New Delhi: Sonnet Mondal’s Clamour for a Handful of Rice is a searing collection of poems that bridges poetry and protest, silence and suffering. In stark, minimal language, Mondal captures the invisible yet persistent voices of the hungry, the displaced, and the forgotten. This isn’t poetry written from a distance—it’s an unfiltered documentation of contemporary anguish, rooted in realism and resistance. The collection opens with the titular poem, where rice—the most basic staple—becomes a symbol of survival, memory, and longing. Throughout the book, Mondal returns to hunger not just as physical deprivation but as emotional, spiritual, and existential void. War, injustice, and poverty hover constantly in the background, often erupting into the foreground through sharply etched imagery: burnt hospitals, bullet-filled rice bowls, and children crushed under the weight of conflict. What stands out in Mondal’s writing is the unassuming power of his lines. He writes without...
- Hitansha Tagra
- Updated on: Nov 07, 2025 | 02:10 PM