Ek Baat

Ek Baat deals with the curbs on individuality that a marriage imposes on a woman. Since her own marriage left much to be desired, Amrita Pritam wrote extensively on the theme of loneliness of married women.The images of the earthern pot, firewood, the ring on a finger and the shirt that she wishes to sew, to name a few, can clearly be related to a house wife. However, the home has not provided fulfillment as her heart’s desires have been “scrubbed”, her dreams have soured and her nights are as empty as worn brass bowls. Just like the love in the marriage, the thoughts of the individual in her have withered away.However, some thoughts have survived time and this fragmentation of her psyche has left her incapable of truly loving her husband. In another poem called “Ann Data” (Breadwinner) she portrays a husband as nothing beyond a man who provides bread to his wife and seeks his love in return but she can only give him her body because, like in this poem, “Love’s body is shrinking.”