New Delhi, Feb 9 : She says it has been exciting to smell the danger in their voice. That it has been an infuriating journey too -- for whenever she thought she had a hold on the content, someone would parachute in. There would then be chaos, albeit a grateful one

There seems to be an initial relief when poet Arundhathi Subramaniam says that the book 'Wild Women, Seekers, Protagonists and Goddesses in Sacred Indian Poetry' is finally complete after five years, and will be released soon by Penguin.  But then immediately after that, there is a pause -- as if she is mourning a loss. 

"It was something that never got over. And this is something I have been wanting to do for really long. I also did a book in between, and I wrote one on Bhakti too. 'Eating God' was an important book in that aspect — it touched people. But I already believe the seeds of 'Wild Women' were sown. Of course, it is lovely to read about Kabir but where are the women? Have the women's voices been muted? Maybe we have tamed and domesticated them... it did not seem they were women on journeys. I wanted to go back and rediscover the rawest realms and smells. It has been such an endless process but so satisfying to listen to their feral sensuality, and their searing questions about custodians of gender and faith. It was time to tune into their brazenness, their heartbreaking longing. Not just for their sake but for ours too," she tells IANS. 

In the book, the poet brings together haunting voices of, by and for women across the Indian subcontinent poetry of ancient Buddhist nuns,  Bhakti and Sufi mystics, tantrikas and Vedantins. There are women here, and men singing as women, and both raising their voices in praise of the sacred feminine.