Poetry: Piano and Drums by Gabriel Okara

Piano and Drums is quite clearly a poem about the cultural dichotomy of traditional and
Western cultures in post-colonial Africa, but the raw emotion of the poem makes it an
expression of confusion that anyone tied to more than one culture (which is a lot of people in
this day and age of globalisation) can relate to. Even failing that, the imagery of the poem is
powerful enough to express his confusion we can almost feel Okaras indecision seeping
through the page.
Okaras metaphors are simple but fitting: the drums represent traditional African life, while
the piano represents the Western world. What I love so much about the writing in this poem is
how his reaction to each instrument is portrayed. Both the first stanza (drums) and the third
stanza (piano) are arranged in a similar way. There are essentially three parts to each one.
First, we hear the sound of the instrument. In the case of the drums, it has a mystic rhythm
that is urgent and raw. As for the piano, it is said to be wailing and a tear-furrowed
concerto is being played. We get an impression that while it is seductive, it is far more
complex and multi-layered. Next, we find what the music speaks of. The drums speak of
primal life. The piano, on the other hand, speaks of complex ways and of far away lands
and new horizons. Each stanza closes with his base reaction to hearing each instrument. The
drums induce memories and images of hunting in a primal lifestyle, and the simple life with
natural beauty surrounding him that he can lead in that culture. The piano, while seductive,
turns it to be too complicated for itself.
The expression of those ideas only works on the level it does because of the way each line of
the poem flows into the other. Although it appears simplistic, exposition is handled very well
here, in a way that many authors of prose could learn from. As the poem begins, the drum
beats recall in him the primal nature of traditional life as a hunter-gatherer. The placing of the
word telegraphing here is interesting due to its difference from the rest of the diction in the
stanza. It conveys to the reader a subtle feeling that Okara is no longer part of the beating of
the drum; it is implied to be a kind of message although it brings out raw and fresh emotion
in him, it is telegraphed, not played in all its purity.
As the hunters stand poised to take action, Okaras memory shifts from a situation of primal
aggression to memories of his childhood. He revels in remembrance of being in his mothers
laps a suckling. Here there are no innovations; paths are shaped by the pulse of life in all
its simplicity and glory.
However, his love of the drumming is not strong enough to prevent his distraction. In a mere
moment, his focus is on the wailing piano / solo. The complexity of the piano is seductive;
the far away lands and new horizons present a counterpoint to the simplicity of his
reminiscing of traditional life but its complexities reach a point where it stops abruptly, lost
in itself.
It might sound at this point as if Okara has already made up his mind to follow the path of the
drums, but he still finds himself lost. This confused me the first time I read the poem, but on
re-reads it makes perfect sense. Despite the fact that the piano seems to crumble upon itself,
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he is still seduced by it its arrest at a daggerpoint almost adds to its layered and complex
nature, which is what attracted Okara to it in the first place.
The last stanza, seemingly calmer and more restful in its rhythm than the first three, feels to
me as if fueled with raw, pure emotion. He is lost, wandering aimlessly as the music of the
two instruments meld around him. Confusion surrounds him and, for the moment, he
succumbs to it.
Summary of David Diop's "Africa"
David Diop is an African poet. He has written many poems, fighting against the racial
injustice. The poem Africa is about the glorious past of Africa, the nation, in comparison
with the present situation of the country and its citizens, who are mere slaves.
The opening line of the poem expresses the poet personas love for his nation, Africa. He
uses a possessive pronoun to exhibit his love for Africa. The poet persona regrets for not
being a part of olden Africa, wherein it had many warriors and rich savannahs. The poet
persona has heard of the glorious past, about which he comes to know through the folk songs
of his grand mother.
The poet persona is proud with his self-recognition of his ancestors blood running in his
vein. He is proud of his colour and race. He happily announces the colour of his blood as
black. The poet persona says that their black blood irrigated the entire grounds of Africa.
The persona vehemently transfers his pride about the country into a rage. The colonizers,
who enslaved the Africans, drained all the blood, which was exerted from the Africans in the
form of work and sweat. The persona becomes ferocious and questions the silent submission
of the Africans. He cannot digest the thought and sight of the Africans being bent, with scars
for the whips held by the colonizers.
The persona listens to a voice that talks about a tree, which is found alone amidst white and
faded flowers. The voice addresses the persona as an angry man. The voice says him that the
tree is Africa, the personas own Africa. Like the tree, growing patiently, Africans would also
taste the fruits liberty.
Analysis
David Mandessi Diop (19271960) was a revolutionary African poet born in France but with
parents of West African descent. His poems highlighted problems of Africa brought about by
colonialism and gave a message to Africans to bring about change and freedom. He was
known for his involvement in the negritude movement in France, a movement started by
Black writers and artists protesting against French colonialism and its effects of African
culture and values. His views and feelings were published in Presence Africaine and in his
book of poems Coups de Pillon which was published in 1956. Diop died at the age of 33 in
a plane crash.
Africa my Africa
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Africa of proud warriors in ancestral savannahs

Africa of whom my grandmother sings
On the banks of the distant river
The person who speaks in the poem 'Africa' by David Diop is the author himself. In this
poem, the author sincerely expresses his homesickness of his homeland. His patriotism urges
the African people to be more brave and overcome adversity in their own country.
The poem starts by Diop reminiscing about Africa, a land he has not seen but only heard
about from his grandmothers songs. His choice of words like distant symbolize how far he
is from his country, a feeling based on his real life as he lived in France throughout his
childhood and only visited Africa in the 1950s. Despite this, he paints a vivid scene of Africa
and the proud warriors who walk on its ancestral savannahs You can sense how much he
misses his homeland by his stress on the word Africa, and he continues to call it My Africa
to emphasize it is his land and his feelings of patriotism towards it.
I have never known you
But your blood flows in my veins
Your beautiful black blood that irrigates the fields
The blood of your sweat
The sweat of your work
The work of your slavery
He continues to say that he has never known Africa, but despite the distance he cannot deny
how much it is a part of him. The beautiful black blood which flows in his veins describes
his African descent and shows how much Africa is a part of him and his love for it and its
people. The next verses are angry and accusatory as he stresses that it is the blood and sweat
of his people, which is irrigating the fields for the benefit of other people. By this he is
pointing a finger at the colonialists who exploited Black people and used them as slaves to
profit from their hard labor.
Africa, tell me Africa
Is this your back that is unbent
This back that never breaks under the weight of humiliation
This back trembling with red scars
And saying no to the whip under the midday sun
In these verses he urges the Black people to stand up to the pain and the humiliation that they
are suffering in their own land. He reminds them of the strength and pride they have in them
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and to say no to the whip of the colonialist which makes them work under the hot midday sun
and leaves scars on their backs. Despite this suffering he urges them to be strong and remain
unbent and not let this, break them despite the weight of their suffering.
But a grave voice answers me
Impetuous child that tree, young and strong
That tree over there
Splendidly alone amidst white and faded flowers
That is your Africa springing up anew
Springing up patiently, obstinately
Whose fruit bit by bit acquires
The bitter taste of liberty.
In these verses the wise voice of Africa chides him for thinking impetuous thoughts, and
implies to us that a continent lies in wait for something to happen. It urges the Africans to be
patient and not hasty like children as there is a change on the horizon. The tree young and
strong represents the young people of Africa who are patiently but obstinately waiting
until they get the liberty they want. At the moment the tree is alone, meaning the African
struggle is a lonely battle, but they will achieve the freedom and liberty they want no matter
how bitter the taste in getting it. It is among the white and faded flowers by which he
means the colonialists who will fade in time while the youthful Africans grow in strength and
wait for their moment of freedom.
Vultures
In The Vultures, for example, David Diop effectively employs the image of a predatory
bird to characterize all that is British and nefarious in Western colonialism, and the
colonizers contempt and disdain for the native population. Furthermore, as a bird of prey, the
vulture is merciless in its treatment of its victims.
The lyrics argument is organized in three parts: pre-colonial, colonial, and the post-colonial
period. During the pre-colonial era, Africa was the epitome of prosperity, strength and
progress. The metaphor, we whose hands fertilize the womb of the earth/in spite of your
songs of pride (MPA, p. 64, line 14-15) highlights the glorious state of Africa during its
heydays. Because Africa was living in prosperity and abundance, it was able to offer support
and relief to others.
However, during the colonial period, the fame and fortunes of Africa were completely wiped
out as the Western colonizers embarked on what the poet characterizes as When civilization
kicked us in the face/When holy water slapped our cringing brows (lines 2-3). The image,
holy water, symbolizes Christianity which, through its baptism, converted the indigenous
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African population -- sometimes against their will -- from paganism to Christianity. The
poets employment of the words slapped and cringing suggests the level of humiliation
and degradation to which the Africans were subjected.
The colonial period also witnessed intense pillage and despoliation of cherished cultural
values. Several important artifacts, the mines, and other legacies were either looted or
destroyed. The images, bloodstained monuments, the metallic hell of the roads, the
howling on the plantations the bitter memories of exhorted kisses, the promises broken
at the point of a gun, and foreigners who did not seem human, collectively symbolize the
nature of the Western colonial period.
The third phase, that is, the postcolonial era, Diop asserts, will culminate in unlimited
prosperity (Hope was preserved in us as in a fortress/And from the mines of Swaziland to
the factories of Europe/Spring will be reborn under our bright steps, lines 18-19).
What makes The Vultures remarkable as a poem is not only the fact that Diop effectively
employs bestiary as a satiric device, but also his deft use of repetition (e.g., In spite of your
songs of pride/in spite of the desolate villages of torn Africa, lines 18-19) which endows his
verse with a resonance and lyricism not common in African poetics. Furthermore, by his use
of a historical narrative structure (symbolized by in those days when civilization kicked us
in the face, line 2), Diop displays his ability to link the events of the past to those of the
present. Equally remarkable is his use of contrast where, for example, the glorious African
past is discussed against a backdrop of the sordid colonial era. In all of the above, Diop
demonstrates his vast poetic skills and architectonics.
"The Lonely Land" by A.J.M. Smith
The Lonely Land first appeared in the McGill Fortnightly Review on 9 January 1926.
Smith continued to revise the poem, and the final, further improved version appeared in the
American poetry magazine The Dial in June 1929 (Ferns 46). It later went on to be published
in the first collection of modernist Canadian poems called New Provinces, which was edited
by F.R. Scott and A.J.M. Smith.
Smiths The Lonely Land was inspired by both Imagist poetry and the Group of Seven, a
group of Canadian landscape painters. This poem has the same kind of place in Canadian
poetry that Tom Thomsons Jack Pine has in Canadian painting. In fact The Lonely Land
was originally subtitled Group of Seven (Ferns 46). The Group of Seven painted bleak but
true-to-life Canadian landscapes. The paintings depicted the natural beauty of the land
without romanticizing it. Smiths poetry serves the same purpose through its Imagist
influence. An imagist poem abandon[s] conventional limits on poetic materials and
versification [and] is free to choose any subject and undertakes to render as precisely,
vividly, and tersely as possiblethe writers impression of a visual object or scene (Abrams
152).
Smith begins the poem in a bleak setting:
Cedar and jagged fir
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uplift sharp barbs

against the grey
and cloud-piled sky (1-4).
John Ferns writes, In the first stanza we are presented with a harsh, northern Canadian
lakescape of the kind encountered in a Group of Seven canvas (46). The description gives a
sense of a distinct landscape, different from the landscape poetry of the Romantic and
Victorian poets. Smith focuses on the landscape that can only be found in Canada. The poem
breaks away from traditional form and works in free verse. This breaking away from
traditional form mirrors the breaking away from the traditional descriptions of a beautiful,
romantic landscape found in poetry before this time. Ferns writes, In the second stanza a
lonely bird sound intensifies the already bleak picture (47). The stanza starts with the lines,
A wild duck calls / to her mate (12-13), which calls in the wild nature of the landscape.
Smith writes this poem about the untouched beauty of the Canadian landscape. The landscape
is classed as beautiful because it does not rely on humankind to make it look that way. The
natural, untouched beauty of the land is something that is by far more powerful than humanmade beauty. Having created his bleak picture and filled it with laconic sound," Ferns
writes, "Smith tries to tell us in stanza three what kind of beauty this landscape possesses
(47). For Smith, this landscape creates a beauty / of dissonance (23-24). The beauty of the
landscape is found in the variety and difference that it holds. The bleak setting still allows for
the duck to call her mate, showing that the dreary setting does not take away from the natural
beauty.
Smith takes the influence of the Imagists and combines it with the influence of the Group of
Seven. The true Canadian landscapes that the Group of Seven depicted are the pure Image of
Smiths poetry. The vividness of The Lonely Land speaks directly to its imagist influence
and works together perfectly with the Group of Seven influence.
AUSTRALIA by A.D.HOPE - An Analysis
Background:
Australia is a country filled with migrating people who came from many part of world . Most
of them were dependent people and government took care of each and individual. Even
though they were migrating people they had some strict government rules and regulations.
Thus the author wanted to convey their manners and really what they were.
Australia was a poem by A.D.Hope who was born in 21 st july 1907. His major subjects are
English and Philosophy. His collection of poem is Wandering Island (1955). His final
collection was Orpheus (1992). This was banned because of highly erotic and satirical. The
first five stanzas dealt with how the Australia was. There was sarcasm in final line which
implied cultural apes.
He said that Australia was a mechanical and monotonous land. In this poem his country was
intentionally traumatized by author. The poem gave negative perception and affected the life
6

of survival in Australian country. The poem reflected the lack of individualism and spiritual
poverty. It was the continent with ambiguous state.
The first stanza conveyed that the trees in Australia were seemed dull which stood in a
desolate place. Generally the term NATURE was a charm thing but in this continent it looked
like a desolated one. Nobody cared about it. Many people gave importance to face only. They
didnt care about inner heart. The author compared this character as Sphinx.
The people in Australia were homogenous. The author called them as Young but it ironically
conveyed immature. He pointed out the vulnerability of land and the theme of rebellion. By
reading this poem audience had to know that he was against his country. There was no proper
sense among them. They were not creative and independent he added.
From the famous spot Cairns to Perth there was only flow of river of stupidity which implied
all the people were stupid and foolish. The people in this continent were not living , they were
surviving. The called five teeming stores which indicated Melbourne, Sidney, Perth,
Canberra, Adelaide. The people in these were not had their own identity. They were like
parasites which dependent on others.
The author called their mind as of Australian dumb like . he said that their mind was dumb
like people who lived in the Arabian desert. He was waiting whether anyone of prophet
would come and tell something good about Australia. They themselves called civilized people
but there was no civilization.
A Far Cry from Africa: Derek Walcott - Summary and Critical Analysis
Derek Walcotts A Far Cry from Africa, is not only a brilliant exposition of the imbalance
relationship between the colonizer and the colonized but also a depiction of the pain of a man
who stands in-between two cultures. The poem exposes the conflict of the identity he goes
through due to his state of in-betweenness. Throughout the poem he continues his quest to get
an identity of his own, but at the end, his endeavour remains futile as he finally confesses his
love for the English language as well as for his origin. In other words the idea that pervades
the entire poem is the conflict of culture and identity, from where the poet finds no way out.
A Far Cry from Africa by Derek Walcott deals with the theme of split identity and anxiety
caused by it in the face of the struggle in which the poet could side with neither party. It is, in
short, about the poets ambivalent feelings towards the Kenyan terrorists and the counterterrorist white colonial government, both of which were 'inhuman', during the independence
struggle of the country in the 1950s. The persona, probably the poet himself, can take favor
of none of them since both bloods circulate along his veins.
He has been given an English tongue which he loves on the one hand, and on the other, he
cannot tolerate the brutal slaughter of Africans with whom he shares blood and some
traditions. His conscience forbids him to favour injustice. He is in the state of indecisiveness,
troubled, wishing to see peace and harmony in the region. Beginning with a dramatic setting,
the poem "A Far Cry from Africa" opens a horrible scene of bloodshed in African territory.
Bloodstreams, scattered corpses, worm show ghastly sight of battle. Native blacks are
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being exterminated like Jews in holocaust following the killing of a white child in its bed by
blacks.
The title of the poem involves an idiom: a far cry means an impossible thing. But the poet
seems to use the words in other senses also; the title suggests in one sense that the poet is
writing about an African subject from a distance. Writing from the island of St. Lucia, he
feels that he is at a vast distance- both literally and metaphorically from Africa. A Far Cry
may also have another meaning that the real state of the African paradise is a far cry from
the Africa that we have read about in descriptions of gorgeous fauna and flora and interesting
village customs. And a third level of meaning to the title is the idea of Walcott hearing the
poem as a far cry coming all the way across thousands of miles of ocean. He hears the cry
coming to him on the wind. The animal imagery is another important feature of the poem.
Walcott regards as acceptable violence the nature or natural law of animals killing each
other to eat and survive; but human beings have been turned even the unseemly animal
behavior into worse and meaningless violence. Beasts come out better than upright man
since animals do what they must do, any do not seek divinity through inflicting pain. Walcott
believes that human, unlike animals, have no excuse, no real rationale, for murdering noncombatants in the Kenyan conflict. Violence among them has turned into a nightmare of
unacceptable atrocity based on color. So, we have the Kikuyu and violence in Kenya,
violence in a paradise, and we have statistics that dont mean anything and scholar,
who tends to throw their weight behind the colonial policy: Walcotts outrage is very just by
the standards of the late 1960s, even restrained. More striking than the animal imagery is the
image of the poet himself at the end of the poem. He is divided, and doesnt have any
escape.
I who am poisoned with the blood of both, where shall I turn, divided to the vein? This sad
ending illustrates a consequence of displacement and isolation. Walcott feels foreign in both
cultures due to his mixed blood. An individual sense of identity arises from cultural
influences, which define ones character according to a particular societys standards; the
poets hybrid heritage prevents him from identifying directly with one culture. Thus creates a
feeling of isolation. Walcott depicts Africa and Britain in the standard roles of the vanquished
and the conqueror, although he portrays the cruel imperialistic exploits of the British without
creating sympathy for the African tribesmen. This objectively allows Walcott to contemplate
the faults of each culture without reverting to the bias created by attention to moral
considerations.
However, Walcott contradicts the savior image of the British through an unfavorable
description in the ensuring lines. Only the worm, colonel of carrion cries/ waste no
compassion on their separated dead'. The word colonel is a punning on colonial also. The
Africans associated with a primitive natural strength and the British portrayed as an
artificially enhanced power remain equal in the contest for control over Africa and its people.
Walcotts divided loyalties engender a sense of guilt as he wants to adopt the civilized
culture of the British but cannot excuse their immoral treatment of the Africans. The poem
reveals the extent of Walcotts consternation through the poets inability to resolve the
paradox of his hybrid inheritance
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Derek Walcott's A Far Cry from Africa

Derek Walcotts A Far Cry from Africa expresses how Walcott is torn between Africa and
the English tongue [he] love[s] (30). Several of Walcotts poems The Schooner Flight
and Omeros include some elements of French patois and West Indian English. The West
Indies had traded hands fourteen times inwars between the British and French (Norton
2770), and Walcott tied each of these languages together to convey to his readers the
extremity of his racially mixed ancestry (Farrell 2) and the indeterminacy that often follows
such a varying ancestry. In A Far Cry from Africa, Derek Walcott uses the advantages of
hybridity to express unhomliness.
Derek Walcott often described himself as a mongrel; both grandmothers were African and
both grandfathers were European (Norton 2770). He hated the English culture but loved the
English language and empathized with the Irish for they were also the victims of
colonization. In A Far Cry from Africa, Walcott does not express all aspects of British and
African culture; instead he focuses only on the brutal history of both. He is poisoned with
the blood of both, and he is torn between the two horrific options of a bloodied Africa or the
attacker that is England (26).
In order to effectively colonize anothers land, the colonizers culture has to become so
widely spread and deeply embedded in the colonized lands culture so that the indigenous
peoples will begin to accept that they are inferior to the colonizers. Mimicry is a term used to
explain the natives imitating the colonizing country due to their want to be accepted by the
colonizing culture and their feeling of inferiority and shame for their own culture (Tyson
221). In order to fully dominate a land by supporting their culture as superior, the colonizer
must use one of the most powerful conveyances for the dispersion of ideologies: language.
When the British colonized the West Indies, they enforced English as the official language,
the main means of causing the natives to accept the British culture as their own. However, in
A Far Cry from Africa, Walcott ironically describes how he rejects the British culture the
colonialist ideology but accepts the British language as superior.
As a colonial subject, Walcott would have been seen by the colonizers as an other, and as
half-European, Walcott would have been seen as different from the completely indigenous
peoples. While these full-blooded natives would also have learned Standard English along
with the French Creole and emulated British culture, their hybridity would not be as extreme
as Walcotts background. As a person of mixed blood and having family members that were
European, Derek Walcott would have had a First World upbringing in a Second World
country.
A Far Cry from Africa uses metaphors, such as colonel of carrion (5), and ironic
statements, such as corpses are scattered through a paradise (4), to describe the death and
destruction and inhumanity that has occurred in both Africa and Europe. As half-European
and half-African, Walcott was privileged to bear both horrible histories. The full-blooded
natives desire was to look and behave like the colonizers. However, they did not have to bear
the burden of being genetically similar to the colonizers, and not only being torn between two
9

cultures but divided to the vein (27). Derek Walcott uses his genetic hybridity and cultural
hybridity to express the extremity of his unhomliness.
SOFT CORE PAPER
Nissim Ezekiels Night of the Scorpion: Summary & Analysis
Nissim Ezekiels Night of the Scorpion is a strong yet simple statement on the power of selfeffacing love. Full to the brim with Indianness, it captures a well-detached black and white
snapshot of Indian village life with all its superstitious simplicity. The poet dramatizes a
battle of ideas fought at night in lamplight between good and evil; between darkness and
light; between rationalism and blind faith. And out of this confusion, there arises an
unexpected winner the selfless love of a mother.
The poem opens with the poets reminiscence of a childhood experience. One night his
mother was stung by a scorpion. Ten hours of steady rain had driven the scorpion to hiding
beneath a sack of rice. After inflicting unbearable pain upon the mother with a flash of its
diabolic tail, the scorpion risked the rain again.
The peasant-folk of the village came like swarms of flies and expressed their sympathy. They
believed that with every movement the scorpion made, the poison would move in mothers
blood. So, with lighted candles and lanterns they began to search for him, but in vain.
To console the mother they opened the bundle of their superstitions. They told mother that the
suffering and pain will burn away the sins of her previous birth. May the suffering decrease
the misfortunes of your next birth too, they said.
Mother twisted and groaned in mortifying pain. Her husband, who was sceptic and rationalist,
tried every curse and blessing; powder, herb and hybrid. As a last resort he even poured a
little paraffin on the bitten part and put a match to it.
The painful night was long and the holy man came and played his part. He performed his rites
and tried to tame the poison with an incantation. After twenty hours the poison lost its sting.
The ironic twist in the poem comes when in the end the mother who suffered in silence opens
her mouth. She says, Thank God the scorpion picked on me and spared my children.
Night of the Scorpion creates a profound impact on the reader with an interplay of images
relating to good and evil, light and darkness. Then the effect is heightened once again with
the chanting of the people and its magical, incantatory effect. The beauty of the poem lies in
that the mothers comment lands the reader quite abruptly on simple, humane grounds with
an ironic punch. It may even remind the reader of the simplistic prayer of Leo Tolstoys three
hermits: Three are ye, three are we, have mercy upon us.
Indian Background: Ezekiel is known to be a detached observer of the Indian scenario and
this stance often has the power of a double-edged sword that cuts both ways. On the one side
Night of the Scorpion presents an Indian village through the eyes of an outsider and finds the
deep-rooted strains of superstition and blind faith which may seem foolish to the western eye.
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But on the other, the poem never fails to highlight the positive side of Indian village life. The
poet does not turn a blind eye to the fellow-feeling, sympathy and cooperation shown by the
villagers. And in a poem that deals with the all-conquering power of love, the reader too
should be well aware of it.
Clash of Ideas: There is a contrast between the world of irrationality represented by the
villagers and the world of rationalism represented by the father who tries all rational means to
save his wife from suffering. Religion too plays its role with the holy man saying his prayers.
But all three become futile. Or do they? One cannot totally ignore the underlying current of
love and fellow-feeling in their endeavours.
Theme: Images of the dark forces of evil abound in Night of the Scorpion; the diabolic tail of
the scorpion, giant scorpion shadows on the sun-baked walls and the night itself point to evil.
In fact, the poem is about the pertinent question as to what can conquer evil. Where
superstition, rationalism and religion proved futile, the self-effacing love of a mother had its
say. Once again it is Amor vincit omnia. Love conquers all, and that is all you need to
know.
Nissim Ezekiel's Night of the Scorpion': A Short Summary and Analysis
The poem Night of the Scorpion' has been taken from Nissim Ezekiel's collection of poems
entitled 'The Exact Name', published in 1965. The poem reads like a story. In Night of the
Scorpion' Ezekiel recalls the behaviour of 'the peasants', his father, his mother and a holy man
when his mother was poisoned by a scorpion's sting. Here the aim is to find poetry in
ordinary reality as observed, known, felt, experienced rather than as the intellect thinks it
should be. While the peasants pray and speak of incarnations, his father, 'sceptic, rationalist',
tries 'every curse and blessing, powder, mixture, herb and hybrid' and a holy man performs a
rite. After a day the poison is no longer felt and, in a final irony, his mother, in contrast to the
previous feverish activity centred upon her, makes a typical motherly comment:
My mother only said
Thank God the scorpion picked on me
and spared my children.
The 'Thank God' is doubly ironic as it is a commonplace expression of speech in contrast to
all the previous religious and superstitious activity. Ezekiel's purpose is not, however, an
expression of scepticism but rather the exact notation of what he saw as a child. The aim is
not to explain but to make real by naming, by saying 'common things'. The poem is a new
direction, a vision of ordinary reality, especially of Indian life, unmediated by cold intellect.
The new purpose is seen in the poem's style, unrhymed, with line lengths shaped by natural
syntactical units and rhythm created by the cadences of the speaking voice into a long verse
paragraph, rather than the stanzaic structure used in earlier poems.
In his poetry there is the truth of acknowledging what is felt and experienced in its
complexity, contradictions, pleasures, fears and disillusionments without preconceived ideas
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of what poetry should say about the poet and life. Nissim Ezekiels Night of The Scorpion is
much appreciated by the critics and it has found place in many anthologies for as excellence,
Critics, commenting on its aesthetic beauty expressed different views. In their critical sweep,
they brought everything from superstitious ritualism to modern rationalism. One can find that
in the poem superstitious ritualism or sceptic rationalism or even the balance of the both with
expression of Indian ethos through maternal love in the Indian way, is nothing but scratching
the surface.
The poem has something more gigantic than its face value, which as I find is the symbolic
juxtaposition of the forces of darkness and light that is intrinsically centripetal in the poem. It
is Night of The Scorpion with the first word absorbing accent. It seems to have been
implicitly contrived here that Night should stand as a symbol of darkness with the Scorpion
as the symbol of evil. Such ingenuity in craftsmanship takes the poem to the higher level of
understanding. Prof. Birje Patil is right in putting that in Night of The Scorpion, where evil
is symbolized by the scorpion, The reader made to participate in the ritual as well as suffering
through a vivid evocation of the poison moving in the mothers blood. And evil has always
been associated with darkness, the seamy side of our life, in human psyche. It has always
been the integral part of theology, in whatever form it has manifested that suffering helps in
removing that darker patch in human mind, he patch that has been a besetting sin of mans
existence.
May the sum of evil
Balanced in this unreal world
against the sum of good
become diminished by your pain, they said
These lines amply testify that the poem aims at achieving something higher than its narrative
simplicity. The choric refrain they said in the chain of reactions made by the village
peasants is undoubtedly ironic, but the poet hasnt as much to stress the concept of sin,
redemption or rebirth as he has to insinuate the indomitable force of darkness gripping the
minds of the unenlightened. Going through the poem attentively more than once, it cant fail
catching our notice that modern rationalism is also equally shallow and perverse. It is also a
road leading to confusion where through emerges scepticism, the other darker patch on our
modernized existence. The image of the father in this poem speaks volumes for this capsizing
modernism which sandwiches in its arm- space the primitive and the perverted. The sceptic
rationalist father trying powder, mixture, herb and hybrid bears upon human primitivism
and when he experiments with a little paraffin upon a bitten toe and put a match to it he
becomes a symbol of perversion in the modern mans psyche.
Christopher Wiseman puts it, ...a fascinating tension between personal crisis and mocking
social observation ; neither there is any personal crisis. On the other hand there is spiritual
compassion and an intense urge for getting rid of this psychological syndrome that the whole
modern world has been caught, the slow-moving poison of this syndromic scorpion into the
12

very veins of creation, the image of the mother in agony nullifying the clear vision of human
thought and enveloping the whole of humanity In the darker shades of confusion more
chaolic, troubles the poet as much sharply as the sting of the poisonous worm. There is crisis,
but it is the crisis of human existence that needs lo be overcome. The poet, though a distant
observer, doesnt take a stance of detachment. On the exact opposite, he watches with
curiosity the flame feeding on my mother, but being uncertain whether the paraffin flame
would cleanse her of the ugony of the absorbing poison, he loses himself in a thoughtful
trance.
The whole poem abounds with these two symbols of darkness and light. In the very
beginning the poet has ushered in this symbolic juxta position and then as the poem
advanced, built upon it the whole structure of his fascinating architecture in the lines. Ten
hours of steady rain had driven him to crawl beneath a sack of rice parting with his poison flash of diabolic tail in the dark room he risked the rain again.
The incessant rain stands for the hope and regeneration where with is juxtaposed the
destructive hurdles to fruitfy that hope. But the constructive, life giving rain continuoues and
the evil, having fulfilled its parts, departs. Then afterwards other hurdels more preying than
the first, come in. More candles, more lanterns, more neighbours more insects, and the
endless rain My mother twisted through and through groaning on a mat. The symbols of light
and darkness, candles lanterns, neighbours and insects and rain again are notworthy. But the
force of light gains a width handover the evil force and life is restored once again in its
joyous stride and this life long struggle between forces of darkness and light reaches a
crescendo when - after twenty hours It lost its sting. Here, In the above lines, lies the beuaty
of the poem, when the ascending steps of darkness, being chased by the force of following
light are ripped down; when at last on the peak the chaser wins and the chased slips down.
The man who has not understood what motherhood is. might be taken in by such expression
of motherly love. But I convincingly feel that any woman would have exclaimed the same
thing as the mother in this poem did. In my view, it would have been truly Indian had the
mother in her tortures remembered her children and though helplessly, had she desired to
protect them lest the scorpion might catch them unawres. Anyway, the beauty of the poem
remains- unmarred by such revision. The poem is a thing of beauty par excellence.
The poem "Night of the Scorpion" can be classified as poetry of situation - an art in which
Browning and Robert Frost excelled. It presents a critical situation in which a mother is bitten
by a scorpion. It involves a typical Indian Situation in which an entire village community
identifies itself with a sad domestic happening. It pictures the traditional Indian society
steeped in ignorance and superstition.
The poem is set against the backdrop of Indian rural setting. The rural habit of Storing rice in
gunny bags is referred to in the phrase, " a sack of rice". The rural practice of building huts
with mud walks is captured in the phrase "mud backed walks". The absence of rural
electrification in Indian villages before independence is hinted at in a string of images, "dark
room" and " Candles and linters". "Darkness" has the extended meaning of Indian villages
being steeped in ignorance.
13

The situation of a scoipion-stung mother is encountered in different ways of prayer,

incantation and science. Not one stays at home when the peasants hear of a mother bitten by a
scoipion. They rush buzzing the name of God times without number. With candles and
lanterns, they search for him. He is not found. They sit on the floor with the mother in the
centre and try to comfort her with words of philosophy. Their prayer brings out their genuine
concern for the suffering mother. The father, through a skeptic and a rationalist, does not
differ in the least from the ignorant peasants. He tries both medicine and "mantra" drugs and
chants as seen in the phrase "trying every were and blessing". A holy man is brought to tame
the poison with an incantation.
It is the belief of the village community that buzzing " the name of God a hundred times" will
bring about relief to the mother stung by the scorpion. The action of the rural folk brings out
their firm faith in God and in the efficiency of prayer. It is the belief of the rural community
that the faster the scorpion moves, the faster the poison in the mother's blood will move. In
equating the movement of the scorpion and that of the poison in the blood stream, the peasant
betray their superstition.
The peasants sit around the mother groaning in pain and they try to console her offering
remedial advice of a strong ritualistic and faith - healing kind. Some peasants say that as she
has suffered now, in the rent birth she will experience less troubles. She will now be in a
balanced state whereby her body is ridden of device and her spirit of ambition. The
incantatory utterances made by the peasants smack of their belief in the Hindu law of
"Karina", in the Hindu doctrine of rebirth and in the 13 Hindu concept of the world as one of
illusion and the physical suffering bringing about spiritual rejuvenation.
The poem is remembered particularly for its 'memorable close' - me last three lines:
My Mother only said
Thank God the scorpion picked on me
And spared my childred.
The use of the restricted adverb 'only' distinguishes the mother from the peasants, the father
and the holy man. The, other does not blame God but she thanks God because the scorpion
stung her and spared her children. Her agony would have been greater if any of her children
were bitten. Ultimately, it assumes universal dimensions. The poet throws light on the selfless
lore of the Indian mother.
Nissim Ezekiel is one of the prolific Indian writers in English of the 20th century. He was
playwright, editor, critic and poet. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award for his Poetry
collection, Latter-Day Psalms. He was also awarded the Padma Shree by the Government of
India in 1988. He is often called the Father of Modern Indian English Poetry. Ezekiels
poetry has different themes and styles. His poems are a depiction of his craftsmanship,
restraint and intellectual approach to everyday life.
Summary/ Critical Appreciation of "Poet, Lover, and Birdwatcher":14

Poet, Lover, Birdwatcher is a popular poem, much anthologized and studied. It embodies
the poets search for a poetics, which would help him redeem himself in his eyes and in the
eyes of God. The message of the poem is clear, The best poets wait for words: the best poets
begin to write poetry only when they are truly inspired or when they experience a moment of
illumination or enlightenment, only then do the right poetic words come to them. This
waiting is not so simple. The poet cannot while away his time, but like the careful
birdwatcher, has to remain ever alert. The gift of poetry comes at the cost of eternal vigil. The
poets have to remain poised in that state of tension. To force the pace is to compel oneself to
make haste. Never to be still is never to remain motionless, but to be always on the move.
Or women are of those who study women and those who pursue the women they love, it is
not only require a lot of patience but also forbearance capacity to bear undetermined time.
The hunt is the search for birds or the desire to win a womans heart, it require patience. It is
highly pain taking job. In case of love person has to wait until the reply of the woman. Those
do not have that much capability they could not become successful in their love that must
understand. Through this poem the poet is conveying the idea of poem, love and hunt which
require similar things which are earlier mentioned.
Until the one who knows that she is loved is for the man to wait for the woman to respond
to his love out of her own accord, and should not force himself upon her. One who fail remain
silent during the process such person fail to achieve the favour of woman.
In this the poet finds his moral proved, Who never spoke before his spirit moved: In the
examples of the bird watcher and the lover, the poet would find the right parallels and would
be able to draw a moral for his own guidance. The poets view that waiting patiently
ultimately brings its reward is vindicated.
The deserted lanes are the untrodden pathways where one can see rare birds. Remote and
thorny like the hearts dark floor is the simile used obscurely and probably means the
unexplored depths of human heart, just as there may be faraway and distant seashores with
thorny bushes that are inhabited by rare birds. The idea of labour and hard-work is implied
here with regard to a bird watcher in search of rare birds and to a poet in search of the right
words. And there the women slowly turn around, not only flesh and bone but myths of light:
Only after undergoing an arduous journey may the lover get some response from the woman.
The woman then becomes for him not just a being of flesh and blood, but appears as a radiant
spirit which is not so much real, but mythical and imaginary. She is no longer a mere physical
presence. The poet has thus glorified love as well as the woman who eventually responds to a
mans love.
With darkness at the core is the center of the womans personality which is shrouded in
darkness even after she has been transformed into a radiant spirit; she still continues to be a
mystery or an enigma. And sense is found By poets lost in crooked, restless flight refers to
the poets find meaning and significance in things even when they have been puzzled and
perplexed earlier, like a bird which has lost its way; this illumination comes only after
patiently waiting for the right moment. A third element which is that of love is also
introduced in the poem. Courtship, bird watching and poetry, thus become related. In each
15

case, the attitude that is recommended is of passive alertness, not of anxiety, hurry,
aggression, or hyper-activity. The more one is agitated, the less one gains. The one who is
loved is not pursued like a quarry, but watched with such intensity and patience that she
9ultimately risks surrendering. There is no action, no exercise of will, in a poet, a lover, or a
birdwatcher, but patient waiting itself a strategy in order to achieve the goal.
ANALYSIS
The poem 'Poet, lover, birdwatcher' displays Ezekiel's views on poet's problems. Poet, Lover,
Birdwatcher is one of the better known poems of Ezekiel and has received considerable
critical attention. The message of them poem is clear, 'The best poets wait for words': the best
poets began to write poetry only when they are truly inspired. It epitomizes the poet's search
for a poetics which would help him redeem himself in his eyes and in the eyes of god.
Parallelism is drawn between the poet, the lover and the birdwatcher. All the three have to
wait patiently in their respective pursuits, indeed their waiting is a sort of strategy. Ezekiel
attempts to define the poem in terms of a lover and the birdwatcher. There is a close
resemblance among them in search for love, bird and word. All the three became one in spirit,
and Ezekiel expresses this in imagery noted for its precision and decorum:
The hunts is not an exercise of will
But patient love relaxing on a hill
To note the movement of a timid wing...
There is no action, no exercise of will in the three cases, but patient waiting is itself strategy,
a kind of planned action to reach the goal. The hunt is search for birds or the desire to win a
women's heart. Patient love relaxing on hill is to assume an attitude of patience and relaxation
while watching birds or women. A timid wing is a transferred epithet where the idea of a bird
being timid is suggested. Until the one who knows that she is loved is for the man to wait for
the woman to respond to his love out of her own accord, and should not force him upon her.
In this poem poet finds his moral proved, who never spoke before his spirit moved.
The first section opens with a reference to 'pace' which is taken up in the second section by
slow movement. The lines weave in and out of the three fields and emerge as single morals
learnt. The first stanza refers to physical love and suggests how to win women. Women are
treated as birds of prey. Making love is like the experience of hunting. Right weapons are to
be chosen like appropriate words used by the poet. The lover manipulates the situation in
such a manner that the women cannot resist but surrender at the cost of being blamed.
The second stanza stresses the fact that slow movement is good. One has to go to remote
place just as one has to discover love in a remote place like the heart's dark floor. It is there,
that women look something more than their body, and that they appear like myths of light.
And the poet, in zigzag movements, yet with a sense of musical gladness, manages to
combine sense and sound.

16

At the end of his wait, the poetic word appears in the concrete and sensuous form of a
woman, who knows that she is loved and who surrenders to her lover at once. In this process,
poetry and love, word and woman become intertwined. But this slow movement of love and
poetry which shows no irritable haste to arrive at meaning does not come by easily. In order
to possess the vision of the rarer birds of his psyche, the poet has to go through the deserted
lanes of his solitary, private life; he has to walk along the primal rivers of his consciousness
in silence, or travel to a far off shore which is like the heart's dark floor. The poet, then, gloats
on the slow curving movements of the women, both for the sake of their sensuousness and
the insight they bring.
All three are hunters, we are told: ironically none are going to devour what they succeed to
hunt. The poem conducts a lesson through comparisons between the three poets, lover and
birdwatcher. Poet is placed first in the title and in the poem he comes last. The differentiated
placement is suggestive of who is learning and who becomes a lesson. Lover and birdwatcher
are illustrative cases for the poet to learn the craft of poetry. The last two lines of both the
sections indicate that the moral to be learnt is for the poet. The poem is well-structured poem
in two regular stanzas having the rhyme pattern a b b a a c d c d d in each of them. It has a
casual, conversational opening with a direct address to the poets, urging them to patiently
wait for words as does a birdwatcher for birds and a lover for his ladylove.
The idea of labour and hard-work is implied here with regard to a bird watcher in search of
rare birds and to a poet in search of the right words. 'And there the women slowly turn
around, not only flesh and bone but myths of light': Only after undergoing an arduous journey
may the lover get some response from the woman. The woman then becomes for him not just
a being of flesh and blood, but appears as a radiant spirit which is not so much real, but
mythical and imaginary. She is no longer a mere physical presence. The poet has thus
glorified love as well as the woman who eventually responds to a man's love.
Poetry Analysis: Kamala Das An Introduction
An Introduction is Kamala Dass most famous poem in the confessional mode. Writing to
her, always served as a sort of spiritual therapy: If I had been a loved person, I wouldnt
have become a writer. I would have been a happy human being.
Kamala Das begins by self-assertion: I am what I am. The poetess claims that she is not
interested in politics, but claims to know the names of all in power beginning from Nehru.
She seems to state that these are involuntarily ingrained in her. By challenging us that she can
repeat these as easily as days of the week, or the names of months she echoes that they these
politicians were caught in a repetitive cycle of time, irrespective of any individuality. They
did not define time; rather time defined them.

Subsequently, she comes down to her roots. She declares that by default she is an Indian.
Other considerations follow this factor. She says that she is born in Malabar; she does not

17

say that she belongs to Malabar. She is far from regional prejudices. She first defines herself
in terms of her nationality, and second by her colour.
I am Indian, very brown, born in Malabar,
And she is very proud to exclaim that she is very brown. She goes on to articulate that she
speaks in three languages, writes in two and dreams in one; as though dreams require a
medium. Kamala Das echoes that the medium is not as significant as is the comfort level that
one requires. The essence of ones thinking is the prerequisite to writing. Hence she implores
with all-critics, friends, visiting cousins to leave her alone. Kamal aDas reflects the main
theme of Girish Karnads Broken Images-the conflict between writing in ones regional
language and utilizing a foreign language. The language that she speaks is essentially hers;
the primary ideas are not a reflection but an individual impression. It is the distortions and
queerness that makes it individual, in keeping with Chomskys notion of performance. And
it is these imperfections that render it human. It is the language of her expression and emotion
as it voices her joys, sorrows and hopes. It comes to her as cawing comes to the crows and
roaring to the lions, and is therefore impulsive and instinctive. It is not the deaf, blind speech:
though it has its own defects, it cannot be seen as her handicap. It is not unpredictable like the
trees on storm or the clouds of rain. Neither does it echo the incoherent mutterings of the
blazing fire. It possesses a coherence of its own: an emotional coherence.
She was child-like or innocent; and she knew she grew up only because according to others
her size had grown. The emotional frame of mind was essentially the same. Married at the
early age of sixteen, her husband confined her to a single room. She was ashamed of her
feminity that came before time, and brought her to this predicament. This explains her claim
that she was crushed by the weight of her breast and womb. She tries too overcome it by
seeming tomboyish. So she cuts her hair short and adorns boyish clothes. People criticize her
and tell her to conform to the various womanly roles. They accuse her of being
schizophrenic; and a nympho. They confuse her want of love and attention for insatiable
sexual craving.
She explains her encounter with a man. She attributes to him not a proper noun, but a
common noun-every man to reflect his universality. He defined himself by the I, the
supreme male ego. He is tightly compartmentalized as the sword in its sheath. It portrays
the power politics of the patriarchal society that we thrive in that is all about control.It is this
I that stays long away without any restrictions, is free to laugh at his own will, succumbs to
a woman only out of lust and later feels ashamed of his own weakness that lets himself to
lose to a woman. Towards the end of the poem, a role-reversal occurs as this I gradually
transitions to the poetess herself. She pronounces how this I is also sinner and saint,
beloved and betrayed. As the role-reversal occurs, the woman too becomes the I reaching
the pinnacle of self-assertion.
Analysis, Explanation and Theme of Punishment in Kindergarten By Kamala Das
The poem is warm and muffled, and recounts the picnic of the poetess at Victoria Gardens to
which followed it (as Kamala Das tells us in her autobiography). She was all alone near the
18

hedge, while other girls were playing at a distance. The poem demonstrates the poets
capacity to smell the flowers as well as the pain of being slighted. It has hardly any suggested
larger meaning.
Punishment in Kindergarten is a little autobiographical poem by the famous Indo-Anglian
poet Kamala Das. She recalls one of her childhood experiences. When she was in the
kindergarten, one day the children were taken for a picnic. All the children except her were
playing and making merry. But she alone kept away from the company of the children. Their
teacher, a blue-frocked woman, scolded her saying.
Why dont you join the others, what
A peculiar child you are!
This heard, all the other children who were sipping sugar cane turned and laughed. The child
felt it very much. She became sad at the words of the teacher. But the laughter by the
children made her sadder. She thought that they should have consoled her rather than
laughing and insulting her. Filled with sorrow and shame she did her face in a hedge and
wept. This was indeed a painful experience to a little child in the nursery school.
Now after many years she has grown into an adult. She has only a faint memory of the bluefrocked woman and the laughing faces of the children. Now she has learned to have an adult
peace and happiness in her present state as a grown-up person. Now there is no need for her
to be perturbed about that bitter kindergarten experience. With her long experience in life she
has learned that life is a mixture of joy and sorrow. She remembers how she has experienced
both the joy and sorrow of life. The long passage of time has taught her many things. She is
no more a lonely individual as she used to feel when she was a child. The poet comes to a
conclusion that there is no need for her to remember that picnic day, when she hid her face in
the hedge, watching the steel-white sun, that was standing lonely in the sky.
The subject matter of the poem has two parts, the first of which being the description of the
painful experience of the kindergarten days and the second, the adults attitude to the incident
at present when she is no more a child. Thus the major theme of the poem is nostalgia and the
sense of moving on with life.
The poem is very simple in its construction and even colloquial in diction. Yet in its delivery
its very much like the narrative of a film which goes back and forth in time to bring out a
small incident in the life of the poetess which sets off her introvert nature that gets all the
more pronounced as she grows up. In fact the incident is a reminder of the fact that the
talented usually spend a lonely life right from their beginning. Thus from the psychological
perspective too the poem is simple only on the surface level. The tone of the poem is pensive
if not sad. It is a tone of compromise in the face of inevitability. Kamala believes in letting go
and she does exorcise the minor ghost of her past only to bring out the one she is still haunted
with isolation.
Kamala seems to be saying that though sometimes in times of crisis or loneliness we tend to
remember some long forgotten incident of humiliation and pain it is better to forget and
19

forgive and move on. The poem is also a testimony to the fact that with time people tend to
forget their pain and moves on in life for better things.
The images used again are deceptively simple. In tune with the theme of the poem the images
are evocative yet blurred. The teachers identity gets shrinked to a blue skirt but the words
she threw at her are still remembered as pots and pans. Though the image is a humorous one
it shows the obnoxiousness of the assault. Words had hurt the young girl more than real hurts
and today after so long they have taken a more materialistic from in the memory of the grown
person. The image of the hedge and the sun is quite symptomatic of the introvertive nature of
the poet and the subtle projection of her chronic loneliness unto a celestial object. The
synaesthetic evocation of the image the smell of pain is remarkable for its zeugma.
Its not only the above mentioned zeugma that adds the ting to the poem but also the simile,
the metaphor, the metonymy and the personification in the following lines respectively
throwing Words at me like pots and pans, That honey-coloured day of peace A bluefrocked woman, The years have Sped along, stopping briefly at beloved halts and moving
sadly on. Add the necessary and indispensible ring of poetry to the lines.
Thus the poem is a true modernist poem which at the same time nostalgically remembering
an incident of childhood remembers it not in a moment of glorification but as an insight into
an event of pain due to inborn desire for isolation and of difference. Kindergarten thus
transforms from a site of celebration of innocence to the mourning of the loss of innocence
yet with a positive note of the desire or capability of letting go.
My Grandmothers House
SummaryMy Grandmothers House is a constituent poem of Kamala Dass maiden publication
Summer in Calcutta. Though short, the poem wraps within itself an intriguing sense of
nostalgia and uprootedness. In her eternal quest for love in such a loveless world, the poet
remembers her grandmother which surfaces some emotions long forgotten and buried within
her-- an ironical expression of her past which is a tragic contrast to her present situation. It is
a forcefully moving poem fraught with nostalgia and anguish.

The poet says that there is a house, her grandmothers home, far away from where she
currently resides, where she received love. Her grandmothers home was a place she felt
secure and was loved by all. After the death of her grandmother, the poet says that even the
House was filled with grief, and accepted the seclusion with resignation. Only dead silence
haunted over the House, feeling of desolation wandering throughout. She recollects though
she couldnt read books at that time, yet she had a feeling of snakes moving among them-- a
feeling of deadness, horror and repulsion, and this feeling made her blood go cold and turn
her face pale like the moon. She often thinks of going back to that Old House, just to peek
through the blind eyes of the windows which have been dead-shut for years, or just to listen
to the frozen air.
20

The poet also shows the ironical contrast between her past and present and says that her
present has been so tormenting that even the Darkness of the House that is bathed in Death
does not horrify her anymore and it is a rather comforting companion for her in the present
state of trials. The poets says that she would gladly (in wild despair) pick up a handful of
Darkness from the House and bring it back to her home to lie behind my bedroom door so
that the memories of the Old House and its comforting darkness, a rather ironical expression,
might fill assurance and happiness in her present life.
She wraps up the poem saying that it is hard for one to believe that she once lived in such a
house and was so loved by all and lived her life with pride. That her world was once filled
with happiness is a sharp contrast to her present situation where she is completely devoid of
love and pride. She says that in her desperate quest for love, she has lost her way; since she
didnt receive any feelings of love from the people whom she called her own, she now has to
knock at strangers' doors and beg them for love, if not in substantial amounts, then atleast
in small change i.e. in little measure atleast.
The poet has intensified the emotions of nostalgia and anguish by presenting a contrast
between her childhood and her grown-up stages. The fullness of the distant and absence and
the emptiness of the near and the present give the poem its poignancy. The images of snakes
moving among books, blood turning cold like the moon, blind eyes of window, frozen
air evoke a sense of death and despair. The house itself becomes a symbol - an Ednic world,
a cradle of love and joy. The escape, the poetic retreat, is in fact, the poets own manner of
suggesting the hopelessness of her present situation. Her yearning for the house is a symbolic
retreat to a world of innocence, purity and simplicity
ANALYSIS
Kamala Das recalls her ancestral house that was filled with the all-pervading presence of her
grandmother And this is why her grandmothers house is singular: Kamala Das received
love there. When the poetess speaks of love in particular she ascertains that it is
unconditional and selfless. With the death of the Grandmother, the house ceased being
inhabited. It now became an isolated and remote entity, echoed by the phrase far away. The
poetess asserts that with the death of her grandmother silence began to sink in the house.
Kamala Das, at that juncture, was too small to read books, but emotional enough to
comprehend the true feeling of love.
With the death of the Grandmother, her life that was hitherto filled only with emotions
becomes numb. Her veins thus become cold rather than warm. It is as cold as the moon, the
moon being an emblem of love. The worms on the books seem like snakes at that moment, in
comparison to the size of the little girl; and in keeping with the eeriness of the situation. The
poetess also implies that the deserted house is like a desert with reptiles crawling over. The
poetess now longs to peer at a house that was once her own. She has to peek through the
blind eyes of the windows as the windows are permanently closed. The air is frozen now, as
contrasted to when the grandmother was alive-the surroundings were filled with the warmth
of empathy. Kamala Das pleads with us to listen to the frozen air; that is an impossibility.
21

Neither is the air a visual medium, nor can air cause any displacement because it is frozen.
It is an example of synesthesia.
In wild despair, she longs to bring in an armful of darkness. Note firstly, that it is not a
handful but an armful. Secondly, darkness that generally has negative shades to it, has
positive connotations here of a protective shadow. It also reflects the coziness inside the
house.This armful of darkness is her essence of nostalgia. With this piece of darkness, she can
lie down for hours, like a brooding dog behind the door, lost in contemplation.
The speaker claims that in her quest for love she had now become wayward. The poetess
speaks to her husband that she who is now thirsty for genuine love, received at one point in
her life, absolute love in the form of her grandmother. Ironically, she addresses her husband
as Darling, and talks of the lack of love in her life in the same breath and tone.
Her pursuit of love has driven her to the doors of strangers to receive love at least in the form
of a tip. Previously she was proud, as she did not have to compromise on her self-respect.
Now she has to move in the maze of male monopolistic chauvinism, and beg for love in the
form of change.
Analysis of a River by A.K.Ramanujan
It turns to a dry trickle, uncovering sand ribs. He details the underbelly of the river that
stays hidden. Visible now, are the bits of straw and womens hair that chokes the rusty gates
of the dam and the bridges that are plastered over with patches of repair.
The narrator remarks wryly that the poets who sang and they, who now imitate them, see only
the symbolism of vitality when the river is in flood. With a few stark images, the poet
completes the picture of the river and its complexities which have been glossed over and
ignored. Yet not to stress the merely the grim, unlovely angle, the poet brings alive the beauty
too, which lies open in the summer. This has been lost on the sensibilities of the past poets:
the wet stones glistening like sleepy
crocodiles, the dry ones
shaven water-buffaloes lounging in the sun. (13-15)
sing vivid similes, he refers to a lack of imagination of the old poets who only sang of the
floods.
In stanza two, the poet speaks of the river in flood in the rains. He was there once and saw
what happened. The river in spate destroys everything in its wake from live-stock to houses
to human life. This happens once a year and has been continuing for years in the same
pattern.
He notes the casual approach of the of the towns people. Anxiously they talk of the rising
level of water and enumerate mechanically the precise number of steps as the water brims
over the bathing places.
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The river carries off:

three village houses,
one pregnant woman
and a couple of cows
named Gopi and Brinda as usual.
These are itemized, mentioned cursorily as in a listthree, one, two. The early poets and
their successors tick off the losses as mere statistics, unheeding of the destruction, suffering
and human pain left in the wake of the flood. Their aim, according to the speaker, is simply to
record a sensational event to arrest the momentary attention of the people. He finds this
attitude shocking and callous.
Between the village houses and Gopi and Brinda, the two cows is remarked one pregnant
woman. No one knows what her name is and she is glossed over peremptorily. Yet the poet
imagines that she may have drowned with not one life in her but twotwins in her which
kicked at blank walls even before birth.
Continuing with the analysis of a river by Ramanujan, the poets deemed it enough to versify
and exalt the river only when it flooded once a year. While they sang of the river as a creative
force giving birth to new life, the paradox of the pregnant woman who drowned with twins in
her eludes them. Embracing only the glory of the floods, they fail to realize its more complex
repercussions on human life. The narrator gives us a more complete impression of the river as
destroyer as well as preserver. He is sarcastic about the poets of yore who seize only the
floods to write about and that too merely once a year.
the river has water enough
to be poetic
about only once a year
Theme of the poem A River by Ramanujan
The above lines satirize and debunk the traditional romantic view of the river Vaikai in
Madurai, by the ancient poets. He is derisive too, of the new poets who have no wit but to
blindly copy their predecessors.
Humor is presented in the names of the cows and the colored diapers of the twins to help tell
them apart. Yet this too, is an attack on the orthodoxy of Hinduism. While cows are given
names, no one knows who the pregnant woman is nor are they concerned. Human sacrifices
were performed to appease the gods because of droughts in Tamil Nadu, and the drowned
twin babies may be a reference to such cruel and orthodox rituals.
Poetry Analysis: A.K.Ramanujans A River

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Madurai is a city celebrated for its temples and poets. The poets in Madurai quite often pen
poems about cities and temples. Their poems narrate how every summer a river flowing
through Madurai reduced itself to a narrow stream, and how later it got flooded with rain
waters. While the river is reduced to a narrow stream, its water cannot pass through the
Watergate as the debris of straw and womens hair obstruct the flow. The bridge over this
river appears like a puzzle of repaired patches. The stones of the bridges glisten once again
with the onset of rain, and the dull ones retain their original hue.
The poets limit the subject of their writings to floods in the rivers .What Ramanujan implies
is that poets only idealize or commercialize the situation, and nothing is done practically to
prevent or reduce the damage done by the devastation. A visitor to Madurai gets to hear of the
impact of the flood-how the flood waters religiously washed away three village homes, one
pregnant woman and several cows every year. As an imminent flood lurked over the peoples
minds they constantly talked about the rising water-levels.

The poets objectively cited the lines composed by previous poets; little did they care for the
pregnant woman drowned in the flood. The speaker brings out the poignancy of the situation
by pointing out that perhaps the lady carried twins, and that maybe she could feel them before
they crossed the threshold of existence.
The visitor says that the water in the river was ample to provide poets with subject matter for
their poems, though only once in a year .The poets seemed to feed on the tragedy. The
tragedy recurs yet again, as three village houses, a couple of cows named Gopi and Brinda;
and a pregnant lady expecting twins that lacked conspicuous moles to tell them apart drown
in the flood. The image of the lady is a condensed one. From the exterior, only one life is lost.
In reality, however, there are three. The lives inside her do exist, but they are devoid of
identity defined by the lack of moles, and their explanation in terms of statistics. In contrast,
are the attribution of proper nouns to the cows-Brinda and Gopi.
The recurrence of the tragedy is to add to the poignancy and to underline the havoc wrought
by the flood.
Small-Scale Reflections on a Great House
Small-Scale Reflections on a Great House may appear on the superficial level as a poem
about an ancestral house. Nevertheless, it signifies, considerably, the Great Indian Culture.
The house is said to possess an incorrigible property of letting anything into its confine
without allowing it to go back. The Indian culture has forever accommodated whatever had
arrived at its threshold. It has incorporated all foreign elements into its internal structure to
form a homogenous whole. The adroit repetition of the phrase lost long ago points to the
loss of its true essence. The use of the present tense highlight the presentness of the past,
how the past and present are intricately linked to each other.

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Things that once found their way into the house lost themselves among other things in the
house that had also been lost long ago. Therefore this projects the antiquity, rich heritage and
innumerable elements the culture encompasses. In a world, were human beings are
marginalized, irrational creatures are accepted and provided with an identity (name); as with
the intruding cow. The poet also mocks at the so-called tabooisms about natural things in
Indian culture. For instance, the mating of the cows that girls of the house were carefully
shielded from. Library books once borrowed from libraries never found their way back.
Knowledge (books) that once entered into the heritage, formed a king of amalgamation of
information refusing to die away. The diversity of festivals and plurality of religion is referred
to in phrases like the wedding anniversary of some God. Gramophones continued to remain
there. Music was an inherent part of Indian culture.
Owing to poverty and the lack of proper amenities, diseases that once entered the household
continued to haunt the scenario, appearing as if there was no permanent cure to it. It may also
refer to the wide-spread prevalent superstitions that exist like a congenital deformity or
hereditary disease in the Indian society. Sons-in-law and daughters-in-law that once entered
the threshold of the house never left it. The Indian culture has always welcomed Western and
Eastern elements, as a marriage of cultures. The sons-in-law teaching arithmetic exemplify
that alien cultures have imparted a lot too, in the form of knowledge and technology. Bales of
cotton were carried off to Manchester in the UK, and these bales returned processed as
packets of cloth with heavy bills attached to them. India has forever been a source of rich raw
materials to the West.
What an uncle once communicated to a visitor, was repeated by some other visitor to the
family, who had no idea that these ideas were initially conveyed by an uncle of the same
family. Certain aspects of knowledge and methods had their original roots in India. Though
now in a different form, they are communicated back as though something alien. For
instance, Sanskrit is the root-base for most of the languages in the world, especially English
as in I am for aham.etc. Also, how the concept of zero and the decimal system was
introduced way back in India, before they travelled to Arab countries and the European
countries and assumed sophisticated forms and returned to us. Al Khawarizmi and Al-Nasavi
in 825 AD and 1025 AD respectively referred to the decimal system as ta-rikh ai Hindi and
al-amal al-Hindi.The tradition also picked up crude things on the way, like the beggars
hoarse song, for instance. The negative alien things once that entered the household were also
warmly welcomed, because once they entered, they were our own. Sons that had long ago left
leaving the soil came back in the form of their hybrid sons. They returned for the smell of
their roots, for the smell of their blood.
Some things that went out of this house could never stay out for a longer period of time These
included daughters that were married to idiots and were therefore found to be incompatible to
live with. Or it happened that these idiots had turned them out of the house. This perhaps
alludes to the racist practices that a select few practice in foreign countries.
On a poignant note, the poet ends the poem by mentioning that a boy who once ran away
returned as a corpse that had been half-eaten in the Sahara in the year 1943. Certain attributes
25

that leave do return, but in a deadened form .Like the nephew who had left the house to join
the army and returned as a dead body. He had been killed in the course of a clash between the
countrys border security force and that of the neighboring countrys security forces. Clashes
and conflicts may kill the person, but it can never kill the nationalism and patriotic fervour.
As Gandhi once said: A nations culture resides in the hearts of the people.
A.K.Ramanujans Small-Scale Reflections on a Great House
The poem reflects the speakers reflections on an ancestral house. The poet mentions that
some things that entered the house never went out. They lost themselves amongst other things
that had similarly a history of being lost.
Cows that entered were provided with shelter and gifted with a name. Their mating with bulls
was carefully shielded from the young girls of the house .Nevertheless these girls managed
to witness the cat through holes in the window. This points to the sheer hypocrisy in Indian
society about hushing up topics that are in reality not taboo anymore. Libary books once
borrowed from libraries never found their way back. They remained only to serve as breeding
homes for insects, and worms like the silverfish that multiplied in the office-room of the head
of the family.
Dishes that belonged to the neighbours were never returned. They came to the house to
distribute sweets to celebrate the wedding anniversary of some god. Here the poet makes fun
of the frivolity of tradition, and plurality of religion. Servants once employed, never left the
house. Gramaphones continued to remain there. On a distressing note, the poet mentions that
diseases like epilepsy that once entered the blood continued to haunt the generations to come.
Sons-in-law who came to see their mothers-in-law or fathers-in-law never left the house.
They were asked to stay back to check domestic accounts by the mothers-in-law; or office
accounts by the fathers-in-law. They were also asked to stay on to teach arithmetic the nieces
of the family. Women who came as wives of some male members never left the house. They
were left to witness monsoons beating against the banana plantains.
The poet then goes on to say that somethings that went out of the house did find their way
back. Bales of cotton were carried out to Manchester in the UK, these bales returned
processed as packets of cloth with heavy bills attachedto them. The cloth was then used as
loin-cloth by men of the household provided that it was coarse; if smooth, it served the
purpose of night-dress. Letters posted by members of the family found their way back as they
were redirected by the post-offices that failed to locate the precise address.
Ideas that originated in the house conveyed to outsiders, returned to the house as gossip.
Little did the conceivers of gossip comprehend that the rumors that they were spreading had
their roots in the very house. What an uncle once communicated to a visitor, was repeated by
some other visitor to the family, who had no idea that these ideas were initially conveyed by
an uncle of the same family The uncle may have made some passing remark that the contents
of some book written by Plotinus pertain to what some great conquerer like Alexander the
Great had looted from the territory that lay between two rivers , and which was a breeding
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place for mosquitoes causing Malaria. A beggar once sang a song outside the house in an
unmusical tone; this song was also not free from the four walls of the house, as a cook had
picked up the lyrics of the song, and sang it in a jarring voice.
Some things that went out of this house could never stay out for a longer period of time They
returned back right on time these included daughters that were married to idiots and were
therefore found to be incompatible to live with. Or it happened that these idiots had turned
them out of the house. Sons of the house who had run away returned in the shape of their
sons, because their wives had given birth to boys. These little sons obliged the elders in the
house by reciting Sanskrit verses to them or by bringing betel-nuts for visitors with anecdotes
to tell. The sons also brought with them water from the Ganges that could be sprinkled on
someone about to die in the house.
On a poignant note, the poet ends the poem by mentioning that once ran away returned as a
corpse that had been half-eaten in the Sahara in the year 1943.Many years later, a nephew
who had left the house to join the army returned as a dead body. He had been killed in the
course of a clash between the countrys border security force and that of the neighboring
countrys security forces.
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
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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 triplebaked -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
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

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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
On Killing a Tree

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On Killing a Tree written by Gieve Patel literally describes the difficulty of cutting down a
tree. On another level, the poet writes about nature and the sturdiness and longevity of the
tree. Only man would want to fell the tree.
The third person narration describes the tree graphically comparing the bark to a lepers skin
and sores. Because it has lived for so long the tree has deep roots which enable it to recoup
from attacks by the axe. The attitude of the poet seems neutral, but on closer examination of
his vocabulary choice, he casts a sardonic look on the cutting down of an important part of
nature.
It has grown
Slowly consuming the earth,
Rising out of it, feeding
Upon its crust, absorbing
Years of sunlight, air, water
When the tree is small, it takes only a little area to live. After time passes, the tree takes more
room through its feeding from the earth, the sun, the oxygen, and water. This is not the poem
for a lumberman who takes his skills seriously.
To the environmentalist, the man who cuts the tree hacks at and chops it, irritating the tree on
the surface; however, this will not bring down the tree. The watcher feels the pain of the tree
as the bark gives off the sap which produces little trees that will sprout if nothing stops their
growth.
The question comes to mind: Why is it so difficult to cut down the tree? Does Mother Nature
forestall the killing of the tree because it deserves to live on without being hindered in its
life? The poet seems to say yes. Trees are a part of the scheme of life and provide homes
for many creatures in the woods and forests. They prevent erosion and land problems.
To kill the tree or anything else, the heart of the thing has to be destroyed. The root of the
tree has to be cut away from the earth that holds it down. How is that done? With these harsh
words to fit the taskroped, tied, pulled out, snapped out, and exposedthe white, sensitive
roots that have been protected by the earth will die. Man extinguishes a tree that has taken
hundreds of years to propagate and grow.
After the root is exposed to the elements, it will brown, harden, wither, and die. Then, the
work is completed. Man has devastated another part of nature. Hopefully, one of the sprouts
will keep its life and renew the cycle of the tree. Of course, that will take many years of care
by nature to bring another of the great trees to its glory.
On a figurative level, the poem may also speak to the destruction of a man. It is not so easy to
kill a human being. To kill a person, it is only through his heart (or root) that the deed can be
done. When the heart stops, the man will die. A human being can recover from injuries: a
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cut, an amputation, a brain injury. It is the heart that provides the life blood to keep the man
alive.
'The Bus' by Arun Kolatkar: Summary and Analysis
Summary:
'The Bus' by Arun Kolatkar is the opening poem of the thirty-one section of his
collection of poems 'Jejuri.' It describes the bumpy journey from the starting
point to its destination which is the temple of Khandoba. It is a State Transfort
bus the windows of which are screened by the tarpaulin with which the bus has
been covred to keep the possible rainfall , and also to keep off the cold wind
which keeps blowing throughout the journey. It is a night journey which the bus
has undertaken ; and after several hours of the arduous journey the passengers
start waiting eagerly for daybreak.
The bus is full of the pilgrims who are bound for the temple of Khandoba where
they want to offer worship; and the passengers might have included a few
tourists who merely want to satisfy their curiosity about what kind of a temple it
is and in what surroundings the temple stands. One of the passengers sits
opposite an old man wearing glasses; and this passenger , while looking at the
old man, sees his reflection in both the glasses of the spectacles which the old
man is wearing. This passenger can feel the onward movement of the bus. The
old man wears on his forehead a mark indicating his Hindu faith and even the
high caste to which he belongs. Among the passengers is the protagonist or the
persona who speaks in the poem, describing his experiences and his reactions to
what he sees at Jejuri.
In due course, the sun appears on the horizon , and quietly moves upwards in
the sky. The sun's rays, filtering through the gaps in the tarpaulin , fall upon the
old man's glasses. Then a ray of the sun falls upon the bus-driver's night cheek.
The bus seems to have changed its direction. It has been un uncomfortable
journey; but, when the destination is reached , the passengers get down from the
bus which had held them tightly in its grip.
Analysis:
The Bus is a purely descriptive poem which does not give us much of
information about the purpose of the journey, apart from telling us that it is
going to Jejuri and that it is a night journey , with a cold wind blowing all the way.
There are a few humorous touches in this poem as, for instance, the protagonist
finding two reflections of himself in the two glasses of the spectacles which the
old man sitting opposite him is wearing. We also learn that it is a bumpy ride at
the end of which the passengers get off the bus without anybody stepping inside
the old man's head;and this is another touch of humour

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The Bus the opening poem establishes the theme of Jejuri. Here the
poet tries to exploit the age old theme of a religious pilgrimage through
Manohar a man with a modern sensibility and scientific naturalist who gives
us a skeptical perception of the whole pilgrimage. The Bus a State Transport Bus
is proceeding to the temple of Khandoba in Jejuri, a small town fifty miles from
Pune. The poet and his companion Makarand, and the bus load of pilgrims start
on their pilgrimage to Jejuri. The windows of the bus are covered with tarpaulin.
They symbolize the mental insulation and narrow-mindness of the pilgrims.
The cold wind which slaps the tarpaulin which in turn nudges the elbow of the
pilgrims is symbolic of the reasons which try to attack the thick tarpaulin like
beliefs of the pilgrims:
A cold wind keeps whipping
and slapping a corner of the tarpaulin
at your elbow.
Manohar, a pilgrim with a modern sensibility, tries to search out for signs of
daybreak in the lights spilled out by the bus. But the sunrays are not allowed
completely hence the receptivity to change is very limited.
You look down the roaring road.
You search for the signs of daybreak in
What little light spills out of the bus.
The head lights of the Bus which again dispel the darkness of a little area are
symbolic of the solace the human mind experience through these religious
rituals. The only sign of daybreak that Manohar sees is the sight of his own
divided face. The conflict is between his own mind which wants to go a
pilgrimage on one hand and his skeptic mind which questions its credibility on
the other. The split image in the old mans spectacles symbolizes this idea. His
pilgrimage to Jejuri has the objective of going beyond the vermillion caste mark.
Then the sun rises, aims and shoots its beams into the bus, touches the diverts
temple, and the direction of the bus changes.
The images of the sun suggest a splitting, a breaking into two. The speakers own
face appears to be on either side of the bus when he gets off.
At the end of the bumpy ride
With your own face on either side
When you get off the bus
The last line of the poem you dont step inside the old mans head makes it
clear that the pilgrims enters Jejuri, with the same urban skeptic mind, without
succeeding in his efforts of getting adjusted to the religious temperament of

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the common people, Indians. This poem establishes the theme of perception
and alienation.

33