Celebrating ‘difference’: Redefining Gender Roles in Syam Sudhakar’s ‘Enchantress atop the potted palm’

Syam Sudhakar's 'Enchantress Atop the Potted Palm' focuses on the cultural differences among women within the same cultural space, subverting the normative concepts of gender roles as determined by a heterosexual, patriarchal society. Emphasizing the difference between the 'other' woman as opposed to the mainstream, the poem situates the mythical Yakshi on the one hand and the mother and sister on the other. The article seeks to explore how gender roles are redefined in the poem, prodding subtly on the complex paradigms between patriarchy and cultural norms and its shifting power dynamics.