Celestial Broadcasts
Sanket Mhatre poems in A City Full of Sirens address and interrogate the relations between ‘the eternal’ and ‘the transient’ in a nuanced manner, tearing into the expansive multiplicities of singular moments.
From his Introduction to A City Full of Sirens (Hawakal, 2023), Mumbai-based bilingual poet Sanket Mhatre’s makes it amply clear that these ‘sirens’ in the title refer to ambulance sirens, zipping through a city that is grappling with a one-of-a-kind Black Swan event—the COVID-19 pandemic. In this sense, Mhatre’s chosen meaning of the term ‘siren’ seems closer to that found in Greek mythology i.e. symbolizing danger (faced by sailors at sea), rather than that in Indian mythology, in which sirens, or kinnaras, devotees of Kubera (god-king of the Yakshas) are half-human, half-bird/horse creatures, who not only seduce naive young men (in some texts), but also symbolize eternal love and devotion.
As I further perused this collection, however, Mhatre’s use of the ‘siren’ motif seemed to align more with the Hindu concept of akashvaani than with ‘sirens’ found in either Greek or the ‘kinnara’ mythology. Akashvaani usually denotes a message—mostly positive—from the gods/skies, which upends a traditionally hegemonic order by serving an essentially reparative function, without actively counter-arguing it. For example, in an episode from the Mahabharata, Sakuntala stands in King Dushyanta’s court, professing that she bore his son Bharata. To the King’s utter disbelief, the celestial voice emphatically proclaims, “Sakuntala has spoken the truth. A wife bears a son by splitting her body in two; therefore, Duhsanta, keep Sakuntala’s son, O King” (Vyasa), not only lending legal and moral legitimacy to Sakuntala’s claim (which she wants), but also becoming a reparative source of remembrance, memory, and acceptance for Dushyanta.
The understanding of the akashvaani motif has often been limited as a sort of ‘celestial broadcast’, which intervenes into logic of the text from ‘the outside’. However, whenever the akashvaani motif intervenes, it does so to resolve an inherent conflict within the text i.e. repairing and upending a traditional hegemonic order mentioned above. In so far as it fulfils this critical textual function, it should be considered part of the text, and not outside of it.
To push the argument further, the logic of the text fashions this supra-natural motif to resolve its own contractions. These characteristics of the akashvaani motif—its reparative function which triggers remembrance and acceptance, and its inwardly-oriented, though positive, manifestation—found resonance with the way I encountered Mhatre’s poetry.
In light of these observations, and my own interpretations, I highlight two important facets of Mhatre’s poems. The first is the exploration of the dialogic relationship between ‘the eternal’ and ‘the transient’, or the ‘singular and ‘the multiple’, which occurs in many of the poems: an ambulance carrying a patient suffering from COVID-19, a mother suffering from ovarian cancer, composing a poem. All of these are singular events, which occur within limited temporal continuums. However, these events also carry within them causalities and outcomes which have permanent (I resist using the word, ‘eternal’) implications. An ambulance zooming past carries within it, life or, more importantly, the possibility of death. Witnessing a mother’s prolong suffering can leave life-long scars on a child/care-giver. A poem, though made of static words on page, is always alive with the possibility of new meanings. It is this duality that Mhatre’s poems address, capture, and struggle with: the duality of ‘the transient’ and ‘the eternal’, ‘the singular’, and how it can expand into multiplicities.
To illustrate, in “Truth Could be a Poem” (48), we come across a million possibilities that truth could take form of as a poem, i.e. “lines that could punch a hole in your stomach... a bullet shot through an existing wound / an iron rod inserted through the rectum”. More than anything else, the speaker/poet wants us to know (and realize that) truth is knowing “that truth has so many possibilities”, and our version of it, is just one of the many possibilities.
But even with such awareness, in “Half | Written” (29), the speaker implores us to strive for wholeness, by saying, “make it whole”.
“Grief Shaped” (82), chronicles the slow decline of a mother’s health, seen through the eyes of, presumably, her offspring. Its initial lines commingle both physical and psychological ailments/struggles,
Dazed
Little strands of white hair rise like reluctant smoke over her scalp
(or past) hiding an unwritten letter of regret
tucked inside a side pocket along with prescriptions
This is one of Mhatre’s most emblematic poems. Amidst the mother’s critical medical condition in the hospital, “clocks melt clockwise off walls / Time drips blood like – a symphony of saline”. The title of the poem itself heralds the premonition of loss, however, Mhatre further writes, “she turns her back to them when bottles of Bevacizumab / run into her arteries like children through valleys / over relapsed cells...awaiting a wink from infinity—”. The juxtaposition of melting clocks, dripping time, and the body (emphasis mine) awaiting a “wink from infinity captures” both the immediacy of the mother’s pain, and the eternal scars certain losses will leave on the psyche of the speaker.
In “Prayer Bodies” (36) the speaker is visited by a memory, “like a white goddess”. It is the memory of a smile (of presumably an ex-lover) that “lights up / at the far end of the sky”. The rest of lines that follow demonstrate Mhatre’s ability to capture these dualities as effortlessly as he meticulously examines remembrance “like a prayer to this world / only to be written in memory”. He adds: “Like an unknown star in the distance / The space between us multiplies / and divides at the same time”.
An ambulance zooming past carries within it, life or, more importantly, the possibility of death. Witnessing a mother’s prolong suffering can leave life-long scars on a child/care-giver. A poem, though made of static words on page, is always alive with the possibility of new meanings.
The other aspect of Mhatre’s work which necessitates emphasis is his ‘Ars Poetica’ poems, as well as poems about poetry, writing, and the role/position of poets. These poems locate the act of writing poems, poetry, and poets, within the ‘eternal vs transient’ framework. In “Vertical Forests” (17), we are told that “words are seeds / we sow for tomorrow... while ink sprawls / on a dream of half-slept pages”. But even here, or most of all here in this poem about poems, blood and conscience are ensnared “in a network of memories/ rooting us”.
Mhatre is more direct and emphatic in “Coordinates” (83), which starts with the declarative,
We are not poets
We are translators of culture
We are not wordsmiths
We are a cavalry, the language created
To defend the last bastion
of human intellect.
That language creates the poet is a striking inversion. “Garamond and Poetry” (19) is a slick, smart poem, wherein the font Garamond takes form of a patient (male) lover, carer, or guardian, or all of these together, while poetry is a ‘her’. The poem explores their relationship, which is by-turns affectionate, erotic, and symbiotic relationship. For instance,
When night seeps into the crevices of Poetry,
Garamond embraces it gently, drinks it.
If Poetry needs to weep, Garamond takes her in his arms.
When Poetry is tired after a hard day’s work,
Garamond wraps around her like a capitulated lover.
The poem is reminiscent of David Lehmann’s “When a Woman Loves a Man”, both in its pacing and voice. Though, to juxtapose the voice and tenor on Garamond and Poetry would have taken no less courage, which Mhatre accomplishes convincingly.
In A City Full of Sirens, the ambulance ‘siren’ troupe transcends its own temporal limitedness to the singular, by serving the reparative function of the traditional akashvaani. This celestial siren resuscitates the speaker’s memories of a difficult time, and brings him to acceptance and healing.
Likewise, Mhatre’s Ars Poetica poems illuminate various aspects of the ‘act of writing’, ‘poems’, and the role of poets, in both immediate and long-drawn timeframes. Through such a reading, we also witness how grappling with dualities—of immediate suffering and long-term healing, of the act of composing a poem, and the poem taking a life of its own—constitute the fundamental business of living.
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Ankush Banerjee is a poet, Masculinity Studies Research Scholar, and Reviews’ Editor at Usawa Literary Review. You can find him on X: @ankushbanerji09 and Instagram: @banerjee.ankush99.
