“Whispers of the Unsayable: Dhvani, Rasa, and the Poetics of Suggestion in Arundhathi Subramaniam’s When God is a Traveller”

This paper explores the intricate interplay between classical Indian aesthetic theory and contemporary poetic expression through the lens of Ānandavardhana’s Dhvani theory, focusing specifically on Arundhathi Subramaniam’s 2014 poetry collection, When God is a Traveller. As one of the most compelling voices in modern Indian English poetry, Subramaniam navigates between devotion and doubt, tradition and modernity, silence and song. Her work offers fertile ground for applying the dhvani concept the art of suggestion where poetic meaning transcends the literal and reaches into the evocative, the intuitive, and the unsaid. Drawing upon key concepts such as vyaṅgyārtha (suggested meaning), rasa (aesthetic emotion), and aucitya (propriety), this paper investigates how Subramaniam’s poems act as contemporary embodiments of classical Sanskrit poetics, while simultaneously reshaping these frameworks in service of modern spiritual inquiry and gendered subjectivity. In particular, the study examines how suggestive meanings unfold across her poems through imagery, ellipsis, tonal shifts, and intertextual mythic allusions to evoke layered emotional states and spiritual ambivalences. By situating Subramaniam’s poetics within a continuum that links ancient Indian theories of art with present-day literary innovation, the paper highlights the enduring relevance of dhvani as both a reading strategy and a generative poetic principle. Ultimately, it argues that When God is a Traveller functions as a living archive of rasa-rich suggestion, reactivating Indian poetics not as a static tradition but as a dynamic mode of being, knowing, and becoming in verse