Rivers That Remember: A Blue Humanities Perspective on Selected Poems of Kedarnath Singh

Abstract

This paper explores the poetry of Kedarnath Singh through the theoretical framework of Blue Humanities, with particular attention to his sustained engagement with rivers, rain, wells, and other water bodies. Singh’s poetic landscape is rich with hydric imagery, not as passive elements of nature but as dynamic participants in the cultural, political, and emotional life of rural India. Unlike Western ecological paradigms, which often emphasize large-scale environmental crisis narratives or the aesthetic sublime, Singh’s work reflects a grounded, Indian ecological consciousness—one that is informed by agrarian memory, oral traditions, ethical relationality, and spiritual reverence for the natural world. Water in his poetry becomes a carrier of both ecological disruption and cultural endurance, evoking sacred geographies as well as everyday struggles. Using the interpretive tools of Blue Humanities while re-centering them within Indian knowledge systems, this study proposes a decolonial re-reading of aquatic ecologies in literature. Through a close reading of Singh’s works, the paper ultimately argues that his hydric imagination offers an alternative mode of environmental thought—one where water is not merely a symbol, but a medium of memory, justice, and belonging. By doing so, Singh contributes to a uniquely Indian voice within the global discourse of Blue Humanities.