Hello Friends...

Sure, we all are doing well... Be careful, we must stay fit and shouldn't fall ill getting our studies affected. We shall eat and drink healthy, exercise regularly, and won't avoid our domestic and social responsibilities. And whatever time we get for ourselves at the end of the day, we must study hard for most of the time, so that we learn to think..., and learn. We simply cannot afford to stop thinking, for we are learners, and we are the chosen ones who got the scope to learn...

Let's learn to think first...

Here we meet to discuss a brief poem, The Bangle Sellers by Sarojini Naidu.

Sarojini Naidu

Before we start looking for the poet, her background, and her inspiration to write poems, it might be a better idea to start our journey from the text itself so that we might understand what we actually need to look for in the context.

The Bangle Sellers

Bangle sellers are we who bear
Our shining loads to the temple fair...
Who will buy these delicate, bright
Rainbow-tinted circles of light?
Lustrous tokens of radiant lives,
For happy daughters and happy wives.

Some are meet for a maiden's wrist,
Silver and blue as the mountain mist,
Some are flushed like the buds that dream
On the tranquil brow of a woodland stream,
Some are aglow with the bloom that cleaves
To the limpid glory of new born leaves

Some are like fields of sunlit corn,
Meet for a bride on her bridal morn,
Some, like the flame of her marriage fire,
Or, rich with the hue of her heart's desire,
Tinkling, luminous, tender, and clear,
Like her bridal laughter and bridal tear.

Some are purple and gold flecked grey
For she who has journeyed through life midway,
Whose hands have cherished, whose love has blest,
And cradled fair sons on her faithful breast,
And serves her household in fruitful pride,
And worships the gods at her husband's side.

The Title

What does the title indicate? It seems to be apparently fair and simple, right? We assume the poem to be about the people who sell bangles for a living, isn't it? Bangles, we all must be knowing, are rigid bracelets to be worn around wrists, arms, and ankles by people as ornaments mostly. Wearing bangles has long been a part of people's cultural, religious, as well as aesthetic practices. In different parts of India, women specifically have been wearing (glass) bangles around their wrists to identify their marital status from the shades of the bangles for long, thus associating these with the social construct of femininity. They also have been romanticising and celebrating this practice through their folksongs and poems. But who could have thought that even bangle sellers might rise to significance enough someday to get treated by poets? Not me, at the least... However, that these poor hardworking people have earned the attention of the poet is something to be celebrated for sure.

The First Stanza

Isn't the very first line a shock? I myself didn't expect the bangle sellers speaking for themselves in the poem: Bangle sellers are we... Now, it makes our journey a little bit more difficult, for surely, many among us now wonder if the poet (from a different economy), had enough insight to represent the version of these hardworking people, mostly men, toiling hard to meet their days' end. Or is the poem just a fragment of some romantic mind dwelling upon something that is very commonplace and regular?

Bangle sellers are we... The clause is an inverted clause. Maybe, the poet had a mind to emphasise the fact that they sell bangles. But that is what bangle sellers do. Why do we have the inversion then to emphasise something that is so obvious? Is it that she is trying to point out that selling bangles are something more than their profession? Maybe, the poet wants us to regard bangle selling as their identity, and not as their mere profession?

The next clause provides a glimpse into what had long been a social practice over large parts of India: who bear/Our shining loads to the temple fair... Though these bangle sellers traded their items along the village paths, knocking from door to door during the poet's time all the year round [and they still do so in many remote corners in India], they always gathered around the shrines during fairs often organised as parts of religious festivities in rural India. It was at such fairs where they earned most of their annual profits, selling their fares to almost the entire women-folk of the locality visiting the fairs to perform religious rites, shop, hang out and celebrate, without the hard labour of going from door to door.

The phrase shining loads is quite interesting for sounding like an antithesis, is it not so? Glass bangles literally shine bright in the sun no doubt; but at the same time, the subtle hint that the heavy loads of the vendors shine in the prospect of earning some more profit than the usual days as they carry the excessive load upon their heads with their foreheads gleaming with sweat certainly counts as a strong possibility. Don't you agree?

Who will buy these delicate, bright/Rainbow-tinted circles of light? Glass bangles are delicate for sure, as is the phrase bright rainbow-tinted circles of light. Whoever has the experience of witnessing loads of glass bangles reflecting and refracting the sunlight would appreciate the involvement of the skilled poet in constructing this descriptive phrase. But, does not the question reflect the agony of uncertainty that revolves around the laboursome business more than the bright prospect of a reasonable profit? Does this then present us more with a societal crisis than a romantic reflection?

Lustrous tokens of radiant lives,/For happy daughters and happy wives.- The last two lines of the first stanza are quite epigrammatic. These are truly brief, and loaded with meaning. Little daughters turn happy and glow at the prospect of receiving lustrous and shiny bangles that radiate with the glow of the sun bathing the fair-ground. Do the wives glow with the prospect of a meaningful night with their husbands' radiating love and bringing in gifts of bangles for them? Indeed, young and loving husbands are seen to be buying more bangles for their wives, just as the doting fathers buy for their little girls and elderly brothers for their little sisters, than anyone else in such fairs. And the women who buy bangles for themselves, they mostly buy to be happy by themselves, adding to their own charm. Why don't we consider the chance of the daughters and wives of the bangle sellers turning happy as well from the prospect of a good business here?

The Second Stanza

Some are meet for a maiden's wrist,
Silver and blue as the mountain mist,
Some are flushed like the buds that dream
On the tranquil brow of a woodland stream,
Some are aglow with the bloom that cleaves
To the limpid glory of new born leaves

Does the second stanza support our earlier reading? The entire stanza is dedicated to describe the variety of the bangles the sellers have for sale. Is it so? Well, not the variety of the entire collection they have, but only of those that comprise the collection meant for the maidens. Maidens... Does it ring a bell?

Let us make a list of the qualities that makes these bangles exquisite enough to wind up the maiden charm. We have three: 'silver and blue as the mountain mist', 'flushed like the buds that dream on the tranquil brow of a woodland stream' and 'aglow with the bloom that cleaves to the limpid glory of new born leaves'. If silver represents wealth and riches, and blue represents calm and serenity, doesn't mountain mist bring in the connotation of mysterious elements waiting to get unravelled and explored? The image of buds dreaming along some tranquil (calm for being slow?) forest stream might seem to be extremely idyllic, but what about the buds getting red and flushed in their dreams? What are the buds (maidens awaiting the prospect of a consummated marriage?) dreaming? Some bangles even radiate like flowers that clearly promise the glory of new born leaves (promises of fertility?). Is it so that these used to be treated as the typical charm of virtuous maidens back in the days of the poet? Don't we still have the undercurrent?

Before we move on to the next stanza to seek answers that might confirm or negate our guesses, should we care to take a brief pause and read out the first two stanzas aloud for once? It seems to me that the second stanza has got a faster tempo than the first one, brought in by the use of recurrent sibilants, liquids and abundant nasals halted by occasional voiced plosives with minimal punctuation. Do you agree? May we safely say that this faster pace actually reflects the youthful bash of a charming maiden? Or do you think it represents the bangle sellers panting, being tired and trying to catch a faster breath as they reach the fair-ground with a heavy load upon their heads, and the heavier expectation that they might also buy something meaningful for their daughters and wives back at home to make them happy?

The Third Stanza

Some are like fields of sunlit corn,
Meet for a bride on her bridal morn,
Some, like the flame of her marriage fire,
Or, rich with the hue of her heart's desire,
Tinkling, luminous, tender, and clear,
Like her bridal laughter and bridal tear.

What do you think of it now as you have gone through the third stanza? Do you sense a shift in the category of bangles as now the stanza speaks of bangles for 'brides' instead of 'maidens'? Or would you prefer to consider the shift actually as a continuation of the previous stanza? Do you now feel that bangles are actually being sold to reinforce and establish femininity in various forms through different stages?

As for the colours out for sale now, we here have various shades of yellow as are the fields of sunlit corn and shades ranging from yellow to red just like the flames of fire. Have you noticed how the happiness of the bridal morning (yellow) soon takes us to [and through?] the exalted exuberance of emotions associated with the union? Do the phrases like the flame of her marriage fire or her heart's desire indicate the tumult that a bride's mind goes through on the day of her marriage? The simultaneous laughters and tears of a bride are indicative enough of the tumult she goes through. The craftsmen who produce such bangles that are as delicate and transparent as the brides, and are as radiant and spirited as their minds, must be as skilled with their tools as is the poet with her choice of words and images. And the bangle sellers who have an eye to identify these fine intricacies and sell them accordingly must be no less artists than the craftsmen producing them or the poet describing them.

The Final Stanza

Some are purple and gold flecked grey
For she who has journeyed through life midway,
Whose hands have cherished, whose love has blest,
And cradled fair sons on her faithful breast,
And serves her household in fruitful pride,
And worships the gods at her husband's side.

So, the colors change again. Now, they change from warm, exuberant, youthful shades to the shades that represent age, wisdom, and stability. Purple and gold flecked grey are achieved only at the cost of the youth that is spent on giving births, nursing and nurturing. Womanhood gets actualised through motherhood. Is that what it means? Is the poem all about the journey of a youthful 'maiden' culminating to the mother she is 'destined' to become through the social institution called marriage then? Does the society demand more than this from the women folk?

And serves her household in fruitful pride - Does the pride buy her a rightful share in her own household, or is it just a fancy? Or is it just a word-play to dampen the harsh humility contained in servitude?

And worships the gods at her husband's side- How would you approach to read the final line of the poem? Do you find the question ambiguous? Would you like to read it in the way as if the woman, together with her husband, worships the gods, indicating conjugal solidarity; or in the way as if the woman worships the gods favouring her husband's, indicating the domination of the husband in the household that negates and dishonours gender equality?

The Discussion

What is the poem all about then? Is the poem a sophisticated, poetic sale-cry of some artistic tradesmen? How does the title gets its justification then? Or, is the poem actually about the lives, struggles and aspirations of the bangle sellers as revealed through very subtle hints in the very first stanza, justifying the title of the poem?

Or, does the entire poem seem to be an idyllic one romanticising some cultural and social tradition, taking the liberty to reflect more than the title indicates? Or, is the poem an ironical reflection of how a typical male chauvinist tradition sees the other gender, and how it expects them to behave, laying out conventions, if not rules, to wear bangles symbolising shackles? Those who know such communities might even point out that wearing glass bangles is a strict social convention for the females only. Any male, trying these out for himself, is expected to face extreme social harassment attacking his gender identity.

And, to add to our misery, the poet here was no commonplace male growing and thriving in a male dominated society proudly bearing the ideals of male domination and female servitude, but one of the most sensible and sensitive intellectuals of her time who also belonged to the other gender growing and thriving in a male dominated world. She must have been keenly aware of the curse of gender imbalance prevalent during her time. Is it possible that she was too young to see through the dark mazes of the tradition [she got the poem published in her early thirties, might have written it even earlier] and was clueless of how her simple words might be put under scanners by complex readers after the lapse of a century who have learnt to be more critical about gender issues in the meantime. Or, is it that we are complicating things unnecessarily whereas the poem just reflects the 'harmless' custom of traditional Indian women to wear bangles [stylised differently to mark if they are unmarried or married, or if they are beyond the socially acceptable marital age and status?] constructing a sense of identity, as was the dire need of the time to promote nationalism?

The answers, as you can very well see, cannot be concluded easily. To see if we have any clue to our queries, we need to check the background of the poet now. I welcome you to do your own research, and share your opinions with me to continue the discussion. Till then, good bye...

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