Muliebrity.

Muliebrity - Sujata Bhatt.

Summary.

Sujata Bhatt’s poem “Muliebrity,” I will focus on the poet’s treatment of time and its significance to her childhood memories in India. I will also examine how the passage of time has an impact, not only on the speaker of the poem, but also on the reader, as we are witnessing this scene through the Sujata Bhatt’s memory. As readers we are reliving it vicariously through the poet and as a result, our impressions of the memory are shaped by the very personal tone of the poem, this feeling is further enhanced by the poet’s use of first person pronoun.

 The most striking aspect of the poem in relation to time, is to note how the passing of time and growing older has not dulled the memory of the speaker, as she recalls seeing a girl collecting cow-dung in the streets of Maninagar, in India. This image of a street scene in her local village has in fact remained an extremely vivid and clear memory, which has remained with her for a very long time. As readers we are made aware of the importance of this memory from the very first line of the poem “I have thought so much about the girl.” This opening line sets the scene and the tone for the reader, as it highlights the significance of this memory. We are made to feel that the poet has thought about the girl for some time, and it reiterates the feeling that time has in no way diminished her memory of the events she witnessed in Maninagar. It also creates a sense of space and distance, as we feel the speaker is no longer in Maninagar, time has evolved and moved on since she saw the little girl, yet she can recall being there in a very clear and exact memory.

 The same line from the opening of the poem is repeated once again on-line five, “I have thought so much,” but this time to detail “the way she moved her hands and her waist.” This notion of thinking about the girl in such detail highlights to the reader that the Indian girl has had a considerable and lasting impact on the speaker. We are drawn into Bhatt’s world, as she recounts “the smell of cow-dung and road-dust and wet canna lilies.” These memories transport us back in time, to that village in India; we start to build a picture in our mind of the many sights, colours and smells that make up the very fabric of daily life there. It’s obvious to readers that this sensory overload is what captivates the poet and has embedded and etched these memories upon her mind. The childhood memories are so evocative, that even with the passing of time; they have never been dulled or diluted.

 Time has not diminished the memory of the little girl and if anything, it has enhanced the memory. The speaker, it seems, has moved on from life in Maninagar, both in sense of growing older and geographically. There is a real sense of the speaker moving further away from the childhood village, but regardless of this distance, the speaker still feels very close to that little girl collecting cow-dung and also still very connected to her childhood in India. The atmosphere created in this poem by Bhatt gives readers an insight into life in that period of Indian history. It also helps to cement the feeling that time can have a major impact upon our memories and imaginations. The descriptions of “the smell of monkey breath and freshly washed clothes” show us that time is intertwined with memory and demonstrates how senses can trigger emotions and place us in an exact period and moment in time, in this case back to Bhatt’s childhood, in India. In line eleven of the poem, she describes the sensual nature of memory beautifully, as she states how “these smells surrounding me separately and simultaneously,” here Bhatt is confirming that each element of the memory is made up if individual aspects, but they ultimately merge, to make up a collective memory and to help capture and encapsulate a specific moment in time. All of these sights and smells help contribute to maintaining and harnessing this childhood memory, they are very important to the speaker, as they are required to help keep the memory alive over the passing of time.

The line “I have thought so much” is used for a third and final time by the speaker in line twelve, this time to describe how she has been “unwilling to use her for a metaphor, for a nice image  but most of all unwilling to forget her.”  This idea that the speaker is unwilling to forget the girl, demonstrates the importance of the memory. She has held onto it and cherished it all this time, and is unwilling to let it slip from her mind. Bhatt is also detailing how she is unwilling to allow it the sacred memory be tarnished, she wants to protect its purity and not subject it to being reduced to a metaphor, which may cheapen or lessen its importance or significance to her. This girl, carrying out a very lowly task of collecting waste in the street is elevated to a higher status via Bhatt’s precise description and overriding memory of her. It’s perhaps a critique on her modern life and the people who surround Bhatt in her new life in America, that she recalls with fondness the “greatness and the power” of a peasant girl collecting cow-dung in a village back in her homeland of India. Bhatt possibly sees a greater good and nobility in that girl, than she can in anyone she encounters in modern times. It makes the reader wonder if perhaps if everyone carried out their work in such a dedicated manner and with such grace, then even menial tasks could be viewed with a sense of beauty and admiration. It also begs the question of which thoughts, memories, actions or deeds will last the duration of time, and which of them will help to shape our present or future.

 This memory of the girl in India is clearly so special and precious to Bhatt, that it has been carried with her and cherished for many years. It is therefore understandable that she would not wish to “explain to anyone the greatness and the power glistening through her” in relation to the little girl collecting cow-dung. In a way she is trying to protect that moment in time and the girl, from judgment, critique or even manipulation by others. To date, the images have been safely locked away in her memory, and this has helped to preserve it over time. The childhood memory has not been exposed to other external elements or influences, which may cause it to erode over time