'Iron Draped in Silk' attempts to defy the inapt women’s roles, but through an inapt grip on poetry

“A young girl had once told me how she was hesitant to like pink colour because it is traditionally seen as a ‘girl's colour’,” says the poet Surbhi Gupta. Her debut poetry book, ‘Iron Draped In Silk’, is entirely pink, from its cover to its pages, which are extremely glossy, covering various aspects of womanhood. 

“It highlights the societal pressures on women, says Gupta, recounting the story and why keeping the conventions became her way to defy them through the book that explores the themes around breaking stereotypes and acceptance. However, through the poetry book, every defiance is presented through a soft-centred approach, with empowering lines and, if nothing else, a few relatable emotions. Gupta even writes, in one of her poems, “Own that pink/wear it with pride”.

Consisting of four chapters, the book delves deeper into the inapt and faulty women’s roles and explores the interplay between the “strengths” and “weaknesses” of women, well described as “Iron” and “Silk” in the titular piece. However, readers are intrigued to know how the strengths displayed by “iron” are the exact opposite of its conventional traits. “The core strength of women, “iron”, here is empathy, nurturing, and the ability to keep a family together, which, in contemporary times, is seen as either stereotypical to constitute women,” Gupta says. 

In one of the poems, the poet writes, “A warm bath isn’t just to soak and hide/it’s where your weary spirit collides/And, when you dance through the night so free/it’s a dance of release, of pure liberty’ – in just another example for how Gupta has ensured the ideas of liberation and empowerment through mending the fraught relationship one has with themselves. 

What binds the readers is the illustrations accompanying the poems and a pictorial journey through the mother-daughter conversation, which is reminiscent of Gupta’s own experiences with motherhood and the lessons she would like to instil in her younger daughters. In one of the illustrations, the daughter is quoted, “Mother, is softness a strength?” to which the mother is quoted, “The bravest that can be.”

As much as the lyrical and conversational tones of the poems appeal to the masses, the poems, on the other hand, might not add up more for the poetry aficionados. While it does not limit the book, it certainly limits the readers, especially those seeking contemporary literature and exploring the new-age poets.

While at least 1,500 copies have been sold as of yet, Gupta shares that a new writer like her has to face a lot of challenges in the publishing industry without the “family connections”. In the course of two years of finalising the publication, Gupta shares that she has explored a lot and has been dejected as well. 

At least, Gupta does not displease the seasonal readers with the book, which remains the conclusion of her own journey with it that suggests that even as we tiptoe around the banana peel of fate, there is still a lot more to laugh and love.