13 New Experimentation in Indian English Poetry (Miscellaneous Themes)

Abdul Mubid Islam

Introducing the poet:

Arun Balkrishna Kolatkar was born on November 1, 1932 in Kolhapur, Maharashtra into a traditional Hindu family of Tatya Kolatkar. He was educated in Rajaram High School, Maharashtra and then graduated from S.B.College of Arts, Gulbarga in 1949. In 1953, he married Darshan Chhabda, the sister of a well-known painter Bal Chhabda. Kolatkar was a prolific bilingual writer who has published his works in both Marathi and English. His first volume of poems in English was Jejuri, which is a collection of 31 poems pertaining to his visit to a religious place in Jejuri, Maharashtra in 1963 with his brother. Kolatkar’s poems evoke a series of images to highlight the ambiguities of modern life. This volume won him the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize in 1977 which established his reputation as a poet of merit. Moreover, his Marathi verse collection Bhijki Vahi won him the Sahitya Academy Award in 2005. Interestingly, his Marathi verses like his English compositions reflect the quintessential modernist in him basically due to his adaptation of the stylistic features of the European avant-garde movements like Surrealism, Expressionism and Beat Generation Poetry. However, he was trained as an artist from the J.J.School of Art which led him to pursue his career as a graphic artist in his adult life. Most of his English works were published posthumously. It was after he was diagnosed with cancer that two of his English volumes Kala Ghoda Poems and Sarpasastra were published in 2004. His remarkable maturity in his poems coupled with his exploration of the thematic complexities of modern English poetry marks him off as a poet par excellence. He died on September 25, 2004 at the age of 71.

Traffic Lights

Fifty phantom motorcyclists

all in black

crash-helmeted outriders

faceless behind tinted visors

come thundering from one end of the road

and go roaring down the other

shattering the petrified silence of the night

like a delirium of rock-drills

preceded by a wailing cherry-top

and followed by a faceless president

in a deathly white Mercedes

coming from the airport and going downtown

raising a storm of protest in its wake

from angry scraps of paper and dry leaves

but unobserved by traffic lights

that seem to have eyes only for each other

and who like ill-starred lovers

fated never to meet

but condemned to live forever and ever

in each other’s sight

continue to send signals to each other

throughout the night

and burn with the cold passion of rubies

separated by an empty street.

(Arun Kolatkar)

Critical Appreciation:

In this poem, Kolatkar ingenuously highlights the dilemma brought about by the rules set for the ministers’ convoy which disrupts the normalcy of the traffic in the cities. The poem is quite powerful given the bold assertion of the speaker in illustrating the rowdy nature of the governmental authorities represented by the “deathly white Mercedes” that is quite oblivious to the presence of the bystanders and pedestrians. The image of the “traffic light” becomes a powerful symbol as it signifies the hypocritical nature of the people who by dint of luck and fortune scale up the political ladder.

The modern poets tend to take the utmost liberty to highlight integral aspects of human life and society and while thus engaged voices the concern of the general masses. These poets engage in miscellaneous themes that life has to offer and are never restricted by any artistic norms or aesthetic paradigm. Kolatkar thus faithfully illustrates the general view of the masses who feel frustrated when the authorities that formulate rules and regulations violate them in the first place. The poem therefore becomes a powerful social critique on the part of the reader as s/he too feels the natural urge to rise in protest.

The poem begins with fifty motorcyclist clad in black who ushers forth a conceptual royal parade through the city. Interestingly, the adjective “phantom” indicates the speaker’s envisioning of the ‘black cats’ (the commandos of the Indian army entrusted with the responsibility of the security of the ministers and bureaucrats) as agents of death itself. The expression “faceless” suggests the ghastly nature and apparition of the guards as being infernal in nature. What concerns the speaker is the custom that has allowed the ministers to enjoy this privilege in the first place. The expression “wailing cherry-top” refers to the red light (laal batti) on the cars that serves as a warning to clear the roads. No wonder they are common men who get elected. And it is after being elected that they show complete indifference to the general masses. The validity of the traffic point in the cities is rendered insignificant as they fail to stop the cars or the convoy of the ministers. The clearing of the streets before the advent of the convoy is bolstered in the expression “but unobserved by traffic lights”. The comparison made between the traffic lights and the ill-starred lovers is quite apt as like the former, the red, orange and green lights exist but only for the sake of itself or to maintain the general order of the city or better serve to be the subject of primary lessons offered to children in schools, inculcating in them the ethics and norms of road traffic.. It is quite paradoxical that this order is violated by those who initiated it in the first place. That the lights continue to send signals is in a sense a painful realisation on the part of the speaker who could not help but lament the utter helplessness of the masses enmeshed in this dilemma and the futility of the existence of such an order. Thus the poem is both a biting commentary on the Indian political standards as well as an indictment of the mentality of the general masses who fail to question it.

Pie Dog

This is the time of day I like best,

and this the hour

when I can call this city my own;

when I like nothing better

than to lie down here, at the exact centre

of this traffic island

(or trisland as I call it for short,

and also to suggest

a triangular island with rounded corners)

that doubles as a parking lot

on working days,

a corral for more than ﬁfty cars,

when it’s deserted early in the morning,

and I’m the only sign

of intelligent life on the planet;

the concrete surface hard, ﬂat and cool

against my belly,

my lower jaw at rest on crossed forepaws;

just about where the equestrian statue

of what’s-his-name

must’ve stood once, or so I imagine.

I look a bit like

a seventeenth-century map of Bombay

with its seven islands

not joined yet,

shown in solid black

on a body the colour of old parchment;

with Old Woman’s Island

on my forehead,

Mahim on my croup,

and the others distributed

casually among

brisket, withers, saddle and loin

– with a pirate’s

rather than a cartographer’s regard

for accuracy.

I like to trace my descent –

no proof of course,

just a strong family tradition –

matrilineally,

to the only bitch that proved tough enough to have survived,

ﬁrst, the long voyage,

and then the wretched weather here –

a combination

that killed the rest of the pack

of thirty foxhounds,

imported all the way from England

by Sir Bartle Frere

in eighteen hundred and sixty-four,

with the crazy idea

of introducing fox-hunting to Bombay.

Just the sort of thing

he felt the city badly needed.

On my father’s side

the line goes back to the dog that followed Yudhishthira

on his last journey,

and stayed with him till the very end; long after all the others

-Draupadi ﬁrst, then Sahadeva,

then Nakul, followed by Arjuna and, last of all, Bhima –

had fallen by the wayside.

Dog in tow, Yudhishthira alone plodded on. Until he too,

frostbitten and blinded with snow,

dizzy with hunger and gasping for air,

was about to collapse

in the icy wastes of the Himalayas; when help came

in the shape of a ﬂying chariot

to airlift him to heaven.

Yudhishthira, that noble prince, refused

to get on board unless dogs were allowed.

And my ancestor became the only dog to have made it to heaven

in recorded history.

To ﬁnd a more moving instance of man’s devotion to dog,

we have to leave the realm of history,

skip a few thousand years

and pick up a work of science fantasy –

Harlan Ellison’s A Boy and his Dog,

a cult book among pi-dogs everywhere –

in which the ‘Boy’ of the title sacriﬁces his love,

and serves up his girlfriend

as dogfood to save the life of his starving canine master.

I answer to the name of Ugh.

No,

not the exclamation of disgust;

but the U pronounced as in Upanishad, and ‘gh’ not silent,

but as in ghost, ghoul or gherkin.

It’s short for Ughekalikadu,

Siddharamayya’s

famous dog that I was named after,

the guru of Kallidevayya’s dog who could recite

the four Vedas backwards.

My own knowledge of the scriptures begins

and ends, I’m afraid,

with just one mantra, or verse; the tenth,

from the sixty-second hymn

in the third mandala of the Rig (and to think

that the Rig alone contains ten thousand

ﬁve hundred and ﬁfty-two verses).

It’s composed in the Gayatri metre, and it goes:

Om tat savitur varenyam bhargo devasya

dhimahi dhiyo yonah prachodayat.

Twenty-four syllables, exactly, if you count the initial Om.

Please don’t ask me what it means, though.

All I know

is that it’s addressed to the sun-god – hence it’s called Savitri –

and it seems appropriate enough to recite it

as I sit here waiting for the sun

to rise.

May the sun-god amplify the powers of my mind.

What I like about this time and place

-as I lie here hugging the ground, my jaw at rest on crossed forepaws,

my eyes level with the well tempered but gap-toothed keyboard

of the black-and-white concrete blocks

that form the border of this trisland and give me my primary horizon –

is that I am left completely undisturbed

to work in peace on my magnum opus:

a triple sonata for a circumpiano based on three distinct themes –

one suggested by a magpie robin,

another by the wail of an ambulance,

and the third by a rockdrill;

a piebald pianist,

caressing and tickling the concrete keys with his eyes,

undeterred by digital deprivation.

As I play,

the city slowly reconstructs itself, stone by numbered stone.

Every stone

seeks out his brothers

and is joined by his neighbours.

Every single crack returns to its ﬂagstone and all is forgiven.

Trees arrive at themselves, each one ready

to give an account of its leaves.

The mahogany drops

a casket bursting with winged seeds by the wayside,

like an inexperienced thief drops stolen jewels

at the sight of a cop.

St Andrew’s church tiptoes back to its place, shoes in hand,

like a husband after late-night revels.

The university,

you’ll be glad to know, can never get lost

because, although forgetful, it always carries

its address in its pocket.

My nose quivers.

A many-coloured smell

of innocence and lavender,

mildly acidic perspiration and nail polish,

rosewood and rosin

travels like a lighted fuse up my nose

and explodes in my brain.

It’s not the leggy young girl taking a short cut through this island as usual,

violin case in hand,

and late again for her music class at the Max Mueller Bhavan,

so much as a warning to me that my idyll

will soon be over,

that the time has come for me to surrender the city

to its so-called masters.

(Arun Kolatkar)

Critical Appreciation:

Akrun Kolatkar’s Pie-Dog is a poem that faithfully delineates the power and force generated in the choice of multiple themes in fabricating a statement about Indian life in its multifaceted nature of existence. In this rather long, rambling and disturbing poem, Kolatkar does not focus on one single theme; on the contrary, he depicts the variegated nature of Indian life with a peripheral vision. This point of view is quite unique as none before Kolatkar has ever dabbled to script or have had the guts to present the Indian picture from the perspective of a dog. The reader is naturally bound to get baffled at such seeming incongruity and it is this incongruity that gives force to the poem. In a word, the poem is disturbing because Kolatkar has made a ‘salad-bowl’ by bringing in a wide tapestry of divergent themes like Indian mythology, cartography, geography, history, Vedic tradition, ecology and social principles and juxtapose them in such a manner which accounts for the ingenuity of the poem as a flamboyant appraisal of the Indian modernity. Kolatkar has to be levied with credits and accolades not just for such brilliant fusion of themes but also for showcasing the Indian picture in its true form.

The poem begins with the musings of a pie-dog who deludes itself as being the master of the city of Mumbai. It is the dog who considers itself as “…the only sign/of intelligent life on the planet”. It rests on the concrete surface of the parking lot usually thronged by cars and reflects what the city life has made of him. It is quite interesting to note that the dog considers his visage as resembling the seventeenth century map of Bombay and goes on to chart the divisions of the old Bombay with its seven islands along the lines of its anatomy—Old Woman’s island being its forehead, Mahim its croup and the rest being its brisket, withers, saddle and loin. The speaker’s acknowledging its limited accuracy in charting out the old Bombay and its comparison to the precision and accuracy of the pirates rather than that of the cartographers are what makes the assertion more credible.

Kolatkar’s brilliance in fusing the East/West conflict in the form of the poem is accentuated when the reader makes the astounding discovery about the genealogy of the dog. That the dog has its affinity to the foxhounds from its mother’s side brought to Bombay by Sir Bartle Frere and to that of the dog of the mythical Yudhishtira who refused to go to heaven without the dog on the father’s side is undoubtedly a master stroke of Kolatkar in envisioning an ancestral origin of the dog. The speaker further proceeds to list out substantial proof of its history and the supposed loyalty expected form dogs. It brings in the modern reference of Harlan Ellison’s science fantasy to justify that this kind of loyalty expectation is dualistic and both sided.

It is in the middle of the poem that the speaker affirms his real name as Ugh. However, the dog in question craves for dignity and this is highlighted in his demand to pronounce the word “Ugh” like the “U” in Upanishad as it is named after Siddharamayya’s famous dog Ughekalikadu who could recite the four Vedas backwards. But the boldest venture of Kolatkar lies in investing the speaker with the ability to utter the Gayatri mantra:

Om tat savitur varenyam

bhargo devasya dhimahi

dhiyo yonah prachodayat

This is quite remarkable and is bound to raise voices of protest and controversy from unexpected quarters. The reader is naturally flabbergasted at such candid assigning of a sacrosanct and pious Sanskrit sloka to a dog. But herein lays the uniqueness of Kolatkar. The reason for assigning the mantra to the speaker has to have validity or else Kolatkar would never undertake the risk in the first place. One can argue that the reason might be to justify the ‘voice’ of the speaker shown to be updated with the multifaceted nature of human life having closely observed it silently in the “exact centre/of this traffic island”. Come what come may, this act of appropriating the dog with the intricate nature and finer subtleties of the Indian Vedic tradition cannot go on to castigate the sheer brilliance and ingenuity of Kolatkar as a poet.

It becomes all the more significant to note that the speaker craves for peace and solace as it is in the midst of preparing its ‘magnum opus” which is a triple sonata with three distinct themes. One has to note that the polyphonic nature of themes in the poem closely resembles to that of the sonata by the speaker. The speaker also shares the sweet experience of waking up the city with the prospects of its “magnum opus”:

As I play

The city slowly reconstructs itself,

Stone by numbered stone.

The ecological harmony of nature is suggested in the form of the trees that has undertaken an abstract vacation and has now returned to tell the tale to the leaves. Again, the speaker also harps upon the possibility of inanimate objects having life when it asserts that even the stones and cracks have duly returned after the night long journey. What Kolatkar tries to suggest here is some kind of a corollary between the inanimate world and that of the living. The idea of coming back to the origins goes to share an affinity of the city traffic resuming normalcy after the midnight hours. The expressions “St Andrew’s Church tiptoes back to its place” and the University that never loses its address are instances in point.

The poem ends with the speaker’s inability to digest the smell of lavender, the acidic perspiration, nail polish, rosewood and rosin which explodes in its brain. All these images suggest the coming back of the city traffic to life. The leggy young girl who takes a short cut to her music class serves to be a reminder to the speaker that his reverie is coming to an end. The speaker painfully asserts that his idyll is over and therefore now he has to surrender the city quite reluctantly to its human masters. The term ‘surrender’ should be taken note of because it highlights the royal delusion of the dog to be the master of the city at night. The delusion is no doubt painful yet quite powerful.

Introducing the Poet:

Imtiaz Dharker was born in 1954 in Lahore who has carved a niche in the edifice of the Indian English Literature by the sheer power of her poetic composition which is both politically viable as well as artistically delightful. She considers herself as a Scottish Calvinist Muslim and this conception gets reflected in the confluence of three divergent cultures in her poetry. Her poetry is a convincing assurance of the fact that irrespective of geographical disparities, the female condition is universal. Her poetry unfolds new vistas of considering the essential identity of the female as the most marginalised of identities in society. Her anthologies include Purdah and Other Poems (1988), Postcards from God (1997), I Speak for the Devil (2001) and The Terrorist at my Table (2006). Apart from being a poet, she is an accomplished documentary filmmaker and an artist.

The Right Word

Outside the door, lurking in the shadows, is a terrorist.

Is that the wrong description?

Outside that door,

taking shelter in the shadows,

is a freedom fighter.

I haven’t got this right . Outside, waiting in the shadows, is a hostile militant.

Are words no more

than waving, wavering flags? Outside your door, watchful in the shadows,

is a guerrilla warrior.

God help me.

Outside, defying every shadow, stands a martyr.

I saw his face.

No words can help me now. Just outside the door,

lost in shadows,

is a child who looks like mine.

One word for you. Outside my door, his hand too steady, his eyes too hard

is a boy who looks like your son, too.

I open the door.

Come in, I say.

Come in and eat with us.

The child steps in

and carefully, at my door,

takes off his shoes.

(Imtiaz Dharker)

Critical Appreciation:

In this poem, Imtiaz Dharker dwells extensively upon the paranoia of modern Indians in considering the identity of a stranger. This is basically due to the politically violent time in which the Indians locate their day-to-day existence. The poem also harps upon the difficulty in ascribing “the right word” to identify a stranger who in the worst case scenario may be a terrorist or a hostile militant. The speaker in the poem expresses this dilemma in poignant terms. The failure to come up with the right word illustrates the present condition of the Indians whose life is fraught with potential threats from anti-social agencies. However, in due course the speaker also laments on the genial nature of humanity which is now reluctant to take for granted the traditional custom of attithyee devo bhawa (Guest are the incarnation of gods) that has long defined the Indian culture since the dawn of civilisation. The stranger not necessarily may be the doubtful terrorist but may also be just a child or a boy seeking refuge. The looming question is—who would take such a risk? Dharker brilliantly strikes the right chord in the poem challenging and questioning the morale of humanity and in doing so illustrates the humanitarian issue.

The poem begins with the speaker’s discovery of a stranger in the shadows who by extension may be a terrorist or a hostile militant, a freedom fighter or a guerrilla warrior. The reason for such assumption is the political climate of India which is characterised by hate politics be it the avowed ideologies and misguided fanaticism of religious fundamentalists or the blatant disregard of humanity by various anti-social agencies. However, the speaker questions the validity of such a stance by saying “Are words no more/than waving, wavering flags? The term ‘flags’ begets the question of limiting one’s perspective to the minimum, that is, to adopt a parochial view when it comes to ascribing identity to a stranger.

In the second part of the poem, the speaker adopts an optimistic stance and deliberately takes the risk of inviting the stranger. This part clearly highlights the humanitarian note as the speaker in allowing the stranger to enter the house has made herself privy to the intentions of the stranger which she herself is not so clear about. But the choice of words like “child”, “boy” and “son” are what endears the stranger to the reader who is now in a position to see the other associations that can be made of the stranger. The nervousness of the boy to enter the house is suggested by the ironical implication of the image of “steady hands” which further compels the speaker into believing the harmlessness of such an admission. To make things more congenial, the speaker also asserts the manner in which the stranger decides to enter the house, that is, by removing the shoes. This act is significant from the Indian perspective because almost all Indians feel privileged on receiving an invitation and also regard the house of the host as pure and holy. The poem thus by extension can be seen as an invitation made by Dharker to all Indians to let go the bias and parochial mentality in considering the identity of a stranger and to accord dignity instead. All strangers are not necessarily militants and terrorists; they may be people in dire need of food, shelter and company, and being humans it is both our moral and ethical obligation to avail ourselves of this opportunity.

Introducing the Poet:

Nissim Ezekiel was born in Mumbai (then Bombay) into a Bene-Israeli family in 1924. He was educated at Wilson College, Bombay and went to England to study philosophy at Birkbeck College. After his return from England, he took up teaching as his profession in Mithibhai College of Arts, Mumbai and retired as a Professor of English at the University of Bombay. He has authored several volumes of poetry chief among which are A Time to Change (1952), Sixty Poems (1953), The Third (1959), The Unfinished Man (1960), The Exact Name (1965), Hymns in Darkness (1976), Latter-Day Psalms (1982) and Edinburgh Interlude-Lightly (1983) and Collected Poems (1989). Ezekiel’s uniqueness lies in his attempt to free the Indian English literature form the unconditional influence of British Romanticism and Victorianism. His precise use of the English language and its improvisational standard with the novel use of the Babu English, well crafted imagery and the thematic preoccupation with human sexuality, alienation, identity and the modernist conception of existence have undoubtedly earned him a permanent place. Apart from editing several books and journals, he has also published Three Plays in 1970. He was awarded the Sahitya Academy Award in 1982 for Latter-Day Psalms and also received the Padma Shri in 1988. Suffering from Alzheimer, he passed away on January 9, 2004.

Very Indian Poem in Indian English

I am standing for peace and non-violence.

Why world is fighting fighting

Why all people of world

Are not following Mahatma Gandhi,

I an simply not understanding.

Ancient Indian Wisdom is 100% correct.

I should say even 200% correct.

But modern generation is neglecting-

Too much going for fashion and foreign thing.

Other day I’m reading in newspaper

(Every day I’m reading Times of India To improve my English language)

How one goonda fellow

Throw stone at Indirabehen.

Must be student unrest fellow, i am thinking.

Friends, Romans, Countrymen, I am saying (to myself)

Lend me the ears.

Everything is coming—

Regeneration, Remuneration, Contraception.

Be patiently, brothers and sisters.

You want one glass lassi?

Very good for digestion.

With little salt lovely drink,

Better than wine;

Not that I am ever tasting the wine.

I’m the total teetotaller, completely total. But I say

Wine is for the drunkards only.

What you think of prospects of world peace?

Pakistan behaving like this,

China behaving like that,

It is making me very sad, I am telling you.

Really, most harassing me.

All men are brothers, no?

In India also

Gujaraties, Maharastrians, Hindiwallahs

All brothers

Though some are having funny habits.

Still, you tolerate me,

I tolerate you,

One day, Ram Rajya is surely coming.

You are going?

But you will visit again

Any time, any day,

I am not believing in ceremony.

Always I am enjoying your company.

(Nissim Ezekiel)

Critical Appreciation:

Nissim Ezekiel’s poem “Very Indian Poem in Indian English” as the title indicates is about certain basic issues that forms an integral part and contribute very significantly to the strengthening of the edifice of India as a nation. Although very much aware of the richness embedded in the pillars of traditional Indian culture and philosophy, Ezekiel takes strong exception of the evils that have disrupted the very fabric of the socio-cultural milieu which in turn have jeopardised the identity of India as a nation. The poem is thus an embodiment of the uncertainty looming large regarding the future prospects of India as a nation contingent to racial, sexual, political and cultural diversities.

Ezekiel’s assertion of his belief in Gandhian philosophy is admirably sketched in the poem when he emphatically contrasts the tenets of Gandhian non-violence with the absurdities of violence. The beginning lines affirm such a stance:

“I am standing for peace and non-violence. Why the world is fighting fighting

Why all people of world

Are not following Mahatma Gandhi

I am simply not understanding.”

The frustration and demoralisation of the poet reaches such unendurable heights that he vociferously asserts that the counter remedy is to be sought in a proper study, practice and inculcation of the values enshrined in Ancient Indian wisdom:

“Ancient Indian Wisdom is 100% correct

I should say even 200% correct”

Ezekiel’s sly dig at the Indian frenzy for foreign things and for foreignness also highlights the poet’s clarion call for a spiritual renaissance. In his tirade on the criminalisation of politics, the poet launches scathing attacks against those politically motivated conspirators and sycophants. In fact, the poet tries to project an entire state languishing in disarray.

What worries the speaker most is the failure of the Indians to imbibe and assimilate the best of Western culture. The craze for Westernisation has not only dealt a severe blow to the traditional belief system of the Indians but has also shaken the foundation of Indian culture and heritage. For instance, the contrast between the sweetness of “lassi” and the aggression of “wine” is what pinpoints the ideological difference between inculcation of Ancient Indian wisdom and the evils of the west. Nevertheless, the speaker’s firm belief for a better future gets reflected in his anticipation of a qualitative standard of survival brought forward by the agencies of social change such as regeneration, remuneration and contraception.

The speaker ponders on the paradoxical nature of Indian political existence by reflecting on the fact that although there has been much talk about universal amity and brotherhood, nothing substantial has been achieved so far. The present scenario afflicts him; he therefore asserts:

“Pakistan behaving like this,

China behaving like that,

It is making me very sad, I am telling you.”

It is ironical that despite the clamour for the much hyped universal peace, man today resides in a world torn by fratricidal killings, jealousy, and evils of imperialism, communalism and what not. To Ezekiel, India’s position in the international arena with regard to her relation with neighbouring countries does not show any sign of promise. The poet’s assertion that “Ram Rajya is surely coming” is in fact quite ironical as it serves to mock the clamour for “Ram Rajya” which vested interests have used in order to sow the seeds of communal violence and petty political ends.

From the technical point of view, what strikes the reader is Ezekiel’s use of the suffix “— ing” in words instead of retaining the real form of the verbs. No doubt, the poet’s use of the English language is ungrammatical; and it is quite remarkable that Ezekiel draws a parallel between the ungrammatical use of English by Indians and their complete indifference to the felicities of Ancient Indian wisdom in order to mock at the craze of Indians for foreignness. The ironic tenor in Ezekiel’s poetry is an integral part that takes a humorous colouring and gets duly reflected in the expressions and the turns and twists of language.

The Railway Clerk

It isn’t my fault.

I do what I’m told but still I am blamed.

This year, my leave application was twice refused.

Every day there is so much work and I don’t get overtime.

My wife is always asking for more money.

Money, money, where to get money?

My job is such, no one is giving bribe,

while other clerks are in fortunate position,

and no promotion even because I am not graduate.

I wish I was a bird.

I am never neglecting my responsibility,

I am discharging it properly,

I am doing my duty,

but who is appreciating? Nobody,

I am telling you.

My desk is too small,

the fan is not repaired for two months, three months.

I am living far off in Borivli,

my children are neglecting studies, how long this can go on?

Once a week, I see film

and then I am happy, but not otherwise Also,

I have good friends,

that is only consolation.

Sometimes we are meeting here and there and having long chat.

We are discussing country’s problems. Some are thinking of foreign

but due to circumstances,

I cannot think

My wife’s mother is confired to bed and I am only support.

(Nissim Ezekiel)

Critical Appreciation:

In this poem, Ezekiel consciously upholds the Indian sensibility by showcasing the deteriorating financial standards of a railway clerk who is beset with problems for ending up in a mediocre job. The speaker of the poem is undoubtedly the railway clerk himself as the entire poem is drafted in the first person. In a country where job is scarce, it is interesting to find the speaker lamenting on getting a job. This is because the general economic condition does not tally with the standard of living. Ezekiel’s modernism lies not only in handling such vagaries of life but also in giving voice to a new era of men who have the courage to question.

The poem unfolds with the ‘occupational hazard’ of the speaker in getting his leave sanctioned. While on the one hand the speaker complains about the immensity of the work load, on the other hand he is equally troubled with the constant naggings from his wife who always asks for money. Life seems to be hard for a lower middle-class individual and this is reflected in the speaker’s inability to afford the minimum requirements for the smooth running of the family. Ezekiel’s ingenious handling of the English language is affirmed once again in this poem as he deliberately places the serious with the comic. This can be seen in the seriousness of the wife’s demand which is immediately undercut by the rather humorous question,

Money, money, where to get money?

My job is such, no one is giving bribe,

It must be noted that here is an Indian, an employee of the central government who considers ‘bribe’ to be a natural phenomenon in the national political economy. No wonder India’s march ahead in the ranks among the top five most corrupted countries of the world! However, the speaker also regrets his academic achievements for being a non-graduate which has almost sealed his future prospects in life.

The speaker again comes up with the issue that nobody appreciates his work despite his efforts to honestly discharge both official and personal duties. The neglectful attitude of his children for studies is a testimony to his financial hardship. It is here again that one finds Ezekiel employing his technique of merging the serious with the comic—the idea of going out for movies with friends. Apart from having pleasurable company, the speaker has none to bank upon in life. The pain intensifies when the speaker states his inability to visit foreign countries much unlike his friends who are able to do so. The all important family comes in between. The last sentence of the poem is an ironic statement because it is he who supports the mother-in-law confined to bed.

Thus, like Very Indian Poem in Indian English, this poem too is an explicit statement on Indian life. Ezekiel’s favouring of Babu English is amazing as it makes the poem more close to heart. Again, the deliberate use of ungrammatical English (by means of poetic license of course) and the added emphasis on the use of present continuous tense of the verb form “— ing” gives a typical Indian flavour.

Introducing the poet:

Jayanta Mahapatra, born in Cuttack, Orissa in 1928 was originally a Professor of Physics at Ravenshaw College. He started writing poetry when he was about forty but this late advent into the creative world further enabled him to inscribe the stoic acceptance of pain and suffering of the Oriya life as part of the cosmic agenda. He has published many volumes of poetry and that too in a rapid rate of which mention may be made of Close the Sky, Ten by Ten (1971), Svayamvara and Other Poems (1971), A Father’s House and A Rain of Rites (both in 1976), Waiting (1979), The False Start and Relationship (both in 1980), Life Signs (1983), Dispossessed Nests (1986), Selected Poems (1987), Burden of Waves and Fruit (1988) The Temple (1987), A Whiteness of Bone (1992), Shadow Space (1997), Bare Face (2000) and Random Descent (2005). Apart from poetry he has also published a collection of short stories called The Green Gardener and Other Stories along with editing his Journal Chandrabhaga which ceased publication in 1985. Although much of his poetry can be claimed to bear close resemblances with the modernist poetry, yet Mahapatra himself never acknowledged any such influence of the great modernists like Ezra Pound and T.S.Eliot. The early obscurity and ambiguity in his poems arise from the bold juxtaposition of abstract and concrete words and in the syntactic experiments, mostly disjunctions. Nevertheless, the reader finds a challenge in his poems for coherence which makes them more endearing. The surreal world that permeates his poetry along with the conceits and mind boggling imagery are representative of the qualitative merits of his poetic craft. He has earned the honour to be the first Indian English poet to receive the Sahitya Academy Award for Relationship (1981), an epic poem in twelve sections that meditates on Orissa’s mythology and monuments.

Hunger

It was hard to believe the flesh was heavy on my back. The fisherman said: will you have her, carelessly, trailing his nets and his nerves, as though his words sanctified the purpose with which he face himself.

I saw his white bone thrash his eyes.

I followed him across the sprawling sands, my mind thumping in the flesh’s sling.

Hope lay perhaps in burning the house I lived in.

Silence gripped my sleeves; his body clawed

at the froth his old nets had dragged up from the seas.

In the flickering dark his lean-to opened like a wound.

The wind was I, and the days and nights before.

Palm fronds scratched my skin. Inside the sack

an oil lamp splayed the hours bunched to the walls.

Over and over the sticky soot crossed the space of my mind.

I heard him say: my daughter, she’s just turned fifteen…

Feel her. I’ll be back soon, your bus leaves at nine.

The sky fell on me, and a father’s exhausted wile.

Long and lean, her years were cold as rubber.

She opened her wormy legs wide.

I felt the hunger there,

the other one, the fish slithering, turning inside.

(Jayanta Mahapatra)

Critical Appreciation:

Jayanta Mahapatra’s ‘Hunger” is a powerful and highly evocative poem which is basically about the trend of selling and buying of the female body. In other words, the poem is about the pristine sexual craving attained in lieu of money that has long been the characteristic trait of humanity since the dawn of civilisation. One will do good to go through Bertrand Russell’s influential yet highly controversial book Marriage and Morals in which he charts out the very history of brothels by exploring the traditional sanctity associated with the profession of prostitutes in terms of the Greek Oracle. However, the point here is neither to judge nor to juxtapose Mahapatra’s poem in that epistemic light. It is more of a possible analysis of the conditions that engendered the profession in the first place.

Although the poem, as the title indicates, is about the desperate urge of the male body to gratify its ‘hunger’ by mating with the female body, it is also an exploration of the deeper level of understanding attained by both the fisherman and his daughter in the poem. It is not only about the ‘hunger’ of the protagonist-speaker but also that of the fisherman and his daughter—a ‘hunger’ brought about and made explicit by their financial hardship. It is from the account given by the protagonist that the financial plight of the fisherman is indicated although the speaker refrains from giving any details about his own self. The fisherman’s financial hardship compelled him to use his teenage daughter as a prostitute. This is indicated when the fisherman asks the speaker “will you have her…?”

The poem is significant due to its psychological interest which lies in Mahapatra’s adroit characterisation of the protagonist, the fisherman and his teenage daughter. The protagonist remained silent throughout the whole transaction including his meeting with the girl. Although he did not utter a single word, his character comes full circle to the reader. It is quite intriguing that while on the one hand the speaker experiences an uncontrollable desire for sexual gratification, on the other hand he also undergoes the experience of a sense of guilt about his carnal desires. It is perhaps this sense of guilt which caused an agitation in his mind for which he finally speaks out as “Hope lay perhaps in burning the house I lived in.”

The sense of guilt is emphasized further when the protagonist says that the shoot from the oil lamp repeatedly enter the spaces of his mind. This assertion establishes the fact that the speaker has never before indulged in such acts of gratification. And it is this sense of guilt again which empowers the speaker to see all the tricks and crafty manipulations of the fisherman to trap customers.

It is intriguing that it is only the fisherman who speaks directly in the poem. Having entered his sack by dragging his nets a long way, the fisherman informs the speaker the ripeness of his daughter for sex by revealing her age.

“I heard him say: my daughter, she’s just turned fifteen…

Feel her. I’ll be back soon, your bus leaves at nine.”

Here is then the obnoxious image of a father who offers his daughter to visitors. But the intensity of repugnance culls down in some way when the father informs the speaker of the duration of time he could spend with his daughter. The expression “your bus leaves at nine” is an instance in point. Seen from another angle, the image of the father also carry traces of a self-reliant, self-conscious man as he deliberately chooses to stay away from the impending orgy that is about to take place inside his sack. It is the bitter realisations on his part as a father, forced to sell, quite literally, his own daughter that nudges him to remind the speaker of the time of action. The protagonist compares himself to the ‘wind’ which highlights the sudden upsurge in the domestic scenario and the violence that has set in with his advent. Finally there is the girl who remains silent and mechanically surrenders to the protagonist by spreading her “wormy legs wide”. One can seriously consider the expression with the protagonist’s disgust on seeing the poor, malnourished structure of the girl’s body. The expression “I felt the hunger there’ is a testimony to the visitor’s painful awareness and realisation of the different forms of hunger that has brought them together inside the shack. The irony therefore lies in the difference of the hunger between the visitor and the fisherman’s daughter—hunger of the flesh in case of the former and hunger of the belly in case of the latter.

Thus we have not only a story in outline but also a portrayal of characters. Set in the Southern coast of Orissa, the poem aptly demonstrates Mahapatra’s adroitness in juxtaposing two animal instincts—hunger for food and hunger for sex. The poem is remarkable because of its compact structure and also because it is articulated in a very concise and succinct manner. The poem is by far a vivid representation of how women are made figures of patriarchal fantasies and male victimisation.

Arun Kolatkar: Life and Works

Arun Balkrishna Kolatkar was born on November 1, 1932 in Kolhapur, Maharashtra into a traditional Hindu family of Tatya Kolatkar.
He was educated in Rajaram High School, Maharashtra and then graduated from S.B.College of Arts, Gulbarga in 1949.
His first volume of poems in English was Jejuri, which is a collection of 31 poems pertaining to his visit to a religious place in Jejuri, Maharashtra in 1963 with his brother.
Kolatkar’s poems evoke a series of images to highlight the ambiguities of modern life. This volume won him the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize in 1977 which established his reputation as a poet of merit
His Marathi verse collection Bhijki Vahi won him the Sahitya Academy Award in 2005.
His Marathi verses like his English compositions reflect the quintessential modernist in him basically due to his adaptation of the stylistic features of the European avant-garde movements like Surrealism, Expressionism and Beat Generation Poetry.
He was trained as an artist from the J.J.School of Art which led him to pursue his career as a graphic artist in his adult life.
It was after he was diagnosed with cancer that two of his English volumes Kala Ghoda Poems and Sarpasastra were published in 2004. His remarkable maturity in his poems coupled with his exploration of the thematic complexities of modern English poetry marks him off as a poet par excellence.
He died on September 25, 2004 at the age of 71.

Themes and Issues explored in the Poems: Traffic Lights

Kolatkar ingenuously highlights the dilemma brought about by the rules set for the ministers’ convoy which disrupts the normalcy of the traffic in the cities.
The poem is quite powerful given the bold assertion of the speaker in illustrating the rowdy nature of the governmental authorities represented by the “deathly white Mercedes” that is quite oblivious to the presence of the bystanders and pedestrians.
Kolatkar thus faithfully illustrates the general view of the masses who feel frustrated when the authorities that formulate rules and regulations violate them in the first place. The poem therefore becomes a powerful social critique on the part of the reader as s/he too feels the natural urge to rise in protest.
The poem begins with fifty motorcyclist clad in black who ushers forth a conceptual royal parade through the city.
What concerns the speaker is the custom that has allowed the ministers to enjoy this privilege in the first place. The expression “wailing cherry-top” refers to the red light (laal batti) on the cars that serves as a warning to clear the roads.
The clearing of the streets before the advent of the convoy is bolstered in the expression “but unobserved by traffic lights”.
The poem is both a biting commentary on the Indian political standards as well as an indictment of the mentality of the general masses who fail to question it.

Pie Dog

Akrun Kolatkar’s Pie-Dog is a poem that faithfully delineates the power and force generated in the choice of multiple themes in fabricating a statement about Indian life in its multifaceted nature of existence.
He depicts the variegated nature of Indian life with a peripheral vision.
The poem is disturbing because Kolatkar has made a ‘salad-bowl’ by bringing in a wide tapestry of divergent themes like Indian mythology, cartography, geography, history, Vedic tradition, ecology and social principles and juxtapose them in such a manner which accounts for the ingenuity of the poem as a flamboyant appraisal of the Indian modernity.
The poem begins with the musings of a pie-dog who deludes itself as being the master of the city of Mumbai. It is the dog who considers itself as “…the only sign/of intelligent life on the planet”.
Kolatkar’s brilliance in fusing the East/West conflict in the form of the poem is accentuated when the reader makes the astounding discovery about the genealogy of the dog.
That the dog has its affinity to the foxhounds from its mother’s side brought to Bombay by Sir Bartle Frere and to that of the dog of the mythical Yudhishtira who refused to go to heaven without the dog on the father’s side is undoubtedly a master stroke of Kolatkar in envisioning an ancestral origin of the dog.
It is in the middle of the poem that the speaker affirms his real name as Ugh, named after Siddharamayya’s famous dog Ughekalikadu who could recite the four Vedas backwards.
But the boldest venture of Kolatkar lies in investing the speaker with the ability to utter the Gayatri mantra.
One has to note that the polyphonic nature of themes in the poem closely resembles to that of the sonata by the speaker.
The poem ends with the speaker’s inability to digest the smell of lavender, the acidic perspiration, nail polish, rosewood and rosin which explodes in its brain. All these images suggest the coming back of the city traffic to life.

Imtiaz Dharker: Life and Works

Imtiaz Dharker was born in 1954 in Lahore.
She considers herself as a Scottish Calvinist Muslim and this conception gets reflected in the confluence of three divergent cultures in her poetry.
The female condition is universal; the essential identity of the female as the most marginalised of identities in society.
Her anthologies include Purdah and Other Poems (1988), Postcards from God (1997), I Speak for the Devil (2001) and The Terrorist at my Table (2006).
Apart from being a poet, she is an accomplished documentary filmmaker and an artist.

Themes and Issues explored in the Poem: The Right Word

Imtiaz Dharker dwells extensively upon the paranoia of modern Indians in considering the identity of a stranger.
The poem also harps upon the difficulty in ascribing “the right word” to identify a stranger who in the worst case scenario may be a terrorist or a hostile militant.
The speaker also laments on the genial nature of humanity which is now reluctant to take for granted the traditional custom of attithyee devo bhawa (Guest are the incarnation of gods) that has long defined the Indian culture since the dawn of civilisation.
Dharker brilliantly strikes the right chord in the poem challenging and questioning the morale of humanity and in doing so illustrates the humanitarian issue.
The poem begins with the speaker’s discovery of a stranger in the shadows who by extension may be a terrorist or a hostile militant, a freedom fighter or a guerrilla warrior.
The speaker questions the validity of such a stance by saying “Are words no more/than waving, wavering flags? The term ‘flags’ begets the question of limiting one’s perspective to the minimum, that is, to adopt a parochial view when it comes to ascribing identity to a stranger.
The nervousness of the boy to enter the house is suggested by the ironical implication of the image of “steady hands” which further compels the speaker into believing the harmlessness of such an admission.
The poem thus by extension can be seen as an invitation made by Dharker to all Indians to let go the bias and parochial mentality in considering the identity of a stranger and to accord dignity instead.

Nissim Ezekiel: Life and Works

Nissim Ezekiel was born in Mumbai (then Bombay) into a Bene-Israeli family in 1924.
He was educated at Wilson College, Bombay and went to England to study philosophy at Birkbeck College.
He took up teaching as his profession in Mithibhai College of Arts, Mumbai and retires as a Professor of English at the University of Bombay.
He has authored several volumes of poetry chief among which are A Time to Change (1952), Sixty Poems (1953), The Third (1959), The Unfinished Man (1960), The Exact Name (1965), Hymns in Darkness (1976), Latter-Day Psalms (1982) and Edinburgh Interlude-Lightly (1983) and Collected Poems (1989).
His uniqueness lies in the attempt to free the Indian English literature form the unconditional influence of British Romanticism and Victorianism.
His precise use of the English language and its improvisational standard with the novel use of the Babu English, well crafted imagery and the thematic preoccupation with human sexuality, alienation, identity and the modernist conception of existence have undoubtedly earned him a permanent place.
He has also published Three Plays in 1970.
He was awarded the Sahitya Academy Award in 1982 for Latter-Day Psalms and also received the Padma Shri in 1988. Suffering from Alzheimer, he passed away on January 9, 2004.

Themes and Issues explored in the Poems: Very Indian Poem in Indian English

Ezekiel takes strong exception of the evils that have disrupted the very fabric of the socio- cultural milieu which in turn have jeopardised the identity of India as a nation.
Ezekiel’s assertion of his belief in Gandhian philosophy is admirably sketched in the poem when he emphatically contrasts the tenets of Gandhian non-violence with the absurdities of violence.
Ezekiel’s sly dig at the Indian frenzy for foreign things and for foreignness also highlights the poet’s clarion call for a spiritual renaissance. In his tirade on the criminalisation of politics, the poet launches scathing attacks against those politically motivated conspirators and sycophants.
The craze for Westernisation has not only dealt a severe blow to the traditional belief system of the Indians but has also shaken the foundation of Indian culture and heritage.
Nevertheless, the speaker’s firm belief for a better future gets reflected in his anticipation of a qualitative standard of survival brought forward by the agencies of social change such as regeneration, remuneration and contraception.
To Ezekiel, India’s position in the international arena with regard to her relation with neighbouring countries does not show any sign of promise. The poet’s assertion that “Ram Rajya is surely coming” is in fact quite ironical as it serves to mock the clamour for “Ram Rajya” which vested interests have used in order to sow the seeds of communal violence and petty political ends.

The Railway Clerk

Ezekiel consciously upholds the Indian sensibility by showcasing the deteriorating financial standards of a railway clerk who is beset with problems for ending up in a mediocre job.
The general economic condition does not tally with the standard of living. Ezekiel’s modernism lies not only in handling such vagaries of life but also in giving voice to a new era of men who have the courage to question.
The poem unfolds with the ‘occupational hazard’ of the speaker in getting his leave sanctioned.
Life seems to be hard for a lower middle-class individual and this is reflected in the speaker’s inability to afford the minimum requirements for the smooth running of the family.
It must be noted that here is an Indian, an employee of the central government who considers ‘bribe’ to be a natural phenomenon in the national political economy.
The pain intensifies when the speaker states his inability to visit foreign countries much unlike his friends who are able to do so. The all important family comes in between. Jayanta Mahapatra: Life and Works
Jayanta Mahapatra born in Cuttack, Orissa in 1928 was originally a Professor of Physics at Ravenshaw College. He started writing poetry when he was about forty.
He has published many volumes of poetry and that too in a rapid rate of which mention may be made of Close the Sky, Ten by Ten (1971), Svayamvara and Other Poems (1971), A Father’s House and A Rain of Rites (both in 1976), Waiting (1979), The False Start and Relationship (both in 1980), Life Signs (1983), Dispossessed Nests (1986), Selected Poems (1987), Burden of Waves and Fruit (1988) and The Temple (1987), A Whiteness of Bone (1992), Shadow Space (1997), Bare Face (2000) and Random Descent (2005).
Published a collection of short stories called The Green Gardener and Other Stories along with editing his Journal Chandrabhaga which ceased publication in 1985.
The surreal world that permeates his poetry along with the conceits and mind boggling imagery are representative of the qualitative merits of his poetic craft.
He has earned the honour to be the first Indian English poet to receive the Sahitya Academy Award for Relationship (1981), an epic poem in twelve sections that meditates on Orissa’s mythology and monuments. Themes and Issues explored in the Poem: Hunger
‘Hunger” is a powerful and highly evocative poem which is basically about the trend of selling and buying of the female body.
The poem is about the pristine sexual craving attained in lieu of money that has long been the characteristic trait of humanity since the dawn of civilisation.
The poem, as the title indicates, is about the desperate urge of the male body to gratify its ‘hunger’ by mating with the female body, it is also an exploration of the deeper level of understanding attained by both the fisherman and his daughter in the poem.
The fisherman’s financial hardship compelled him to use his teenage daughter as a prostitute.
The speaker experiences an uncontrollable desire for sexual gratification.
He also undergoes the experience of a sense of guilt about his carnal desires.
It is the bitter realisations on his part as a father, forced to sell, quite literally, his own daughter that nudges him to remind the speaker of the time of action.
The poem aptly demonstrates Mahapatra’s adroitness in juxtaposing two animal instincts— hunger for food and hunger for sex.

Poetic Devices/Structure/Stylistic Features:

The image of the “traffic light” becomes a powerful symbol as it signifies the hypocritical nature of the people who by dint of luck and fortune scale up the political ladder.
The adjective “phantom” indicates the speaker’s commandos of the Indian army entrusted with the ministers and bureaucrats) as agents of death itself. envisioning of the ‘black cats’ (the responsibility of the security of the
The expression “faceless” suggests the ghastly nature and apparition of the guards as being infernal in nature.
The comparison made between the traffic lights and the ill-starred lovers is quite apt as like the former, the red, orange and green lights exist but only for the sake of itself or to maintain the general order of the city or better serve to be the subject of primary lessons offered to children in schools, inculcating in them the ethics and norms of road traffic.. It is quite paradoxical that this order is violated by those who initiated it in the first place.
In this rather long, rambling and disturbing poem, Kolatkar does not focus on one single theme.
This point of view is quite unique as none before Kolatkar has ever dabbled to script or have had the guts to present the Indian picture from the perspective of a dog.
The reader is naturally flabbergasted at such candid assigning of a sacrosanct and pious Sanskrit sloka to a dog. But herein lays the uniqueness of Kolatkar.
One can argue that the reason might be to justify the ‘voice’ of the speaker shown to be updated with the multifaceted nature of human life having closely observed it silently in the “exact centre/of this traffic island”.
The ecological harmony of nature is suggested in the form of the trees that has undertaken an abstract vacation and has now returned to tell the tale to the leaves.
The speaker painfully asserts that his idyll is over and therefore now he has to surrender the city quite reluctantly to its human masters. The term ‘surrender’ should be taken note of because it highlights the royal delusion of the dog to be the master of the city at night.
The political climate of India which is characterised by hate politics be it the avowed ideologies and misguided fanaticism of religious fundamentalists or the blatant disregard of humanity by various anti-social agencies is brilliantly highlighted in the poem The Right Word.
The term ‘flags’ begets the question of limiting one’s perspective to the minimum, that is, to adopt a parochial view when it comes to ascribing identity to a stranger.
The choice of words like “child”, “boy” and “son” are what endears the stranger to the reader who is now in a position to see the other associations that can be made of the stranger.
The speaker also asserts the manner in which the stranger decides to enter the house, that is, by removing the shoes. This act is significant from the Indian perspective because almost all Indians feel privileged on receiving an invitation and also regard the house of the host as pure and holy.
The contrast between the sweetness of “lassi” and the aggression of “wine” is what pinpoints the ideological difference between inculcation of Ancient Indian wisdom and the evils of the west.
The speaker ponders on the paradoxical nature of Indian political existence by reflecting on the fact that although there has been much talk about universal amity and brotherhood, nothing substantial has been achieved so far.
It is ironical that despite the clamour for the much hyped universal peace, man today resides in a world torn by fratricidal killings, jealousy, and evils of imperialism, communalism and what not.
From the technical point of view, what strikes the reader is Ezekiel’s use of the suffix “— ing” in words instead of retaining the real form of the verbs.
No doubt, the poet’s use of the English language is ungrammatical; and it is quite remarkable that Ezekiel draws a parallel between the ungrammatical use of English by Indians and their complete indifference to the felicities of Ancient Indian wisdom in order to mock at the craze of Indians for foreignness.
The ironic tenor in Ezekiel’s poetry is an integral part that takes a humorous colouring and gets duly reflected in the expressions and the turns and twists of language.
Ezekiel’s ingenious handling of the English language is affirmed once again in the poem The Railway Clerk as he deliberately places the serious with the comic. This can be seen in the seriousness of the wife’s demand which is immediately undercut by the rather humorous question,

Money, money, where to get money?

The last sentence of the poem is an ironic statement because it is he who supports the mother-in-law confined to bed.
Ezekiel’s favouring of Babu English is amazing as it makes the poem more close to heart. Again, the deliberate use of ungrammatical English (by means of poetic license of course) and the added emphasis on the use of present continuous tense of the verb form “—ing” gives a typical Indian flavour.
The poem Hunger is significant due to its psychological interest which lies in Mahapatra’s adroit characterisation of the protagonist, the fisherman and his teenage daughter.
The obnoxious image of a father who offers his daughter to visitors.
The protagonist compares himself to the ‘wind’ which highlights the sudden upsurge in the domestic scenario and the violence that has set in with his advent.
The girl remains silent and mechanically surrenders to the protagonist by spreading her “wormy legs wide”. One can seriously consider the expression with the protagonist’s disgust on seeing the poor, malnourished structure of the girl’s body.
The expression “I felt the hunger there’ is a testimony to the visitor’s painful awareness and realisation of the different forms of hunger that has brought them together inside the shack.
The irony therefore lies in the difference of the hunger between the visitor and the fisherman’s daughter—hunger of the flesh in case of the former and hunger of the belly in case of the latter.
The poem is remarkable because of its compact structure and also because it is articulated in a very concise and succinct manner.

you can view video on New Experimentation in Indian English Poetry (Miscellaneous Themes)

Reference

Ezekiel, Nissim. “The Cultural Vacuum” in Havovi Anklesaria (eds.) Nissim Ezekiel Remembered. Sahitya Academy: New Delhi, 2008
King, Bruce. Modern Indian Poetry in English. Revised Edition. Oxford University Press: New Delhi, (1987) 2001rpt
_________. Three Indian Poets, Oxford University Press: New Delhi, 2005
Naik, M.K. The History of Indian English Literature, Sahitya Academy: New Delhi, (1982), 2004 rpt
Prasad, Madhusudan. (ed.) The Poetry of Jayanta Mahapatra: A Critical Study. Sterling: New Delhi, 1986
Tiwari, Kanak Lata. “The real feminists in Indian English Writing: Kamala Das and Imtiaz Dharker” International Journal of English and Literature, V. 4, No. 10, 2013, pp. 542-548
www.ms.academicjournals.org/article/article1383723499_Tiwari.pdf
www.literarism.blogspot.com/2011/12/jayanta–mahapatra.html