protest they began their journey as playwright of some of the most revolutionary acts of that time. And slowly they moved beyond the horizons of the city, the state and joined hands with several other comrades from different parts of the nation. A fight that began just as a demand for freedom of expression turned in to a movement for humanity, equality and justice. A journey that began to express anger turned into working for the ones who face the anguish every day. Expanding the arms and encompassing every voiceless, marginalised, down trodden, women, dalit, tribal, homeless, slum dweller, unemployed, daily wage labourers, child labour, the wide strata of exploited minorities. She along with her group participated in every possible rally against inflation, displacement,

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riots, tragedies, anti-reservation bills and got associated with programmes for peace, awareness, empowerment and justice.

All the traditional, compartmentalized shackles of poetries were breaking. She realised the poetries of protest couldn‟t and shouldn‟t be confined to rigid „forms‟ with stereotyped content. It should be the voice of the voiceless and not a song for applauses and appraisal. It was here that her poems became fearless, „free‟ and fiery or rather for the mainstream literary world „a deviance from the established‟. Her vocabulary was harsh, heart wrenching, acidic and bitter just like reality. She was often questioned for writing „only those kind of poems‟. Social commitment to that world was for skits, journalism and reports. For them poetry was or rather is for beauty and serenity. But by then Sarup had already begun to walk the path less travelled.

FLAMING AIR I breathe in the flaming air, my friends, I strike the flint on stone. Spiced, flavoured thoughts of a thousand years Are my stuffing; I am a corpse, my friends, A mummy; I laugh with a rattling laugh. I’ve inherited only teeth and claws; I bark in a borrowed tongue, my friends, I bark in a borrowed tongue.

I am a stone that crashes against The glittering glass of this mirror-studded town; I’m the crack between its jagged shards: I widen it inch by inch, my friends, I am the space between.

In the morning I tend my weapons, my friends I test the edge of the blades on my palm. I’m a python in the darkness of night. My tail is in my mouth, my friends, it is myself I devour.

My neck is in a noose; perhaps someone Else is pulling the rope, my friends. I dangle in a no-man’s land. Not wishing to die, I die, my friends, not wanting it, I die.

- Salagatihavaao, (1995)

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The 2002 Godhra riots and the aftermath shattered the human in Sarup Dhruv. The barbaric violence and atrocities had a devastating impact on her and her group. What shocked her further was the indifferent and communal approach of her contemporaries, authorities and society at large. She witnessed her own doomed city like never before. Her pen dipped in acid was unstoppable then just like her tears. It dripped blood blended with incessant anger, frustration, throbbing anguish, misery of thousands of her fellow Gujarati men and women from shanties and slums of the city. She kept searching for humanity amidst dead bodies.

IT’S ALL IN MY HANDS In a moment the city turns to pebble, stone, dagger, razor ruin, spark, flame, ash

In a moment, mobs with hammer, pickaxe, shovel and hand grenade pulverise the city

My pen collides with the skeletons of history Winds howl, like the death rattle of corpses waking from their slumber Whirling winds of death shake the very pillars of civilisation Hurling dust into an ebbing faith in life Sinking claws, vomiting blood everywhere. In a moment, vision is blinded and directions obscured, The skin of humanity flayed off

I: a poet I cannot exist as a mere reporter. Nor as a court bard. I want to grit my teeth and speak without mincing my words about this conspiracy But for that I must retrieve my pen from a deep dark well — my father’s well, my ancestral well, the well that is the final refuge of women who dive to their own shameful death.

I have to throw in a fishing hook, and pull out

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my pen, a brand new pen with my hands alone.

-SalagatiHavaao (1995)

Dhruv‟s intervention is not entirely through the conduit of literature. She has worked with ISRO making docu-dramas and films for the development and education in Kheda District. In the aftermath of the riots, she worked closely with survivors, bringing relief supplies, recording and registering cases and co-authoring a street play, Dilma ChheEk Ash (The Heart Remains Hopeful), which was staged in relief camps. Her collection of testimonies of Godhra Survivors has been published in Hindi “Ummidhogi koi” later translated to Gujarati by Mohan Dandikar as ‘ansaarekashano’. “Praxis, committed action, is an urgent necessity,” she maintains. “Without that there is a kind of hollowness in one‟s writing.” The aim, she says, is not merely to write about or for the downtrodden, but to write with them. “A committed writer should be actively engaged in working alongside them, empowering them to become creative.” (www. poteryinternationalweb.net)

Her concerns never became sympathies or empathies towards the victim. Her human- centric approach never came up from philanthropy but it generated empowerment, strength and a venting point for thousands of frustrated silences. Tribals in Gujarat outnumbers the dalit, and post new industrial policies and capitalist development models, they have been uprooted and displaced on a large scale. May it be Narmada BachaoAndolan or forest rights of tribal, Dhruv‟s active participation was ensured through her words.

To the heir of Eklavya

Friends! Their drawing rooms shine with the wooden frame coming from your forest And it is said tribal perish the forest! Albeit, they cut your tress first, Make an axe out of it, Cut your leg with that And make u understand that axe was yours For years they have been practicing this black magic...

-SalgatiHavao (2003)

Her other research works and edited volumes include „Sabarmati puchhechhe’ (1986), KalmukhoAndhkaarBhedva (Vol 1-6) (2003), HeernoHinchko (Collection of Dalit songs of

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women in Bhalbarani community) (2001) and safarnama (Five volumes of Anthropological and socio-cultural account of places of Gujarat).

Recipient of a couple of literary awards, the noteworthy of all is the Hellman and Hamit award from Human Right Watch, USA for her courageous writings and resistance to censorship by Government in 2008.

Humanitarian feminism and lyrical sisterhood

Being woman for Sarup Dhruv is same as being human. Her humanitarian and egalitarian approach encompassed women of every stratum in her poems. She doesn‟t deny being a feminist. The F tag is no abuse and she proudly wants to wear it on her collar. When asked about her identity she speaks of herself as humanist and feminist in one breath. Caring least about the theoretical divisions of being liberal, radical, Marxist or anything else she has evoked suppression, domination, discrimination and subjugation of woman in her everyday life. Questioning status quo has been the central theme of feminist poetries. The pessimism of pain often gets altered to optimism of liberation, with interrogation of patriarchy. She often claims the fact that if her songs can‟t go beyond the pages of books and reach the voices of the voiceless, they are meaningless. Her poems took the form based on folk songs, Garbas, popular tunesand made its way in the padyaatras, rallies, commemorations and meetings of civil society organisations. Those lyrical pieces served as a roar, an awakening, empowerment, unity and sisterhood. Songs that were sung in one voice, made them one unanimous group. Some of her „naarimuktigarbas’ have become anthems for those groups nationwide. They are epitome for what they stand for, fight for and aim for. One of her favourite verse from her garbo ‘Bandhan’ is

Gandhmaapoorinezinijaaliomelaaviti Ghumtedhaankine mane sundaribanaaviti Ordegondhinepachhihindolezulaaviti Chavizudosompidwarvaasya re, saaheldi

(You confined me to castle entangled with grills Made me a doll after covering with a veil Cramped in a room and then made me swing Handing me the bunch of keys and shutting down the doors)

Just like Bandhan and SarkhiSaheli, her renowned and widely celebrated creation is „hupuchhuchhukem’ (I‟m asking why?). It eloquently questions every aspect of gender discrimination, son preference, unequal treatment in public and private sphere, the shackles of religion, rituals and traditions. Confinement to four walls of kitchen and inability to cross the

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threshold of the so called modesty and responsibilities are being incessantly challenged and defied by her.

Dikrovhaalo, dikrinahi, hupuchhuchhukem? Sadiojunobhedrakhishuaapneemnoem,kem?

(Beloved sons and not the daughters, why? we would continue with the century old divisions, why?)

Woman in distress especially the victims of violence, are at the centre of her poetry. The abysmal and devastating scars of victims of riots (during and post-Godhara) are often depicted in her heart wrenching expressions. Women as mothers, daughters, wives had lost all that they once claimed their own. Woman as woman, as human had lost all that she was made up of.

THE REASON TO LIVE No I do not want to recite the ‘Kalama’ and convert myself from Saroop to Salma. because I am not detached or different from. all those Salmas, Fatimas, Suraiyas and Zaheeras of this city, this country, this world.

Whenever the Dushasanas of this land tear off their clothes, I am also left naked. Whenever these wild brutes touch their bodies, rub, open, maul, press, suck, tear, pierce, fuck, butcher them, I am slaughtered too by those hundred thousand dick-daggers.

Whenever the kitchen-stoves turn into cannibal crocodiles, I also turn into flame, fire, ash, air.

I die every moment these days, breath by breath.

Whenever hungry orphan children cry for milk

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my breasts overflow for them, for all of them.

Whenever Rehmans, Sulaimans, Irfans, Amans and Imrans are hacked with swords, sickles and tridents my courtyard also remains deserted, my bed empty and the skin ripped off from my hennaed palms.

Whenever Shahpur, Dariapur, Juhapura and Jordan Road of my city of are set on fire, and Wadi of , Halol, Champaner, Paanwad and Godhra smell of burnt bodies, buildings, business-centres a harvest of blood and flesh . . . what reason have I to live?

But wait a moment. Hold your tongue, poet! You will never perish like those Salmas, Sulaimans, Shahpurs. You are Saroop . . . Dr SaroopYogesh Dhruv! You have the luxury to write and to live

So the very least you can do is this: live on for the sake of all those Salmas, Sulaimans and Shahpurs. Lift your hand, seize your pen raise your arms for them.

Tell me, poet, are you ready?

-Hatkshep, (2003).

Dhruv‟s traumatized soul identifies with every tear that rolls down from the doomed eyes of survivor of riots and internalises their wounds.

She

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She has not lit the stove For seventy four days Is it because she is used to the charity? Is it because she doesn’t have a rupee even?

Is it because there is no Kerosene in the house Is it because there is no house? Is it because there is on one left to eat? Or perhaps The fear of fire has spread to the very marrow of her bones Whatever it may be She has not lit the stove For seventy four days

Sewing machines Salama, Noora, Naseem, Manju, Kesar They are all given sewing machines as charity. Yes that will fill the hungry bellies But the torn and tattered rags Of this city Will there be a sewing machine to mend them? Where to find it?

(Dhruv,S. and Jhaveri. D. 2010)

Sarup Dhruv‟s contribution is path breaking and unconventional. It leaves its foot prints not just in Gujarati literature in particular but in Indian women‟s writings in general.

References

1. Dhruv, S. 1995. Salagatihavaao, SamvedanSanskrutikManch, Ahmedabad.

2. Dhruv, S. 2003. Hastkshep, SamvedanSanskrutikManch, Ahmedabad.

3. Dhruv, S. and Jhaveri, D. 2010. Ahmedabad from February 27-28 to May 2002, Indian Literature, Vol. 54, No. 1 (255) (January/February 2010), SahityaAkademi. New Delhi pp. 111- 113

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4. Kothari, R. and Ramanathan S. 1997, Flaming air and letters to Taslima,Indian Literature, Vol. 40 (5). 181, September-October 1997, SahityaAkademi, New Delhi, pp. 60-61

5.https://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poet/item/9982/27/Saroop-Dhruv.retirved on 5th June 2018 at 4.51 pm

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