The Bangle Sellers: Sarojini Naidu

The Bangle Sellers- Sarojini Naidu
The Poetess
• Name of the Poet: Sarojini Naidu(1879-1949)
• Education from Cambridge.
• She was a woman of intellect and zest.
• Started writing poetry at the age of eleven.
• At Cambridge, her teacher Edmund Gosse recognized her talent as a
poetess.
• Her poems fill our heart with love and pride for our own culture and with
the sweet fragrance of our land.
• She is remembered as ‘The Nightingale of India’.
About The Poem
• The poem was first published in the book ‘The Bird of Time’.
• A group of Bangle sellers is going to the temple fair.
• The narrator of the poem is one of them.
• They are poor people and their income from selling bangles is uncertain
and meagre.
• However, their bangles have religious and symbolic significance.
• Each of the four stanzas describes bangles of different colours that will
match the women wearing them.

Themes

            The poem explores the life of Indian women, the Indian culture and traditions revolving around women. It revolves around the bangles, which is an important ornament for the embellishment of women in Indian Society. It is an expression of stages in a woman’s life in traditional society. The entire concept of making the connection between different coloured bangles and their role in imparting happiness to young maidens, brides, wives and mothers is rooted in Indian culture.

            In the poem, the poetess shows how the Indian woman is whole-heatedly submissive in fulfilling her social, religious and spiritual responsibility in this male-dominated society. Many hints of a patriarchal set-up are found in the poem. A man performs an important role in a woman’s life as a father, husband and son.

            In the last four lines, the poetess says about the hands of the middle-aged married woman who has cared, loved, blessed and brought up her fair sons and she has proudly served her family and has the honour of sitting by her husband’s side at religious ceremonies. In fact, the poetess has shown feelings of gender discrimination in the male-dominated society of India.

            The poetess also describes the pathetic and miserable state of the bangle sellers who, despite suffering through many hardships and bearing the loss or profit, sell the bangles in a joyous voice and never make any grudge against their profession, but feel proud of selling the bangles which are a human product of religious importance.

Summary
• The poem is a song sung by the bangle sellers.
• Through this song they attract buyers by describing their multi-coloured and
shining bangles.
• Through their song they also tell as to bangles of which colour would be suitable
for the different phases of the lives of young girls and the married ones.
• The bangle sellers tell in their song that they are on the way to the temple where a
fair is held.
• Those who want to buy these bangles may purchase them.
• Some bangles are silver coloured and blue like mist on the mountains.
• Some bangles are rose coloured like flowers on the bank of a calmly flowing river
through a jungle.
• Some bangles are shining and lively like the newly born leaves.
• All these bangles are fit for the wrists of maidens.
• The colour of some bangles is like the sun-lit fields of corn.
• Some bangles are colour of the new nuptial fire.
• Some bangles are coloured like the love in the hearts of brides.
• These bangles are tinkling and produce a sound clear like a bride’s laughter or her
tears.
• These bangles are fit to be worn by a bride for her marriage.
Poetic Devices in the Poem
1. Alliteration
It is a poetic device in which the consonant sounds are repeated. Eg. ‘delicate
bright’,’ lustrous tokens’ etc.
2. Similes
A simile is a comparison of two unlike things in a sentence using the adverb ‘as’ or
‘like’. Examples: ‘blue as the mountain mist’, ‘flushed like the buds’, ‘some are like
fields….’ etc.
3. Metaphor
It is also a comparison of two or more dissimilar things to bring out a link between
the two. Examples: ‘rainbow tinted circles of light’, ‘lustrous tokens of radiant lives’.
4. Repetition
The word ‘happy’ in the 6th line and the word ‘bridal’ in the 12th line.
5. Rhyme
The rhyme scheme of the poem is fast. The last word of every line rhymes with the
last word of the next line.