In the vibrant landscape of contemporary Hindi poetry, Ranjana Mishra emerges as a distinctive voice, blending her formal training in Indian classical music with a profound environmental sensibility. Her collection "Patthar Samay ki Seedhiyan" (2022) gathers around seventy-five poems, while hundreds more—alongside travel memoirs, critical essays, and translations—grace literary magazines, journals, and digital platforms. Mishra's compositions, often inspired by classical ragas and raginis, set her apart, infusing her work with rhythmic depth and emotional resonance. Yet, it is her eco-centric poems that truly distinguish her, transforming nature from mere backdrop into a living, sentient entity brimming with memory, desire, and silent protest.
This article examines two of Mishra's elegiac poems—"Chattan ka Vida Geet" and "Ped"—through an eco-feminist lens, highlighting their portrayal of nature as a nurturing, maternal force ravaged by patriarchal utility. By endowing inert objects like rocks and trees with consciousness, Mishra exposes the violence of capitalist development, ecological displacement, and human alienation. For contrast, we turn to Rajesh Joshi's satirical "Ped Kya Karta Hai" from his collection "Ek Din Bolenge Ped," which questions modern productivity's futility through a child's innocent gaze. Together, these works reveal Hindi poetry's evolving dialogue on nature's exploitation, urging a reclamation of co-existence over commodification.
The Rock's Lament: Consciousness in the Inert
"Chattan ka Vida Geet" stands as a poignant critique of development's blind march, where a rock—once a witness to centuries of life—meets a fragmented end. Mishra personifies the stone not as lifeless matter but as a repository of history and longing, compelling readers to confront the silenced voice of nature.
The poem unfolds:
"Leaning against that tree growing on the slope
It had listened for centuries
To the chatter of the forest
Countless tales of birds in flight
Were preserved in its memory
Souls of the dead, seeking a moment of leisure to talk
Had often paused and sat upon it
Born from the ash of stars and the womb of the earth
Its solid warm body
Would glow and dazzle in the calm cool mornings of autumn
In such days it would grow eager to send out roots
Filling with primal memories of becoming a tree
With the longing for a pair of eyes and arms
With the desire for the touch of ants and tender green grass
Which, unaware and fearless
Would create their own world
Beneath its black body
Then people came to it
Now it was moving away
On a dust-filled road
Loaded in the truck moving ahead
Scattered, scattered
Left in pieces."
This elegy begins in quiet reverence, establishing the rock as a historical archive: it absorbs the forest's whispers, safeguards avian narratives, and offers respite to wandering souls. Born from "the ash of stars and the womb of the earth," it evokes cosmic sanctity, blending scientific truth—Earth's minerals forged in stellar fires—with poetic antiquity. The rock's "primal memories of becoming a tree" surge with vital restlessness: an eagerness for roots, eyes, arms, and the tactile intimacy of ants and grass. Beneath its "hard black body," a micro-ecosystem thrives—unafraid, interdependent—revealing nature's maternal tenderness. This imagery shatters anthropocentric illusions, aligning with eco-feminism's view of Earth as a nurturing feminine force, whose "womb" sustains yet yearns for reciprocity.
The pivot—"Then people came to it"—unleashes devastation. The rock, commodified as "raw material," is hauled on a "dust-filled road," reduced to gravel for roads and concrete. "Scattered, scattered / Left in pieces" mirrors societal fragmentation: ecosystems shattered, collectivities dissolved in development's name. Sociologically, it indicts capitalist brutality, where nature's wholeness yields to utility's blade. Aesthetically, Mishra's craftsmanship shines in harmonious oppositions—cosmic origins against terrestrial touch, glowing autumnal warmth against dusty exile—evoking profound pathos. The title's irony amplifies this: a "vida geet" (farewell song) dignifies voluntary parting, yet here it laments forced rupture, a silent elegy for severed roots.
Philosophically, the poem bridges inert and conscious, echoing Upanishadic non-dualism ("sarvam khalvidam brahma") in the rock's latent life-force. From eco-criticism, it assaults anthropocentrism, foregrounding micro-ecologies (ants' worlds) and placelessness (the truck's exile). Eco-feminism deepens the critique: the rock's sheltering body parallels woman's exploited generativity, violated by patriarchal machinery that measures, fragments, and discards. Our guilt arises not from breaking stone, but murdering a "living history"—a maternal archive whose dust chokes civilization's progress.
Comparisons abound with contemporaries. Kedarnath Singh's "Tolstoy aur Cycle" animates objects amid urban sprawl, seeking nature's suppressed pulse; Mishra, however, chronicles its terminal fragmentation. Kunwar Narayan's "Ek Ajeeb-si Mushkil" mourns inner voids post-deforestation, while Sarveshwar Dayal Saxena's "Link Road" and "Bans ka Pul" decries development as existential cremation. Mishra extends this tradition, her rock's plea a microcosm of eco-anxiety: when we pulverize primal dreams, we erect deserts on nature's remnants.
The Tree's Dignified Endurance: Maternal Resistance
Mishra's "Ped," structured in six vignettes, extends this sensibility to arboreal life, portraying the tree as a maternal archetype—generous, resilient, yet imperiled.
"(One)
How many fears there were
Through which it had to pass
Its own roots
The feeling of being soil—
Only one was
Not being able to touch its own trunks terrifying
But apart from growing and being buried
What was life?
(Two)
That day some traveller
Came and sat beneath the tree's shade
Ate rotis
Fed a little to the ants building homes
In the tree's roots
Then fell asleep
The ants continued building homes
The tree gathered its kitchen
And kept fanning
(Three)
This time the rain came a little late
Pots remained dry
The crow that told stories was nowhere to be seen
The tree caressed the sky's chest
Clouds came elbowing each other, laughing and joking
(Four)
Two birds came and fought in its shade
A little later they flew away
The tree gathered its memories again
In the tree's dreams drought never comes
(Five)
In the deep black time of night in dreams
I called the tree
With colourful kites wrapped in its twigs
Gathering its roots
It came running
(Six)
Trees also sleep sometimes
Covering their eyes with their own branches
Gathering their roots
Become strangers
Do not recognize that human
Who sits beneath the shade
Smoking a beedi
Having tied an axe
In the gamchha at his waist
Who makes a shade with his hands
And measures the tree's height!"
The tree's journey arcs from existential dread—roots binding it to soil, trunks beyond reach—to quiet benevolence. It endures delayed rains, caresses skies, and harbors avian squabbles, its dreams drought-proof oases of hope. A traveler rests in its shade, sharing rotis with root-dwelling ants; the tree, ever maternal, "gathered its kitchen / And kept fanning." Magical realism blooms in the dream-call: kites entangling twigs, roots uprooting in flight—a futile wish for escape.
Yet reality intrudes: the beedi-smoking intruder, axe concealed in gamchha, appraises height not for beauty but timber yield. The tree's recoil—eyes veiled by branches, roots withdrawn, recognition withheld—is silent defiance, a stranger's dignity. Eco-critically, it laments ecosystem rupture: ants' homes, birds' battles, clouds' jests—all collateral in ecocide. Language's simplicity—tatsam gravitas yielding to tadbhav intimacy (rotiyan, gamchha)—mirrors life's raw edges, rhythm slowing to fragmented pathos.
Eco-feminism illuminates the tree's gendered plight: its "kitchen-gathering" and fanning evoke woman's unpaid labor, caressing skies her emotional labor. Bound by roots (social norms), it nurtures amid scarcity, only to face patriarchal calculus—measured, felled. The axe's shadow embodies male utilitarianism, exploiting feminine generativity. Mishra's tree resists not with clamor but withdrawal, preserving tenderness against violation, underscoring eco-feminism's indictment of intertwined oppressions.
Satirical Counterpoint: Joshi's Idle Arboreal Query
Rajesh Joshi, a leftist stalwart known for unflinching verity, offers a satirical foil in "Ped Kya Karta Hai," a child's query piercing modernity's frenzy.
"Mother says
Trees sleep at night
So the tree
What does it do all day?
Porter
Does portering
Labourer
Labours
Officer
Does officering
Clerk
Does clerking
And
Sleeps tired at night
And the tree
What does the tree do all day?"
Framed by maternal lore and juvenile wonder, the poem catalogs human drudgery—hammal hauling, afsar officering—culminating in exhausted slumber. The tree? Unanswered, it embodies serene idleness: no toil, just presence, shade freely given. This folkloric brevity satirizes capitalism's productivity cult, where labor alienates, while nature's "nothingness" signifies liberation. Socio-philosophically, it mocks anthropocentric busyness, the tree a zen koan against existential fatigue.
Eco-feministically, the tree's passivity evokes woman's "unproductive" domesticity—sustaining life sans acclaim—contrasting patriarchal roles (all male-coded occupations). The mother's voice, unanswered query: feminine wisdom eludes utilitarian logic. Yet Joshi's satire lacks Mishra's elegiac depth; his tree questions, hers weeps and resists.
Intersections: Nurture, Silence, and Fragmentation
Mishra's diptych—"Chattan ka Vida Geet" and "Ped"—interweave: both anthropomorphize nature as maternal guardians, their silences vocal protests. The rock's tactile yearnings echo the tree's caresses; fragmentation (scattered pieces, veiled eyes) indicts utility's violence. Cosmic vastness meets daily intimacy, cosmic birth yielding to axe's bite. Eco-feminism binds them: nurture exploited, silence as shield against patriarchal erasure.
Joshi's satire complements, his idle tree a utopian inverse to Mishra's beleaguered ones—freedom in inaction versus dignity in endurance. Together, they span Hindi poetry's eco-tradition, from Singh's pulses to Narayan's voids, amplifying calls for co-existence.
In an era of climate peril, these works transcend lament: Mishra's elegies awaken guilt, Joshi's query provokes reflection. Nature's silence nurtures; our utility violates. Reclaiming dialogue—honoring rocks' memories, trees' dreams—guards not just ecosystems, but humanity's wholeness. As Mishra whispers through shards and shade: progress on dust-choked roads scatters souls; true civilization roots in reverence.
---
*Professor & former Head (Retd.), Department of Hindi, University of Hyderabad. This is the abridged version of the author's original article
Comments