Part 73 of The Poetry Pulse’s 100-part journey through Indian poetry. Indira Sant was an influential Marathi poet whose lyric work often explores solitude, nature, memory and the emotional details of everyday life. Her poetry shows how a quiet voice can hold complexity without relying on grand declarations. Small images become meaningful through careful attention. Solitude and self-awareness Soli…
Part 47 of The Poetry Pulse’s 100-part journey through Indian poetry. Vinda Karandikar helped expand modern Marathi poetry through intellectual play, experimentation and a willingness to question inherited ways of seeing. His work can move between wit, philosophical reflection and close observation of ordinary experience. This makes him a useful poet for exploring how modern verse asks readers to…
Part 46 of The Poetry Pulse’s 100-part journey through Indian poetry. Janabai, the Marathi poet-saint associated with the Varkari devotional tradition, brings the world of domestic labour into poetry. Her songs imagine devotion not as something separate from ordinary responsibilities, but as a presence that can enter sweeping, grinding, cleaning and caring. Her voice also challenges the assumptio…
Part 39 of The Poetry Pulse’s 100-part journey through Indian poetry. Keshavsut, the pen name of Krishnaji Keshav Damle, is often regarded as a pioneering voice in modern Marathi poetry. His writing helped move Marathi verse toward new forms of individual expression and social awareness at a time of significant intellectual change. A new poetic self Modern lyric poetry often places the individual…
Part 33 of The Poetry Pulse’s 100-part journey through Indian poetry. Namdev, an important poet-saint in the Marathi and North Indian devotional traditions, is remembered for songs that bring the divine close to everyday life. His legacy crosses linguistic and regional boundaries, showing how devotional poetry travels through singing communities, translation and shared practice. The sacred near a…
Part 29 of The Poetry Pulse’s 100-part journey through Indian poetry. Bahinabai Chaudhari’s Marathi poetry is treasured for the way it draws philosophical insight from ordinary work, family life, farming and the natural world. Her voice is associated with an oral, spoken idiom rather than an ornamental literary style. The result is poetry that feels close to lived experience while asking large qu…
Part 22 of The Poetry Pulse’s 100-part journey through India’s poetic heritage. Tukaram, the seventeenth-century Marathi saint-poet, is remembered for abhangs: devotional songs that speak in a direct, intimate voice. His poetry belongs to the Varkari tradition associated with devotion to Vithoba of Pandharpur. Rather than presenting spirituality as a privilege reserved for learned elites, Tukaram…
