Hunger -- Jayanth Mahapatra

 Hunger – Jayanth Mahapatra

 

It was hard to believe the flesh was heavy on my back.

The fisherman said: will you have her, carelessly,

trailing his nets and nerves, as though his words

sanctified the purpose with which he faced himself.

I saw his white bone thrash his eyes.

 

I followed him across the sprawling sands,

my mind thumping in the flesh’s sling.

Hope lay perhaps in burning the house I lived in.

Silence gripped my sleeves; his body clawed 

at the froth his old nets had dragged up from the seas.

 

In the flickering dark his lean-to opened like a wound.

The wind was I, and the days and nights before.

Palm fronds scratched my skin. Inside the shack

an oil lamp splayed the hours bunched to those walls.

Over and over the sticky soot crossed the space of my mind.

 

I heard him say: my daughter, she’s just turned fifteen…..

Feel her. I’ll be back soon, your bus leaves at nine.

The sky fell on me, and a father’s exhausted wile.

Long and lean, her years were cold as rubber.

She opened her wormy legs wide. I felt the hunger there,

The other one, the fish slithering, turning inside.

 

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 Comments.

Jayanth Mahapatra’s poem “Hunger” is one of the best poems which depicts the true picture of poverty that prevails evidently everywhere in India even after seventy years of Independence. At the surface level ‘hunger’ is utter shortage of food in poor communities that leads to gross violation of values and morals that have been set by privileged people.  Jayanth Mahapatra’s poem ‘Hunger’ deals with two kinds of hunger, one is ‘hunger for food’ and another is ‘hunger for sexual gratification’.  

 

The quest for fulfilment of fisherman’s hunger for food leads to pimp his own daughter with gross violation of morals and traditional values to a person who is hunger for sexual desire. The values have no place in such an utterly degraded human plight. The father’s pimping of his own daughter is a condemnation not of the father but of the society where such tragedy takes place. The title of the poem “Hunger” has relevance to the existing predicament of the poverty in the society. When the agony and the suffering become intolerable to a weak spirited person such person tends to surrender to inhumanity. It could have happened on the poverty-ridden sands of any beach in India.

 

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Your Attention, Please -- Peter Porter

Your Attention, Please – Peter Porter

 

the polar DEW has just warned that 

A nuclear rocket strike of 

At least one thousand megatons

Has been launched by the enemy

Directly at our major cities.

This announcement will take

Two and a quarter minutes to make,

You therefore have a further

Eight and a quarter minutes

To comply with the shelter

Requirements published in the Civil

Defence Code— section Atomic Attach.

A specially shortened Mass

Will be broadcast at the end

Of this announcement—

Protestant and Jewish services

Will begin simultaneously—

Select your wavelength immediately

According to instructions

In the Defence Code. Do not

Take well-loved pets (including birds)

into your shelter— they will consume

Fresh air, Leave the old and bed-

ridden, you can do nothing for them.

Remember to press the sealing

Switch when everyone is in 

The shelter. Set the radiation

Aerial, turn on the Geiger barometer.

Turn off your Television now.

Turn off your radio immediately

The Services end. At the same time

Secure explosion plugs in the ears

Of each member of your family. Take 

Down your plasma flasks. Give your children

The pills marked one and two

In the C. D. green container, then put 

Them to bed. Do not break

The inside airlock seals until

The radiation all Clear shows

(Watch for the cuckoo in your

Perplex panel), or your district

Touring Doctor rings your bell.

If before this, your air becomes

Exhausted or if any of your family

Is critically injured, administer

The capsules marked ‘Valley Forge’

(Red pocket in No. 1 Survival Kit)

For painless death. (Catholics

Will have been instructed by their priests

What to do in this eventuality.)

This announcement is ending. Our President

Has already given orders for 

Massive retaliation— it will be 

Decisive. Some of us may die.

Remember, statistically

It is not likely to be you.

All flags are flying fully dressed 

On Government buildings— the sun is shining

We are all in the hands of God.

Whatever happens happens by His Will. 

Now go quickly to your shelters.

 

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  Your Attention, Please – Peter Porter

 

Peter Porter’s poem “Your Attention, Please” reflects the disarray and disastrous situation of  contemporary times. It echoes the theme of death, division and decline as does in the poems “An Exequy, “The Delegate”, “The Easiest Room in Hell” etc. Peter porter always juxtaposed the power of art against the degrading powers of applied science and technology. In the famous and often published “Two Minute warning”, the warning stands not as a forewarning for those people alone, rather it is a pointer for humanity in general. It is a reminder to man who is cutting of the branch on which he is sitting. Immersed in a world of money, material, and munitions, human values have shown a marked deterioration. In an era of competition, Time, and Destruction reign supreme. This becomes obvious when the poet repeats “two and a quarter minute” and “eight and quarter minute.” We are reminded of the futility of life as in Philip Larkin’s “Ambulances”. In an ironical stance, “a specially shortened mass in telecast” to signify the corrosion of spirituality. The announcement says that Protestant and Jewish services will begin simultaneously. It suggests, how in the face of death, all communal rivalries vanish into the thin air.    

 

However, only human life is valued at least slightly here, for, people are asked to abandon their pets as “they will consume fresh air”. The Homo Sapiens (human beings) are content with the assumption that the “fresh air” is solely theirs. The callousness of the contemporary generation is revealed in their disregard for the old and the bed-ridden— the rule is that they HAVE to be left behind. The capsules marked “Valley Forge” survival kit in red pocket No.1 is a medicine for painless death drives home the paranoiac sense of victimization, meaninglessness of life and pointlessness leads to a sense of nihilism. 

 

In a satiric tone, the poet ascertains that the President has already given orders for Mass retaliation. The decision is decisive”. The ordinary citizen has no say in this matter. Nor do the military personnel involved. This proves to be very significant in the modern-day context, where America plays Big Brother role to all the other nations. Under authoritative rule, “human beings have lost their individuality”. It is unlikely to be “you”. All flags are fully dressed on Government buildings where power reigns supreme. 

 

There is also the conflict between religiosity and self-love that the poet projects with pungent irony. The announcer asks them to administer pills to have a painless death and thereafter the Catholics will be instructed by the priest what to do in such an eventuality. However, this is suicide or the Eternal Sin for the Catholics, and the mention of a Catholic Priest seeing to their final rites in outright obnoxious.   

 

The superfluity of advanced science and technology is stressed here. The nuclear weapon is itself a child of science and technology. Nevertheless, the helplessness of science in the face of calamity caused by itself is made explicit here. The omnipresence of science is reinforced by devices like the Geiger Barometer, Radio, Valley Forges, Plasma flask, Television, Radiation Aerial. They enhance the theme of the victory of science over the Art and Life. The poem is therefore a harsh indictment on the race for power politics and amassing of weapons of mass-destruction in the modern times. The best way to win a war is to prevent it. Peter Porter asserts: “The truth is a story forcing me to tell it. It is not my story or my truth.” It is an eternal truth that has its foundation rooted in humanity.

 

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edited.

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