Verse as weapon

Meena Kandasamy, who recently received Germany's Hermann Kesten Prize, says that her pen gives her psychological relief

- LAKSHMI SUBRAMANIAN

On a rainy evening, Meena Kandasamy walks into the coffee shop in a long black skirt and sleeveless T-shirt. "Am I late?" she asks gently, before slipping into a chair. Her spoken word might be soft, but her written word is razor sharp, and she puts it to good use against existing hierarchies, patriarchy, and social injustice.

"Words are the little space that we are allowed to negotiate on our own," she says as she sips her filter coffee. "Our destiny is our anger and our fight against the system, and I do it using words." 

The poet, novelist and social activist takes pains to upend traditional beliefs in her books. In her world, women are not passive, nor are the downtrodden voiceless. In Ms Militancy, her second anthology of poems which came out in 2010, the outlet for her rage is a bevy of mythological women. Her Kali kills, Draupadi strips, and Sita climbs onto a stranger's lap. "All my women are militants," she says. "They brave bombs, belittle kings and take on the sun. They take after me."

Kandasamy herself is a 'Ms Militant, said the vice-president of the German PEN Centre, which recently awarded her the Hermann Kesten Prize 2022 for being "a fearless fighter for democracy and human rights". Kandasamy is that, for sure, by nurture as much as by nature.