Sukrita’s ‘Yellow’ is about ties that bloom as poetry

Having deeply engaged with Sukrita Paul Kumar’s work in the past, I can testify to the rhizomatic connect that her poetry forms with art, history, the travails of everyday and with Nature. There is a constant search for legacy — an origin of things, ‘a back to the atomic structures’ — with Sukrita. ‘Yellow: Poemlets New and Earlier’ traces the fierce yet tender connections that bloom as poetry.

This is an unusual book — 37 poemlets or little verses, which could then even be broken into smaller verses, becoming more poemlets. They are complete in themselves, yet are willing and ready to join other verses and create an interesting conjoining. ‘not so randomly’ begins with “so many poems lie/buried within me/i’m choked/i retrieve them/one by one”.

This nodal imagery pervades the whole book. It feels like the reader could pick up a thought from one end of the book and plant it on some other page where it would take root. For instance, she writes of the complexities of the relationship between mothers and daughters: “womb is a natural gufa/of creation/and it is a tomb/of all memories” (‘gufa’); she goes on elsewhere: “my mother knew i’d meet her there/after her death/every full moon/we had a pact/never ever to sever/the umbilical chord” (‘naukuchiyatal poemlets’); in ‘the rustle of leaves’, the thought comes a full circle: “unfolding/its leaves in you/my daughter/is/my history/i am/i know now/my mother/as you are yours.”

There are sequences that stand out on the strength of their ambition and the scope of their imagination. Sukrita’s ‘ganga’ poemlets are quite like the Ganga herself. It is one of the longest running poems in the book and like the Ganga in spate, the poemlets carry the pomp of ceremony, the incandescence of life, the agony of death, the promise of salvation and through it all, the unperturbed iridescence of the Ganga is present. Sukrita shows the impartial drift of a river that carries away religions, possessions, sectarian identities; indeed, everything that we fight so assiduously to maintain. Perhaps, it is fitting that in the time of the Maha Kumbh, Sukrita says, “hand in hand soon/the sprightly sisters will gush/and merge/in the deep peace of the ocean” (‘dialogues with ganga’).

The poet shows great technique in the way she manages the economy of brevity. Her words resound with meaning without having to over-extend or fall short. That is a remarkable feat in these days of killing verse by over-explanation or through deliberate obfuscation. ‘Yellow’ has a beautiful philosophy that it shares all through the book — of being able to sift through one’s darkness to find the light within. It is a spelunking into the mind to find one’s own origin. ‘Yellow’ asks that we bear witness to wars, violence, displacement, anger, generational trauma, separation anxiety, the pandemic, poverty, natural disasters and stand vulnerable and answerable before Truth. The book has no capitalisation or even a full stop. The Truth is small and ever fluid. “three faces/on a body that is/half man, half woman/in the master pagoda/brahma/ — creator of the universe, of mind/and of intellect — /is androgynous/is fair and just” (‘pagoda poemlets’).

Sukrita has created a work that is generational. It is truly wise, particularly because it does not strive for wisdom. Like a forest that starts out as a seed, ‘Yellow’ is a book of poemlets that awaits germination in the minds of the readers. Till then, it is complete in itself. It is its own world, its own universe. “the garden blossomed/in winter/because/i died in spring” (‘passage’).

— The writer teaches at All Saints’ College, Thiruvananthapuram