Hunger is a poem written by famous Indian poet, Jayanta Mahapatra. The poem was originally published in 1976. The Central theme of poem is degraded condition of poor people in India.
Summary of Hunger Poem By Jayanta Mahapatra
Summary of Hunger by Jayanta Mahapatra
The story of poem begins with poet who say, It was hard to believe that I am carrying a heavy luggage on my back. Here poet mean to say, he is not able to believe that he has such strong sexual desire. In the next line of poem, we get to know that poet is sitting in a boat.
The fisherman said, will you have her ? Will you have her means maybe fisherman is offering a girl to him. The fisherman is carelessly pulling his nets. The poet says, fisherman is looking careless but he is not, I saw his white bone thrash his eyes. The poet who came for his sexual desire doesn’t know how to respond to fisherman’s question.
The poet says, I followed fisherman where there were no sands, I was feeling something in my mind. Maybe I was feeling very guilty, the revenge for the sin I am going to commit will probably be such that my house will catch fire. The fisherman who went to catch fish doesn’t get anything and only returns with sea foam.
The poet has reached hut of fisherman where there was only dark and his hut condition was very bad because of poverty. The thunderstorm is going on in poet’s mind which isn’t stopping. When poet entered in fisherman’s hut, palm fronds scratched his skin.
There is oil lamp blowing in fisherman’s hut which is attached to wall while smoke is going out. It seemed like the time has stopped in that hut, neither it is day or night and the smoke which was coming from lamp was filling in my mind. The poet says, I was feeling very helpless at that time.
The fishermen take poet into his hut and I heard fisherman saying to me, that is my daughter who is fifteen years old, you can feel her and I will come back in some time. Your bus leaves at 9 pm so you have time till 9 pm. The poet says, sky fell on me I could not able to believe that a fisherman his offering his 15 years old daughter to him. Thereafter, poet gives a description of girl.
That girl was long and lean and maybe she was malnourished because of poverty and hunger. She open her legs and I felt my hunger there which bring me to this place, and other hunger was of that girl which making her do all these things.
It is a dark poem as at the beginning we doesn’t get to know what is going on but at the end of poem we learn what poem is all about. In the end of poem, we learn that narrator had sexual desire for which he went to a fisherman of Odisha. There he meet a man who offered his daughter to him for hunger. The poet says, there are two types of hunger, one is stomach hunger, second is body hunger.
The Hunger narrator had was his sexual desire which brings to a home where a father offered his fifteen years old daughter to him for stomach hunger. The girl was malnourished still she offered herself to him as she was living in such condition where she had not choice. She offered herself to him for her stomach hunger. On the other side, although narrator’s mind is saying no to him again and again but his body hunger was supporting him.