Analysis of ‘An Old Woman’ – By Arun Kolatkar

In the poem “An old woman” poet Arun Kolatkar uses the image of a mendicant old woman to symbolize the decay in society which he is trying to convey through the poem.
The poem dives right into the subject matter, there is no description of the setting or nor any physical description of the woman, because the poem isn’t meant to be an image of a particular city or a particular person. All of us have at some point been in the situation of the narrator in the poem. And quite a few of us no doubt on some occasion have reacted the way the narrator did. And this is the very aspect of the poem which raises so many thoughts in our minds.
The poem starts with an old decrepit lady holding the sleeve of a narrator and tagging along, nagging him for some money. “She wants a fifty paise coin”, but she is not begging for it outright. She offers to take him to the horseshoe shrine. This is the second aspect of the poem which is so appealing to the reader. People often argue that beggars are lazy and do not work for a living and therefore are in the position they are, which is mostly untrue and in this situation the poet even provides evidence against this. The old woman clearly has a modicum of self-respect, she cannot bring herself to beg for money and so tries to offer a service for which she can be paid. What’s more is that she is asking for a very nominal sum of money. Surely fifty paise wouldn’t make a massive dent in the narrator’s wallet, but it would mean the world to the old woman. Thus we see that is a matter of principle for the narrator, it’s not as if he can’t afford to give her the money, it’s just that he doesn’t want to. And this speaks volumes about human nature and our selfish thoughts.
The narrator is annoyed with the old woman. He wants to “end the farce” and so he turns around and faces her with an “air of