Analysis of the poem –

The poem talks about a universal language – love. It also rejects the human beings
as creatures which cannot understand and cannot give love specially in relation to
animals. The poem appears to be a pastoral or an idyll that glorifies the rural
landscape but the background is always suggestive of a person who has been cast
out of the society of men because of some physical disability of his. The poem’s title
is ironic enough to suggest the half misanthropic and half pastoral theme of the
poem.
At once critical and satirical of the attitude of the society of men, the poem both
celebrates the spirit of the lone man who shuns the company of his species to find
comfort with the sheep and acknowledges the strength of love that can give life on
one hand and hope on another.
The poet describes the arduous journey of Gulzaman, a shepherd, who rejects his
human habitat to be with his four legged friends. The poem goes on to describe the
result of the ill weather on the livestock which not only havocs the life but also the
attendant hope. Gulzaman is attending the birth of a lamb. Like a much awaited
incident which the readers anticipated – yet another death or life. Ultimately the life
wins and so does hope and Gulzaman gets his son in the shape of the lamb.
Keki N. Daruwallah’s diction is Indian, its colloquial and in this poem it is even
regional as the words like –‘Kanzalwan’ ‘sheep folds’, ‘stone-breaker’, ‘pine-hut’ etc
suggest. According to Norman Simm Daruwallah by meaning less than he speaks,
the poem is more than its words: what it signifies is less than what it designates. The
words are pretty ekphrasian in their purport. The rural, mountainous landscape is
created by the brilliant word play with words which are typical of the landscape. Such
words as torturous, slopes, conifers, sheep-folds properly bring out the pastoral
landscape that Daruwallah is so famous for creating. The agony of the character is
highlighted by words like – ‘son’, ‘help’, ‘virility’ etc. The tortures of the natural
calamities are not more threatening than the mental torture of the people who
populate the landscape. The words are appropriate to create an atmosphere of
darkness which though induced by nature seeps into the hearts and minds of not
only the humans but also the animals. Such words as ‘sacks of crushed ice’ are
symptomatic of the same state of mind.
The four Stanzas can be regarded as the four acts of a play which though tragic in its
exposition finally confirms human victory against the odds of nature with the power of
love. The first short stanza can be regarded as the exposition of the play where the
main character Gulzaman is introduced and so is the background. The narrative of
the poem is interrupted to provide the information that Gulzaman has left his
comrades who taunt him for his impotency. This raises in us the question that if
Gulzaman is impotent then who is the son being referred to in the title? The narrative
thus invokes a suspense that continues till the end of the poem. This second stanza
meekly (symbolically) suggests another important character in the poem. The third
stanza continues the journey and the present narrative which gives a description of
sick sheep and the ravages of nature. The poem makes us understand the fact that
as nature is responsible for the death of the lambs, it is the same nature that results
in Gulzaman’s impotency. On one hand where the human son is not born on the
other hand the lambs are still born. It should be noted that the birth of lambs is as
important to a shepherd as the birth of a baby is to a father. Nature however never
taunts her children for their failed births unlike the human world. The last stanza
again is sub divided into the arrival of ‘father’ to his little den where his ewes are
waiting for him. At the end the ‘father’ is among his own. The next section describes
the birth of the lamb and the happy resolution it brings. It brings back hope and faith
in the poem with Gulzaman’s invocation of Allah. Gulzaman is ultimately converted
from the metaphorical shepherd father to the real father by adopting the ‘son’. This
act of faith unites the three shepherds – Gaulzaman, the prophet (both Jesus and
Muhammad) and the ultimate shepherd – god for an act of creation reconstituting
faith.
Often Daruwallah’s strategy is to present a character in a concrete situation and he
succeeds the most when his presentation is marked by clear visualization. For
visualization the deft use of images is mandatory. Daruwallah handles the images
well. In this poem as much as the human and the animal element are present as
much is present the natural environment which seems to influence the other
creatures living inside it. Daruwallah has often been described as a poet who
describes nature well. This poem too is an example of the kind. Perhaps the itinerary
nature of his job was helpful in this pursuit. Yet unlike the Romantic poets his nature
is not benign but malicious. The reader is quickly foregrounded in to the poem as the
description of a rural hill side is presented. The naming of the place is both a help
and a hindrance to the appreciation of the poem. For the picture of Kanzalwan which
is presented here will give a completely different idea of the place: