Five women poets use works to portray pain of Partition

Neha Saini

Amritsar, July 20

Poetry is often a literary expression of reality and five women poets used this expression to bring out the stories, horrors and hopes during the Partition of India. In a special session dedicated to poetry by Majha House that was moderated by Gurpratap Khairah, authors and poets Lily Swarn, Bhaswati Ghosh, Kashiana Singh, Gayatri Chawla and Sukoon Singh discussed how poems are close to reality, almost as if you are writing a report.

“In my experience, which is often the case with most writers, I write poems based on experiences that are personal and triggered by real life. It can be an event or an incident,” said Sukoon Singh.

Lilly Swarn, a multi-lingual poet, author and columnist, shared that they were the generation that heard stories of Partition from the horse’s mouth, it was organic for her to visualise and feel that fear and use words to express those feelings. “When my father used to tell me stories of his childhood, the fear was real to me. My poems were often a way to understand the anatomy of that fear, presenting those haunting images through words.” She also read her poems based on Partition that talked about how young women faced the brutality of violence and rape, young men lost their innocence and families to the gruesome aftermath.

Taking that journey forward for the audience, US-based author Kashiana Singh, also shared her poem ‘Mangrove’, that is dedicated to her father’s journey back to his lost ancestral home in Pakistan. As she emotionally recited the poem, she said: “Poetry narrates the reality in a personal way, adding a perspective and often emotions to it.” Gayatri Chawla’s rendition of her poem ‘Sindh’ and another one, a moving account of how her father’s family migrated from Karachi, one fateful night, carrying everything they had on a steam boat.

In a discussion on how poetry can be understood as a narrative of what’s happening around the world, Bhaswati Ghosh, recited her peom ‘Sunset under Malecon’, that gives a descriptive account of how locals in Havana’s most popular sunset points leave behind the day’s troubles and despair to enjoy the sunset. “Cuba is struggling, is in transition, where people have multiple issues to face. Yet they come together, in spirit and otherwise, to enjoy the sunset, which I believe is pivotal in holding them together,” she said.