Ms.

Ela Singh

MULIEBRITY
Sujata Bhatt
Poet:

Sujata Bhatt
Sujata Bhatt (b. 1956) grew up in Pune but emigrated with her family to the United States in
1968. She studied in the States receiving an MFA from the University of Iowa and went on to be
writer-in-residence at the University of Victoria, Canada. More recently she was visiting fellow
at Dickinson College, Pennsylvania. She currently lives with her husband and daughter in
Bremen, Germany. Her first collection, Brunizem, won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize (Asia)
and the Alice Hunt Bartlett Award. Subsequent collections have been awarded a Poetry Book
Society Recommendation and in 1991 she received a Cholmondeley Award.
The title:
The word muliebrity means womanhood, the status of being a woman and possessing full,
womanly powers.
Situation:
In this poem, the poet describes the actions of the girl picking up cow dung in front of this
temple. The poet also describes all the senses such as smells and sounds surrounding the poet.
There are only two people-the poet and the girl. Throughout the poem, the poet is only
describing the girl and her actions.
The poem is in the perspective of the poet and this is effective because as this perspective shows
the reader what the poet herself is feeling.
The speaker:

Ms. Ela Singh

The speaker of the poem is the poet, not a specific persona. The speaker is stating a memory
about a girl and the speaker is stating what she had observed. The speaker refers to herself in the
first person pronoun which makes it kind of personal.

Intention and Purpose:

The poet is sharing a memory about a girl who is picking up cow dung. From the poem the
reader can see that the poet is kind obsessed with the girl. Bhatt has seen this girl many times as
she was growing up in India before moving.
The purpose of this poem might be to show the pride of being a woman and express those
feelings to the reader.
Setting:
This poem is set in Maninagar which is now a suburb in Ahmadabad, Gujarat, India. This is the
place where Bhatt was born. The girl is picking up cow dung in front of Bhatts house and a
temple.
Diction:
Diction refers to the word choice of the poet in the poem.
Muliebrity refers to womanhood and the status of being a woman. This words positive
connotations are reflected by the words, greatness and power in lines 15 and 16. While the
word cow-dung has negative connotations.
The word choice of the poet is kind of casual. The poem is in the past tense as this is a memory
about the girl.
Form and Structure:
In the poem there are 18 lines consisting of two sentences. The general appearance of the poem
is that it is kind of like a block as in a block of the poets memory.
The sentences of the poem are mainly fragments. There is only one complete sentence. This
suggests to the reader that the poem is like a very quick recount of the girl. The dashes are maybe
the place where the poet or the reader waited to catch his breath. The word order in the sentences
are natural not grammatically irregular.
Senses:
Bhatt is referred to as a sensual writer because she refers to the human senses quite a lot in her
poems.
For example in this poem the sense of smell is evoked like in the lines 5 - 12
The highlighted parts show how Bhatt describes the smells surrounding the girl and this
description is very intense when you think about all those smells surrounding you.
Imagery:
The main imagery is the girl being a metaphor for a woman who is proud, confident and strong.
Even though the girl is picking up cow-dung, the girl takes pride in what she is doing and does
not care what others think of her. The reader can see this in the lines,
...to explain to anyone the greatness
and the power glistening through her cheekbones
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Ms. Ela Singh

each time she found a particularly promising
mound of dung
The poet also describes the girl as kind of graceful as she is picking up the cow dung in the lines,
I have thought so much about the way she
moved her hands and her waist...
The poet describes the smells surrounding the girl in one part of her poem as shown before.
Effects:
The repetition of I have thought has a good effect on the reader as it shows them that the poet is
kind of obsessed with the girl.
The description of the smells surrounding the girl and the girl herself has a good effect also
because the reader can create an image of the place.
Feelings:
From the description of the girl the reader can see that the poet is proud of the girl as she is
confident and proud of herself. This is shown by the words, greatness and power glistening.
Themes:
Woman/ Womanliness/ Womanhood.
This theme is also shown in the poem:
Caged Bird.
The word muliebrity is to woman what virility is to man. The poem is an expression and
celebration of the cow dung pickers womanliness that marks her as a woman. The girl is
resilient and resourceful. She does not expect anything to be merely handed to her, does not
expect to sail through life without obstacles, but she moves with the graceful strength of a reed,
bending and swaying but always rising again towards the sun. She sees deeply into everything,
seeing its potential and its unexpected gifts, and when there is a need, she knows how to turn her
environment into the instrument of its fulfillment. Bhatt talks about the power women possess
and the character of a woman who takes pride in what they do.
Social Injustice/ Poverty.
This theme is also shown in the poem:
Caged Bird.
The poet showcases the injustices prevalent in the society today. The poem is a reminder that
their is a huge gap between the rich and the poor and the portrayal of the girl is enough to make
us understand the conditions of the poor. Poverty is man made and the poet doesnt let us forget
the idea of poverty in the poem just like she isnt able to forget her memory of the girl.
Labour.

Ms. Ela Singh

The poet stresses on the dignity of labour by showing us how the girl does her task happily, even
though it is an undermining one. It is clear that the poet is impressed by the girls commitment
and dedication to work.

Analysis
Line 1-4
I have thought so much about the girl
who gathered cow-dung in a wide, round basket
along the main road passing by our house
and the Radhavallabh temple in Maninagar.
This is the first sentence of the poem. In this the poet sets the scene by telling the reader where
this memory takes place.
Maninagar: is now a suburb in Ahmadabad, Gujarat, India where Bhatt was born.
The girl is picking up cow-dung because in the olden days and still today cow-dung is used as
fuel for burning things and other stuff. The reader can see that picking up cow dung is not
something that you would want or have to do. Many would generally be kind of disgusted of
picking up cow dung and embarrassed being seen picking up cow-dung. This is important later
on in the poem.
I have thought so much... shows the reader that the poet has been thinking about the girl for
some time.
Line 5 12
I have thought so much about the way she
moved her hands and her waist
and the smell of cow-dung and road-dust and wet canna lilies,
the smell of monkey breath and freshly washed clothes
and the dust from crows wings which smells different
and again the smell of cow-dung as the girl scoops
it up, all these smells surrounding me separately
and simultaneously
In this stanza, the words, I have thought are repeated again. Now the reader can see that the girl
has had kind of a lasting impact on the poet. In real life Bhatt used to see a girl picking up cow
dung when Bhatt was still living in India.
The reader can see that the girl is pictured as a graceful figure even though she is picking up
cow-dung. This can be seen from the words,
..,about the way she
moved her hands and her waist.
The smells surrounding the girl are described very well and creates an atmosphere for the reader
to imagine.
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Ms. Ela Singh

Canna lilies: are plants, native to India, growing well in moist, tropical climates. They are related
to banana and ginger plants and their flowers are highly prized.
Line 12 18
I have thought so much
but have been unwilling to use her for a metaphor,
for a nice image but most of all unwilling
to forget her or to explain to anyone the greatness
and the power glistening through her cheekbones
each time she found a particularly promising
mound of dung
And again shows how repetitive the job of the woman can get, and appeals to the readers sense
of smell, as the cow-dung overpowers all the other sensations. Scoops also suggests urgency
and speed, which shows how she is not relaxed and her life is full of hardship.
I have thought so much is repeated again, to show how even though she didnt know the
woman, she has made a lasting impact on the author, just by the way she moves and acts
confidently.
A nice image tells the reader why she was unable to use her for a metaphor, because Bhatt
doesnt see anything remotely nice about what the woman does. But in a way, the woman is still
a metaphor for muliebrity, meaning womanhood.
Most of all, unwilling to forget her or to explain to anyone again reiterates how the woman
is unforgettable, but mostly shows how Bhatt is unable to tell others about what she saw in the
woman, because she is so unfamiliar with someone displaying such confidence and grace, while
doing something like picking up cow-dung.
Each time she found a particularly promising mound of dung- ends in a hyphen, not a full stop.
This suggests that there is more to come, due to the repetitive nature of her job. It is an odd
sentence as there is nothing promising about a mound of cow-dung to others, but to the woman
it is all she has, and can provide her and her family fuel to cook with and survive.