Sunday Reading Task
*When God Is a Traveller*
By Arundhati Subramaniam
(wondering about Kartikeya/ Muruga/ Subramania, my namesake)
Trust the god back from his travels, his voice wholegrain (and chamomile),
his wisdom neem, his peacock, sweaty-plumed, drowsing in the shadows.
Trust him who sits wordless on park benches listening to the cries of children fading into the dusk,
his gaze emptied of vagrancy, his heart of ownership.
Trust him who has seen enough— revolutions, promises, the desperate light of shopping malls, hospital rooms, manifestos, theologies, the iron taste of blood, the great craters in the middle of love.
Trust him who no longer begrudges his brother his prize, his parents their partisanship.
Trust him whose race is run, whose journey remains, who stands fluid-stemmed knowing he is the tree that bears fruit, festive with sun.
Trust him who recognizes you— auspicious, abundant, battle-scarred, alive— and knows from where you come.
Trust the god ready to circle the world all over again this time for no reason at all other than to see it through your eyes.
Here are some questions based on the poem 'When God Is a Traveller'.
1. Can you identify the central theme of this poem?
2. Can you explain this poem?
3. What is it that the poet wants to say through this poem?
About poet - Arundhathi Subramaniam
Arundhathi Subramaniam is an Indian poet, writer, critic, curator, translator, Journalist, writing in English.
When God is a Traveller got the Sahitya Akademi 2021 award in English Language.
Arundhathi Subramaniam's volume of poetry "When God is a Traveller" (2014) was the Season Choice of the Poetry Book Society, shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. She is the recipient of various awards and fellowships, including the inaugural Khushwant Singh Prize, the Raza Award for Poetry, the Zee Women's Award for Literature, the International Piero Bigongiari Prize in Italy, the Mystic Kalinga award, the Charles Wallace, Visiting Arts and Homi Bhabha Fellowships, among others.
1 ) Can you identify the central theme of this poem?
In this poem we can identify some of the recurrent themes. Which is given below...
The central theme of the poem is we can say that God and lord
1 ) Wandering.
2 ) Digging.
3 ) Falling.
4 ) Coming to terms with unsettlement and uncertainty.
5 ) Finiteness and fallibility.
6 ) Exploring intersections between the sacred and the sensual.
7 ) Searching for ways to step in and out of stories.
8 ) Cycles and frames.
2 ) Can you explain this poem?
When God Is a Traveller is poem by Arundhathi Subramaniam in her poems she explores ambivalences, the desire for adventure and anchorage, expansion and containment, vulnerability and strength, freedom and belonging, withdrawal and engagement, language as an exciting resource and as a desperate refuge.
These are poems of wonder and precarious elation, and all the roadblocks and rewards on the long dangerous route to recovering what it is to be alive and human.
When I asked the poet, "What if I called you a modern-day Meera, an agnostic follower of an elusive Krishna?" she laughed, not displeased, but pointed out that her poems also had references to Shiva, Kartikeya and others.
Though the poems in When God is a Traveller frequently dwell upon the minute details of everyday life, they also see in those details, hints of a Godhead, an uber-reality. Charmingly elusive avatars of Muruga, Krishna and other divinities appear, composed of the elements of our contemporary reality and occasionally, denied by it.
Many of the old divides blasted away, and the poems in this volume reflect that. But what about the other divide: that between the poet and the reader? "Some would view you as a high-intellectual. How accessible do you think your poems are?"
3 ) What is it that the poet wants to say through this poem?
In this poem the poet talks about God Kartikey, Shiva and others. Through the god he described the minute details of everyday life, they also see in those details, hints of a Godhead, an uber-reality. Talk about avatars of Muruga, Krishna and other divinities. Through the god she described the life of middle class people, how they live. In this poem the poet wants to talk about the life of middle class people. And also want to talk about the myth of God.
Thank you…….!
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