CRITICAL ANALYSIS & EXAM NOTES : TOUCH by MEENA KANDASAMI ( THE PRIVILEGE FOR UPPER CASTE)

THE POEM:

Have you ever tried meditation?
Struggling hard to concentrate,
and keeping your mind as blank
as a whitewashed wall by closing
your eyes, nose, ears; and shutting out
every possible thought. Every thing.
And, the only failure, that ever came,
the only gross betrayal—
was from your own skin.
You will have known this.

Do you still remember,
how, the first distractions arose?
And you blamed skin as a sinner;
how, when your kundalini was rising,
shaken, you felt the cold concrete floor
skin rubbing against skin, your saffron robes,
how, even in a far-off different realm—
your skin anchored you to this earth.
Amidst all that pervading emptiness,
touch retained its sensuality.
You will have known this.

Or if you thought more variedly, about
taste, you would discount it—as the touch
of the tongue. Or, you may recollect
how a gentle touch, a caress changed
your life multifold, and you were never
the person you should have been.
Feeling with your skin, was
perhaps the first of the senses, its
reality always remained with you—
You never got rid of it.
You will have known this.

You will have known almost
every knowledgeable thing about
the charms and the temptations
that touch could hold.

But, you will never have known
that touch – the taboo
to your transcendence,
when crystallized in caste
was a paraphernalia of
undeserving hate.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS AND EXAMS NOTES:

1) NEWLY USED WORDS AND REFERENCES.

You: Here means the anybody who belongs to upper caste in the society.

Paraphernalia: A large number of different objects that you need for a particular purpose.

Kundalini: A system of meditation directed towards the release of kundalini energy, or in other words we can say transcending from bodily levels to the spiritual levels.

2) ABOUT THE POET: 

MEENA KANDASAMI. was born in 1984 in a Tamil family. Both her parents are university professors , they named their child as ILLAVENIL.,  SHE ADOPTED THE NAME MEENA FOR HER WRITINGS. She is a fiction writer and activist , her works are centered always on demanding for  female's equal position in the society just as men , she even works as the anti - caste caste annihilation movement of the contemporary Indian milieu. Her poetry is about a female's own self and her body in ways which is not allowed in mainstream politics.Know more here 

3). BACKGROUND BEFORE ANALYSING THE POEM. 

1: Marginalisation of the DALITS in the Indian society , as we all know how DALITS were treated as people who are sub-human who doesn't had the basics rights of freedom into the society. They were the ones who were always suppressed , the were not allowed entry into the schools , in our history textbooks we all are aware of the factt how they were considered as polluting elements into the society they had to carry broom stick on their back so just to walk on streets so that when a person with upper caste walks on that road doesn't get polluted because a dalit has walked through that road.

2: They were all suppressed to level where in the ponds in which they used to have drinking water brahmins and other upper caste persons used to bath their buffaloes on those ponds and they had to drink that polluted water.Venomous touch know more

3: In this whole scenario dalit women are the ones who are marginalised to a level that they were considered as a subject to the sexual gratification of the upper caste they were considered of what we call it as " loose character" and for this particular reason they were raped by upper class men. This was the extreme to which lower castes were tortured and this proves that how they were considered as people who are polluting this whole world for the upper caste people.

4) ABOUT TITLE OF THE POEM AS "TOUCH"

MEENA  highlights touch as very basic thing which makes us feel alive in this world , one of our five senses which enables us to feel entitled of someone's love , through this particular sense we can fill a hopeless person with hope , a sad person with joy and this very basic thing is denied to the untouchables.

5) SUMMARY OF THE POEM: 

1: MEENA  starts her poem in the first stanza itself by questioning upper caste that if they ever tried meditation to keep their mind literally blank while meditating and says that the fist hindrance that you came across in this procedure was from your own touch.

2: In the second stanza she again says about how upper caste people try to transcend from bodily levels to the a spiritual level to experience a different realm by awakening your kundalini,  she again contradicts by saying that that one which hindered you from doing was your own sensual touch.

3: In the third and fourth stanza she describes the basicity of touch , how touch is so basics that it taste could be described as touch    ( as we feel the taste of food when our taste buds touch the food we eat). She again channelises touch as something which can turn a hopeless person filled with enormous amount of hope a lonely person filled with joy and make you a person which you were never before. She adds that feeling your skin was perhaps the first thing that you sensed when you were born.

4: In the fifth stanza she ends by saying that touch which transcends to to experience a different realm when mixed with caste caters undeserving hate for the lower caste section of our society.

6) CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE PEOM:

1) She starts off in the first stanza only by questioning the prevailing upper caste if they every tried doing meditation ,and struggled hard to keep their mind blank by this she metaphorically refers to the purpose of doing meditation which is to rise above the bodily levels to the spiritual levels and to this purpose there is only one hinderance which adheres them to not rise up to the spiritual levels and that hinderance is there own sensual touch felt through their own skin.

2) In the second stanza again she describes about kundalini rising & again to this she metaphorically points towards the purpose of kundalini rising which is to again rise above the bodily levels to the spiritual levels and to have a perfect mind and soul connection so that they could experience different realms where there is no significance of the physical pleasure, but she contradicts this thought that it was the sensual touch that retained you to this earth,  and among the emptiness that was attained after the kundalini rised it was the sensual touch which retained itself and you were unable to defy this touch.

3) In these two stanzas she also enacts about the fact of previllage that the upper caste People enjoyed that by a awakening kundalini and meditation they want to transcend their own touch but untouchables cannot even transcend their own untouchablity.

4) In stanzas 3 &4 she introduces us to the ways in which touch can change our lives she says that the touch of caress can change your life mutifolds and she even says that touch was the very first thing a newborn baby senses when he is born into this world. Then in stanza 4 she says that you must know the charms and temptations a touch can hold which can literally suffice a person feeling depressed and stressed and literally fill him up with the the feeling joy and entitlement.

5) In her last stanza she adds that touch the taboo to your transcendence into a different realm when crystallised with caste is a paraphernalia of undeserved hatred resulting in untouchablity among lower and upper caste people which ultimately produces untouchables.

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References & links 

The Poetry Of Meena Kandasamy: A Tool of Political Dissent
MARGINALIZATION IN MEENA KANDASAMY’S “TOUCH”
 About Meena Kandasamy

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