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The Fragility of Faith and the Resilience of Survival: A Summary of "An Old Woman"

 

The Fragility of Faith and the Resilience of Survival: summary of "An Old Woman"

Arun Kolatkar’s poem "An Old Woman," a centerpiece of his award-winning collection Jejuri, is a masterful exploration of the tension between religious tourism and human desperation. Through a chance encounter between a cynical narrator and a persistent beggar, Kolatkar deconstructs the reader's sense of superiority, suggesting that the "shatterproof" reality of poverty is more enduring than the temples or the gods people travel to see.

The Initial Conflict: The Tourist vs. The Burden

The poem begins with a physical intrusion: an old woman "grabs hold" of the speaker's sleeve. To the speaker—and by extension, the reader—she is initially presented as a nuisance, a "burr" that sticks to the clothes. The setting is Jejuri, a place of pilgrimage, yet the woman is not offering spiritual enlightenment; she is selling access to a "horseshoe shrine" for a fifty paise coin. Kolatkar uses this mundane transaction to highlight the commercialization of faith. The speaker’s "air of finality" represents the modern, urban traveler’s desire to keep the "wretched" world at a distance.  

The Turning Point: The Question of Survival

The emotional core of the poem shifts when the woman speaks. Her question—“What else can an old woman do / on hills as wretched as these?”—functions as a rhetorical slap to the speaker’s conscience. This moment marks the transition from the woman being an object of annoyance to a subject of existential weight. The "wretchedness" of the hills reflects the harsh, barren landscape of Jejuri, where the earth offers nothing for survival, forcing the elderly into a life of desperate persistence.  

Visual Imagery and the "Shattering" of Reality

Kolatkar, a graphic designer by trade, employs startling visual imagery in the latter half of the poem. The description of the woman’s eyes as "bullet holes" suggests a lifetime of trauma and vacancy. As the speaker stares into these "holes," a surreal transformation occurs. The "cracks" in her skin begin to mirror the cracks in the landscape.  

In a powerful climax, the external world—the hills, the temples, and even the sky—shatters like "plate-glass." This metaphor suggests that the grand structures of religion and the natural world are fragile constructs of the human mind. In contrast, the "crone" is described as "shatterproof." She remains standing while the "divine" architecture of Jejuri falls apart, proving that human survival is the only objective truth in a barren world.  

Conclusion: The Reduction of the Ego

The poem concludes with a total reversal of power. The speaker, who initially looked down upon the woman, finds himself "reduced / to so much small change in her hand." The metaphorical "small change" represents the speaker’s loss of importance and his sudden realization of his own triviality. Through "An Old Woman," Kolatkar successfully argues that empathy is not just a moral choice, but a necessary confrontation with the stark, unshakeable reality of the human condition


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