When the god is traveling

Hello readers welcome to my blog, this blog is reflective work on Arundhati Subramaniam's poem. This blog is given by our honorable HOD of English department prof. Dilip Barad sir.

Arundhathi Subramaniam is an Indian poet, writer, critic, curator, translator, Journalist, writing in English.

Arundhathi Subramaniam's poems explore ambivalences -- the desire for adventure and anchorage, expansion and containment, vulnerability and strength, freedom and belonging, withdrawal and engagement, language as exciting resource and as 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. Winner of the inaugural Khushwant Singh Poetry Prize and shortlisted for the 2014 T.S. Eliot Prize, When God Is a Traveller is a remarkable book of poetry(Google books) 

In the poem which gives the book its title, “When God is a Traveller,” Subramaniam muses about “Kartikeya/Murga/Subramania, my namesake.” Kartikeya/Murga/Subramania is known by all those names, as well as Skanda, and is the son of Śiva, in some legends of him alone, as Gaṇeśa is born of Pārvatī alone, but also often considered the son of both Śiva and Pārvatī. Subramania is the god of war who is also known as Guhā (cave, secret) or Guruguhā (cave-teacher) as he renounces war in some legends and retreats to the mountains. (For stories of Subramania, see Kartikeya as well as the Skanda Purāṇa and for comparison of various legends. 

God is a Traveller, circled the theme of journeys both real and mythical. This book circles the themes of love and time. These are ancient themes of lyric poetry, of course. But they’re markedly contemporary in tone and treatment.

These poems have certainly meant a journey of self-discovery. That is the magic of making poetry — its capacity to lead even its author to places she never knew existed. That is the intelligence of metaphor. It is always wiser than you are. The most significant discovery for me in this book was perhaps the deepening insight it offered into the process of ageing. ‘Song for Catabolic Women’, for instance, is an anthem to all women over fifty, women who’ve finally figured that they needn’t be tyrannised by biological clocks and cultural expectations. Who are no longer anxious to please, desperate to impress.