Faith in the Fire: Sonnet Mondal’s Poetry of Resistance and Ruin

In Clamour for a Handful of Rice, Sonnet Mondal delivers a collection of poetry that is both searing and deeply meditative, exploring the disintegration of humanity in the face of conflict, poverty, and silence. With stunning lyricism and stark imagery, Mondal excavates the pain of war-torn lives and offers unflinching witness to suffering—never reduced to statistics, but carried in the weight of personal moments.

The title itself is a haunting indictment of the world we live in—a world where basic needs are entangled with violence and displacement. The line, “Today the rice bowls are filled with bullet shells. / How would you teach hunger to value our gods?” crystallizes this dual tension between material survival and spiritual erosion. Mondal draws attention to this grotesque irony, questioning the relevance of faith when the very sanctuaries of belief are destroyed.

In poems like "Today a Missile Struck the Head of Buddha", Mondal captures this loss of sanctity with unsettling clarity:

“What when a missile topples the dome of a mosque? / when it rips apart the clapper of a temple bell from its mouth?”

These images are not metaphors; they are elegies for a civilization bleeding at its temples, both sacred and civic.

Yet, amid devastation, Mondal does not forgo hope. In "Each Footprint is a Hope", the child's body becomes a map, its drag marks a silent rebellion:

“When children fall in front of bullets... / each dragging trail is a hope.”

This paradox—of death birthing resistance—is where the poet’s voice becomes both political and profoundly humane.

Mondal’s work is not content to remain in abstraction. In "Morning after the Night of Protest", he confronts the commodification of dissent:

“I woke up in the morning to find / our screams, tears, pain and blood / on sale on social media.”

This is poetry as confrontation—gritty, necessary, and unsparing.

Clamour for a Handful of Rice is a document of witness. Mondal crafts a quiet rebellion in verse—each word a flambeau lighting the dark alleys of collective indifference.