Abstract on “the Railway Clerk” by Nissim Ezekiel

In ‘The Railway Clerk’, Nissim Ezekiel vividly recreates the Indian milieu by using vernacular words and
imagery drawn from the common scenes of India. Ezekiel is consciously Indian in sensibility. He not only
describes a representative Indian situation, but also makes good use of Babu English. He depicts the
common mistakes that Indians make in using English, for example, in the use of the present continuous
tense for the simple present. These ‘Indianisms’ are freely employed to give a typical Indian flavour to
his poems.
‘Leave application’; a reference to the application addressed to the authorities concerned for the
sanction of leave from duty: in this case, the application did not receive a positive response from the
employer. ‘Overtime’; extra payment for working over the usual time.he is so tired of his life thathe
wishes for freedom from his monotonous rotine..i wish I was bird ‘Discharging it properly’; carrying out
one’s responsibility; to be sincere at the workplace. ‘Borivili’; a suburb of West Mumbai. ‘I see film’; a
reference to the influence of cinema on the Indian mind: the railway clerk often takes recourse to film-
viewing as a form of release from the pressures of professional and personal life. The railway clerk
himself is the speaker in the poem, voicing complaints against his mediocre job, the unsatisfactory
working conditions and his mundane domestic life. He lists his grievances about his lower-middle class
life, which is full of economic hardships.