Book Details:
- Poetry
- 9789383888054
- 9383888059
Paperback
- 1st Edition
- 3 March, 2014
English
- 64
- 5.5 x 0.2 x 8.5 inches
- 4.8 ounces
- N/A
About DESIROUS WATER
Desirous Water is primarily a collection of poems by poet Sumita Nandy, translated from their original Bangla into English by Kiriti Sengupta. This translated edition does justice to the original Bangla poems, as the poet herself confirms.
At its very essence Desirous Water is a description of the relationship between the male and female sides of a being, or psyche, as told primarily from the male point of view. It has elements of love, passion, urge, erotica, and appeal, and fire. There is also an underlying spiritual undercurrent throughout the work, which ties it all together and puts it all in context. The poems stand very well on their own, but to grasp their full meanings you really have to appreciate how they all relate to and reinforce each other. And it doesn’t hurt to read them several times.
The poems in this collection are sensuous, to the extent where they become almost scandalous in terms of the hypocrisy practiced in a conservative society, but then, there is an attempt to restore order, to reign the “desirous water.” Water here is often used as the mirror reflecting feminine sexuality, a kind of sexuality that is not godly and spiritual, but it is humane, lustful and desirous, the way it is meant to be before it calms down. The poet is careful with her choice of words, as can be felt with the translation. If you are a Bengali, you can actually enjoy a lot more, guessing the Bangla lines, the word play is that beautiful. Although the desire is strong, we can feel that this great force is driven by love, and love only, because the lover is asked to “do it like a virgin.” The poet, like a wordsmith, uses words that are emblematic of physical desire but they penetrate the cerebrals uncannily.