Summary of poem an old woman written by arun kolatkar is a very popular men in indian writer
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Arun Balkrishna Kolatkar (November 1, 1932 – September 25, 2004) was a poet from Maharashtra,India. Writing in both Marathi and English, his poems found humor in many everyday matters. His poetry had an influence on modern Marathi poets. His first book of English poetry, Jejuri, is a collection 31 poems pertaining to a visit of his to a religious place with the same name Jejuri in Maharashtra; the book won Commonwealth Writers' Prize in 1977.[1] His Marathi verse collection Bhijki Vahi won a Sahitya Akademi Award in 2005. His Collected Poems in English, edited by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, was published in Britain by Bloodaxe Booksin 2010.
In Arun Kolatkar's poem, "An Old Woman," the main theme is about keeping what is important in perspective—in this case, an old woman and her heritage—the land from which she comes.
An old woman clutches a tourist's sleeve and tags along with him. She wants a 'fifty paise coin'. For this she offers to show him 'the horseshoe shrine'. This refers to a legend centred around a horse-shoe shaped depression in a rock about Khandoba, the presiding deity at Jejuri, who leaped from that rock onto his horse as he carried his wife with him. This is a legend that the true believer reveres and the sceptic doubts.
The tourist moves away as he has seen the shrine already. The old woman 'tightens her grip' and 'hobbles' along - not giving up so easily. She is persistent. She clings to him like a 'burr' - a prickly seed pod that clings to clothes.
Irritated by this persistence, the tourist decides to 'face her' with an 'air of finality'—he decides that he will not yield to her and thereby wants to put an end to the 'farce'. He presumes that his no nonsense reaction will deter her. But the old woman’s matter of fact question - 'what else' could an 'old woman' do to survive on these 'wretched hills' – strikes the narrator like a thunderbolt.
The stark reality that hits the narrator allows him to 'see' her at closer quarters. When he turns to look at her face, he is shocked. There are two deep sunken eyes that look like bullet holes. Her skin is wrinkled and cracks begin to appear around her eyes and spread beyond her skin. He feels that everything is falling apart. Everything is cracked and in ruins.
The cracks spread beyond her skin to the hills and the sky. There is a catastrophe. The hills crack, the temples crack and the sky falls and shatters like a sheet of glass. But the old woman stands there as a symbol of all round degradation. The narrator feels ashamed. He is reduced to the small change in her hand.
In a moment of realization the narrator/tourist finds himself reduced in his self-esteem. His awakening to the 'real' world makes him feel 'small'—as insignificant as the small coin he gave the old woman.