Eve's Revenge: Stories of Nemesis
Reviewed by Dr Brian Mendonça
Author: Last Bus to Vasco: Poems from Goa
www.lastbustovasco.blogspot.com
Eve's Revenge: Stories of Nemesis
Ethel Da Costa
Foreword: Shrinivas Dempo, Remo Fernandes; Introduction: Victor
Rangel-Ribeiro, Margaret Mascarenhas; Last Word: Rex Weiner; Photography:
Prasad Pankar
Published and Distributed by: Broadway Book Centre; Designed & Printed by:
Printer's Devil, Porvorim, Goa
ISBN 978-81-906259-2-0, 100 pgs, Double PB with flaps, Matt Art Paper, Rs.
495/-
'Revenge' and 'nemesis' are strong words for a first book of poems. The
cover of Eve's Revenge: Stories of Nemesis silhouettes a woman
metamorphosing into a tree against the dawn. This is just one instance of
many manifestations of the raw power of woman as transmuted into Nature -
benevolent or destructive. But always mediated by language.
There are times when inspiration flutters like wayward
children
disappearing with swift quickness
before I capture them into cages of words.
-From 'Madness'
This book is the journey of a lifetime. It is divided into four sections
based on the joyful and sorrowful mysteries of the rosary. These are
entitled - 'The Visitation,' 'The Finding in the Temple,' 'Agony in the
Garden' and 'Descent of the Spirit.' Sections begin with epigraphs from the
Bible pertaining to the particular event, and a black and white photo
montage by photographer Prasad Pankar. The models are Ethel herself and
Rahul Alvares.
Unabashedly autobiographical, Ethel Da Costa's Eve's Revenge is 'the story
of my life in verse.' Beautifully designed pages come across as the leaves
of the tree of life, with ample white space for reflection. The volume
covers a stunning panoply of woman-man relationships, i.e. love, ecstasy,
hate, sexuality, loneliness, only to be redeemed by an agonized questing for
union with the divine. In the medieval mystical overtones of a Meera she
cries out:
I am a devotee
supple
bent
round and round the pipal tree
saffron robes
clenched bloody fingers
praying the prayer of the dead
and a song of the forgotton cult
In the name of Krishna.
You have forsaken me.
From 'Spirit's Isolation - II'
and later
'Too much wanting makes you vulnerable, bitch!
My soul struggles.'
From 'Kali's Song'
Through the molten lava of life Eve rushes forth, is singed in the fires and
is renewed. After all, her muse is always there beside her - 'A poet thinks
within the folds of a pained mind / beyond human comprehension ('The Lonely
Poet'). The act of writing out oneself brings quietude even in self-healing,
perhaps in onanism, even if the only reality is the irony of love and
existence itself:
Loneliness is a cloak on the body
amidst crowded markets
foolproof masks
selling spices
souls dragging their chains on cobbled streets
searching
for freedom and bondage.
-'The Lonely Poet'
The rain beats on the roof
vacantly
he stares at the ceiling
thumbing Playboy under his pillow
short-lived forays into reality
pornography. hmmm.wet escape
so what, if it's only silicon boobs he can get it on?
- 'Bondage'
This is a book that needs to be sipped one line at a time. In some ways it
encapsulates an epoch of everywoman. Telling it like it is, Ethel shoots
from the hip. The range of experience is bewildering, the articulation of
these, even more. Eve's Revenge billed as a story, yet written about the
uni-verse, is ultimately a parable. Of life, living and loving. Its canvas
is the grammar of life and its unforeseen nuances, often missed - or
deliberately ignored -as we go about our humdrum lives. No one is spared:
Evil oozes from hidden corners and closed doors
woe and curses
while the faithful walk in mute prayers
folded hands and cassocks of white.
- 'Phases of the Moon'
Yes, this is the world we have bequeathed Eve. Finally a voice appears to
record this moment in time. A bio note on the inner flap of the cover by
Margaret Mascarenhas seems to offer an gentle salve to the anguish in the
lilting preface by Ethel dedicated to her dad entitled 'Through My Father's
Eyes: 1938-2002.' Papa would be happy this day for life is often more than
revenge. Beyond a point it is the repose within. And this book has scoured
both these moments.
Goanet A&E
http://www.goanet.org
