LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 21:5 May 2021
ISSN 1930-2940

Editors:
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

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Handcuffing the Taboos Through
Meena Kandasamy’s Touch

Ms. G. Harine


Courtesy: goodreads.com

Abstract

Meena Kandasamy, the youngest and the rebellious poet of contemporary literary world, always proves that poetry is not just a form to express the aesthetics of a language; it is also a form which substantiates the power of a language in a society. Our society is tightly constructed with caste, religion, customs and superstitions and some deep rooted taboos which act as parasites. These taboos strongly tangle around the legs of the society and the necks of women. Our society is suffocating through such taboos which are intertwined with our caste system and especially with our women.

Hence the paper intends to discuss Meena Kandasamy’s Touch, which is her first anthology of poems, used as a weapon to dissect and destroy the taboos which make the women of the marginalized to grieve. Such an exploration is important to understand the fractions in the sufferings of a woman. This paper further celebrates Touch as a master who teaches the victims to violate the taboos and it also gazes Meena Kandasamy as a voice giver for marginalized women, against their social oppression.

Keywords: Meena Kandasamy, Touch, taboo, suffocating society, marginalized women, weapon, violation of the taboos.

Poetry is an inimitable form in literature through which one can pour down their emotions with the sense of aesthetics and with the mind of quest for strong societal changes. It can be used as a weapon to attack and annihilate the abusers of humankind. Meena Kandasamy, an Indian and a Tamil poet, wisely arranges the words in her poems to bring out the taboos that are tightly bonded with our society. In her first poetry collection Touch, she has penned eighty-four revolutionary poems which stands and stares at the human by expressing the basic taboos of our society. The meaning of the word taboo is intricately connected with forbidden acts. Our society possesses some forbidden acts and speaking of such things is a taboo. The taboo is a result from social customs. In Meena Kandasamy’s Touch she has raised her voice about the prevailing taboos around the most sensational and sensitive part of our society, i.e., caste, religion, and women.

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

Ms. G. Harine
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Avinashilingam Institute of Home Science and Higher Education for Women
Coimbatore - 641043
haruganesan@gmail.com
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