Hunger (poem)

Hunger is one of the best known poems by the internationally acclaimed Indian English poet Jayanta Mahapatra. The poem is widely anthologised in most important modern Indian poetry collections and is the most widely analysed piece among Jayanta's works. The poem explores the informal child sex trade lurking in the social fabric, and is unique in its bold treatment of sexuality unlike a typical Jayanta poem.

Excerpts from the poem

It was hard to believe the flesh was heavy on my back.

The fisherman said: Will you have her, carelessly,

trailing his nets and his nerves, as though his words

sanctified the purpose with which he faced himself.

I saw his white bone thrash his eyes.

*******

I followed him across the sprawling sands,

my mind thumping in the flesh's sling.

Hope lay perhaps in burning the house I lived in.

*******

I heard him say: My daughter, she's just turned fifteen...

Feel her. I'll be back soon, your bus leaves at nine.

The sky fell on me, and a father's exhausted wile.

Long and lean, her years were cold as rubber.

She opened her wormy legs wide. I felt the hunger there,

the other one, the fish slithering, turning inside

*******

Origin

The poem was originally a part of the poet's collection "A Rain of Rites".

In the poet's own words, the poem is based on a direct real life experience. But it is not clear whether the poet as the protagonist was the visitor to the fisherman's daughter. The poem is an expression of the poet's loneliness as a youth, as Mahapatra had a disturbed childhood.

Structure and criticism

The poem is notable for its rather directness in approaching the taboo topic of sexual trade involving a father and his daugther. In the very second line the fisherman asks casually "will you have her?". However the exact intention of the father is couched in subtle and ambivalent imagery :- "trailing his nets and nerves" and "his white bone thrashing his eyes". A wide range of poetic devices have been employed to bring out the mind's trappings in the flesh.

The vivid imagery of the seashore in the poem depicts the circumstances that compel a woman to sell her body throug prostitution. Some commentators have pointed out the brutal treatment of sexuality in the poem.

See also

• Indian poetry
• Indian Writing in English
• Popular Indian Poems