LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 15:1 January 2015
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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Kala Ghoda Poems:
Anguish Brought by Hypocrisy of Progress

Dr. Mrs. Anisa G. Mujawar, M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.


Courtesy:
http://www.cse.iitk.ac.in/users/amit/books/kolatkar-2011-collected-poems-in.html

Abstract

Arun Kolatkar’s Kala Ghoda depicts postmodern socio-political India. It represents the life of the underprivileged and highlights its absolute disparity with the technological and material progress of India. It portrays the lives of people living on the streets - sweepers, lepers, prostitutes, beggars, drunkards, and others like them. It brings objects, animals, rubbish, and ecology together. Kolatkar observes the marginalized poor, against the overcrowded, advanced, capitalistic Mumbai, to pinpoint that their condition has not changed in post-colonial India. Their condition was neither good in the pre-British times, nor did it improve in the colonial period, and continues to go on in the same miserable drudgery even today! The features of postmodernism like irony, humour, minimalism, techno culture, writing of the long poem by dividing it into shorter pieces, consumerism, commodity glorification, identity crisis and so on, are all reflected in Kala Ghoda. Kolatkar does not indulge in the past traditions of India, but focuses on the wider, modern world and the people living in capitalist urbanization.

This paper attempts to highlight the life of Mumbai portrayed in “Breakfast Time at Kala Ghoda”. The scene of the underprivileged coming together for breakfast and enjoying life quite optimistically stands entirely in contrast to the lives of their masters. This poem emphasizes their pangs. It gives a call in a humorous and ironical tone to the entire humanity to think of the hypocrisy of progress affecting the lives of the poor of India.

Keywords: Kala Ghoda, Mumbai, the marginalized poor, postmodernism, hypocrisy of progress, commodity glorification

Arun Kolatkar’s Works


Arun Kolatkar (1932-2004)

Arun Kolatkar wrote both in Marathi and English. His poetry reveals his passionate surveillance of the life around him. He used to observe the life of South Mumbai from his Café table at Kala Ghoda and it resulted in his Kala Ghoda Poems. The title ‘Kala Ghoda’ comes from a highly crowded area in South Bombay. The famous Jahangir Art Gallery is located at this place. This space includes colonial monuments like the Rajabhai tower and the Prince of Wales museum. The literal meaning of Hindi phrase ‘Kala Ghoda’ is ‘black horse’. It refers to a monument of King Edward VII in black granite. It is a statue donated by Sir Alfred Sassoon in commemoration of the King’s visit to India and to Bombay in 1876. This monument was damaged in 1965. This place now comprises the zoological gardens of the Jijamata Udyan in Byculla, Bombay. But the area continues to be called by this absent statue of colonial domination.

Kala Ghoda Poems

Kala Ghoda Poems depict postmodern socio-political India. The poems represent the life of the underprivileged and highlight its absolute disparity with the technological and material progress of India. These poems portray the lives of the people living on the streets - sweepers, lepers, prostitutes, beggars, drunkards, etc. They put before the readers objects, animals, rubbish, and ecology together. Kolatkar observes the marginalized people against the overcrowded, advanced, capitalistic Mumbai to pinpoint that their condition has not changed in postcolonial India. Though India got its freedom and struggled to become modern, it has failed to bring happiness and solve the problem of hunger and poverty in the postmodern period. ‘Kala Ghoda’ reminds the Indians of the British colonial rule. It is substituted by the capitalist, neo-colonial India. Mumbai stands as a city occupied with the wretched and colonized by the neocolonial power structures.

Post-modernist Features of Kala Ghoda Poems

The features of postmodernism like irony, humour, minimalism, techno culture, writing the long poem by dividing it into shorter pieces, consumerism, commodity glorification, identity crisis and such, are reflected in Kala Ghoda Poems. Kolatkar has put a blank space before starting each poem. The gap prepares readers to read the truth about the Indian scenario in this postmodern period. The gap makes the readers stop and contemplate the development of India. The gap also stands as the symbol of the gap between the life of the white-collared upper class and upper middle-class and the life of the blue-collared, the poor, the down-trodden, and rootless people. The use of gaps is a postmodern style of writing. The poet does not indulge in the past traditions of India but focuses on the wider, modern world and the people living in capitalist urbanization.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Dr. Mrs. Anisa G. Mujawar, M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.

Dr. Mrs. Anisa G. Mujawar, M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Head
Department of English
Chhatrapati Shivaji College
Satara – 415001
Maharashtra
India
anisamujawar@yahoo.co.in

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