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| Mehak Goyal with Brian Mendonca. |
-Brian Mendonca
Today evening's interaction with poet Mehak Goyal was to discuss her book Failure to Make Round Rotis: Poems on Rebellion, Resilience, and Relationships published this year by Juggernaut. Dogears bookshop kindly offered to host the event.
As we sat in the cane chairs placed for us, surrounded by books and the warm light, we felt at home. Mehak was overwhelmed by the moment and seemed only too happy to be in Goa. 'Goa looks so beautiful after the rains,' she exclaimed happily.
Her book, feminist in parts, takes the reader on a journey from childhood to womanhood. Few poets are able to do this, preferring to concentrate on only one phase of life. The book is divided into eight sections which can loosely be described as childhood; adulting; and womanhood.
Mehak took us through all the sections reading poems which epitomized the sections. At one point I noticed she was reading lines which were not in the printed text. She explained that the poems in the book - which is sure to go for a reprint - were being touched up for greater effect. 'Saat pheras' sounds better than 'I walk seven times / around the consecrated fire.' (From 'Remembering Childhood')
Speaking about the misogyny in society today, Mehak said that whatever be her accomplishments, the worth of a woman is weighed by her competence in the kitchen. Making round rotis is the benchmark to decide if a woman is marriage material. In her poem 'Catcall, Attack, Harass' she catalogues how a woman is groped and demeaned on an everyday basis. What is tragic is that this is normalized by society.
Since it is Eid-e-Milad today I invoked Premchand's short story 'Idgah' where Hamid, a little boy of 5 years spends his precious 3 paise, not to buy sweets like his friends, but to buy a pair of kitchen tongs for his grandma Ameena, whose fingers used to get singed while making the rotis for them.
The shapeless roti is a symbol of defiance. Failure to make them itself is an act of assertion. Like Mexican writer Laura Esquivel's Como Agua Para Chocolate / Like Water for Chocolate, food becomes a site of resistance.
The journey to publishing this book with Juggernaut press was peppered with anecdotes, which Mehak gleefully shared. She decried the gatekeeping in publishing and how a first-time poet had to have contacts; academic pedigree; and over a thousand Instagram followers. You also need to have an agent.
The initial steps are always the most difficult. One faces rejection and lack of faith. But when one succeeds even the naysayers will rub shoulders with you and bask in reflected glory.
She is happy she left her start-up and took the plunge to write poetry though. 'I am a 90's kid,' she says reflectively. 'Our parents were busy having their own life. They did not put any pressure on us.' She is thankful for the freedom she received to let poetry find her.
I asked if there were any plans to do a translation. Modern Indian writing in English translation is a catchment area for young writers in India who are bilingual. Punjabi would be the obvious choice since Mehak is based out of Chandigarh. The realism of the roti is also the subject of Punjabi writer and Jnanpith awardee Gurdial Singh's short story 'Saanjh' .
This definitive collection of around 180 poems is a must-have for every young woman who has to negotiate living in India. It is both timeless and timebound. Janus-faced it looks at the childhood of the past and ends armed with a lexicon for the future. The searing frankness has to be read to be experienced.
The poems appeal to all readers. I specially liked 'Relatives' which describes how unintentional yet useless their gifts are. The tragic consequences of othering are there to see in 'Result Card.' Reading is a metaphor for intimacy: 'He . . . dived into my story. / Not wanting to finish - staying with me / just a little longer - till he had read me / the way I wanted.' When the prerequisites are filled in for a prospective partner online one waits with bated breath as the message flashes 'Loading bride . . .' 'Adulting' took me back to my days of living in a barsati in Delhi: 'The smallness of my 1BHK / apartment - the place I call home - / might help me unsee its emptiness.'
Though the tone of the poems swerves inward towards the end, I proposed that men and women need to understand the mystery of each other. Pleasure may only be fleeting, but the pathos remains. The memories remain. To illustrate I played on the guitar and sang 'Diamonds and Rust' by Joan Baez.
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Pic. taken by Leonard Fernandes, proprietor Dogears bookshop, for a 'Meet the Author' session at Dogears bookshop, Margao on 28 September 2023. This event was facilitated by Savia Viegas and Archana Upadhyay. Updated 29/9/23.
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