Page 32 - Expressions '24 - Digital Release

The Indigo in my Index Finger

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, a Though the term "Indigo"
prominent 20th and 21st-century remains unnamed, Divakaruni's

Indian writer, intricately weaves evocative imagery invites
narratives that traverse both contemplation, prompting
Indian and American readers to ponder the profound
landscapes. Renowned for her implications of this enigmatic
exploration of the immigrant substance.
experience, she currently serves
as a professor at the University
of Houston. In her work
"Indigo," Divakaruni delves into
a haunting era when individuals
were coerced into toiling in the
Indigo fields of India during the
dominance of the East India
Company, spanning from 1779 to
1859, marked by a farmer
uprising. Initially, the speaker
in "Indigo" harbors a tone
steeped in bitterness and

defiance towards the oppressive The poem speaks about how
Indigo fields, recounting the people in power often force
devastation wrought upon their citizens to accept whatever is
lives by this labour. Yet, as the thrust upon them, while those
poem unfolds, a shift occurs who voice out their views
from animosity to optimism, as against injustice are silenced in
the speaker reflects on the brutal ways, and the ray of hope
enduring significance of the that even that sense would come
colour red—a symbol of their to an end someday.
cultural heritage amid adversity. This piece of poetry draws
Ultimately, the tone evolves parallels to the prevailing socio-
once more, transitioning from political trends. In the Indigo
hope to a bittersweet sense of revolt of 1859 the Ryots
resolution and longing, as the (planters) were forced into

speaker bears witness to the accepting exploitative contracts
cathartic blaze consuming the imposed by the East India
fields that once inflicted untold Company and zamindars who
suffering. benefitted from the caste
hierarchy.

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