Here is a blog about the Sahitya Akademi Awardee Arundhati Subramaniam. Her collection of a poem with the title: When God Is a Traveller. Here is a poem with the same title.
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When God Is a Traveller
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.
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1. A first-read interpretation and reflection
The poem at first place seems much prosaic. If one reads again with more deeper insight, it has many connotations about the love for parents. Its about Lord Ganesha and Kartikeya who worship their parents in order to prove the excellence.
The last lines are very remarkable and worth thinking upon. The speaker of poem directly addresses people and tells that
2. prosodic element in the poem
There's a tone of repetition of the word : 'Trust Him'. Perhaps this is used to connote
3. Reading the poem through the lens of Indian Poetics
Bharatmuni an Indian scholar who wrote Natyashastra has given many poetic devices to read epics and poetic plays.
In Indian Poetics, there are theories like, Rasa Theory, Dhvani School, Alamkara and Vakrokti School of thought. The poems best fits in terms of Alamkara and Vakrokti.
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