LIMINALITY AND THE “COMMONS” IN SELECTED POEMS BY JAYANTA MAHAPATRA
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.59415/mjacs.358Keywords:
liminality, commons, interstitiality, river, cultureAbstract
Jayanta Mahapatra’s writing has been described as intrinsically Indian in its sensibility. The geographical and cultural landscapes of Odisha are inextricable from his poetic symbols: these shared spaces, or commons, are the site of all conflict in his poetry.
The idea of the commons is one of universal accessibility and collective experience, in which resources and spaces are available to anyone who wishes to use them. In practice, however, there is really no true “common” space. All commons are governed by law, manipulated by social norms, and reflect the existing divisions of society in how they are treated. They are ambiguous liminal spaces that carry cultural tension.
Liminality essentially refers to a threshold, a space where the public and private begin to intersect, where the defined boundaries of interaction in these separate realms of life begin to blur. This paper argues that Jayanta Mahapatra’s treatment of the commons is liminal in understanding, where the commons act as the background and the basis for class-based, caste-based, sexual and gendered conflict. Water, in terms of the seashore and the riverbank, is a recurring motif, as is the courtyard: both act as interstitial spaces that blur the public/private distinction. The inherently political nature of Mahapatra’s poetry and all his social commentary is therefore based on this uneasy ambiguity that defies categorisation. The temples, villages, rivers and seas of his native state, Odisha, figure repeatedly in his poetry as symbols for this cultural tension.
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