Shiv Kumar

Contemporary Poets in Indian English-5

Shiv Kumar Batalvi is a Professor in English from Hyderabad. As a Poet, Playwright, Novelist, Short Story Writer, Critic, Translator he excelled. In his poem “Indian Women” he describes the life of a typical village woman. She is ‘triple-baked’ as one living in poverty, male domination and sexual subjugation.

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A woman has to go a long distance and fetch water from a community well waiting there for long for her turn. She is likened to an empty ‘pitcher’ as if there is no heart or mind in her. Her man who is away on work has to return and she will wait for him till it gets dark.

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She lives in a house with mud baked walls which suggest that she lives in poverty. She has tattoo on her thighs which is a stamp (as in the case of animals) of ownership of her body. The woman is so subjugated that she has no right even to raise ‘angry eyebrows’. In other words she has to live like a robot created for the service, including sexual, of man.

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