Comment on the way in which gender roles are handled/challenged in the poem Gargi’s Silence.
The poem is:-
GARGI’S SILENCE
Where in the barefoot world you wander
Will go with you Gargi’s untamed
Silence. Among the sea anemones’
Agile points of light, blue flamed
In mushroom woods, when wheelbarrows
Tip their load, and the mustard plains
Burn yellow in the recesses, listen
To the universe crackle, curl, change
Because Gargi has found the last, unnamed
Star, and on Yagnavalkya’s ascetic skull
Her questions fall like soot, black rain
Stir in his groin, make him young again.
Zebra red spurts the tawn savannah grass
And lion swishes his tail, great maned
What is the warp and weft of the world
What lies in the taut weaver’s frame?
Who turns the crankshaft in my brain?
Answer, Yagnavalkya! How many oceans deep
Is desire? When you touch me, am I sane?
Can a bee taste honey? Why does it sting?
In mean streets, in the slushy yards of pain
Gargi whispers in Yagnavalkya’s ticklish ear
Your metaphysics is shaky! We’re not chained
To Brahman. He is a prisoner of our senses.
That dry saltpetre hill, that baboon whooping
What’s Brahman to them? Yet they’ll remain
When we’ve packed up our arguments and gone
Tell me, Yagnavalkya, will you instruct me then?
Stop, Gargi! Stop! If you ask so much, for so much
Your head will fall off – or mine. I’m not ashamed
To admit my wisdom has limits. See that goat boy
Passing? The first lesson is one in restraint.
Don’t mess with him, Gargi. In the soundless lanes
Of the sky, milk white Akasha, you will hear voices
Yours, his, mine, his and then – the last unclaimed
Akshara. Whose word is it, Gargi, Brahman’s – or ours?
Then Gargi Vachanakari, smiling to herself, held her peace.
Gargi, pupil of the sage Yagnavalkya, is one of the few women with intellectual yearnings who
appear in the Upanishads, where she is threatened with dire consequences by her guru for asking
too many questions.
Answers
Where in the barefoot world you wander
Will go with you Gargi’s untamed
Silence. Among the sea anemones’
Agile points of light, blue flamed
In mushroom woods, when wheelbarrows
Tip their load, and the mustard plains
Burn yellow in the recesses, listen
To the universe crackle, curl, change
Because Gargi has found the last, unnamed
Star, and on Yagnavalkya’s ascetic skull
Her questions fall like soot, black rain
Stir in his groin, make him young again.
Zebra red spurts the tawn savannah grass
And lion swishes his tail, great maned
What is the warp and weft of the world
What lies in the taut weaver’s frame?
Who turns the crankshaft in my brain?
Answer, Yagnavalkya! How many oceans deep
Is desire? When you touch me, am I sane?
Can a bee taste honey? Why does it sting?
In mean streets, in the slushy yards of pain
Gargi whispers in Yagnavalkya’s ticklish ear
Your metaphysics is shaky! We’re not chained
To Brahman. He is a prisoner of our senses.
That dry saltpetre hill, that baboon whooping
What’s Brahman to them? Yet they’ll remain
When we’ve packed up our arguments and gone
Tell me, Yagnavalkya, will you instruct me then?
Stop, Gargi! Stop! If you ask so much, for so much
Your head will fall off – or mine. I’m not ashamed
To admit my wisdom has limits. See that goat boy
Passing? The first lesson is one in restraint.
Don’t mess with him, Gargi. In the soundless lanes
Of the sky, milk white Akasha, you will hear voices
Yours, his, mine, his and then – the last unclaimed
Akshara. Whose word is it, Gargi, Brahman’s – or ours?
Then Gargi Vachanakari, smiling to herself, held her peace.
The Upanishads' character Gargi, who represents a woman of intellectual prowess, is used here. Gargi serves as a role model for everybody with a hunger for knowledge.
- Gargi decides to ask questions beyond those that have previously been addressed, hence she may never receive an answer to her questions.
- She is simultaneously the voice of a woman who understands that she is equal to her male counterpart as well as the voice of suppressed womanhood.
- She can also be understood as the voice of a poet who is looking for solutions outside the purview of conventional education.
- Given that she is compelled to remain silent, the title "Gargi's Silence" initially conjures up images of doom. By the poem's conclusion, she is discovered to be "keeping her peace" rather than being forced to remain silent.
- In a comedic twist, Gargi assumes the role of the more mature individual and, after recognising the limitations of the austere Yajnavalkya, concludes that further discussion is pointless.
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