Indian Literature | Rukhaya M.K

Category: Indian Literature (page 3 of 3)

Poetry Analysis: Meena Alexander’s “House of a Thousand Doors”

Meena Alexander explores in “A House of a Thousand Doors” the effects of colonization and exploitation and what lies between the surface of lives. She waits for the right image and word to capture the same. The House in this poem is reminiscent of A.K. Ramanujan’s “Small-Scale Reflections on a Large House” that is at once emblematic of the Indian culture. This particular House has a thousand doors referring to its vibrancy and its openness to guests, foreign ideas and new aspects of culture. Moreover it abides by the concept of vasdaivakudumbakam, and keeps its door open for guests. However, perhaps, it was this positive aspect that proved to be a disaster for India, as the colonial powers spread the network of their web in India utilizing trade as a pretext. In the contemporary era also India is with a thousand doors as there is brain- drain and people immigrating to foreign arenas. The title ‘House of a Thousand Doors’ also signifies that India as a nation imparted significance to both individuality and a feeling of community.

The poem begins with an affirmation that this house has a thousand doors, and is therefore singular as illustrated by the demonstrative ‘this.’ The sills are cut in bronze.…

Poetry Analysis: R. Parthasarathy’s “Homecoming”

September 22, 2014 / rukhaya / 3 Comments

Dealing with Change

R. Parthsarthy’s poem “Homecoming” portrays a picture of his native state, Tamil Nadu as he returns from his sojourn abroad. He perceives a marked change in his native language. He comprehends that it was his lack of familiarity with the native language that rendered the language alien to his perception. His persistent use of the foreign tongue dispossessed him of his inherently rich native language. His association with English appears to be like imprisonment as he wrestles with English chains. His mother tongue is emblematic of his rich Dravidian heritage that he cherishes. In his chains, that disable him to move freely, he falters, he stumbles. He also stumbles as he has lost his ground.

His native language is now relegated to other concerns. At the time of Thiruvalluvar, the language was a sign of rich cultural heritage. He senses that the language has begun to deteriorate as it is adulterated, and declines owing to lack of use. Language proves to be an effervescent medium with the Savant Nammalvar who handled it as it were a bull held by its horns. She penned several devotional songs par excellence, and therefore favourites with the masses. In the present situation, the language is like a dead animal, infested with fleas at Kodambakkam.…

Poetry Analysis: R. Parthasarathy’s “From Trial”

September 18, 2014 / rukhaya / 1 Comment

The poet Parthasarathy asserts that as he is mortal, he faces the end as he is living an already deadened existence that has to be only terminated. He is enduring the ‘trial of existence.’ It is done with a relief that cannot be expressed in words. He is, however, very much aware of how he feels. If he were stopped and cut off, and were to clutch at air and straw, if he gets hold of nothing in his extremity in the desperation to make some mark in the rat race.

The statement ’Love, I haven’t the key’ may have two implications. The word ‘key’ may signify ‘clue’. It also stands for the key to unlock His gates. The word ‘His’ refers to God since it capitalized. The poet sees love as the key to redemption and attainment of God’s grace. He grasps his companion’s hand in a rainbow touch. The rainbow encompasses seven colours, and seven is a number generally ascribed to divinity. Of the dead, like other mortal beings he speaks nothing but good; as is the custom in the mortal world as opposed to the situation when the beings are living.

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The poet ruminates over the family-album, the other night as he shared his beloved’s child hood.…

Poetry Analysis: R. Parthasarathy’s “Exile”

September 18, 2014 / rukhaya / 5 Comments

The poet is engaged in a conversation with the well known musician Ravi Shankar in a basement flat. The lamps led the people through the thick fog that enveloped the city of London. The imagery of the holes is apt as though the light streaks in just as sunlight enters through holes. The word ’flat’ may apply to the shelter, or to may qualify the word conversation implying that the conversation was flat and of no consequence. The conversation seemed to ‘fill’ the night that otherwise had a lot of space as implied. Ravi Shankar and the speaker had been smoking, drinking beer and munching snacks. The lack of punctuation for the animate chatter was provided by the inamate crisps. Ravi Shankar whiled away his youth ’whoring’ after English gods, that is, Parthasarathy implies that Ravi Shankar aped the English way of life to the extent of idolizing the English people and worshipping them.

The poet Parthsarathy had done the same in the past,and senses the futility of the whole endeavour. He felt like he was in exile in a foreign country. The word ‘exile’ brings in a sense of alienation from his native place, and from himself. His very existence is like a tree.…

Poetry Analysis: Nissim Ezekiel’s “Poet, Lover, Bird Watcher”

September 18, 2014 / rukhaya / 0 Comments

The poem is extracted from Nissim Ezekiel’s forth volume of poems that appeared in 1965 under the name The Exact Name. Here, Ezekiel tries to analyze the creative process of the poet, and makes an attempt at defining it. He compares a poet in this sense, to a bird-watcher or lover. It is only perseverance and inspiration that results in a natural poem.

Ornithologists and lovers do not rush their way towards things, they rather wait for the apt moment .Likewise, the art of poetic diction does not result after much after-thought. It is rather a spontaneous process. The poet echoes Wordsworth’s definition of poetry a “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”. Just as an ornithologist waits for a bird in order to patiently identify its movements, and accurately classify and describe the bird, a lover waits patiently for his lady love to submit to him without much ado. Likewise, a poet must proceed with great resolve for his poetic consciousness to comply with him. The poet makes use of two apt metaphors, the first a bird for the ‘flight of imagination’ and, second-the ladylove as a source of inspiration.

Therefore, it is perfect endurance or slow movement that results in fruition.…

Poetry Analysis: Jayanta Mahapatra’s “Hunger”

September 18, 2014 / rukhaya / 10 Comments

“Hunger’, according to Jayanta Mahapatra was an expression of his solitude. He writes in this regard: “Hunger” was written twenty-five years ago. I grew up in Cuttack, close to a temple. There were two rivers close by. The ways of life there were different. I was into religion. My poems today don’t have those old images. I’ve taken the temple out of my system. I had an unhappy childhood. I had an abnormal relationship with my mother. I owe a lot to my father, though. He put me in a missionary school. The school had a British headmaster… I was trampled upon in my childhood. That still remains with me. I’m not deliberately holding on to tensions. I ran away from home thrice. I’m shaped by factors beyond my control. Now I’m at peace with myself, but this wasn’t the case ten years ago. Perhaps as a result of that childhood I always feel alone, alone when I’m with my family or part of a crowd. There’s a chasm inside which can never be bridged. In “Hunger” I was writing from experience.”
The title of the poem ‘Hunger’ may therefore reflect the poet’s need for company, and spiritual intimacy. He asserts that he had an abnormal relationship with his mother.…

Poetry Analysis: A.K.Ramanujan’s “A River”

September 18, 2014 / rukhaya / 1 Comment

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 women’s 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 people’s 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.…

Poetry Analysis: Rabindranath Tagore’s “The Child”

September 17, 2014 / rukhaya / 1 Comment

Rabindranath Tagore’s “The Child” was originally written in English in a single night and later translated into Bengali as Sishutirtha (Iyengar, p. 119). Tagore’s “The Child” was originally written in English in a single night, and later translated into Bengali as Sishutirtha. The poem is significant as it is Tagore’s only poem written in English. Tanusree Shankar’s interpretation depicts it as “a flowing, rhythmic, spiritual journey of Man through the ages, from the bondage of ignorance, ultimately to the freedom of enlightenment and self realization. At the same time, it may also be considered a celebration of the mother – the feminine principle in the universe. “

The poem portrays man’s journey from the futility of existence and darkness of ignorance to the sprouting of new life as represented by the child. The first flush of dawn reflects on the dew-dripping leaves of the forest. ‘Flush’ connotes a strong emotion and a question, the response of which the sky seeks. The light of sky gets reflected in the objects of the earth. Parallel to this phenomenon is the man who reads the skies, forecasts the climate or predicts the future. “Friends, we have come!” Parallel to this is the saying that they have arrived.…

Poetry Analysis: Henry Derozio’s “To the Pupils of the Hindu College”

September 17, 2014 / rukhaya / 0 Comments

The Hindu School, founded by Raja Ram Mohan Roy, David Hare and Radhakanta Deb, is indubitably one of the major cornerstones in the history of institutional education in Bengal. The college produced many avant garde philanthropists and educationists who were later to be active participants in the Bengal Renaissance movement.
The poem is in the form of a sonnet that eulogizes the contemporary youth. According to the speaker, the building blocks of the day function as the foundation tomorrow and hence have to moulded in the right direction. The students expand like the petals of a young flower in the practice of blooming. The metaphor of the flower connotes ideas of the prospects of blossoming coupled with a sense of freshness, rawness, emanating fragrance and essence, rendering the whole process natural. There is also the implication of a new vision or perspective. The poet watches the gentle opening of their minds as it gradually unfolds like the fragile petals of a flower. The difference between ‘look’ and ‘watch’ is that you look at a static object but you watch a kinetic object/frame. So, each movement of the students’ mind is studied by the poet Derozio, as he analyzes their progress.

They are all united in the awe and inspiration that education instills in them.…

Rukhaya M.K

A Literary Companion