The politics of dreaming: Savita Singh's feminist imagination

By Ravi Ranjan* 

In contemporary Hindi poetry, few voices have explored the philosophical and creative possibilities of women's experience as powerfully as Savita Singh. Across collections such as "Svapna Samay" (Dream Time), Aapne Jaisa Jeevan, and "Prem Bhi Ek Yatana" Hai, she has developed a poetic world in which woman is not merely a subject of suffering or social commentary but a creator of knowledge, meaning, and alternative realities.

One of the most remarkable poems from "Svapna Samay" is “Tumhen Likhna” (“To Write You”). At first glance, it appears to be a poem about writing. Yet it is much more than that. It is a meditation on creativity, existence, freedom, and the power of dreams. Through this poem, Savita Singh joins a larger global conversation with poets such as Adrienne Rich and Marina Tsvetaeva, both of whom viewed poetry not as ornament but as an act of resistance.

The poem begins with a startling declaration. The poet says she has travelled so far with her poem from her familiar world that fear itself has become illogical. This departure from the familiar is not merely physical; it is intellectual and spiritual. The poet abandons the ready-made certainties offered by society and enters an unknown territory where life, death, imagination, and language merge into one another.

In this journey, poetry becomes a mode of exploration. The poet encounters a landscape where “life becomes one with death,” where conventional knowledge has been torn apart, and where destiny and even gods appear subordinate to a larger creative force. Such images challenge traditional structures of authority. The poem suggests that genuine creativity begins only when inherited certainties are questioned.

One of the most striking images in the poem is that of “shimmering darkness.” Ordinarily, darkness signifies ignorance and light signifies knowledge. Savita Singh overturns this hierarchy. In her poetic universe, darkness is not emptiness but a source of possibility. Light and darkness lose their opposition and become interchangeable. This vision recalls the non-dual philosophy of the Upanishads, where ultimate truth lies beyond rigid distinctions.

The image also carries a feminist significance. For centuries, patriarchal thought associated reason, order, and light with masculinity while linking mystery, emotion, and darkness with femininity. Savita Singh reverses this logic. Her darkness is creative, fertile, and transformative. It becomes a space from which new forms of knowledge emerge.

The poem therefore performs a radical intellectual act. Rather than asking for entry into existing structures of knowledge, it questions the structures themselves. The poet speaks of tearing apart the “webs of knowledge” and reducing destiny and gods to servants. Such lines represent a profound challenge to systems that have historically excluded women's voices from philosophy, theology, and intellectual discourse.

At another level, “Tumhen Likhna” is a powerful example of what critics call meta-poetry—poetry that reflects upon its own process of creation. The poem is not merely describing reality; it is examining what it means to write, to imagine, and to create meaning. Writing becomes an act of transformation. To write is to enter a different state of consciousness.

This idea is expressed most clearly in the poem's concluding lines:

“To write you is to exchange

this life for another life,

one dream for another,

or indeed this life for a dream.”

These lines contain the central philosophical insight of the poem. Dream is not presented as escape. It is presented as an alternative reality capable of challenging the limitations of ordinary life. The dream becomes a form of resistance.

This understanding of dream connects Savita Singh with two major figures in world poetry: Adrienne Rich and Marina Tsvetaeva.

Adrienne Rich's celebrated poem “Diving into the Wreck” describes a solitary descent into deep waters in search of truths buried beneath official histories and myths. Rich seeks the wreck itself, not the stories told about it. Similarly, Savita Singh seeks realities hidden beneath the “garments of harsh knowledge” imposed by society. Both poets reject inherited narratives and undertake difficult journeys into unfamiliar depths.

The parallels with Marina Tsvetaeva are equally compelling. In Tsvetaeva's poem “The Desk,” the writing table becomes a refuge from a false and hypocritical world. Writing allows the poet to leave behind a defined reality and enter a dream-like realm of freedom. Savita Singh's poem echoes this movement. For both poets, creativity is not luxury but necessity. It is a means of preserving humanity in a world increasingly shaped by conformity and spiritual exhaustion.

The social dimension of “Tumhen Likhna” becomes particularly powerful in the image of the “warm river.” Along its banks arrive the “processions of ignorance” to discard their innocent humanity and wear the “garments of harsh knowledge.” This is one of the most memorable passages in contemporary Hindi poetry.

The river symbolizes a civilisation driven by greed, instrumental thinking, and intellectual arrogance. The people arriving there are not innocent because they lack knowledge; rather, they surrender their humanity in pursuit of a form of knowledge detached from compassion. They become successful perhaps, but spiritually diminished.

The poem's critique feels especially relevant today. Modern societies often celebrate efficiency, competition, and technical expertise while neglecting empathy, imagination, and moral responsibility. In such a world, poetry becomes a form of witness. The poet stands on the bank of the warm river and records what others prefer not to see.

This concern with humanity's alienation also links the poem to broader philosophical traditions, including existentialism. Thinkers such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus argued that human beings must create meaning in a world that offers no ready-made answers. Savita Singh's poem embodies a similar spirit. It acknowledges uncertainty, mortality, and isolation, yet responds through creative action rather than despair.

The poem also possesses a remarkable ecological consciousness. Birds, sand, moonlight, rivers, boats, human beings, envy, hatred, and noise all appear together on a single canvas. Nature and human emotions are shown as interconnected parts of one living system. The poem refuses to place humanity above nature and instead presents all existence as mutually dependent.

What finally makes “Tumhen Likhna” extraordinary is its refusal to separate philosophy from poetry. The poem addresses questions of existence, knowledge, gender, language, ecology, and creativity without sacrificing emotional intensity. It transforms writing itself into a spiritual and ethical act.

Savita Singh's achievement lies in showing that dreams are not the opposite of reality. Dreams are a way of confronting reality when reality becomes intolerable. They create a counter-world from which new possibilities can emerge.

In this sense, “Tumhen Likhna” speaks far beyond contemporary Hindi literature. It joins a global tradition of writers who have used imagination as a form of resistance. Like Adrienne Rich diving into the wreck or Marina Tsvetaeva withdrawing into the sanctuary of writing, Savita Singh enters the uncertain territory of dream.

Her poem reminds us that when societies become harsh, when knowledge loses compassion, and when humanity begins to forget itself, poetry remains one of the last places where freedom can still be imagined.

As long as the capacity to dream survives, the poem suggests, human beings cannot be completely defeated.

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