Kali (poem)

"Kali" is a popular award-winning poem by the eminent Indian writer, linguist and literary critic Rukmini Bhaya Nair. The poem won First Prize in the Second All India Poetry Competition conducted by The Poetry Society (India) in 1990. The poem has been widely cited and anthologised in reputed journals and scholarly volumes on contemporary Indian poetry.

Excerpts from the poem

 * A goddess chews on myth
 * As other women might on paan
 * Red juices stain her mouth.


 * Bored by her own powers
 * Immense and spectral, Kali broods
 * About Shiva, she is perverse.


 * She will not plead with him
 * Nor reveal Ganesha’s birth
 * She will not ask him home.


 * Shiva loves her, but absences
 * And apsaras are natural to him
 * No god is hampered by his sins.




 * Loneliness drives this goddess mad
 * She is vagrant, her limbs askew
 * She begs a mate, her hair unmade.


 * Fickle as Shiva, memory deserts her
 * Chandi or Durga or Parvati, which
 * Is she, which of her selves weeps here?


 * Even Ganesha, for whom she feels
 * Only tenderness, excludes her, even he
 * Seems impatient with her flaws.




 * Both gift Kali a companion eagle, hurt
 * By no arrow, fed on nothing, it returns
 * Each night to its eyrie in her heart.

Comments and criticism
The poem has received rave reviews since its first publication in 1990 in the anthology on Indian Poetry Emerging Voices. The poem has been frequently quoted in scholarly analysis of contemporary Indian English Poetry. The poem is regarded by critics as a jewel in contemporary Indian poetry.

Although outwardly the poem describes the Hindu Goddess Kali, her tantrums and her equation with her son Ganesha and consort Shiva, the poem has a clear existentialist message for the Indian woman and her many socio-psychological trappings. In her writings, Rukmini brings about this interplay between the esoteric and the mundane in systematic subjugation of Indian woman over the centuries. The poem has been widely discussed at various literary festivals.

Online references

 * Third National Poetry Competition 1990 - Award Winners
 * Rukmini Bhaya Nair - A Biography
 * India Writes - Contemporary Indian Poetry