Fragments of the soul, debris of history: Savita Singh’s feminist poetic dialogue

By Ravi Ranjan* 

In the landscape of contemporary Hindi poetry, Savita Singh stands out as a creator whose work probes deeply into women’s experience, self-awareness, the body, and the philosophical dimensions of time. Her poetry does not treat woman merely as subject matter; rather, woman emerges as a powerful centre of knowledge and creation. 

Singh’s collections—“Apne Jaisa Jīvan” (“A Life Like One’s Own”), “Svapna Samaya” (“Dream Time”), “Nīnd Thi aur Rāt Thī” (“There Was Sleep and There Was Night”), and “Vāsanā Ek Nadī kā Nāma Hai” (“Desire is the Name of a River”)—develop an independent women’s perspective through dense imagery and fluid language. Her bilingual anthology “Rowing Together” and the international selection “Seven Leaves, One Autumn” further extend her recognition beyond India.

Alongside her literary work, Singh has contributed significantly to feminist scholarship. As professor in the Women’s Studies Department at Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), she connected feminist discourse not only to theory but also to broader social and cultural contexts. Her intellectual leadership has given new heights to Hindi literature and gender studies.

Among her most striking poems is “Rātri Prahari” (“Night Guard”), a text that embodies the tension between language, silence, and existence. At first glance, it may appear a confession or internal dialogue, but its image-structure, linguistic tension, and uncertainty of meaning transform it into a poetic landscape that questions its own content. Statements such as “the ceasing to exist of words” and “I hand over to you all these words” highlight the interplay between what is spoken and what remains unsaid. Silence here is not absence but an active field of meaning-production.

Language, Silence, and Post-Structuralist Thought

A post-structuralist reading of “Rātri Prahari” reveals language as unstable, dynamic, and perpetually deferred. Words fragment their intent, while silence generates meaning. The metaphor of “night” and “guard” destabilises binaries: darkness and light, vigilance and rest, presence and absence. The poem inhabits a “dhūsar” (grey) state, where meaning cannot remain fixed. This greyness embodies the post-structuralist sensibility—plural, unstable, and open-ended.

The act of “saumpnā” (handing over) is central. Words are handed over like fragments of the soul, yet they are mortal, impermanent. Silence, agitation, and knowledge are also handed over, each unstable, each carrying traces of mortality. Meaning is never final; every utterance carries within it the possibility of disintegration.

Existential and Philosophical Dimensions

Singh’s vision imparts philosophical depth to personal experience. Words are not mere linguistic units but fragments of existence. The river metaphor conveys both emotional surge and the flow of time and memory. The image of “words ceasing to exist on its own banks” underscores the perishability of language and experience. Knowledge, described as “rūkha” (dry), points to intellectual abstraction severed from life, while “marmar” (murmur) suggests a faint vitality within collective knowledge.

The poem’s future orientation—“One day you will know”—creates dialogue with a “tum” (you), who may be reader, beloved, or another self. Liberation (“mukti”) is central, not merely social but existential, from the colourlessness of life. The “grey night guard” embodies vigilance in uncertainty, awaiting dawn as symbol of hope. Yet dawn hands over “complete darkness,” a paradox suggesting that liberation itself carries new complexity, that beginnings contain fragments of endings.

Surveillance and Foucault’s Panopticon

Viewed sociologically, “Rātri Prahari” critiques modern surveillance society. The “guard” metaphor resonates with Michel Foucault’s interpretation of Jeremy Bentham’s “panopticon”—a structure of invisible surveillance where individuals internalise discipline. Singh’s “handing over” of words is both poetic and political, reflecting how marginal voices depend on recognition by power structures. Discourses, as Foucault argued in “The Archaeology of Knowledge” and “Discipline and Punish,” are impermanent, shifting with power relations. The river that sees words vanish becomes a metaphor for historical consciousness, observing how experiences are rendered invisible.

“Dry knowledge” reflects institutionalised knowledge severed from life, functioning as discipline and control. The “grey guard” embodies internalised surveillance, neither fully oppressive nor free. Dawn, symbolising liberation, is itself implicated in power, handing over darkness. Thus, Singh’s poem dramatizes the irony of modern existence: liberation births new control, surveillance extends into consciousness, language, and intimate relationships.

Aesthetic Perspectives: Heidegger, Kant, Adorno

Aesthetically, “Rātri Prahari” constructs beauty as processual, not static. Words are fragments of being, echoing Martin Heidegger’s notion of poetry as the “house of Being.” The act of handing over words is sharing existence, a form of “aletheia”—truth as unconcealment. Yet truth is partial, perishable, always slipping back into concealment.

Immanuel Kant’s idea of beauty as “disinterested pleasure” resonates here: beauty arises from transience, from the ceasing of words, from impermanence. Susan Langer’s “Feeling and Form” helps us see the river as a formalisation of emotional structure, not mere symbol. Theodor Adorno’s “negative dialectics” frames art as critical distance from social reality: “dry knowledge” is reality severed from life, while “murmur” is the hidden possibility of resistance.

The reader’s role is crucial. Wolfgang Iser’s reader-response theory suggests meaning is constructed through participation. The address to “tum” invites the reader into dialogue, making beauty lie in anticipation rather than conclusion. The colour “grey” breaks binaries of light/dark, embodying liminality, silence, and waiting. Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction underscores this instability: meaning is deferred, binaries penetrate each other. Beauty lies in incongruity, fragmentation, and paradox.

The ending—dawn handing over darkness—evokes the sublime. Edmund Burke saw the sublime as arising from vastness, power, and darkness that inspire awe and terror. Kant located the sublime in human consciousness, where recognition of physical insignificance coexists with intellectual superiority. Singh’s paradox of dawn and darkness creates a sublime experience of fear, wonder, and attraction simultaneously.

Psychoanalytic Dimensions: Freud and the Unconscious

From a psychoanalytic perspective, “Rātri Prahari” formalises tensions between conscious and unconscious. Night represents the unconscious, where suppressed desires and memories remain active. The guard functions like the superego, disciplining desires. “Handing over” is transference, projection of experiences onto the other—reader, beloved, or critic. Freud’s method of free association, where patients hand over unconscious thoughts, parallels the poet’s act of expression. Yet words remain mortal; repression persists. The ceasing of words visualises repression, where unbearable experiences are pushed into the unconscious.

The poem itself performs the role of analyst, carrying suppressed experiences into language. Expression brings catharsis, but never complete liberation. Something always remains unsaid, suppressed. Thus, Singh’s creative process mirrors psychoanalytic therapy, achieving internal freedom through self-acceptance, yet acknowledging the limits of language.

Feminist Poetic Dialogue: Savita Singh and Adrienne Rich

Singh’s work resonates with Adrienne Rich’s feminist poetics. Rich’s insistence on the political dimensions of language, silence, and women’s experience parallels Singh’s exploration of words, mortality, and liberation. Both poets situate women not as passive subjects but as creators of knowledge, challenging structures of power and surveillance. Singh’s “fragments of the soul” and Rich’s “debris of history” converge in a dialogue where poetry becomes both aesthetic and political act.

“Rātri Prahari” exemplifies Savita Singh’s ability to weave existential, sociological, aesthetic, and psychoanalytic dimensions into a single poetic text. It destabilises binaries of language and silence, light and darkness, liberation and control. It critiques surveillance, exposes the perishability of words, and dramatizes the paradox of liberation. Beauty arises from transience, incongruity, and sublime paradox. The poem invites the reader into dialogue, making her part of the process of meaning-construction. In this way, Singh’s poetry, in dialogue with Adrienne Rich, embodies feminist consciousness as both creative and critical, fragments of the soul intertwined with the debris of history.

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*Professor & former Head (Retd.), Department of Hindi, University of Hyderabad. This is the abridged version of the author's original paper