UNIT 25

NISSIM EZEKIEL AND

DAS

Structure
L

25.1
25.2
25.3
25.4

Aims and Objectives

Introduction
Nissim Ezekiel
'Night of the Scorpion'
25.4.1
25.4.2
25.4.3
25.4.4
25.4.5
25.4.6

Introduction
Text
Interpretation
Irony
Indian Colour
Style and Technique

25.5 'Enterprise'
25.5.1 interpretation

25.6 Kamala Das

25.7 'My Grandmother's House'
25.7.1 Introduction
25.7.2 Text
25.7.3 Interpretation

25.8 'Blood'
25.8.1 Text
25.8.2 Interpretation
25.8.3 Imagery

25.9
25.10
25.11
25.12

Let Us Sqm Up
Comprehension Exercises
Answers to Exercises
Suggested Readings

25.1 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

This is the second unit of Block 7. The two poets that we intend to discuss in this unit
are Nissim Ezekiel and Kamala Das.
After having read this unit you should be able to:
comment on two poems each of Niss~mEzekiel and Kamala Das;
appreciate the development of imagery in the poems and establish the link
between its different parts.
By the end of this unit you should be able to understand well the poems taught in
this unit and also to have a fair understanding of Nissim Ezekiel'and Kamala Das as
poets. You should also be able to read their poems with an understanding of their
use of language, imagery and form.

25.2 INTRODUCTION
In the previous unit you read poems by Rabindranath Tagore and Sarojini Naidu.
We begin this unit on Indian poets with a study of two poems by Nissim Ezekiel and
two poems by Kamala Das.
The comprehension exercises given at the end of this unit add to your indepth
understanding of the poets and their poems.

i he difficult words have been explained in the glossary after every poem.

Nisslm Ezekiel and Kamala Das

25.3 NISSIM EZEKIEL

Nissim Ezekiel is one of the most distinguished contemporary Indian poets in
English. He has written some of the most difficult and obscure poems and also some
of the most stirring aqd accessible ones. But there is hardly a poem where he does
not pursue his own temperament. Ezekiel does not believe in total credits or
ideologies. He is one of the most personal and intimate of all Indian poets.

--

NlSSlM EZEKIEL

An artist who is willing to take pains, to cultivate reticence, to pursue the profession
of poetry with a sense of commitment, Ezekiel's poems are as a rule lucid and are
splendidly evocative and satisfyingly sensuous.
Ezekiel's poetry is both the instrument and the outcome of his attempt as a man to
come to terms with himself. One finds in the poems the imprint of a keen, analytical
mind trying to explore and communicate, on a personal level, feelings of loss and
deprivation. "Scores of my poems", he says, "are obviously written for personal
therapeutic purposes."
This is why he describes the happenings of his own life very frequently. His poetry
demonsthtes his personal images, iymbols, his feelings towards his friends and
fellow human beings, the cultural ethos and the heritage of India.
Nissim Ezekiel was born into a Jewish family in Bombay in 1924. He has published
many collections of verse: A Time to Change (1951), Sixty poems (1953), The Third
(1959), The Unfinished Man (1960), The Exact Name (1965), Hymns in Deakaess
(1976), and Latter-Day Psalms (1983) are some of them.

Presently Nissim Ezekiel lives in Bombay, where he is Reader in American

Literature at the University.
The two poems we are going to do in details are: 'Enterprise' from The Unfinished
Man and 'Night of the Scorpion' from The Exact Name.

25.4 NIGHT OF THE SCORPION

2T4.1 Introduction
A poem of human interest, 'Night'of the Scorpion' has a delicate family sittlation as
its setting. The poet's mother stung by a scorpion is given multiple treatment,
bringing in its sweep the world of magic and superstition, science and rationality and
material affection. Let us begin by reading the poem.

25.4.2 Text
Night of the Scorpion
I remember the night my mother
was stung by a scorpion. Ten hours
of steady rain had driven him .
to crawl beneath a sack of rice.

Parting with his poison -flash

of diabolic tailin the dark room he risked the rain again.
The peasants came like swarms of flies
and buzzed the name of God a hundred times
to paralyze the Evil One.
With candles'and with lanterns
throwing giant scorpion shadows
on the sun-baked walls
they searched for him: he was not found
They clicked their tongues.
With every movement that the scorpion made
his poison moved in mother's blood, they said.
May he sit siill, they said.
May the sins of your previous birth
be burned ayay tonight, they said.
May your suffering decrease
the misfortunes of your next birth, they said.
May the sum of evil
balanced in this unreal world
,.
against the sum of good
become diminished by your pain, they said.
May the poison purify your flesh
of desire, and your spirit of ambition,
they said, and they sat around
on the floor with my mother in the centre,
the peace of understanding on each face.
More candles, more lanterns, more neighbours,
more insects, and the endless rain.
My mother twisted through and through
P
groaning on a mat.
My father, sceptic, rationalist,
trying every curse and blessing,
powder, mixture, herb and hybrid.
He even poured a little paraffin
upon the bitten toe and put a match to it.
I watched the flame feeding on my mother.
I watched the holy man perform his rites
to tame the poigon with an incantation.
After twenty hours
it lost its sting.
my mother only said
Thank God the scorpion picked on me
and spared my children. .

Glossary
diabolic tail: the sting of the scorpion which is'devilish and wicked.
,
,risked the
again: again disappeared in the rain scared perhaps by the presence
of enemies around. ,
swan&: gruups.
name of d..
~v
.
i one;-the
l.. peasants started chanting the name of God to drive
away the evil represedted by the scorpion.
paralyse: make immobile; kill.

.....

'

16

giant scorpion shadows: the shadows of the peasants in the dim light of the candles
and lanterns.
clicked
their tongues: felt defeated
_
- -

understanding on each face: exhibiting an understanding of the situation; a wisdom

par excellence. ,
scpptic: doubting attitude
rationalist: a person who believes in the doctrine that all knowledge is expressible;
the doctrine of human reason.
herbs: plant of medicinal value.
hybrid: a mixture of medicines drawn from different sources.
parafim: kerosene
incantation: chanting of words having magical powers.

25.4.3 Interpretation
Though Ezekiel is a poet of the city, in this poem he gives a living truthful rural
picture. The scene of a mother stung by a scorpion on a rainy night in the village
brings in its wake the two worlds of superstition and scientific temperament into
focus. The neighbours swarming like flies and trying to mitigate her pain by.various
methods reveal the essence of community life. The father embodies the sceptic,
rational approach. A telling effect is achieved in the last lines when the mother
heaves a sigh of relief on her children being spared. The experience is distinctly
Indian and the imagery vivid and sensitive.
The neighbours concern for a speedy recovery is expressed through lihes that are
incantatory in effect.
'Night of the Scorpion' evokes superstitious practices we haven't still outgrown. It
'epacts an impressive ritual in which the mother's reaction, towards the end, to her
own suffering ironically cancels out earlier responses, both primitive and
sophisticated. The interrelationship between the domestic tragedy and the
surrounding community is unobtrusively established. The poem also denlonitrates
'the effective use of ~arallelism.

25.4.4 Irony
Two kinds of irony are seen to operate in the poetry of Nissim Ezekiel: one closely
allied to satire, where the poet stands at a distan~e~fmm
the object looked at; the
uther, closely allied to compassion where the poet examines the experience as if
from within. Examples of the first kind are more numerous among his early writings;
they are less common in the later period. In the middle poems, the two kinds of
irony appear to co-exist.
The early poems are greatly influenced by British poets, Eliot, Auden and Empson.
The taut line, the tell-tale imagery, the finished stanza.
'Night of the Scorpion', in which Ezekiel evokes the rutal milieu, illustrates the
operation of a kind of irony. Here we have a situation in which the speaker moves
among other characters. For all the humour at the expense of the peasants, there is '
also an involvement in the situation on the part of the speaker. He is moved. The
"I" is fully realized as a participant observer:
And now it is time for a touch of compassion. It provides a fitting finale to the
narrative.
My mother only said
Thank God the scorpion picked on me
and spared my children.
The shift from the speaker to the mother is significant. The return to the mother is a
celebration of the liberation from foreign influence.
In the poem, Evil is represented by 'Flash1 of.. ...room'. Then the world of ritualistic
incantation performed .by the holy man to tame the poison is brilliantly evoked in
the following lines;

May he sit still.. ....next birth they said.

25.4.5 Indian Colour

'

In his poem Nissim Ezekiel has done a tremendous job in depicting the f&Ln
milieu. In mans 3r his !?oenl?
m m c across a visilant criticiqm of the Indian

'Night of the Scorpion' involves one'entire community in a case of scorpion biting.

The mother is senseless. A big preparation goes on. Each one in his manner
prepares to cure "the Evil one". The methods of superstitious practices are the main
aim of the poet. But the poet never forgets to describe the plight of the victim. "My
mother twisted. ...." However the mother's statement cannot be overlooked. Being
a typical Indian mother she wishes all kinds of problems off from her children.
"Thank God.. ..childrenw.
Thus we see a kind of faithful description of the immediate situation by Ezekiel. He
has an eye for details and paints them without distortion. With his simple diction
Nissim Ezekiel gives stress on his ironical statements. It is difficult to miss the Indian
smell and the concealed statements in his poetry.

25.4.6 Style and Technique

The engrossing narration and description of the poem are made effective also
through'the free verse about which you read in detail in Unit 17. This poem is much
more relaxed and open-worked than Ezekiel's formal poetry, with a new quality of
natural colloquialism in diction and tone:
I remember the night my mother
was stung by a scorpion. Ten hours
of steady rain had driven him
to crawl beneath a sack of rice.
We notice in the poem the abandonment of capitals at the start of each line, the
dramatic casualness of the iecalled crisis, the long paragraph set off abruptly from
the three-line climax, all of which give 'Night of the Scorpion', a new feel, a new
appearance, a sense of unhurried lucid progression through time. And yet the poet
is only partially able to escape old habits. On closer inspection we hear behind the
arras of free verse regular iambic lines insisting upon their own pattern. The casual
flow of the newly-loosened sound is several times violated and made awkward as the
metrical pulse appears and tries to assert itself:
They clicked their tongues. ,
With every movement that the scorpion made
his poison moved in mother's blood, they said.
I watched the holy man perform his rites
to tame the poison with an incantation.
Of the iorty-eight lines, fifteen are fairly regular tetrameters and seven are
pentameters. Now Ezekiel achieves the maturity to allow the regular iambic metre
to remain only in the form of an undercurrent. "Night of the Scorpion" is an
interesting poem, containing a fascinating tension between personal crisis and
mocking social observation, but the discrepancies of the poem confuse the tone,
which swings between the natural and colloquial reporting of experience and a more
removed literary formality. The poem finds a happy conclusion in the last lines
where the typical Indian mother exptesses satisfaction in the fact that her children
were spared.
lMy mother only said
Thank God the scorpion picked on me
and spared my children.
+

'

Exercise 1
What are some of the contrasts present in the po,em 'Night of the Scorpion'? (Refer
to 25.1 1 for answers.)

...............................................................................................................

N U m Eoaldcl and Kanula Dsr

25.5 ENTERPRISE
The second poem of Nissim Ezekiel which we will take up for a dztailed analysis is
callld 'Enterprise'. It appears in the volume The Unfinished Man containing just 10
poems written in 1959 and appearing in 1960.
Fnterprise

It started as a pilgrimage,
Exalting minds and making all
The burdens light. The second stage
~ x ~ l o r e dbut
r did not test the call.
The Sun beat down to match our rage.
We stood it very well, I thought,
Observed and put down copious notes
On things the peasants sold and bought,
The way of serpents and of goats,
Three cities where a sage had taught.
But when the differences arose
On how to cross a desert patch,
We lost a friend whose stylish prose
Was quite the best of all our batch.
A shadow falls on us and grows.
Another phase was reached when we
Were twice attacked, and lost our way.
A section claimed its liberty
T o leave the group. I tried to pray.
Our leader said he smelt the sea.
We noticed nothing as we went,
A straggling crowd of little hope,
Ignoring what the thunder meant,
Deprived of common needs like soap.
Some were broken, some merely bent.

When, finally, we reached the place,

.We hardly knew why we were there.
The trip had darkened every face,
Our deeds were neither great nor rare.'
Home is where we have to gather grace.
A

Glossary
enterprise: something new difficult and important that one does or tries to do.
pilgrimage: a journey someone makes to a holy place for a religious reason.
exalting: raising to a higher position by an intense feeling of joy and happiness.
eiplorgd: tentatively assess.
rage: intense angerlfrenzy
copious: detailedlin large npmbers
,

sage: wise knowledgeable man

liberty: freedom
straggling: wandering away from the path when they are walking alongwith a group.

25.5.1 Interpretation
The poem 'Enterprise' is one of the serious poems of Ezekiel and is'moulded out of
the fallouts of frustration in a barbaric city.

The Indian Pwls

'Enterprise' is an allegory of the pilgrimage theme with a suggestion of futility. The

journey from the city to the hinterland is a metaphor for contrived change from
frustration to fulfilment. Even here a 'shadow falls' on the group because, '

'

differences arose
on how to cross a desert patch
The group ignores the thunder which is nothing but the inner voice of man. It should
have guided the group. Man deprived of the inner voice or insensitive to the call of
his own soul invariably rushes into impediments.
At the end of the journey there is complete disillusionment. Was the journey worth
undertaking? Instead of bringing any sense of fulfilment, the 'trip had only
darkened every face'. The pilgrims here are like the Magi in Eliot's poem you read
in Block 5. The futility of the whole enterprise, the struggles on the way, the
deprivations the group undergoes and the failure to compromise the intention of the
journey with its end are succinctly brought out in the final clinching line of the poem:
Home is where we have to gather grace.
While many poets are satisfied with just a glimpse of the truth, Ezekiel probes the
feelings of the personal loss and deprivation till ultimately he reaches the core of
truth. This is one of his main characteristics. Scores of his poems are obviously
written for personal and therapuetic purposes.
In this poem "Enterprise", a situation is viewed with an ironic angle with a hope that
it would offer some consolation, a still point or some momentary stay against the
feelings of loss and deprivation. The enterprise which was started as a pilgrimage
ultimately filled a sense of loss in the group members. 'Some were broken, some
merely bent' Ezekiel says. The concluding stanza throws light on the whole event.
This is the tragedy of modern humanity where every enterprise ends in futility. Life
is like a pathless wood and there is no purpose in taking up any enterprise. The
Vedic man according to Nissim Ezekiel's philosophy moved from darkness to light.
Hence this enterprise was meaningful. But the modern man is simply misfit for
noble missions. Like Eliot's Prhfrock of euden's 'hero' he wastes a valuable life
afflicted by fear in trivial acts.
The pilgrims in the "Enterprise" ignore the call of conscience and consequently
some are broken, some bent. The poet who is making the emotive use of language
and through that emotive use of language he reaches the conclusion, "Home is
where we gather grace". Like a Frost poem, 'Enterprise', begins in delight and ends
in'wisdom. The delight is in taking up the enterprise, in taking up the action.
Without action no'human being can live. Wisdom constitutes in the darkened faces
and in their discovery that there was nothing unique about them.
The poem can be meaningfully related to Lord Krishna's conception of Karma Yoga
which expects us to remain active and to submit ourselves to law and duty.

Exercise 2
Compare and cbntrast 'Enterprise' with Eliots' 'The Journey of the Magi'.
(Refer to 25.11 for hints)

..........................................................................................................

25.6

KAMALA DAS

Kamala Das was born in Malabar in Kerala in 1934. Both her mother and
grandfather were Malayalam poets. Kamala Das started writing poetry while at
school, but before contributing to Indian poetry in English, she had won fame as a
Malayalam writer, Today she is one of our few significant poets writing in English.
She is pre-eminently a poet and has truly made a mark for her poems rather than her
prose writings. What strikes a reader in her poems is her compelling originality and
freshness as also her command over the verse technique and the English language.
Her poetry is concerned both with the external and internal world.
Kamala Das was married at the age of fifteen and now has three children. She seems
to be tied to a hollow relationship she cannot untie, and hence her life story is
touched with poignancy and strikes the reader as representative of a not so
uncommon social phenomenon in India. Marriage and love are not and need not be
mutually exclusive, but for Kamala Das, as she tells us repeatedly, they have proved
to be so_. When Kamala Das speaks of love outside marriage (as she very often
does), she is not really advocating adultery and infidelity, but merely searching for a
relationship which gives both love and security. Her poetry is concerned both with
the external and internal world. Her response to the external world, despite her
inner restlessness is marked by an admirable sense of poise.
Kamala Das has written three books of poetry; Summer in Calcutta (1965), The
Descendents (1967), and The Playhouse and other Poems (1973). Most of the poems
are confessional in tone and deal with her interior life'and subjective state. Through
them she reveals her feminine sensibility in her diverse roles as grand daughter,
daughter, sister, mother, wife and beloved. Her poems of self-exposure, however,
transcend personal import and acquire universal signifiance for they reveal the
predicament of the contemporary woman beset by her encounter with the
difficulties of love and sex. Walt Whitman once said of his own poems, "who so
touches this book, touches a man." It would be equally appropriate to say of
Kamala Das's poems of confession, "who so touches these poems, touches a
woman."
One of our few significant poets writing in English today, Kamala Das made an
instant appeal with her very first collection Summer in Calcutta ,(1965). "I must let
my mind stripteasen must extrude/autobiography," says she in "Composition" and

more often than not, her poetry lives up to this expectation. In a sense it is a psychic
striptease that her poetry enacts. Much poetG, is basically an expression of the
sweating self.
With the change in outlook and setting forth of women's liberation, many of the
modem women poets have taken recourse to frank expressions of which some
striking examples are to be found in the poetry of Kamala Das. Her frankness gives
strength to her poetry. Taking her cue from the modernist movement in poetry, she
believes in the sincere treatment of the material. In trying to establish intimate tone
she gives unabashed expression to her personal themes.
Kamala Das's retreat into the past is a major preoccupation with her. ,In essence, it is
a symbolic retreat into the realms of innocence, simplicity and purity. It is by
transference, an assertion of the elemental life force in her. The old dying house,
grandmother, sea, window-skill, snakes, shrine, pond, parrots are symbols of
undefiled purity which she left once and lost forever. This world was a reality but has
now become a dream or an ideal, distant and unrealizable, she can reach it only
through her imagination. "My Grandmother's House" and "Blood" besides other
poems like "Composition", "Nani", "A Hot Noon at Malabar" bear ample
testimony to it.

25.7 MY GRANDMOTHER'S HOUSE

25.7.1 Introduction
The two poems that we will take up for detailed discussion are "My
Grandmother's House" and "Blood". Let us take up "My Grandmother's House"
first.

25.7.2 Text
My Grandmother's House
There is a house now far away where once
I received love.. ....That woman died,
The house withdrew into silence, snakes moved
Among books I was then too young
To read and, my blood turned cold like the moon
How often I think of going
There to peer through blind eyes of windows or
Just listen to the frozen air,
Or in wild despair, pick an armful of
Darkness to bring it here to lie
Behind my bedroom door like a brooding
Dog. ..... you cannot believe, darling,
Can you, that I lived in such a house and
Was proud, and loved.. ... I who have lost
My way and beg now at,strangersl doors to
Receive love, at least in small change?
Glossary
withdrew: to go back into itself
despair: hopelessness
brooding: deep silent private thoughts.

25.7.3 Interpretation
Kamala Das's reminiscences of childhood are associated with Nalapat House, her
family home in Malabar, and her grandmother whom she loved dearly. These
,
recollections are always linked with feelings of nostalgia and wistfulness. In My
Story she writes, "from every city, I have lived I have remembered the noons in
~ a l a b a with
r
an acbe growing inside me, a homesickness." ,
I j i d a m l y hsme and its

'presiding deity - her gandmother, symbolize for the poetess "love", "innocence",
"respectability" and "traditional values".
In this poem the house is presented with concern and pathos and the poetess
expresses her poignant feelings of yearning for this house. She wishes to go back to
it.
The words 'windows' and 'air' are qualified by the two prefixes "blind" and
"frozen" respectively. There is a rich ambiguity ili the phrasing which makes very
real the suffering of the poetess. Her heart is itself like a dark window where the
. 'fresh air does not blow. Images working on several layers of response, or enrich the
poem's texture. One of the favourite images is that of the window where she sits and
enjoys the cool refreshing breeze of the past. This recurs to the extent of becoming
an obsessive image.
The image emphasises, the languishing desire of the poetess for a sentient peep into
her past and resurred her dreams and desires. With the dereliction of the old house,
the windows have become blind, Only the heat of the reunion with the house will
melt the ice and the window will again be restored to old life. The crumbling of the
old house and the death of the old woman leave their impact on the poetess also.
With them crumbles her own life of innocence and the cherished values.

25.8

BLOOD .

This isthe second poem by Kamala Das which we aie taking up for a detailed study.
This poem appears in the collection entitled The Old Playhouse and Other Poems
(1973). This collection contains thirty-three poems, out of which fourteen are
reprints of poems which have already appeared in Summer in Calcutta.

All the new poems appearing in th5s collection continue Kamala Das's central
theme. The exploration of the true nature of love and of the extent to which the
intensity of love, when achieved, is self-sufficient. Let us read the poem first.

: 25.8.1 Text
"

'!.

Blood
When we were children
Mybrotherand1 .
And always.playing on the sands
Drawing birds and animals
Our great grandmother said one day,
You see this house ofours
Now three hundred yearyold,
It's falling to little bits
Before our very eyes
The walls are cracked and torn
And moistened by the rains,
The tiles have fallen here and there
The windows whine and groan
And every night
The rats come out of holes
And scamper past our door.
The snake-shrine is dark with weeds
And all the snake-gods in the shrine
Have lichen on their hoods,
0 it hurts me she cried,
Wiping a reddened eye
For I love this house, it hurts-me mu&"
To watch it die.
When I grow old, I said,
And very very rich
I shall rebuild the fallen walls

And make new this anclent house

My great grandmother
Touched my cheeks and smiled.
She was really simple.
Fed on God for years
All her feasts were monotonous
For the only dish was always God
And the rest mere condiments.
She told us how she rode her elephant
When she was ten or eleven
Every Monday without fail
To the Siva shrine
And back to home again
And, told us of the jewel box
And the brocade from the north
And the perfumes and the oils
And the sandal for her breasts
A Q her
~ marriage to a prince
Who loved her deeply for a lovely short year
.and died of fever, in her arms
.
She told us
That we had the oldest blood.
My brother and she and I
The oldest blood in the world
A blood thin and clear and fine
While in the veins of the always poor
And in the veins
Of the new-rich men
Flowed a blood thick as gruel
And muddy as a ditch
Finally she lay dying
In her eightysixth year
A woman wearied by compromise
Her legs quilted with arthrids
And with only a hard cough
For comfort
I look deep into her eyes
Her poor bleary eyes
And prayed that she would not grieve
So much about the house.
I had learnt from them
Most lessons of defeat,
Had found out that to grow rich
Was a difficult feat.
. $.
The house was crouching
O n its elbows then,
1t looked that night in the pallid moon
So grotesque and alive.
When they burnt my great grandmother
Ovcr logs of the mango tree
I looked once at the house
And then again and again

The Indian Poets

.
'

For I thought I saw the windows close

Like the closing of the eyes
I thought I heard the pillars groan
and the dark rooms heave a sigh.
I set forth again
For other towns,
Left the house with the shrine
And the sands
And the flowering shruds
.
And the wide rabid gouth of the Arabian Sea

***

Nisslm Ehekid and Kamala Das

I know the rats are running now

Across the darkened halls
They do not fear the dead
I know the white ants have reached my home
And have raised on walls
Strange totems of burial.
At night, in stillness,
From every town I live in
I hear the rattle of its death
The noise of rafters creaking
And the windows' whine
I have let you down
Old house, I seek forgiveness
0 mother's mother's mother
I have plucked your soul
Like a pip from a fruit
And have flung it into your pyre
Call me callous
Call me selfish
I
But t o not blame my blood
So thin, so clear, so fine
The oldest blood in the world
That remembers as it flows
All the gems and all the gold
And all the perfumes and the oils
And the stately
Elephant ride.. .... .
a

Glossary
moistened: to make wet
tiles: a flat square piece of backed clay used for covering roofs
whine: to make a long high pitched noise which sounds sad and unpleasant
groan: long sound as if one is in pain or unhappy
scamper: move with small quick steps
lichen: cluster of tiny plants which looks like moss
monotonous: dully regular pattern
condiments: substance which is added to increase the flavour
brocade: thick, heavy expensive material
sandal: sandalwood paste
gruel: cheap thick soup
wearied: tried
compromise: reach an agreemendunderstanding
quilled: layered
arthritis: aching joints of .the body .
bleary: red and watery

feat: difficult act or achievement

crouching: bending
pallid: unnaturally pale
grotesque: exaggerated in ah unpleasant and ridiculous way

heave: to give a big sigh

rabid: diseased
totems: a totem pole regarded as a symbol of respect
rafters: sloping pieces of wood that support a roof
creaking: making a squeaking sound due to age
-

The Indian Poets

pip: seed
pyre: pile of wood made in order to burn dead bodies
callous: cruel

25.8.2 Interpretation
Blood shows an admirable restraint in tone and tautness of language.
The remorse that Kamala Das feels at havingfailed to abide by the values associated
with the old house and the grandmother is more clearly expressed in the poem
"Blood" which runs at two levels literal and allegorical.
At the literal level it describes the remote ancestry and the old blood of her tamily of
which her great grandmother was the living example. The great grandmother was
deeply religious having been "fed on God for years", and proud of the purity of her
family's blood. She was, however, greatly concerned about the threatened ruin of
the old house.
The poetess promised to her to rejuvenate the house when she grew up and was very
rich. However, as she grew up, she failed to honour her words and retrieve the
house from ruin for she "had learnt by thenlmost lessons of defeat". Towards the
end of the poem its allegorical significance becomes apparent when the poetess
substitutes the fall of the old house with the fall of her own old values and blames
herself for the damage done to the proud family.
The poem is touchingly autobiographical, and her nostalgia for the old house and for
the great grandmother who lived in it and gave it an everlasting character is
convincingly evoked. That Kamala Das does not idealise the house and the people
who are associated with it, is not only evident in the matter-of-factness of the
reminiscential mood; but in the fact that the sense of the history of the house is.
- evoked in terms of the poet's own childhood memory of it and in the way this
memory acquires a renewed but ironic significance under the pressure of the poet's
immediate poetic concern.
The poet does not attempt to reach out into the history of the house of three
hundred years beyond what she herself knows of it. At present it is a decrepit house
with the walls 'cracked and tom and moistened by the rains', and with the fallen
tiles, the whining and groaning windows and the rats scampering past the door. The
grandmother, 'really simple' and 'fed on God for years', and proud of her 'oldest
blood' is portrayed with humour and detachment. The forces of disruption and
decay are at work and the poet's memory of the grandmother who was hurt to see
the house die is poighant.
More than the pathos of the memory of her grandmother, it is the poet's
preoccupation with death and decay, so innocuously impaled in the image of the
crumbling house which she loves so much that emerges as the dominant theme.
The lines, short and chiselled, have a solemnity of tone and a gravity of mood which
comes not from melancholia but from a sense of feeling life on the tips of her senses.
as it were. Even when Kamala Das speaks of defeat and emptiness and the
inevitable darkness which is imminent, the assured clear outline, the sombre control
of nerve, and the poise ofmovement which is at once graceful and firm show that the
poet is in command of herself in a moment of personal reckoning.

25.8.3 Imagery
In 'Blood' the great grandmother is vlvlaly portrayed through a rich cluster of
details, such as her riding an elephant and visit to a Shiva temple when she was
young.
The series of images portray the grandmother and, by implication serve as a
memory of the days gone by. They also reveal the poet's wistful longing to have
been born in those days and to have lived with full breath in the open air.
The most remarkable phenomenon about the images of Kamala Das is that they
emerge from the cultural sources of the typical Indian background and they also
define her identity. They have the sharp indigenous smell and their treatment is
expressly individual in the specific context of emotions and feelings.

25.9 LET US SUM UP

In this unit you
read two poems each by Nissim Ezekiel and Kamala Das,
learnt to pick out the various characteristic elements present in each poem,
were also told about the style and technique of the poems.

25.10 COMPREHENSION EXERCISES

1) What are some of the phrases which help in projecting a rural picture in the poem
'Night of the Scorpion'?
2) How does Kamala Das present the house in the poem 'My Grandmother's House'
with concern and pathos?
i

3) How is 'Blood' an autobiographical poem?

25.11 ANSWERS TO EXERCISES

Exercise 1
On the surface, it is a narrative in the style of a recapitulating ballader spinning an
incident of his own childhood. The poem relates the episode of his mother stung by a
scorpion one rainy night in a village in his childhood. Oppressed by ten hours of
continuous downpour, the scorpion had been driven "to crawl beneath a sack of
vice" where he stung the persona's mother in the toe.
At the deeper level, however, this boisterous tale of skullduggery is quite a serious
criticism of contemporary life on the Indian subcontinent. One of the potent
themes of the poem appears to be the CONTRAST borne out by the clash of
values -the deep, traditional widespread superstition of the illiterate rural folk and
the half-baked. urban educated, rational element represented by the father of the
persona and th$ inuted tongue-in-cheek, sarcastic attitude of the persona bilnself.
The contrast ranges round the treatment of the scorpion-stung mother. The wagging
"
tongues of the assembled unlettered peasants scatter flumes of superstitious
nonsense and ingrained philosophy alike. The poem balances one against the other.
The contrast that is somewhat central to the poem, is that between the superstitious,
village peasants and the townbred, rational, sceptic father, who tries everything,
rational and irrational alike, in a frantic bid to alleviate the suffering of his spouse.
This contrast is even more powerfully voiced in the implicit comment of the
narrator-persona, who is even more of a rational-sceptic. He belongs to the next
generation of the post-independence intelligentsia. Yet one more contrast that is put
into the last three lines that follow the description of the father's frantic efforts is
between the manoeuvrings of the rational-sceptic and those of the holy man, both
matched objectively by the tongue-in-cheek narrator-persona who is also the son of
the scorpion's victim.
Thus we see that the longer half of the poem is mostly built on a s e r i e ~of contrasts,
one piled on the other, for the poem actually consists of two free verse paragraphs,
the first one consisting of 45 lines, and the other of just 3. The 3 lines representing
the second half of the poem thematically, are a remarkable tribute to the poet's
.
craftsmanship, for condensed in them is the second theme of the poem, equally
potent, perhaps even stronger than the main theme diffused through the fifteen
times longer first part of thepoem, i.e., the theme of conflict between deep-rooted
superstition of the masses and sceptic, educated rationalism of the classes poised
helplessly before the overwhelming mass attitude, for this poem is essentially made
of emotion recollectedin tranquility over a distance of many years. The compact
emotion of the last three lines voices the powerful theme of intense feeling: that of
maternal affection and readiness to suffer and sacrifice for the sake of one's
children, so close to the folk tradition in our country. It is couched in the
consciousness of the persona-narrator, held long after the hurly-burly of scorpion
sting and ministrations to relieve the pain, were over.
--

NMm Ezekiel a d K a d a DIM

TI(;

Indian Poets

The peasant's function in the narrative is akin to that of the chorus in Greek drama.
The extended meaning of the poem makes t! a parable of the conflict between the
gods and the demons, and makes it a tale of suffering and explanation.
Exercise 2
Compare the images and symbols used in the two poems. These convey the poets
'meanings'. However while Ezekiel-thinks thatthere was a goal the Vedic seers had
Eliot suspects religious poetry ~rselffor not telling usathenaked truth.

25.12

SUGGESTED READINGS

Perspective on Nissim Ezekiel. Ed. by Suresh Chandra Dwivedi

Indo-Anglian Poetry by A.N. Dwivedi
Ten Twentieth Century Indian Poets: Ed. by R. Parthasarthy
Indian Poetry in English: Ed. by Hari Mohan Prasad and Chakradhar Prasad Singh