Waiting For Godot as an Absurd Play.

The word "Absurd" means "a literary and philosophical term suggesting the illogicality or
pointlessness of the human condition from an existential point of view. The word 'absurd' is derived
from the French word 'absurdum means 'out of harmony'. Absurd dramas emerge from
Existentialism. Absurd drama subverts logic. It relishes the unexpected and the logically

impossible. According to Sigmund Freud, there is a feeling of freedom we can enjoy when
we are able to abandon the straitjacket of logic. In trying to burst the bounds of logic and
language the absurd theatre is trying to shatter the enclosing walls of the human condition
itself. Our individual identity is defined by language, having a name is the source of our
separateness - the loss of logical language brings us towards a unity with living things. In
being illogical, the absurd theatre is anti-rationalist: it negates rationalism because it feels that
rationalist thought, like language, only deals with the superficial aspects of things.
The theatre of the absurd describes a mood, a tone towards life, where man's existence is a dilemma
of purposeless, meaningless, and pointless activity. It is complete denial of age-old values. It has no
plot, no characterization, no logical sequence, and no culmination. It is totally unconventional.The
theatre of Absurd is one of the ways of facing up to a universe that has lost its meaning and purpose.
The Theatre of Absurd transfers irrationality of life on the stage. The talks and actions of the
characters do not convey any meaning .There is in fact, no plot in the play .The time is static ,the
place is not specific. After the first performance of Waiting for Godot in 1953,some critics were of the
view that Beckett has contrived an absolute negation of human existence. But after thirty years of
serious critical discussion, critics have reached the conclusion that the situation depicted in "waiting
for Godot" is symbolic of man's general position in this world. In the world of Godot the is complete
impossibility of rational action. Estragon's struggle with his boats is as absurd as his efforts to commit
suicide. The striking dialogue ," there is nothing I can do about it", repeated so often by Vladmir and
Estragon is the epitome of the play. This dialogue has a metaphysical implication. It is a comment on
the absurdity of life.
The play is in two acts each of which follow the some pattern. On an remote stage representing a
country road with a single tree, two men Vladimir and Estragon, dressed in tattered clothes and
ancient bowler hats , are trying to keep an appointment. They are not sure whether they really have
this appointment nor are they sure to whom the appointment is to be made and what is the purpose.
They are dependent over each other and still want to get away from each other, and above all they are
convinced of their desirability of doing away with themselves. But each time ,they attempt to commit
suicide ,they fail through sheer incompetence . In each of the two acts they meet another pair of
characters ;Pozzo and Lucky. Pozzo is big,fat and opulent while Lucky is thin old with a rope around
his neck. The second act depicts the tramp's loss of identity. Although both the characters are bound in
a friendly bond , they are unable to communicate with each other, their relationship verges on
uncertainty.
The play also depicts the difference in the attitude of the two tramps . Vladimir is of a speculative turn
of mind , while Estragon is weaker and more temperamental . Yet both are at the mercy of Godot
absolutely ,who has asked them to wait for him. The two tramps are in such a mental state in which
nothing happens twice. The time stands still and their only pre-occupation is to pass time. They are
actually aware of the futility of their existence and they are merely filling up the hours with painless
activity. They are totally helpless in the presence of their mental condition. Hence whatever they do is
highly farcical but at some time it is deeply tragic.

Like committed absurdist , Beckett combats the traditional notions of time. The principal theme of the
play is "waiting", to wait means to experience the action of time "waiting for Godot " is a dramatic
statement of the human situation itself. In fact Godot is nothing but the name for the fact that the
life ,which goes on pointlessly is wrongly interpreted as "waiting for Something", what appears to be
the positive attitude of the tramps amounts to be a double negation of their existence. They are unable
to recognise the pointlessness of their existence. "They are like men who , despite living on a desert
island and never being married continuously expect the return of their wives . In fact they are ruined
by their habit merely because they happen to exist, and because existence does not know any other
alternation but to exist. Thus an absurd drama becomes a kind of modern mystical experience", says
Esslin.
Waiting For Godot As An Absurd Play
Beckett is considered to be an important figure among the French Absurdists. Waiting for Godot is
one of the masterpieces of Absurdist literature. Elements of Absurdity for making this play are so
engaging and lively. Beckett combats the traditional notions of Time. It attacks the two main
ingredients of the traditional views of Time, i.e. Habit and Memory. We find Estragon in the main
story and Pozzo in the episode, combating the conventional notions of Time and Memory. For Pozzo,
particularly, one day is just like another, the day we are born indistinguishable from the day we shall
die.
It is very clear from the very word Absurd that it means nonsensical, opposed to reason, something
silly, foolish, senseless, ridiculous and topsy-turvy. So, a drama having a cock and bull story would be
called an absurd play. Moreover, a play having loosely constructed plot, unrecognizable characters,
metaphysical called an absurd play. Actually the Absurd Theatre believes that humanitys plight is
purposeless in an existence, which is out of harmony with its surroundings.
This thing i.e. the awareness about the lack of purpose produces a state of metaphysical anguish
which is the central theme of the Absurd Theatre. On an absurd play logical construction, rational
ideas and intellectually viable arguments are abandoned and instead of these the irrationality for
experience is acted out on the stage.
The above mentioned discussion allows us to call Waiting for Godot as an absurd play for not only
its plot is loose but its characters are also just mechanical puppets with their incoherent colloquy. And
above than all, its theme is unexplained. Waiting for Godot is an absurd play for it is devoid of
characterization and motivation. Though characters are present but are not recognizable for whatever
they do and whatever they present is purposeless. So far as its dialogue technique is concerned, it is
purely absurd as there is no witty repartee and pointed dialogue. What a reader or spectator hears is
simply the incoherent babbling which does not have any clear and meaningful ideas. So far as the
action and theme is concerned, it kisses the level of Absurd Theatre. After the study of this play we
come to know that nothing special happens in the play nor we observe any significant change in
setting. Though a change occurs but it is only that now the tree has sprouted out four or five leaves.
Nothing happens, nobody comes nobody goes, its awful!
The beginning, middle and end of the play do not rise up to the level of a good play, so absurd.
Though its theme is logical and rational yet it lies in umbrage.
Moreover, Waiting for Godot can also be regarded as an absurd play because it is different from
poetic theatre. Neither it makes a considerable use of dream and fantasy nor does it employ

conscious poetic language. The situation almost remains unchanged and an enigmatic vein runs
throughout the play. The mixture of comedy and near tragedy proves baffling. In act-I we are not sure
as to what attitude we should adopt towards the different phases of its non-action. The ways, of which
the two tramps pass their time, seems as if they were passing their lives in a transparent deception.
Godot remains a mystery and curiosity still holds a sway. Here we know that their endless waiting
seems to be absurd. Though the fact is that they are conscious of this absurdity, yet is seems to imply
that the rest of the world is waiting for the things, which are more absurd and also uncertain.
Waiting for Godot is an absurd play for there is no female character. Characters are there but they
are devoid of identity. These two Estragon and Vladimir are old acquaintances, but they are not sure
of their identity. Though they breathe, their life is an endless rain of blows. They wait for the ultimate
extinction, but in a frustrated way. This thing produces meaninglessness, thus makes the play absurd.
Moreover, what makes the play absurd is its ending. We note that the ending of the play is not a
conclusion in the usual sense. The wait continues; the human contacts remain unsolved; the problem
of existence remains meaningless, futile and purposeless. The conversation between the two tramps
remain a jargon, really a humbug and bunkum speech. So all this makes the play an absurd play.
Absurd Theatre is a term applies to a group of dramatist in the 1950s. Martin Esslin was the first to
use this term Absurd in his book The Theatre of the Absurd. Eugene Lonesco, Arthur Admor,
Harold Pinter and Jean Garret are the writers who belong to this category.
Samuel Becketts Waiting for Godot as an absurd play
Samuel Becketts Waiting for Godot was premiered in 1953 at the Theatre de Babylone in Paris. The
play is thought to initiate a theatrical tradition called absurd drama. But like any other artistic puzzles,
the theatre of the absurd cannot be reduced to a single bottom line. It cannot be defined in a single
word or by a particular theory. In order to understand the rise, characteristics and popularity of the
absurd drama we must look back to the events that took place during the first half of the 20th century
in the worlds of politics, literature, philosophy and religion.
The early 20th century witnessed two World Wars .In literature it gave birth to two recognizable
literary styles: modernism and post-modernism. In philosophy the rise of existentialism was the most
important event and the world also saw the decline of mens faith in religion. All these happenings
paved the way for the theatrical tradition the absurd drama which in fact was a reflection the age. The
term was coined by the critic Martin Esslin, who made it the title of a 1962 book on the subject. Esslin
saw the work of these playwrights as giving artistic articulation to Albert Camus philosophy that life
is inherently without meaning, as illustrated in his work The Myth of Sisyphus.
The group of the playwrights whose works came to be known as the absurd plays include Samuel
Beckett, Eugene Ionescoe, Jean Genet, Edward Albee and Harold Pinter. These writers flout all the
standards by which drama has been judged for many centuries. As playwrights they share some
theatrical techniques and philosophic ideas. In their plays there is no particular attention spent
developing a recognizable plot, no detailed characterization, and no readily definable theme. This
bizarre rejection of any recognizable pattern or development gave birth to the term Literature of the
Absurd. Philosophically almost all of them share the existentialist philosophy of absurdity and
nothingness.
Beckett's Waiting for Godot largely deals with the absurd tradition. The play is without any plot,
character, dialogue and setting in the traditional sense.

The setting of the play creates the absurdist mood. A desolate country road, a ditch, and a leafless tree
make up the barren, otherworldly landscape whose only occupants are two homeless men who bumble
and shuffle in a vaudevillian manner. They are in rags, bowler hats, and apparently oversized boots--a
very comic introduction to a very bizarre play.There is a surplus of symbolism and thematic
suggestion in this setting. The landscape is a symbol of a barren and fruitless civilization or life. There
is nothing to be done and there appears to be no place better to depart. The tree, usually a symbol of
life with its blossoms and fruit or its suggestion of spring, is apparently dead and lifeless. But it is also
the place to which they believe this Godot has asked them to come. This could mean Godot wants the
men to feel the infertility of their life. At the same time, it could simply mean they have found the
wrong tree.
The setting of the play reminds us the post-war condition of the world which brought about
uncertainties, despair, and new challenges to the all of mankind. A pessimistic outlook laced with
sadism and tangible violence, as a rich dividend of the aftermath of wars. It is as if the poignancy and
calamities of the wars found sharp reflections in Becketts Waiting for Godot.
Next comes the plot. In the traditional sense a plot should concentrate on a single motivated action
and is also expected to have a beginning, a middle and a neatly tied-up ending. But its almost
impossible to provide a conventional plot summary of Waiting for Godot, which has often been
described as a play in which nothing happens. It is formless and not constructed on on any structural
principles.It has no Aristotolean beginning,middle and end.It starts at an arbitrary point and seem to
end just as arbitrarily. Beckett, like other dramatists working in this mode, is not trying to "tell a
story." He's not offering any easily identifiable solutions to carefully observed problems; there's little
by way of moralizing and no obvious "message." The pattern of the play might best be described as
circular.The circularity of Waiting for Godot is highly unconventional.
As per as the portrayal of characters is concerned the play also fits into the absurd tradition. A wellmade play is expected to present characters that are well-observed and convincingly motivated. But in
the play we five charaters who are not very recognizable human beings and dont engage themselves
in a motivated action.Two tramps, Vladimir (Didi) and Estragon (Gogo), are waiting by a tree on a
country road for Godot, whom they have never met and who may not even exist. They argue, make
up, contemplate suicide, discuss passages from the Bible, and encounter Pozzo and Lucky, a master
and slave. Near the end of the first act, a young boy comes with a message from Mr. Godot that he
will not come today but will come tomorrow. In the second act, the action of the first act is essentially
repeated, with a few changes: the tree now has leaves, Pozzo is blind and has Lucky on a shorter
leash. Once again the boy comes and tells them Mr. Godot will not come today; he insists he has
never met them before. The play concludes with a famous exchange:
Vladimir: Well, shall we go?
Estragon: Yes, lets go.
They do not move.
In the raditional play is expected to entertain the audience with logically built,witty dialogue.But in
this play,like any other absurd play,the dialogue seems to have degenarated into meaningless
babble.The dialogues the characters exchange are meaningless banalities.They use langiage to feel the
emptyness between them,to conceal the fact that they have no desire to talk to each other anything at
all.

The absurd plays deal with the themes of existentialism,especially the existentialist theme of
absurdity.The absurd playwrights tried to translate the contemporary existentialis philosophy into the
drama. The absurd playwrights also tried to portray the distrassful condition of the humans.In Waiting
for Godot the human condition is shown as a dismal and distressful state. The derelict man struggles
to live or rather exist, in a hostile and uncaring world. A sense of stagnancy and bareness captivates
man, and whenever he tries to assert himself, he is curbed. In Beckett's words, human life is the
endurance and tolerance to "the boredom of living" "replaced by the suffering of being." These
phrases speak volumes of a philosophy born out of the harsh human realities. Vladimir and Estragon
are blissfully and painfully oblivious to their own condition. They go about repeating their actions
every day unmindful of the monotony and captivity. They also do not activate their mind to question
or brood over their own actions and the motives underlying their actions. The "compressed vacuum"
in their lives is constantly disregarded. The idea that God or fate or some Supreme Being with control
toys with the lives of men is startlingly clear. Every moment of every day, mankind waits for some
sign from God that his suffering will end. And every day, God does not arrive.
So many times in the play, a possibility is suggested then immediately undercut by its unhappy
opposite. This technique is used by Beckett to relay his theme that life is uncertain and unpredictable
at its best, unfortunate and unending at its worst. To further state this theme, Estragon asserts that
"There's no lack of void" in life. It is actually of little importance where they were the previous day, as
everywhere everyday the same empty vacuum envelops them. Absence, emptiness, nothingness, and
unresolved mysteries are central features in the play.
Thus the play Waiting for Godot contains almost all the elements of a absurd play. The play depicts
the irrationalism of life in a grotesquely comic and non-consequential fashion with the element of
"metaphysical alienation and tragic anguish." It was first written in French and called En attendant
Godot. The author himself translated the play into English in 1954. The uniqueness of the play
compelled the audiences to flock to the theaters for a spectacularly continuous four hundred
performances. At the time, there were two distinct opinions about the play; some called it a hoax and
others called it a masterpiece. Nevertheless, Waiting for Godot has claimed its place in literary history
as a masterpiece that changed the face of twentieth century drama.
Grandfather a poem by: Jayanta Mahapatra Analysis
The yellowed diarys notes whisper in vernacular.
They sound the forgotten posture,
the cramped cry that forces me to hear that voice.
Jayanta Mahapatras poem is a touching work, a poem almost autobiographical in nature as it deals
with the delicate topic of religious conversion. Her grandfathers diary is a sort of memoir that
recounts how he turned his back to his religion and his ancestors due to the primitive motivation of
hunger. Hunger was the compelling force that during Orissas famine of 1866 caused this man to give
up and embrace Christianity.
How old were you? Hunted you turned coward and ran,
the real animal in you plunging through your bone.
You left your family behind, the buried things,

the precious clod that praised the quality of a god.

It is unsettling to say the least that a man is forced into conversion due to hunger. There is a certain
inhumanity in it and you wonder how can religion be so dross and materialistic to count the number of
convertees with promises of food rather than seeing people crying for food in their bellies? The
tongue of the diary is in vernacular and through language the diary conveys the cry of a man who was
forced into doing something that must have caused him extreme pain and self-reproach.
the cracked fallow earth, ate into the laughter of your flesh.
For you it was the hardest question of all.
Dead, empty tress stood by the dragging river,
past your weakened body, flailing against your sleep.
When one looks at the tile of the poem there is an expectation raised that perhaps it is some
sentimental song of love for someone passed by. Instead, the song is of one who has died long ago and
the poet is deciphering things long past but yet terribly relevant. What one can clearly see is the
politics of the world that does not care for the cries of people. The imagery of the poem is what makes
it as moving as it is: Did you hear the young tamarind leaves rustle/ in the cold mean nights of your
belly?
The imperishable that swung your broken body,
turned it inside out? What did faith matter?
What Hindu world so ancient and true for you to hold?
Uneasily you dreamed toward the centre of your web.
What does religion or faith matter in the end if the body itself is unable to get even basic necessities?
In fact, what is religion indeed? It seems to have been transformed into a mere worship of God
leaving aside the fact that people are starving and falling on the wayside. There is a certain
inhumanity that can be seen throughout the poem. Her grandfather does manage to save his life
through conversion but his heart is forever burdened by the deed he has done when it is he himself
who is the victim. Neither his own religion nor the one he adopts is able to do the basic thing any
religion should i.e. provide comfort.
Freedom: Mahapatra
Freedom by Jayanta Mahapatra
Freedom by Jayanta Mahapatra is like the Freedom essay, radio-talk delivered by G.B.Shaw on the
B.B.C., London wherein the dramatist discusses it what it is freedom, who a freeman and what the
attributes of it? The dramatist as an anti-thesis giver, a playwright of ideas discusses it the types of
slavery, natural slavery and man-made slavery. Similar is the case with Jayanta Mahapatra who also
seeks to know what it is freedom. Should it be corroborated with the independence of India and the
installation of democracy? How the meaning of it varies from man to man? If freedom means
something to one man it is differently to another man.

What did we promise making a tryst with Indias freedom? Today India is free, but what have we for
the women, children and widows? Only false promises cannot give a strong foundation and the nation
cannot progress just with the leaders white lies.
While delving in such an aspect, the poet takes a use of the sub-conscious and the dark conscious as
because the fickle and abnormal mind of man keeps viewing and opining in its way. But when we
speak, we try our best to filter such a thing and try to be social and measured in our stepping. But as
far as the case of Jayanta Mahapatra is concerned, he even registers the incongruities and oddities
while dispensing with the topic.
Sometimes when he watches, it appears to be that the countrys body goes floating on the river waters.
Left alone he grows into a disembodied bamboo half sunk into and half flourishing on the banks. Here
old widows and dying men cherish their freedom, bowing time after time in obstinate prayers.
But while on the other the children cherish to be free and dream of a world so creative and dreamy
and full of imagination. The poet too wants to be with them as he opines leisurely, taking a break from
his routine life or busy schedule.
Nor with the wish to know the people lying unfed and unattended in the remote villages, just with
little rice to tell of what we have in the aftermath freedom these long years who even do not know it
what freedom is actually. When did India become free? What in Parliament House? Who sitting then,
who now? These concern them least as they have nothing to do with. He is also not there to see the
uncaught, bloodies lights of sunsets catching the tall and white pillars of Parliament House.
In a temple built new, the priest enjoys liberty whereas the gods seem to be hiding in the dark like an
alien. This is not the ended of the story. The poet has something more to say.
And apart from, each day he keeps looking for the light which but the shadows fail to contain in. Only
freedom that he knows is the freedom of the body when it is alone. The lines are very meaningful:
Trying to find the only freedom I know,
the freedom of the body when it's alone.
The fickle mind seems to be at work; the abnormal mind. Sometimes in abnormalities lies it the kernel
of a great thought is the thing here. Geniuses are found to be with the streaks of abnormality which
add to really in making them great and extraordinary. The poet means to say that what we take to be
something is nothing and vice versa. Freedom is not what we actually mean for. Freedom is the
freedom of the body, the freedom of the soul and spirit. Freedom is the state of being free and
unrestricted without any barrier and binding, where the mind goes or flies to or catches its dream and
reflection. But say you, who is free? Are we? What we want, are we able to do without hindrances and
hitches? Do we ever take the mind and the heart into good faith? What is human mind? How the
composition of it and the reveries? Our impulses are inhibited; unrestricted.
What the abnormal mind says that too should be taken into confidence sometimes and if take we,
something extraordinary we shall opine to pride over as our finding.
While elucidating freedom, Jayanta Mahapatra says that in India, the old widows and dying men
cherish it, bowing in obstinate prayers. All through their lives, they remain under restrictions. The
Indian widows fail to mix freely, eat and live freely. Similarly the dying men too see it as a liberation
from.

Only Parliament House with the historicity and constitutionality of it cannot guarantee it freedom.
Only the making of it cannot be the charter of our natural freedom. Freedom is what we take, what we
believe in privately and personally. Freedom is the freedom of the mind, of the heart and the soul; of
the spirit, the liberation from, complete deliverance. The unconscious mind is the screen on which
figure the impressions of the heart and the soul. Impulses are the harbinger, but we need to distil them
as for being social. Mark it that from the dark layer of the coalfield, is got the diamond. So is our dark
consciousness from where originates it all:
Here, old widows and dying men
cherish their freedom,
bowing time after time in obstinate prayers.
Blakian innocence is childish vision and with their dream and imagination, they want to transform the
world, but the hardcore realities contrasting indeed, which the children know it not that freedom lies it
restricted here:
While children scream
with this desire for freedom
to transform the world
without even laying hands on it.
The freedom of the silent shale, the moonless coal, are the beds of streams of the sleeping god as he
keeps the ashes away, tries not to wear them on his forehead. Which is what, who can say?
The things of Jayanta Mahapatras poetry the talks of the unconscious mind.

GRANDFATHER
1.This poem is about an old man who suffered through a famine The old man is the speakers
grandfather. The speaker starts out reading the grandfathers diary, for he says:
The yellowed diarys notes whisper in vernacular
This means that he is reading the grandfathers diary, written in his native language (vernacular). By
reading the diary, the speaker can experience what his grandfather went through during the famine
because it is described in the diary, which is so old it has yellowed pages. If you read through the
rest of the poem, you will see some of the things the grandfather suffered starvation, weakness,
despair. The grandfather had to leave his family behind, probably burying many of them. The speaker
states that no doubt, faith was unimportant to a man that was starving.
What did faith matter? What Hindu world so ancient and true for you to hold?
The speaker asks the grandfather many rhetorical questions: Did you see your own death? How old
were you?

The poem ends with the speaker bemoaning the fact that he didnt know his grandfather enough. He is
looking at his grandfathers picture you are an invisible piece on a board.

2. The poem Grandfather can be analysed with a little historical referrence. A long time back- during
the colonial period- a devastating famine struck Orissa. The result: lack of food, starvation, hunger
and death. The poet's grandfather happened to be a part of that phase of turmoil.
The grandfather, a hindu brahmin, was forced to convert to christianity for the want of food. The
poem goes on to say that probably, when it comes down to the dignity of having to follow one's
religion and death, the former loses significance. The drought and the lack of rain just meant that the
lack of food and the starvation it caused wan't going to end any soon.
The poet asks his grandfather if he saw death in front of his eyes. He wonders how bad he must have
felt to let go of his faith and religion for the sake of survival. The poet understands that if his
grandfather hadn't taken the decision he had, then, he wouldn't have lived to write this poem.
He wonders if dying with dignity would have been more appropriate than having to compromise one's
faith and belief. The diary speaks volumes.
Indian women- A poem by Shiv K Kumar
The poem is about the infinite patience that the Indian women practice in their lives while they go
through a triple-baked suffering at the hands of the sun , sex and poverty. The continent refers to the
Indian subcontinent with a long history of political and historical upheavals and a highly patriarchal
society structure , in which women are the most oppressed lot. They do not etch angry eyebrows on
mud walls,because within homes their status remains that of passive receivers of others angry
emotions .Within the walls of their homes they are also the passive receivers of male love without
their own participation , being bound to preserving their chastity for the men who consider them as
their private property.

guarding their tattooed thighs-tattooed probably refers to the name of the male owner etched on the
thighs to indicate ownership. Juxtapose this with the angry eyebrows not etched on the mud walls.
Not etched on the mud walls indicates a family situation in which only the patriarchal male elders
have a right to raise eye-brows and have them etched on the mud walls. Angry eyebrows etched on
walls indicate power of the male over the female who has no such power to get angry with anybody.
The female has only the duty to preserve the sanctum of her femaleness by guarding her thighs
against possible intruders. The guarding is done not for herself but for the man whose name is
tattooed on her thighs to indicate ownership.
Patience is the virtue most cherished in our women.
patiently they sit like empty pitchers on the mouth of the village well
A beautiful image that at once evokes the typical Indian village woman who spends much of her time
like an empty pitcher on the mouth of the village well. Firstly , it is the woman who fills the homes
water pots by trekking long distances to fetch water for the family. She herself sits on the mouth of the
village well like an empty pitcher waiting for her turn to collect water. But the water there is just a

trickle and is not deep enough to reflect her image with her eyes filled with tell-tale tears. She is only
pleating her long (Mississipi-long) hair in braids of hope.
With zodiac doodlings on the sand is a highly evocative image of a typical Indian woman who
scrawls zodiac shaped figures in the sand with the toe of her foot while she lowers her shy eyes,
thinking of her man who is away beyond the hills. She will wait for him there till even the shadows
roll up their contours and are gone beyond the hills. A beautiful image.
Some interesting usages :
etching on mud walls
Mud walls indicate poverty , a condition which does not affect the women alone but all the members
of the household. But the man can etch his eye-brows on the mud walls and the women cannot.They
are the recipients of the anger flowing from the male eyebrows. Etching indicates a slightly raised
letters/figures , an egocentric status.
Triple-baked :
The harsh sun makes the woman trek long distances to bring water.In the process she is herself baked
like the pitcher. She sits long hours like the empty pitcher on the village wells mouth waiting for her
turn to drop the bucket down the well to collect water. She is triple-baked -by the sun, by her conjugal
duties (letting her man to extort love from her), by the excruciating poverty of her family. The other
meaning probably is that with her husband away she has become the target of the village gossip: on
the village wells mouth
Doodlings on the sand:
A beautiful usage. The woman is probably unlettered but can doodle on the sand with her toe, idly
waiting for her man ,while her eyes are lowered in female shyness.
Till even the shadows roll up their contours and are gone beyond the hills:
Exquisite image. It is now dusk and all the women have already left the well for their homes. The
shadows have vanished and the sun has sunk beneath the hills. The woman is still waiting
INDIAN WOMEN.
SHIV K KUMAR.
Poet: Shiv K Kumar was born in Lahore in 1921, made a mark as a novelist, short-story writer, poet,
playwright, translator and critic. Shiv K Kumar has three published novels , six collection of poems, a
collection of short stories, a play, a translation of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, and several scholarly works to his
credit. He received the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award in 1988 for his collection of poems
Trapfalls in the sky (1986), and the Padma Bhushan in 2001.
Kumar uses a unique literary device in his work.
Gist: Indian women registers Kumars response to a familiar situation.
Images of futility and hopelessness reinforce the structure of the poem.
Explanation:

In the poem Kumar describes the patient waiting of Indian Women for their men to arrive. He draws
an analogy between this waiting and empty pitchers sitting on the mouth of the well. To be filled with
water. Through this analogy, the poet vividly describes the helplessness, dependence and acceptance
of fate women-learn to live within the villages of India.
The poet says that life in India is baked in the fires of sun, sex and poverty. Women in Indian villages
wait for their men folk patiently.
They do not sketch any impressions of angry eyebrows on the mud walls of their homes.
While pleating their hair, they think of their hopes which they have from their men for whom they are
waiting. They look into the water of the well which acts like a mirror and reflects the moisture in their
eyes.
While sitting, they sketch zodiac signs on the sands and take care of their fair thighs which have tattoo
marks on them.
Indian women keep on waiting for their men till the darkening shadows of day light arev gone beyond
the hills.

"Indian Women" - Shiv K Kumar

The piece is about the interminable understanding that the Indian ladies practice in their lives while
they experience a triple-baked enduring because of the sun, sex and neediness. The land alludes to the
Indian subcontinent with a long history of political and authentic changes and a profoundly patriarchal
society structure, in which ladies are the most persecuted lot. They don't carve irate eyebrows on mud
walls, because inside homes their status remains that of inactive beneficiaries of others' furious
feelings .Within the dividers of their homes they are additionally the detached collectors of male
affection without their cooperation , being sure to protecting their chastity for the men who consider
them as their private property.
"Guarding their tattooed thighs"-tattooed most likely alludes to the name of the male holder scratched
on the thighs to show possession. Compare this with the irate eyebrows not scratched on the mud
dividers. Not carved on the mud dividers shows a family circumstance in which just the patriarchal
male elderly folks have a right to raise eye-temples and have them scratched on the mud dividers.
Furious eyebrows scratched on dividers show force of the male over the female who has no such
power to get irate with anyone. The female has just the obligation to protect the sanctum of her
femaleness by guarding her thighs against conceivable interlopers. The guarding is carried out not for
herself however for the man whose name is tattooed on her thighs to demonstrate possession.
Tolerance is the uprightness most esteemed in our ladies.
"Tolerantly they sit like vacant pitchers on the mouth of the town well"
A wonderful picture that without a moment's delay inspires the commonplace Indian town lady who
invests much of her time like a void pitcher on the mouth of the town well. Firstly, it is the lady who
fills the home's water pots by trekking long separations to get water for the crew. She herself sits on
the mouth of the town well like an unfilled pitcher sitting tight for her turn to gather water. Yet the

water there is simply a trickle and is not profound enough to reflect her picture with her eyes loaded
with obvious tears. She is just creasing her long (Mississippi-long) hair in meshes of trust.
'With zodiac doodlings on the sand" is an exceedingly suggestive picture of an ordinary Indian lady
who scribbles zodiac moulded figures in the sand with the toe of her foot while she brings down her
modest eyes, thinking about her man who is away past the slopes. She will sit tight for him there till
even the shadows move up their shapes and are gone past the slopes. A delightful picture
Freedom -A poem by Jayanta Mohapatra
. Freedom is the leitmotif in the poem- a different type of freedom from what we usually
understand.The poet draws upon the Indian belief system about death as freedom from the body, the
bondage of the world,from the physical aspect of life.The imagery of the poem is largely concerned
with death and its associated activities .
..my countrys body floats down somewhere on the river
A body is cremated on the banks of the Ganges in Varanasi and its half-burnt remains are left in the
river to float down somewhere.Nobody knows where the remains finally land, may be, in the vastness
of the ocean , the ultimate destiny for the river.somewhere is unspecified destination in the vast
expanse of space.
The body here is not an individual human being but an entire country, a collection of human beings
,now a mere body floating along on the river to an unspecified destination.
Inasmuch as the body is freely floating on the river it is freed from its bondage of mortal life.
The country is now free in another sense. It is now, in 1997, fifty years of freedom from the colonial
rule. What if the woman and her child had no sufficient rice even for a daily -one meal , all these fifty
years. Freedom from foreign rule did not give them freedom from hunger.
Old widows in Brindavan or Varanasi are free of their worldly attachments. Their kin have abandoned
them and they had to live alone in desolation, uncared for and unloved. But dont our old widows and
dying men cherish their freedom bowing time after time in obstinate prayers ?
Obstinate prayers are said despite the hopelessness of the situation with an eternal hope that some day
God will listen to them and grant a miracle to lift them out of their misery.
While the old and dying pray for their deliverance, the young too pray to change the world even
before they have faced it. They have their notions of Utopia , to which the poet cannot subscribe . Nor
can he join the old and the dying in their desire for freedom from bondage.This way he is left to be
alone and not meet the starving woman and child or try to find a political solution to the economic and
social ills of the society by resorting to the parliament.
In the new temple man has built nearby,
the priest is the one who knows freedom,
while God hides in the dark like an alien.
Beautiful lines .It is the priest who is free against God in the temple, who hides in a dark corner of the
temple.The priest retains his own freedom and enjoys the freedom to let God interact with the

devotees as and when he wants it . He alone has the power to decide Gods availability to the
devotees.
The priest is our man and one of us.God is an alien , accessible to us only through this middleman of a
priest
GOD OF SMALL THINGS
Summary
The God of Small Things is a novel written by the famous write Arundhati Roy. This was her first
novel and has won the Booker prize in London 1997. This novel depicts about the childhood
experiences of fraternal twins, whose lives were destroyed by the Love Laws, wherein it speaks about
who should be loved and in what proportion. The novel depicts of how small things in life, affect
peoples lives and behavior.
The story revolves in a small town named Ayemenem, now a part of Kottayam in Kerala. The story
speaks about two fraternal twins Rahel and Estha from their age of 7 in 1969 till they reunite when
they turn to be 31 in 1993. Most of the story is written at the viewpoint of the seven year olds. In this
novel, she has captured the caste system, communism and the Syrian Christian life in Kerala.
The novel begins with the story of a lady (Ammu) who desperately wants to get away from her illtempered father and finally she gets away to stay with her aunt in Calcutta and there she marries a
man, who assists in the tea estate. But her marriage was unsuccessful and she returns home with her
twin children, Estha (boy) and Rahel (Girl). On her return, apart from her mother and brother, they
have their aunt (Baby) who is her fathers sister staying with them. Ammu`s brother gets married to an
English women whom he fell in love with at college and they have a daughter named Sophie. The
novel revolves around these characters and the life they live and disaster that follow in their lives.
The next part of the story talks about events that had serious disasters in the family and the betrayals
faced by almost each member in one way or the other. Small Estha was molested by a lemon vendor,
when he went for a movie, where the experience had left him with fear almost through out his life.
Next, the story speaks about an untouchable (Velutha) who has mistakenly been targeted for revenge
and how he has to undergo many hardships. Even though the kids had a good relationship with this
untouchable, they were forced to betray him, when it was found that he and their mother were in
serious relationship. Because the relationship was caught, a lot of commotion happened in the family
and the children decide to get away. But again unfortunately, their co-sister (Sophie) dies in the
journey and again the two twins are being blamed.
The situation changes when the aunt (Baby) purposefully logs in complaint with the police that the
untouchable guy is responsible for the loss of the child and on a detailed search, it was clear that he
had nothing to do. But since he was an untouchable and since the aunt wanted to save her face, the
kids were prompted to give fake evidences to the man they loved the most, resulting in the death of
Velutha in the police station due to brutal treatment. Because of these scenarios, the twins had to get
separated and the boy was sent to be with his father and the girl with the mother. However, years after
when they meet, they realize that there is no better person to understand them other than each other
for them.
Because of the deeds that they had to do, they were haunted by their guilt and had led their lives so
hollow. The novel clearly gives a depiction about the caste system, the betrayal and lost of trust

among each other, the hopes in small things and the positive attitude where even when you know the
little happiness will not last long.
The God of Small Things a beautiful Novel, which leaves the reader in thoughts for many days and
a good lesson to be learnt from it
Surfacing Summary
Surfacing is the second published novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood. It was first
published by McClelland and Stewart in 1972. It has been called a companion novel to Atwood's
collection of poems, Power Politics,[1] which was written the previous year and deals with
complementary issues.
The novel, grappling with notions of national and gendered identity, anticipated rising concerns
about conservation and preservation and the emergence of Canadian nationalism.[2] It was
adapted into a movie in 1981.
The narrative comes to us via an unnamed narrator, who happens to be bringing three friends to the
area of Northern Quebec where she grew up. The group includes her boyfriend Joe and another
couple, David and Anna. The story begins with the group's trek through the more populated areas in
the narrator's old stomping grounds (e.g., an unnamed "city" and a place she refers to as "the company
town") to reach the remote cabin where her father had been livingthat is, before he disappeared
(dunDUNDUN)
We soon learn that the narrator had received a letter from a family friend, Paul, informing her of her
father's disappearancehence the homecoming after what appears to have been a long absence. The
narrator had hoped her father would have turned up by the time she got there (so she could just scoot
right back home), but no such luck.
When she and the others arrive at the cabin, she finds evidence that her father hasn't been there for a
while. They look for him a little bit, but the narrator quickly comes to believe that the search is futile
they'd need a lot more people-power to search the entire island for him.
So, they occupy themselves with fishing, swimming, shooting film for a future amateur cinematic
project, and readingoh, and some pretty intense psychological warfare-romantic drama, too. For
example, Joe decides that this recon mission to find the narrator's (probably) deceased father is the
perfect opportunity to declare his love and propose. (Hey, why not?) The narrator apparently has some
issues with the "L word," so she is less than receptivewhich does not go over well with Joe.
Meanwhile, David and Anna seem to have a lot of tension between them. David is, shall we say, not
the nicest guy; his main joy in life seems to be making fun of Anna and even humiliating her in front
of others. To make matters worse (read: skeezier), he openly hits on the narrator in front of Anna and
Joe, and at one point he even propositions her for sex (he justifies the invitation by telling the narrator
that Joe is off having sex with Anna). Ew.
So, yeah, if they had had Facebook back then, "It's Complicated" would have been the relationship
status for this wacky quartet, and the faults and fractures in these relationships increasingly take
center stage as the novel progresses.
Alongside all of this, the narrator is digging deep into her memories, thinking about her family, her
childhood, and a husband-child that she had left behind at some unspecified moment in the past.

Despite the fact that she gives up searching for her dad almost immediately and assumes he is dead,
she still wants to know what could have happened to him. When she finds some drawings her father
made of weird-looking, seemingly mythical beasts, she briefly considers the possibility that he might
just have gone crazy (and might still be alive). However, she soon realizes that the drawings were
tracings of nearby rock paintings, not figments of a demented mind, so she goes back to thinking he's
probably dead.
She decides to go in search of the rock paintings, trying to gain confirmation for this little bit of the
"real" story she's pieced together from what her father left behind. She doesn't have much luck when
she takes the others out looking for the first one, but her second attemptwhich involves going on a
solo dive to look at the side of a nearby cliffis a bit more interesting, shall we say. While she's
down there, she sees something (she believes it to be the fetus of a baby she had aborted years before)
that inspires certain memories or realities to "surface" in her own brain, and we learn that not
everything she's told us is entirely accurate.
For example, speaking of the fetus, we learn that the child she supposedly abandoned with her exhusband was actually never born; she had an abortion (and the father of the child wasn't her husband,
but a married man with whom she was carrying on an affair). So, that's some news. After this incident,
the narrator comes to believe her father wasn't just cataloguing these existing rock paintings, but also
compiling a list of places where these kind of spiritual events or "oracles" (17.26) could occur.
In the wake of this underwater epiphany, she's suddenly not in such a hurry to leave. So, the day she
and the others are slated to head home, she opts to stay behind. What happens from there is definitely
up for interpretation, but she appears to pursue some kind of spiritual communion with her deceased
parents (oh yeah, and we should mention that her father's body was found the day before they were
supposed to go home).
To get that ball rolling, she engages in a lot of ritualistic behavior, looking for "signs" for what she
should be doing at any given moment to gain access to her parents. In her view, this process means
getting a lot cozier with nature and her more animalistic side. She destroys basically all of the
belongings inside the cabin, strips her clothes off, and makes herself a lair outside. Um yeah, grief
is powerful, y'all.
Eventually, she appears to get what she wants and has visions of both her parents. After that occurs,
she seems ready to kind of return to the world. She comes to the realization that she needs to stop
being a victim and understands that she is not powerless (a belief she had used to convince herself that
she couldn't hurt other people). With that epiphany, she goes inside and gets dressed in her clothes
(even though she had slashed them all up).
A boat arrives with Paul and Joe, and Joe calls for her. She seems to realize she loves him, and she
thinks about what going back with him would mean as she watches him. We are left on a cliffhanger,
as we don't know if she ever answers his call.