The rite of passage to the write women

Punjabi poet Paul Kaur wins the Sahitya Akademi Award for Punjab's cultural history penned in verse

- Nirupama Dutt

Today one feels like writing about the right of passage to the "write" women; don't get me wrong, it's not the cruel cold that is making me forget my spellings, but it is driving me to some punning games, even though my first news editor cautioned me that puns and alliterations never make for good writing. Sorry sir, but it really takes a lifetime to be rid of wrong habits. Now the history of the write women goes back a long time. A look back tells us that the first known woman poet recognised in the world was Enheduanna, the high priestess of goddess Inanna, and the moon god Nanna, who lived in the Sumerian city-state of Ur some four thousand plus years ago.

Then we have Sappho of 570 BCE, an archaic Greek lyrical poet from the island of Lesbos. Come home to the Indian subcontinent and we find Avvaiyar, a Tamil poet of the third century, who interestingly was a people's poet, roaming across the length and breadth of the land, as legend has it, composing verses for the poor farmers of the Sangam era.