An Old Woman by Arun Kolatkar

An Old Woman

by Arun Kolatkar

Poem

An old woman grabs
hold of your sleeve
and tags along.

She wants a fifty paise coin.
She says she will take you
to the horseshoe shrine.

You've seen it already.
She hobbles along anyway
and tightens her grip on your shirt.

She won't let you go.
You know how old women are.
They stick to you like a burr.

You turn around and face her
with an air of finality.
You want to end the farce.

When you hear her say,
‘What else can an old woman do
on hills as wretched as these?'

You look right at the sky.
Clear through the bullet holes
she has for her eyes.

And as you look on
the cracks that begin around her eyes
spread beyond her skin.

And the hills crack.
And the temples crack.
And the sky falls

with a plateglass clatter
around the shatter proof crone
who stands alone.

And you are reduced
to so much small change
in her hand.

Biography : The full name of Arun Kolatkar was Arun Balkrishna Kolatkar. He was a bilingual poet. A bilingual poet is a poet writing in two languages. Moreover, he was also a translator. Arun Kolatkar was born on 1st November 1932 in Kolhapur. He died on 25th September, 2004. He was a poet from Maharashtra. His poems found humour in many everyday matters. His poetry had an influence on modern Marathi poets. Kolatakar‘s career began as a graphic artist. He contributed to Kavi, Opinion Literary Review, New Writing in India and the Shell and the Rain . Kolatkar also translated Marathi poems of Tukaram into English. His long poem The Boatride was published in the magazine Damn You. . His first book of English poetry is Jejuri. Jejuri is a collection 31 poems about the poet‘s visit to a religious place called Jejuri; the book won Commonwealth Writers' Prize in 1977. His Marathi verse collection Bhijki Vahi won a Sahitya Akademi Award in 2005. 

Explanation of the Poem:

The speaker in the poem goes to Jejuri. There an old beggar woman grabs hold of his sleeve. She demands a fifty-paise- coin from the speaker. In return, she promises to show him the horseshoe shrine. The legend goes that Lord Khandoba carried Banai from her father's house on a blue horse. The horse leapt accross the hills. The horse hit the ground so hard that a shrine was produced there. The speaker, however, tells the woman that he has already seen the shrine. He is therefore not interested in seeing it again. 

But the old beggar woman does not leave the speaker. In fact, she tightens her grip on his shirt. She is now walking like a lame person to produce mercy in the heart of the speaker. The speaker is so much embarrassed. He is very irritated. The woman sticks to him like a burr. He sees at the sky. Then, he sees into the eyes of the old woman. He wants to end the farce. Her eyes appear to the speaker like the bullet holes. She is indeed a very old woman.

As he countinues to look into the eyes of the woman, he feels that wrinkles around her eyes begin to spread and the hills crack. The temple also cracks and the sky falls down. A sound of plateglass clatter is produced. All are shattered, except the old woman who stands alone in front of the speaker demanding the fifty-paise-coin. The speaker feels that his life is like small change that the old woman has in her hands. The poem thus ends on a sad note.