Introduction
Arun Kolatkar is a great Indian modern poetry legend well known for his collection ‘Jejuri’. His poem ‘An Old Woman’ is also part of collection Jejuri. His poem ‘The Bus‘ is also quite popular from this collection. An Old Woman is a modernistic poem which invokes self exploration of the readers.
Central Idea
Poem portrays an incident of an old woman who ‘tags along’ the poet at the holy site of horseshoe shrine. She asks for fifty Paisa coin in return of showing him the site. But poet denies and she replies with an eye opener statement for the poet that ‘What else can an old woman do on hills as wretched as these?’. This shook the poet to the core. Hence poem focuses on the message that idealism (one shouldn’t beg) doesn’t apply everywhere in life. Situations do change the values and principals.
Themes
a. Compulsions of old age – It is prime theme of this poem that old age makes a person beg as physical incapability doesn’t allow them to earn respectfully. Poet realizes that when old woman told him reality of her age which the poet was ignoring till than.
b. Vulnerability of Women in old age – Although it’s the old age which makes everyone vulnerable but women are more prone to uncertainties of old age.
c. Common sight of Indian pilgrimage sites – Poem also shows that begging is very common at Indian pilgrimage sites. And beggars comprise mostly old aged people. Poet highlights that we all readers might have faced such situations at these sites.
Literary devices
Alliteration – ‘She says she’, ‘hear her’ and ‘her hand’ have alliteration as there are repetition of consonant sounds /s/ and /h/at the starting of words.
Consonance – ‘Hear her’ has repetition of consonant sound /h/ but there is change of vowel sound coming immediately after it. Hence it’s consonance.
Assonance – ‘Along anyone’ has repetition of vowel sound /a/ at the starting of both words hence it’s a case of assonance.
Simile – In line ‘They stick to you like a burr’ poet is directly comparing old woman to ‘burr’ using word ‘like’. Burr are tend to stick to clothes similarly old women are shown obstinate in begging. Hence aptly compared to burr and an example of simile.
Metaphor – Poet has indirectly compared eyes of old woman to bullet holes. Here he has replaced eyes and used term bullet holes for them. Hence it’s an example of metaphor.
Enjambment – It’s a device in which sentence is continued to the next line. Poet has abundant examples of it as it’s written in free verse. There is an example to explain it in better manner –
An old woman grabs
hold of your sleeve
and tags along.
Polysyndeton – There is repetition of ‘And’ at the starting of all three lines of stanza nine. It is a case of polysyndeton where repetition of words like ‘And’, ‘Or’ and ‘Not’ happen.
Modernism
Poem is a stark reality of modern society. It reflects existentialism in condition of the old woman and lack of empathy from the part of poet. Language has unusual and unorthodox terms like ‘crone’ for old woman, ‘bullet holes’ for eyes etc. In this way we can say that modernism was quite prominent in Kolatkar’s poetry.
Language
Arun Kolatkar has used ‘you’ and ‘your’ for involving the readers directly. He has made this poem relatable to the general public by these pronouns. Usage of terms like ‘burr’ adds local countryside elements into the poem.
Structure and rhyme scheme
Poem has eleven stanzas and each stanza has three lines hence it has triplets. There is no rhyme scheme or rhythm in the poem hence it is written in free verse.
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