"Hunger " by Jayanta Mahapatra

1. Mahatma Gandhi Arts, Science & Late N. P. Commerce College,
Armori, Dist. Gadchiroli
Class :- B. A. – II ( Sem. – IV )
Subject :- Compulsory English
Topic :- ‘HUNGER’
- Jayanta Mahapatra
- Prepared By -
Asst. Prof. Anil P. Raut

2. Hunger
-Jayanta Mahapatra
About the Poet:-
Jayanta Mahapatra (1928–) is one of the major Indo-Anglian poets. His verse collections include Close the Sky
(1971), Ten by Ten (1970), A Rain of Rites (1976), The False Start (1980), Relationship (1980), Life Signs
(1983) and Temple (1990). He won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1981. He has translated Oriya poems into
English and has also edited Chandrabhaga, a literary magazine. Mahapatra is closely in touch with his
environment and relates his personal desires and various human relationships to the influence of the milieu and
the environment. His poetry explores the influence of local realities in creating the depth of one’s feeling and
sensitivity. In addition, he stretches the possibilities of language to represent them. He is concerned with
creating wordscapes of images and symbols that transform the local into the general and this is what lends
strength and stamina to his poetry. The thematic range of Mahapatra’s poetry is wide enough as he deals with
human relationships, Indian social problems, love, sex, marriage, morality, human nature, and Nature. ‘Hunger’
is taken from Mahapatra’s A Rain of Rites.

3. About the Poem:-
The poem ‘Hunger’ tells and reveals about the degraded condition of people who live below
the poverty line. It explores the degradation of humanity given the predicament of poverty
and speaks volumes for what a human being can descend to in a state when the next meal is
doubtful. Hunger can make one compromise on moral values, human relationships and
companionship. This is the underlying lesson of the poem.
Hunger depicts both sexuality and poverty. In fact, sexuality here is closely interlinked with
poverty. (Theme)

4. HUNGER
-By Jayanta Mahapatra
It was hard to believe the flesh was heavy on my back.
The fisherman said: Will you have her, carelessly,
trailing his nets and his nerves, as though his words
sanctified the purpose with which he faced himself.
I saw his white bone thrash his eyes.
I followed him across the sprawling sands,
my mind thumping in the flesh's sling.
Hope lay perhaps in burning the house I lived in.
Silence gripped my sleeves; his body clawed at the froth
his old nets had only dragged up from the seas.

5. In the flickering dark his lean-to opened like a wound.
The wind was I, and the days and nights before.
Palm fronds scratched my skin. Inside the shack
an oil lamp splayed the hours bunched to those walls.
Over and over the sticky soot crossed the space of my mind.
I heard him say: My daughter, she's just turned fifteen...
Feel her. I'll be back soon, your bus leaves at nine.
The sky fell on me, and a father's exhausted wile.
Long and lean, her years were cold as rubber.
She opened her wormy legs wide. I felt the hunger there,
the other one, the fish slithering, turning inside

6. Explanation:-
It was hard to believe the flesh was heavy on my back.
The fisherman said: Will you have her, carelessly,
trailing his nets and his nerves, as though his words
sanctified the purpose with which he faced himself.
I saw his white bone thrash his eyes.
The poet begins with the words “It was hard to believe the flesh was heavy on my back”. In the first
reading, we may think that the poet has a heavy load or luggage on his back. However, the phrase hard to
believe refers to something that is deep and profound. The poet here says that he couldn’t believe that he
had strong sexual desires at that time and was striving for sex which he couldn’t believe. In the next line,
we come to know that he is on a boat with a fisherman who says to him, “Will you have her”. Here, he
refers to his daughter whom he offers to the poet to have sex with her. It is quite strange and impossible
as no father ever offers his daughter to strangers for quenching their sexual thirst. While asking, the
fisherman seems to be carelessly sprawling his nets. But he was in no way careless. His nerves were
stretch and white bone thrashing his eyes meaning that he was quite curious for the poet to say yes as he
and his daughter have nothing to eat and are striving for food. Thus, the fisherman offers his daughter to
the poet so that the latter may quench his sexual hunger while the former two may quench their physical
hunger. Note that his daughter’s consent is not taken. It is not clear whether she wants to have sex or not.

7. Explanation:-
I followed him across the sprawling sands,
my mind thumping in the flesh's sling.
Hope lay perhaps in burning the house I lived in.
Silence gripped my sleeves; his body clawed at the froth
his old nets had only dragged up from the seas.
The poet then followed him across the sprawling (spread) sands. His mind was thumping in the
flesh’s sling meaning that the poet’s mind was throbbing, and his skin was trying to support it like a
sling or the bandage used for supporting a broken arm. The poet thought that his sin will be
forgiven by burning the house that he lived in. The line shows that the poet was feeling quite guilty
because of what he was going to do out of sexual desire. Then the silence of the poet was grabbing
him, and it seemed that the silence has gripped his sleeves. It was perhaps his nerves that were
stretching. The fisherman looked at his old nets which had caught nothing but the foam from the
sea. This last phrase can be attributed to the poet as well if we go deeper into its meaning. The poet
imagines as if he had gathered nothing but sin by his sexual desires.

8. Explanation:-
In the flickering dark his lean-to opened like a wound.
The wind was I, and the days and nights before.
Palm fronds scratched my skin. Inside the shack
an oil lamp splayed the hours bunched to those walls.
Over and over the sticky soot crossed the space of my mind.
They reached the fisherman’s hut which was quite dark and opened like a wound. This phrase
depicts the worst condition of their hut because of poverty. The wind here symbolizes storm which
was going into in the mind of the poet. Days and Nights means that it was happening all the time
without stopping. While entering the hut, the leaves of the palm tree were scratching his skin. In the
metaphorical sense, they were stopping the poet from committing the sin. Inside the roughly built
hut, the oil lamp had confined and fastened the hours to the wall. It probably means that the time
has been stopped in the hut. There is no day, but only the night. The night is not only in physical
terms but also in the metaphorical sense because there is the darkness of sorrows over the
fisherman and his daughter. The smoke coming from the lamp was filling his mind and he was
feeling either dreamy or helpless.

9. Explanation:-
I heard him say: My daughter, she's just turned fifteen...
Feel her. I'll be back soon, your bus leaves at nine.
The sky fell on me, and a father's exhausted wile.
Long and lean, her years were cold as rubber.
She opened her wormy legs wide. I felt the hunger there,
the other one, the fish slithering, turning inside
The poet hears the fisherman says, “My daughter, she’s just turned fifteen...Feel her. I’ll be back soon, your
bus leaves at nine”. Fifteen is the age when a girl is it her charm. Feel her means quench your sexual
hunger by having sex with her. I ‘ll back mean that the poet is now free to do with his daughter whatever
he desires. The poverty and extreme hunger make the fisherman pimp his own daughter in exchange for
some money or food. The way fisherman persuades the poet to have sex with his own daughter makes the
poet feel as if the sky has fallen on him. The poet finds the girl who is young but malnutrition due to
poverty. Seeing the poet, she opens her worm-like legs (as she is very weak and young) for the poet to
make her his sex slave. At this stage, the poet knows for the first time about the other hunger that is
opposite of his sexual hunger and which comes from an empty stomach (fish slithering, turning inside
depicts the churning movement that happens inside the stomach when we feel hungry). The poet
discusses hunger in his other poem Freedom as well.

10. Thank
You